Month: June 2014

Jim Dalrymple:

Apple introduced a new Photos app during its Worldwide Developers Conference that will become the new platform for the company. As part of the transition, Apple told me today that they will no longer be developing its professional photography application, Aperture.

As a former Aperture-turned-Lightroom user, I’m genuinely gutted that Aperture is no more but not at all surprised. It had great potential but has always been slow on the update front and its performance was sub-par, even on a high-end Mac.

But I can see why. Apple’s photo management and editing options is a mess on both Mac and iOS. iPhoto for Mac has gotten steadily worse over time and Aperture hasn’t seen a substantial update since it’s third release in 2010¹. By getting rid of all photo apps and introducing a singular Photos app, Apple is able to bring everything back to a central place. Whilst this is at the expense of their professional photo app, it’s fair to say that many have already jumped over to Lightroom so the number of users it affects will be minimal.

If you are a regular user of Aperture, it’ll still work (for now) but it might be a good time to sign up to Adobe’s Creative Cloud Photography Subscription that gets you Photoshop CC and Lightroom at less than $9.99 a month if you’re looking for an alternative.

Via MacStories.

MacRumors:

Following our report from earlier today, Apple has launched its new entry-level 16 GB fifth-generation iPod touch, while also cutting the price on the current 32/64 GB iPod touch, offering them for $249 and $299, respectively. The new iPod touch is available in six different colors with a rear camera and a lower price tag of $199.

With the updated 16GB model and price cuts across the range, the iPod touch just became the best budget digital camera for less than $250. What other camera lets you easily snap a photo, edit it with some VSCO filters and then post it to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr or whatever social network you’re into?

Apple has always positioned the iPod touch as more of a casual gaming device than anything else, which is doing the device a disservice, especially when you compare it with the Photos Every Day ad campaign for the iPhone.

Yes, there are definitely better compact cameras out there that take photos of a much higher quality, but there’s a reason why the iPhone has been the most popular camera for years.

The iPod touch is the perfect camera for someone who may not want the additional functionality or cost of the iPhone, yet wants to take great photos. This latest refresh and price drop has made it an even more appealing device.

Elon Musk:

Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.

This is groundbreaking news and show just how committed Tesla are in the electric car industry, not just their products. The company is going to share their patents with the hope that it will help advance the development of the electric car industry. Any company wanting to use Tesla tech to develop an electric car can do so without any hinderance by way of lawsuit.

Think about that for a moment. A company who had valid patents on a wide range of technology involved in their products is letting their competitors use the same technology without charge or risk of legal action.

For a limited time only, you can purchase my latest ebook The iOS Compendium, Volume 1 on the iBooks Store for only 99¢ (49p).

This interactive iBook containing over 40 of the best tips and tricks that iOS has to offer, each with specially recorded narrated screencasts for you to watch, totalling over an hour of video.

Whether you’re a first-time iPad owner or have been using an iPhone since it was first released, any iOS user will find this book indispensable.

For anyone without access to the iBookstore, the PDF edition is also on sale for the same price.

Thomas Brand makes a good point when it comes to the naming convention of OS X as it approaches what would be 10.10:

Mac OS X, now OS X, was never a sequential continuation of the classic Mac OS, ending in Mac OS 9. It has always been its own operating system. Its own “brand.”

I doubt there will ever be a Mac OS 11. Apple hasn’t used a numbered versioning system to publically describe their operating systems in years.

Adobe may still internally refer to Photoshop as version 12.2.3 or whatever, but to consumers it’s now just Photoshop CC. Their move to subscription-based software makes version differenatiation redundant.

The same applies to OS X now that it will always be a free upgrade. I’d be surprised if future versions of OS X still refer to version numbers within their updates and don’t just call them all “Update”. Sure, stick the version number in the release notes but most of us don’t really need to know.

All we need to know is that if the App Store has a red badge, there’s an update available.