For a total of 36 seconds, Schiller spoke somewhat awkwardly about VoiceOver, Zoom, White on Black (called Invert Colors from iOS 6 onward), and Mono Audio – the first real accessibility features on the iPhone OS platform, as it was then called.
[...]
I surveyed a number of liveblogs from that day. About half noted the mention of accessibility features in iPhone OS. The others jumped directly from Compass to Nike+. Accessibility hadn’t made much of a splash.
But in the blindness community, things were very different. Time seemed to stop somewhere after 1:51:54 in the video. Something completely amazing had happened, and only a few people seemed to understand what it meant.
The way Spotify and Apple Music pay artists is simple. They take all of the money generated from users, whether by advertisements or subscriptions, and put in a big pot. They then divide that pot by the total share of streams each artist received. So, if Apple Music gave $100 million of their revenues to artists in a month, and Drake songs accounted 1% of all streams that month, then Drake (and the writers of Drake’s songs) would receive $1 million. Essentially, 1% of Anna’s money is going to Drake. (About 70% of Spotify and Apple Music’s revenues go to music labels and artists.)
This is called a “pro-rata” system. Not everybody likes it. Many people in the music industry would prefer a payment system that was “user-centric.” Under this system, each user’s payment would be distributed based on what they streamed. If half of a user’s streams are Rolling Stones songs and half are Beyoncé, then those two artists are the only ones who earn money from that user. In this case, all of Anna’s money would have gone to The Expressionists.
So, what gives? Is Apple all in on desktops over laptops now? One interpretation might be that Apple has realized mobile computing has shifted towards iOS devices, especially for the kind of lightweight category that the 12-inch MacBook used to fill.
Still, the MacBook line-up seems to be missing something. Since the MacBook Air’s introduction back in 2008, Apple’s always had a thin, light laptop in the mix, usually representing the puck towards which the company is skating with its portable offerings. But with the 12-inch MacBook, the consensus often seemed to be that the company had skated too far too fast, made too many trade-offs. It didn’t help that the revamped MacBook Air seemed to address much the same market, and provided better bang for the buck.
In Geekbench scores, the new MacBook Pro naturally outpaces its predecessor on multi-core thanks to the two additional cores but it also outpaces on single-core too, likely due to the additional Turbo Boost headroom.
But if you’re in the market for a new Apple laptop—perhaps you’re gearing up to go back to college, or your old one finally gave out—you have a tough decision ahead of you. There’s no clear choice as to which laptop is best, but here’s a quick rundown on the options available right now, and what might be best for you:
Apple will soon allow hardware developers to manufacture additional Made for iPhone (MFi) certified adapters including USB-C to Lightning audio adapters, reports Japanese site Mac Otakara. Apple is said to have recently informed developers who participate in the MFi program about the change.
When Tonya Parker, a mom in Illinois, wanted to better organize her family life a little over a year ago, the first thing she did was set her kids up on Trello, a web-based project-management tool. Parker’s four children, ages 9 to 18, now use Trello, which is more typically used at work, to keep up with chores, to-do lists, shopping, and homework. “I use it every day to keep track of what schoolwork I need to do, or places I need to be, things to buy,” Hannah, her 15-year-old daughter, says.
“College was my first experience of having to keep track of my own stuff,” Tonya said. “I wanted [my kids] to have that sooner.” Incorporating Trello, along with Gmail, into the Parker family’s life has been a godsend, in Tonya’s view. It streamlined family communication, helped keep everyone organized, and added a layer of accountability to tasks. Now, instead of wondering if her children forgot to do something, Parker says she can ask, “How are you doing on your checklist?”
I think we are starting to see a significant differentiation between the iPad and the MacBook lines.
~
Thanks for reading.