Chris Foresman:
Specialist performance will now be directly measured in part by how many accessories they can sell with each hardware item sold. So if you walk in to buy a MacBook Air, the new metrics would encourage sales people to push you to buy cases, hard drives, AirPort base stations, and more.
It’s sad that it sounds like Tim Cook is pushing towards a Steve Ballmer–style sales guy strategy. However, an anonymous genius writes:
As a current Genius at a very high profile Apple Retail store, I’m happy to report that ifoAppleStore’s (and other’s) sources are either flat-out wrong or highly exaggerated. Very little has changed since Browett has taken over, and what has changed has been overwhelmingly for the better.
I was unable to load the original ifoAppleStore article.
Update (2012-08-29): Gary Allen on ifoAppleStore:
According to accounts, Cook pushed Johnson “quite hard” about how other channels were selling more Mac’s per-capita than the retail stores. Without Jobs’ support, Johnson found it was nearly impossible to keep Cook and Oppenheimer from switching the chain’s primary purpose from a superior experience to revenues.
Apple Retail Stores John Browett Ron Johnson Tim Cook
Brent Simmons:
The Next Web reports that Google has pulled its undocumented weather API. I dread the day when this happens to the also-undocumented Google Reader API.
Google RSS Web API
Dropbox:
Two-step verification is an optional but highly recommended security feature that adds an extra layer of protection to your Dropbox account. Once enabled, Dropbox will require a six-digit security code in addition to your password whenever you sign in to Dropbox or link a new computer, phone, or tablet.
Cloud Dropbox Security
Ray Dillinger (via Manuel Simoni):
C is not just a simple language. Heck, it’s nowhere near as simple as, say, Scheme or Haskell. C is a simplistic model of the machine, memory, and runtime environment. It provides a few facilities for abstraction, but as a deliberate design choice, it makes sure that there are specific, simple, known ways for programmers to break every abstraction. That’s really what the ultra-simple memory model of C is all about; enabling programmers to break abstractions.
That isn’t a mistake or a design failure; That is exactly what the designers of the language set out to do. It is a goal in which they succeeded.
C Programming Language Language Design Programming
Ben McCormack:
To solve this problem, we added a simple script called ‘Backup FogBugz’ to the recipes section of the FogBugz XML API Development wiki. It checks FogBugz for unread cases, then saves the updated case info to a local HTML file. It doesn’t save everything—you wouldn’t be able to e.g. restore FogBugz with this data—but it does give you a relatively fresh copy of the data on your local machine.
Bug Tracking FogBugz
Jordan Golson:
After three days of deliberations, the jury reached a unanimous verdict in the Apple vs. Samsung trial. The jury found largely for Apple, ruling that Samsung had willfully infringed on both Apple patents and trade dress for the iPhone -- though notably the jury found in favor of Samsung on questions regarding its tablets. The jury found that Samsung owes Apple $1.05 billion in damages for willfully infringing on Apple’s intellectual property.
Thomas Baekdal:
Why didn’t I patent it? Well, because it’s not an invention. All I did was to find a solution to a problem. If you had the same problem you would have found the same solution. I didn’t invent anything. I only looked at what we had and said “hmmm ...we need to be able to click on that...”
The idea that one company can own a solution to a problem is absolutely insane.
Nick Wingfield:
Consumers could end up with some welcome diversity in phone and tablet design — or they may be stuck with devices that manufacturers have clumsily revamped to avoid crossing Apple.
Andy Ihnatko:
The lesson here is that the so-called Patent Wars, mostly a campaign of skirmishes before now, has suddenly turned into global thermonuclear war.
Matt Drance:
I must admit I’m uncomfortable with the idea that the world’s largest corporation, whatever its name, could be given such a big stick as early as this week. However the verdict falls, I feel like there are no winners here in the long term — certainly not us.
Ryan Kim:
Samsung still faces the stigma of being a copy cat and there is the looming threat that the damages could be tripled because of willful infringement. But it might have been worth it if Samsung’s brand gets elevated to Apple’s level, said Reuters.
Enrique Gutierrez:
I’m writing this post after the fourth group of Starbucks patrons have made the connection that Samsung is now the same as Apple. They don’t know the details, they don’t really care, what they know is Apple is saying that Samsung is the same as Apple…and with one simple Google Search, you get prices that are basically half for what seems to be the same products—for nearly everything.
Apple Brands Lawsuit Patents Samsung
Andreas Fredriksson:
I recently moved from Sweden to the US. Now that my bank is here in the US, I switched my Apple account over to the US region.
Doing so made everything under “Purchases” and “Updates” disappear in the Mac App Store. After a long frustrating email exchange I was told by the App Store support that apps are tied to a region, so if you have downloaded an app in one region it’s forever tied to that region. Their message was: You have to keep your account in the Swedish region to receive updates. Note that this applies even to free stuff like Twitter!
Mac Mac App Store
