How Apple Will Make the Wearable Market →

Ben Thompson, writing on his site, Stratechery:

There has been a bit of consternation about Apple’s focus on “fashion” and all that entails, but there is a very practical aspect to this focus: people need to be willing to actually put the wearable on their body. While “form may follow function” for tools, the priorities are the exact opposite when it comes to what we wear: function is irrelevant without a form we find appealing. In this case, design actually is how it looks.

It’s on this point specifically that most critics – including myself – have failed to appreciate Apple’s approach. After last fall’s presentation I compared the Watch’s introduction to that of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad and found it lacking for its lack of focus on functionality. What I now appreciate, though, is that this was almost certainly on purpose: there was focus in that keynote, it just happened to be on the Watch’s appearance; since I’m a geek I dismissed it, but normal consumers, especially in the case of a wearable, absolutely will not.

If you only read one Apple Watch think-piece, make it Thompson’s.

Apple Watch and Watch Band Price/Availability Matrix →

Graham Spencer, writing for MacStories:

Louie Mantia has put together a fantastic matrix that lists every Apple Watch case and every Apple Watch Band and highlights which combinations are available to purchase, including which ones you can technically achieve with an additional purchase.

Seeing it laid-out like this, while much more helpful, helps to understand, at least a little, why Apple went with the ridiculous layout that they went with. End of the day, it’s just not super easy to explain.

KitchenAid’s 2015 Stand Mixer Color →

Christine Gallery, writing for The Kitchn:

Every January I go to the Winter Fancy Food Show in my hometown of San Francisco, but this year I attended the even bigger International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago for the first time!

It's an impressive, slightly overwhelming experience to navigate enormous halls filled with kitchen and housewares, but it's fun to see the newest and shiniest goods that brands have to offer. Stopping at the KitchenAid booth is a must, especially to see the newest color(s) for the stand mixers.

Interesting choice. Very interesting choice. Timely, too. I—my wife; I mean my wife—was looking for a stand mixer to match her iPhone, and her iPad, and the new MacBook she’s going to order.

Some People Want You To Think Apple ‘Sold Its Soul’ Today →

Robinson Meyer, writing for The Atlantic:

Today’s messaging was a little different.

The company announced new laptops: They will be available in gold. It showed us an example Apple Watch user: She was Christy Turlington Burns, a supermodel who Apple’s video shows taking time off from philanthropic work in Tanzania to run a half-marathon around Kilimanjaro.

And even the less-obviously luxe marketing seemed tailored to an aloof elite: You can call an Uber with your watch now! If you forget to stand up every so often (perhaps because your trans-Pacific first-class Emirates seat is just so comfortable), your watch will remind you to walk around a little!

But these are details. Most will correctly fixate on the price of the most-expensive watch, the 18-karat-gold Apple Watch Edition. Apple hasn’t released an upper price window for these watches, but Tim Cook mentioned on-stage Monday they started at $10,000.

Ignoring the stupid hyperbole of the second and third paragraphs (yeah, Apple should be ashamed for putting Every Mother Counts on the radar screen of millions of people), I’d just like to clear up two things for the author:

1. I’ve seen almost no one talking about the price of the most-expensive watch.
2. Apple has released the “upper price window” [sic]—$17,000.

I can go on store.apple.com right now and buy an almost $12,000 computer—and that’s only purchasing Apple products. Forget about the thousands of dollars of peripherals that someone who needs that computer would almost certainly buy. One of the most popular fallacies around is that because something doesn’t work for you, it must not work for anyone.

And that’s the funny thing about that word—need. Nobody needs anything. Nobody needs an Apple Watch. Nobody needs any luxury watch. Yet, somehow, people keep buying them. And the dream that Apple’s corporate charter is somehow a twenty year-old television advertisement? Some people need to believe in that too.

Apple’s ‘Make a film with iPad’ Commercial

Marty narrates. So fucking good. I really, really hope the copy was created with his input, especially the

If you’re dreaming, you’re sleeping

line.

