“We work wherever we want, but primarily home, coffee shops, and the Vancouver Public Library – anywhere that has power and internet, basically,” says Ringrose. “I’ve got a second bedroom and den that have been converted into a small office space where most of the magic happens. I’ve got a 2015 MacBook Pro to do all the heavy lifting, and a drawer full of old phones that I use as test devices. It’s simple, but that’s all you really need. Jason’s home office is a few blocks away, too, so it’s pretty convenient if we ever need to work in the same physical space.”
Such humble headquarters are common in the world of indie game design. The question is how Ringrose and Ennis managed to create a game that managed to get noticed and become a financial success when hundreds of other games developed in similar environments fall by the wayside daily.
Over on his Instagram account, photographer Vincent Laforet is sharing some 50-megapixel panoramic photos he shot for Apple. He strapped an iPhone 7 to the bottom of a Learjet, set it on Pano mode, and flew it over various landscapes at a height of 20,000 feet.
And soon, it seems, you’ll be able to turn off the battery/performance balancing system all together. Tim Cook mentions the coming change in an interview with ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis.
The backstory here is that lithium-ion battery technology has hit a brick wall. Dramatic gains in the power and lifespan of lithium-ion batteries have stopped. Yet device makers continue to use lithium-ion batteries because there’s just no viable alternative at the moment.
Inventec Corp, one of the two assemblers for Apple Inc’s HomePod, has started shipping the US company’s long-awaited “smart” speaker with an initial shipment of about 1 million units, industry sources said.
[...]
HomePod shipments this year are expected to reach between 10 million and 12 million units, with Inventec and Hon Hai each fulfilling half of the orders, the source said.
When you say "Hey Siri, give me the news" to your iOS device, Siri will now immediately begin playing a daily news update from a popular news podcast—NPR by default in the United States. Coming shortly before the launch of the HomePod smart speaker, also powered by Siri, this small feature is the latest that brings some Alexa or Google Assistant-style interactions to Apple's ecosystem.
[...] The feature has to be activated by the hands-free "Hey Siri" prompt used in CarPlay or in the upcoming HomePod's screenless interface.
Apple expects to invest over $30 billion in capital expenditures in the US over the next five years and create over 20,000 new jobs through hiring at existing campuses and opening a new one. Apple already employs 84,000 people in all 50 states.
The company plans to establish an Apple campus in a new location, which will initially house technical support for customers. The location of this new facility will be announced later in the year.
It also said it anticipates a $38 billion tax bill for repatriated cash, as a result of the new tax bill. This implies it will bring back virtually all of its $250 billion in overseas cash.
[...]
The job creation will focus on direct employment, but also suppliers and its app business, which it had already planned to grow substantially. The new campus will focus on customer support.
As individuals we think that having lots of cash makes us rich. For companies it’s the opposite. Cash is a liability. If you come across a company that is cash rich and has nothing else, it’s enterprise value will be zero. Companies are valued on their future cash flows, meaning their ability to generate cash, not how much they managed to keep. In other words, cash is a measure of past success and investors are interested only in future value. That future value comes from the intelligent allocation of resources toward a valuable goal. A company rich in cash but poor in vision is likely to be taken private or broken up and shut down. Cash is an IOU to shareholders with a thank-you note for the support through the years.
Apple Inc. told employees Wednesday that it’s issuing a bonus of $2,500 worth of restricted stock units, following the introduction of the new U.S. tax law [...] Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said the move demonstrated his “confidence in Apple’s future” and that both full-time and part-time employees across all departments are elgible.
Notably, the email makes mention of a new charitable matching program inside Apple that will run through the end of 2018. Starting immediately, Cook says that Apple will match all employee charitable donations up to $10,000 annually, at a rate of two to one. Furthermore, Cook says that Apple will double the amount it matches for each hour of time employees donate.
On an internal Apple email thread viewed by Mashable, one Apple employee speculated that the culprit may be firing "rubber rounds" at the buses. At least one of the buses only had the outer pane of its double-paned windows broken.
In response, late Tuesday night, Apple emailed employees to alert them that an untold number of shuttles would be rerouted, adding 30 to 45 minutes to riders' commute.
CHP knows of five incidents Tuesday — four with shuttles ferrying Apple workers and one shuttle with Google employees. [...] “As you know these are unmarked buses, so there’s no indication these are targeted incidents,” said Montiel, though CHP had no record of other types of vehicles being targeted.
But this isn't a post-mortem for Transmit on iOS, which, according to Panic, may even relaunch as a new app on the Store someday. Instead, I'd like to take a quick tour of some of the alternatives for Transmit available on iPad today. In case Panic decides to pull Transmit from the App Store, or if the app stops working in a future release of iOS, these FTP clients and file managers should compensate for the features of Panic's app. Most of them don't offer the same sophisticated and polished UI design, but some of them may even turn out to be more flexible and better integrated with iOS than Transmit.
With Nomad's Wireless Charging Hub, I'm able to toss my iPhone X down on the charging pad, plus, plug in my iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, and Nintendo Switch so they all can charge up at the same time.
That's because there are four more ports hidden discreetly underneath the 7.5-watt charging pad.
If your GPS receiver picks up that you’re in a different country, a policy will automatically kick into action. In practical terms, this means that from the moment you get off the plane, you have medical and dental cover.
Screeny still offers the ease of deleting unwanted screenshots from the Camera Roll of your iPhone and iPad, but now also offers support for Live Photos, Photos, Panoramas, and Videos.
Apple is currently promoting apps with free trials, but these seem to be based on subscriptions (which aren’t allowed for all apps) rather than in-app purchases. It does seem like the DeviceCheck framework would make it possible to implement trials, with the tracking handled by your server instead of Apple’s.
Location of the new Apple office? I'm guessing Austin, Texas.
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Thanks for reading.