Tim Cook joined Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff onstage at Dreamforce last week. The two men discussed Steve Job’s legacy, Apple’s environmental plans, and privacy. However, the also talked about Apple moving into the enterprise space, and the relationship their firms had. The whole conversation is available on YouTube and is worth a watch.
How Tim Cook Learned to Do Business With Donald Trump
Apple CEO Tim Cook appears to have built a functioning, if not friendly, relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump. He may face criticism for it, but Forbes outlined how Mr. Cook has done this, and the benefits to his firm.
As an openly gay CEO and supporter of Dreamers, Cook might have some personal disdain for the policies of Trump, but as Apple CEO, Cook has found a way to thread the political needle and thrive under the quixotic leader. Apple saved $43 billion by having the ability to repatriate $238 billion under the 2017 tax bill championed by Trump and the Republicans. Apple’s stock has risen over 60% since Cook’s January warning of faltering sales in China that caused the stock to plunge to a year low. Other tech stocks have done well since then, but few as well as Apple. For all of Trump’s bluster and tariff talk, his actions have been selective, and his results have been mixed. Cook has diligently forged a special relationship with Trump that has largely allowed Apple to avoid the brunt of the tariffs, thus buoying Apple’s significant investment in China and calming the fears of investors who might otherwise worry about Apple’s future.
Texas Drops Opposition to T-Mobile - Sprint Merger
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has outlined a settlement with T-Mobile and dropped his state’s opposition to the merger with Sprint.
Servant Will Return to Apple TV+ For a Second Season
Apple has already renewed the M Night Shyamalan directed show ‘Servant’ for a second series, days before the first episodes air on Apple TV+.
Hurry, Pixelmator Photo on iPadOS is Free Right Now
Normally US$4.99, Pixelmator Photo is free right now. It’s a photo editor that promises a full collection of nondestructive color adjustments, full support for RAW images, and machine learning that can improve your photos like a pro photographer. It’s an exclusive app for iPadOS. Here are some of the other features: Batch edit photos using the entire collection of editing tools available in the app; Enhance automatically takes care of all the subtle improvements that go into every great shot — white balance, exposure, shadow, and highlight detail — so you can focus on adding your own creative finishing touches; Presets for film emulation, vintage looks, and more.
Why I Cancelled my Apple Arcade Subscription
With some new blockbuster games available on iOS, Charlotte decided that an Apple Arcade subscription just wasn’t providing enough value.
Fermilab Cosmologist Dr. Dan Hooper - TMO Background Mode Interview
Dr. Dan Hooper is a Senior Scientist and the Head of the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. He is also a Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Wisconsin.
Dan told me about how his early aspirations as a youth were actually in music. It wasn’t until he took a class as an undergraduate in Relativity that the astrophysics bug bit him. Hard. Dan explained how he landed a post-doc position at Oxford and how he was later hired at Fermilab. Later, we chatted about his interest in the interface between particle physics and cosmology, Dark Matter and what neutrinos can tell us about the early universe. We finished with an overview of his new astrophysics book that explores the mysteries of the origin of the universe.
Apple TV+ Shows Hit Streaming Top 20, as 'The Morning Show Producer' Hits Out at Critics
Two Apple TV+ shows – See and The Morning Show entered Reelgood’s streaming Top 20 last week, in 11th and 12th positions respectively.
Apple's Latest Service, Black Friday Deals – TMO Daily Observations 2019-11-25
Bryan Chaffin and John Martellaro join host Kelly Guimont to discuss Apple’s new Music For Business service and upcoming Black Friday deals.
Apple and Nvidia's Relationship Seems to Be Over
It seems that Apple and Nvidia are about to break up for good. Gizmodo noticed in the release note that the latest update of Nvidia’s CUDA platform will be the last to support running and developing applications on macOS.
That means all future versions of CUDA will lack support for Apple devices, which could leave a decent share of the pro community, as well as the hackintosh community, without support for the most popular discrete GPUs being made at the moment. So what is CUDA and why does this mean END TIMES for the relationship between the two companies? CUDA is an Nvidia specific parallel computing platform that lets programs take better advantage of Nvidia’s hardware. This tends to result in better performance in programs like Adobe’s Premiere and AfterEffects and can even result in better performance in some games, like Just Cause 2. The GPUs of Nvidia’s rival, AMD, can’t support CUDA, which has led to some video professionals relying on the macOS platform to grumble over Apple’s long-term reliance on AMD GPUs.
Apple Shares Featurette of ‘Truth Be Told’
Apple shared a video that gives us a look at its upcoming Apple TV+ show Truth Be Told.
When new evidence compels podcaster Poppy Parnell (Octavia Spencer) to reopen the murder case that made her a national sensation, she comes face to face with Warren Cave (Aaron Paul), the man she may have mistakenly helped to put behind bars. Her investigation navigates urgent concerns about privacy, media and race.
Truth Be Told is created by Nichelle Tramble Spellman and stars Octavia Spencer, Aaron Paul, Lizzy Caplan, Elizabeth Perkins, Michael Beach, Mekhi Phifer, Tracie Thoms, Haneefah Wood and Ron Cephas Jones.
Why Teaching Privacy to Your Kids is Important
Siobhan O’Flynn writes about all the ways that companies like Google collect data from kids in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. It starts when schools increasingly turn to Google services in education.