The Jony Ive New Yorker Profile →

Ian Parker, The New Yorker:

The worktables are higher than a desk but a little lower than the Apple Store tables they inspired. This height—arrived at after much reflection—accommodates seated study and standing visits. (Risking self-parody, Ive later referred to the “simplicity and modesty” of the arrangement.) Samsung Electronics sells vacuum cleaners as well as phones, and employs a thousand designers. Apple’s intentions can be revealed in one room. Each table serves a single product, or product part, or product concept; some of these objects are scheduled for manufacture; others might come to market in three or five years, or never. “A table can get crowded with a lot of different ideas, maybe problem-solving for one particular feature,” Hönig, the former Lamborghini designer, later told me. Then, one day, all the clutter is gone. He laughed: “It’s just the winner, basically. What we collectively decided is the best.” The designers spend much of their time handling models and materials, sometimes alongside visiting Apple engineers. Jobs used to come by almost every day. Had I somehow intruded an hour earlier, I would have seen an exhibition of the likely future. Now all but a few tables were covered in sheets of gray silk, and I knew only that that future would be no taller than an electric kettle.

The cloth covering the table nearest the door was curiously flat. “This is actually complicated,” Ive said, feeling through the material. “This will make sense later. I’m not messing with you at all, I promise.”

A couple of nights ago, I mocked the Apple blogs for how quickly they all linked to this piece. I’m still skeptical that everyone that linked it up, actually, you know, read it. But I did read it. And—it’s as good as advertised. Maybe better. It’s lengthy—17,000 words—but it goes down smooth, especially if you care at all about Apple, Technology, Design, or just about reading really great pieces of writing, e.g.:

I asked Jeff Williams, the senior vice-president, if the Apple Watch seemed more purely Ive’s than previous company products. After a silence of twenty-five seconds, during which Apple made fifty thousand dollars in profit, he said, “Yes.”

For the Apple crowd, this piece goes straight into the canon. I imagine that the Ian Parker will be buzzing about it for a month at least.

New Use For a Microsoft Surface: iPad Stand →

Ben Lovejoy:

Microsoft must have thought it had pulled off a nice piece of product placement when it gave CNN election commentators a bunch of Surface Pro tablets to help with their coverage. CNN dutifully covered its desks with the devices, resulting in a series of proud tweets from Microsoft fans.

There was just one small problem, noted by GeekWire: a closer look revealed that hidden behind the Surface tablets were the iPads that commentators were actually using. In one case, the commentator was actually using her Surface tablet as a stand for her iPad.

The silver lining on an otherwise dark, dark political night.

Tim Cook is Proud to be Gay →

Tim Cook:

I’ll admit that this wasn’t an easy choice. Privacy remains important to me, and I’d like to hold on to a small amount of it. I’ve made Apple my life’s work, and I will continue to spend virtually all of my waking time focused on being the best CEO I can be. That’s what our employees deserve—and our customers, developers, shareholders, and supplier partners deserve it, too. Part of social progress is understanding that a person is not defined only by one’s sexuality, race, or gender. I’m an engineer, an uncle, a nature lover, a fitness nut, a son of the South, a sports fanatic, and many other things. I hope that people will respect my desire to focus on the things I’m best suited for and the work that brings me joy.

Beware of anyone who responds to this, not new news, but still important news with phrases like who cares? and stick to selling phones! and why is this important? That’s the shorthand that people use when they see the arc of history bending away from them, and they are terrified at the prospect of being left behind. If you can’t see/understand why having an openly gay CEO of one of the largest companies in the history of the world is an important revelation, then you’re just willfully ignorant.

Retailers Are Disabling NFC to Block Apple Pay →

John Gruber:

Think about what they’re doing. They’re turning off NFC payment systems — the whole thing — only because people were actually using them with Apple Pay. Apple Pay works so well that it even works with non-partner systems. These things have been installed for years and so few people used them, apparently, that these retailers would rather block everyone than allow Apple Pay to continue working. I can’t imagine a better validation of Apple Pay’s appeal.

If you’re an iPhone user, you absolutely must read this.

Introducing Emoji++ →

David Smith:

Being friends with Casey Liss I have a lot of experience with Emoji, but the way it is implemented in the default iOS keyboard has always driven me a little bit crazy. Why oh why are there six pages, some of which is split into ten sub pages. None of which scroll!

And then don’t even get me started on actually trying to find anything.

Why are shoes(👞) under the face(😃)?
Why are volcanos(🌋) under the flower(🌸)?
Why is the coffee(☕) under the bell(🔔)?
Why is the Union Jack(🇬🇧) under the car(🚘)?!

I feel like I’m always I’m playing a game of memory each time I’m try to craft my perfectly composed Emoji response.

So when iOS 8 introduced the concept of custom keyboard I knew I wanted to replace the built in one with something better. Something faster.

The result is Emoji++. A custom keyboard for iOS 8 that actually makes sense.

Download. Download now.