Hundreds of people today lined up around the block of Apple’s new retail store in the tourist-heavy Union Square neighborhood in San Francisco in order to see it for themselves on opening day. When the tall glass sliding doors finally opened just after 10 a.m., employees greeted customers by cheering, clapping their hands, and passing out commemorative postcards and T-shirts.
One thing that wasn’t included in the press release about the opening of the new store was the special guest who would be on hand: Apple fan favorite Jony Ive. The technology company’s chief design officer was mingling with people in the crowd on the second floor near the new Genius Grove.
For safety reasons, they open slowly.
A big hurdle for Apple — regulatory approval — also came up. Local manufacturers have moved to block Apple's used-iPhone plan. Cook confirmed that Apple plans to open retail stores there once it gets the government's nod.
"We have not been been given the green light," he said in the interview.
The tech world is obsessed with virtual reality. It should come as no surprise, then, that music-streaming service Rhapsody wants a piece of it as well. The company took a step forward today by introducing Rhapsody VR, an iOS and Android app that offers access to 360-degree videos from music concerts.
But if anything can be treated as a plug-in, it’s learning how to code. It took me 18 months to become proficient as a developer. This isn’t to pretend software development is easy — those were long months, and I never touched the heights of my truly gifted peers. But in my experience, programming lends itself to concentrated self-study in a way that, say, “To the Lighthouse” or “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction” do not. To learn how to write code, you need a few good books. To enter the mind of an artist, you need a human guide.
By thinking that we are allowed to interfere with wildlife if our intentions are good, or that it’s okay to break the rules in certain circumstances, we hurt wildlife. As a wildlife biologist, I spend very little time interacting with animals, and that is because human-wildlife interactions are never good for the animal.
Why would Apple need a 42-foot-tall door at the Apple Store? I know! The Apple double-decker bus is coming.
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