Alphabet Inc. dominates child-directed and child-featured content online through YouTube Kids and has now colonized online educational spaces through Google Docs, G-Suite, Chromebooks and the associated Gmail accounts for children that are required for use. This means that Google’s access to children’s data spans entertainment (YouTube and YouTube Kids), search and purchase histories (via associated parental accounts), and educational sectors.
Nike Joins the 3% Cash Back Club for Apple Card
Nike joins other companies in offering 3% cash back to customers who use the Apple Card on any of the company’s retail platforms.
Satechi Releases New Compact Bluetooth Keyboard
Satechi announced today the release of its compact Bluetooth keyboard featuring a full keyboard layout with dedicated number keys.
Apple Expects to Sell 100 Million 5G iPhones Next Year
Apple expects to sell over 100 million 5G iPhones in 2020, according to sources within its Tawainese supply chain.
Apple Offers up to $200 Gift Cards With Certain Purchases
Between Black Friday 2019 and Cyber Monday, Apple is offering up to US$200 gift cards with certain product purchases.
How a Phone Call Led to OS X And The Return of Steve Jobs
It was a not particularly interesting phone call between an Apple exec and a midlevel manager at NeXT. However, as Cult of Mac’s ‘Today in Apple History’ noted, it started a chain overs that led to the creation of OS X and the return of Steve Jobs.
Garrett L. Rice’s communication with Ellen Hancock, Apple’s chief technology officer, is the first formal step in a long process. It ultimately leads to Apple buying NeXT, the creation of OS X, and Steve Jobs returning home to the company he co-founded… By November 1996, Jobs was speaking with Amelio again (albeit only very recently). Jobs advised that Be was not the right choice for Apple. The November 25 phone call from NeXT’s Rice presented the option Jobs surely wanted all along: that Apple acquire the rights to put a version of OpenStep on Macs. By early December, Jobs visited Apple HQ for the first time since his ouster. A deal would bring both NeXT and Jobs aboard — the best decision Apple made in years.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee's Plan to Save The Web
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, one of the founders of the web, launched The Contract for the Web on Monday. It is his plan to save the internet, according to The Guardian. However, a number of organizations were involved in the project.
The contract, which has been worked on by 80 organizations for more than a year, outlines nine central principles to safeguard the web – three each for governments, companies and individuals. The document, published by Berners-Lee’s Web Foundation, has the backing of more than 150 organizations, from Microsoft, Google and Facebook to the digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation. At the time of writing, neither Amazon nor Twitter had endorsed the principles. Those who back the contract must show they are implementing the principles and working on solutions to the tougher problems, or face being removed from the list of endorsers.
What Google Stadia Means for the Future
Alex Cranz reviewed Google Stadia, a game service where games are streamed to you instead of you loading them onto your device.
With Stadia, you can slip into a game typically found on a PC or console using almost any device. It makes you wonder why we’ve tethered ourselves to hardware for so long when the internet can give us all of that power at a considerably lower cost (and smaller energy bill). The problem is that Stadia rarely works perfectly. Instead, it offers us a glimmer of the future before crashing back down into the muddy present.
”It makes you wonder why.” Here’s why we’re still tethering ourselves: Because arguably you own physical copies of media like games, books, and movies. The “future” that Mr. Cranz’s headline alludes to is the Ideal Corporate World in which no one owns anything because it’s all a subscription.
Desirable, Delightful, De-Lovely, or Delicious? – Mac Geek Gab 790
Quick Tips include zooming messages in Mail, tweaking Preview Options, more Remote Access, and remapping keyboard shortcuts. But that’s not all, listen for Cool Stuff Found, holiday deals and more just by pressing play. John F. Braun and Dave Hamilton are here to make sure you learn your five new things this week!
Uber's London License Has Not Been Renewed
Uber’s license to operate in London has not renewed, with the ride-hailing app branded ‘not fit and proper’ by the city’s transport authority.
Prison Profiteer Global Tel Link Charges Prisoners by the Minute for Reading
Prison libraries of paper books are slowly disappearing. In their place prisoners are getting tablets. But profits are being made when prisoners send emails, videoconferencing with family, listening to music, and reading.
In West Virginia, a company called Global Tel Link has the contract to provide prisoners in ten prisons with “free” tablets, for which they charge $0.05/minute for reading ebooks, primarily drawn from Project Gutenberg, a free online service of volunteer-produced, public domain and CC-licensed ebooks.
AirPods Shipments Could Double to 60M This Year
Shipments of AirPods are expected to double this year to 60 million units, driven in part by the AirPods Pro.
Database of 1.2 Billion Records Found With Scraped Data
A database filled with 1.2 billion records of data was found on the dark web back in October. I hesitate to call this a data breach because:
While the collection is impressive for its sheer volume, the data doesn’t include sensitive information like passwords, credit card numbers, or Social Security numbers. It does, though, contain profiles of hundreds of millions of people that include home and cell phone numbers, associated social media profiles like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Github, work histories seemingly scraped from LinkedIn, almost 50 million unique phone numbers, and 622 million unique email addresses.
In other words this is all data that people have willingly put on their social media profiles. While it can be used for nefarious purposes (especially phone numbers) this is less of a breach and more of a database of scrapes. Nevertheless I’m using our “data breach” tag.