When Apple announced iOS 11 last spring, one of the stand-out features was that the company would finally give developers access to the iPhone’s NFC chip. While Apple has used NFC contactless technology to power Apple Pay in the iPhone and Apple Watch for a few years, the hardware had never been available to developers – until now.
Today the MLB announced that the Oakland Athletics are piloting a new NFC ticketing solution which lets fans enter the stadium by tapping their phone (or Apple Watch) to a ticket scanner – just like you’d do to use Apple Pay.
So while the “Silicon” in Silicon Valley has come to be seen as an anachronism, silicon development today means competitive advantage. The only problem is that it takes years, decades even to establish competence. The same duration that it took for the building of Apple as a design-centric business fronted by Jony Ive.
Apple also now needs to be understood along the dimension of of silicon-centric engineering as led by Johny Srouji.
Diners at Hearth, the newly health-conscious, 13-year-old restaurant from James Beard award-winning chef Marco Canora, may have noticed a new addition to their place settings in recent weeks. Next to plates, napkins, and utensils there are now boxes. Some are old cigar boxes, others kitschy Etsy finds — but all of them are big enough to contain a few cell phones, because the boxes are Canora’s solution to what he views as harmful cell phone addiction.
Plugging in an unformatted external drive produces the usual alert, "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer. Initialize... | Ignore | Eject", but clicking Initialize just opens Disk Utility without the disk appearing.
Chalk operates much like a videoconferencing call, connecting the cameras between two remote smartphones. (It’s iOS-only to start.) The only difference is that both use the rear-facing camera, so the person getting help can show the device or software they're confused by, and the other person can draw on it.
Nike+ Run Club version 5.9 brings a new feature called Audio Guided Runs. This feature lets you run with Nike’s coaches and athletes in a series of guided workouts. Each run is paired with a unique playlist and features guidance from the likes of Mo Farah and Kevin Hart.
Microsoft announced today that it's getting out of the online music business. Music purchases in the Windows Store will cease, and the Groove Music Pass subscription service is also ending.
Goodbye MSN Music... Zune Music... Xbox Music... er... Groove Music. If you think Apple's product naming is not that great, you really should check out what's happening over at Windowsland.
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