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The Sold-Out-In-Minutes Edition Friday, October 27, 2017

First-day Preorders For The iPhone X Sold Out At Apple.com In Minutes, by Business Insider

Apple’s most advanced iPhone saw its shipping times slip to weeks in the minutes after it first went up for pre-order on Friday morning.

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Less than an hour after launch, models for all four carriers in the United States on Apple’s online store were showing delivery times weeks after the first day the device hits stores, next Friday, November 3.

iPhone X: Most Expensive Apple Smartphone Sells Out In Minutes, by Alex Hern, The Guardian

Despite the price tag, demand is high. The company’s online shop experienced server issues in the minutes immediately following the launch of pre-orders, and the initial allocation of devices, due to arrive on 3 November, had completely sold out by 8:10am in the UK. Less than an hour later, the waiting list had extended to cover the entire first month.

Repairing Your Shiny New iPhone X Could Cost You $549, by Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac

Percentage-wise, this is broadly in line with other iPhone models. An iPhone 8, for example, costs $699 for the 64GB model, and a repair will run you $349. But the actual dollar amount for the iPhone X is large enough that it may give some people pause for thought. Especially given that all-new glass back.

Torn Between The iPhone X And iPhone 8? Psychologists Have A Name For That, by Robbie Gonzalez, Wired

Turns out psychologists have names for this kind of decision, and the hemming and hawing that goes into it.

"It's a classic example of what we call a multi-attribute decision task," says Ben Newell, a cognitive psychologist at the University of New South Wales Sydney and co-author of Straight Choices: The Psychology of Decision Making. It's a fancy term for situations in which you consider multiple options, each with attributes you use to inform your decision. [...]

Not Just A Phone

This Doctor Diagnosed His Own Cancer With An iPhone Ultrasound, by Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review

Martin, who since diagnosing his cancer has undergone a five-and-a-half-hour surgery and radiation treatment, believes the devices can take on new shapes, like a patch that could be sent home with patients. Perhaps before too long a parent might diagnose a kid’s fracture at home.

“To look at this as just an ultrasound device is like looking at an iPhone and saying it’s just a phone,” he says. “If you have a window into the body where anyone can afford it, everyone can use it, and everyone can interpret it, it becomes a heck of a lot more than an ultrasound device.”

Wearables Can Save Your Life (Not That You'd Know It), by Daniel Van Boom, CNET

Wearables with heart trackers, I now realise, are great for 25-year-old hypochondriacs who can't distinguish joint pain from cardiac arrest. They're even more useful for people who aren't idiots and who have legitimate reason to monitor this type of thing.

Be they smartwatches (think Apple Watch 3) or smartbands (Fitbit Alta HR), wearables are usually sold as fitness trackers. They're promoted as devices to help you get sexy, but in some cases can do something much more impressive: keep you alive.

Updating Technology Understanding

Five Tech Myths People Still Believe, by Alan Henry, New York Times

Most of us just want our technology to work when we need it, and when we have problems with it, we don’t dive into the details of how it runs — we just want it fixed. So it’s natural that we fall for the most convenient suggestions for resolving issues or getting the most life out of our gear. Unfortunately, some of those premises are false, and they can do more harm than good — and may even cost us money.

Corporate Directions

Apple Attempts To Get Out Of Having To Link Executive Pay To Diversity, by Emily Chasan, Meghan Genovese, The Independent

In an 9 October letter made public this week by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Apple lawyers asked if it could exclude the proposal, from Zevin Asset Management, because similar initiatives haven’t garnered the minimum 6 per cent of shareholder support required for re-submission. The SEC rebuffed a similar request in 2015.

Apple, General Motors Join Group Lobbying For Immigrant 'Dreamers', by Jeffrey Dastin, Salvador Rodriguez, Reuters

Apple Inc, General Motors Co, Best Buy Co Inc and others have joined a coalition of top companies lobbying the U.S. Congress for young, illegal immigrants to have a path to permanent residency, the group said on Thursday.

Apple, Salesforce And PayPal Join LGBT Cause In Supreme Court Wedding Cake Case, by Taylor Hatmaker, TechCrunch

While more tech companies generally voice their support in these LGBTQ-friendly cases, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission is a tinder box of particularly volatile social issues, particularly when it comes to interpreting the religious rights secured by the First Amendment.

More Stuff

Apple Now Sells An Expensive Leather Sleeve For 12-inch MacBooks, by Thuy Ong, The Verge

Apple has quietly released an elegant looking leather sleeve for 12-inch MacBooks that’s blind-embossed with the company’s logo. [...] Apple says the design allows you to charge your laptop while it’s sitting in the case.

Ulysses 12 For iOS: Image Previews, Drag And Drop, And A New Design, by Josh Ginter, The Sweet Setup

Ulysses for iOS received on its biggest updates last week with the launch of Ulysses 12.

Inside, you’ll find image previews, wide-ranging drag and drop support, and a new design emulating iOS 11’s focus on bold headers and typography.

How To Create Zip Files In iOS Using Zipped, by Bradley Chambers, The Sweet Setup

Zipped is a really great app for creating and opening zip files on iOS. While I originally bought it to be able to extract zip files, it’s been really useful in creating zip files as well so I can share through email.

Bottom of the Page

Last year, everyone was waiting for AirPods. This year, iPhone X. These waits are getting to be an annual Apple tradition.

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