Start from the customer experience and work backwards
By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: November 14 2018
“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.”
~ Steve Jobs, as heard in this 1997 video
apple
Great tech review of Apple’s iPad A12X system
By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: November 7 2018
Kudos to Samuel Axon of Ars Technica for writing a very good tech review of the hardware behind Apple’s new iPad Pro (2018). As I was reading it, it reminded me of the old style of solid writing that I used to get when I bought print copies of magazines.
One of the nuggets of the article is shown in the image I’ve attached here, where you can see that the 2018 iPad Pro is faster than every MacBook Pro in existence other than its 2018 model, at least in terms of the Geekbench multi-core performance tests. If you dig through the images in the article you’ll see that the story isn’t quite as powerful in the single-core benchmark, where the iPad Pro lags the 2018 MacBook Pro by up to 16%. But in those tests the iPad Pro is roughly the equivalent of a 2018 Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 model. (The older Macs use Intel Core i7 and Xeon W processors, and the Dell model uses an Intel Core i7. The 2018 MacBook Pro uses an Intel Core i9.)
These numbers — comparing a tablet to i7 and i9 processors — make one think that Apple will be using their own chips inside Mac computer systems some time soon.
The time Steve Jobs spoke at Unix Expo
By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: July 30 2018
cake.co has a good story about getting Steve Jobs to speak at Unix Expo.
The secret call to Andy Grove that may have helped Apple buy NeXT
By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: July 26 2018
If you like computer history, cake.co has an interesting article by Chris MacAskill titled, The secret call to Andy Grove that may have helped Apple buy NeXT.
101 Ways to Save Apple
By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: May 2 2018
Back in June, 1997, Wired magazine wrote an article titled, 101 Ways to Save Apple. These days it looks like Apple might end up owning Wired.
Steven Sinofsky’s tweets about Apple software quality
By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: February 13 2018
Steven Sinofsky has this series of 30+ tweets about Apple software quality.
How to Stop “Upgrade to MacOS High Sierra” Notifications
By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: January 23 2018
If Apple’s “Upgrade your OS” notifications are driving you insane, osxdaily.com has an article on How to Stop “Upgrade to MacOS High Sierra” Notifications Completely on a Mac.
Apple’s Terms: We may slow down your old iPhone
By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: December 30 2017
So on page 51 of Apple’s iPhone Terms and Conditions it clearly states, “We may slow down your iPhone to increase the sales of new iPhones.”
(It may say that, who knows. Having just updated iOS, I wouldn’t mind if they get sued over the ridiculous length of that doc.)
Apple’s pride, and resulting lawsuits
By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: December 27 2017
Apple is getting sued — and rightfully so — for intentionally slowing down iPhones with older batteries. The ironic things are a) if they let people easily change the batteries, or b) made this a software setting, people would be happy with them. Their own pride (ego) created this problem.
New Jonathan Ive interview
By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: December 12 2017
Apple’s Jonathan Ive just gave a new interview at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. fastcodesign.com has quotes from the interview.