Here is a fascinating chart: brand value calculated by Interbrand. Apple is on top again this year. They have been there since 2012. What I find interesting is the first row is occupied by companies reflecting our new way of life as we depend on smartphones (Apple, Samsung), online shopping (Amazon) and the cloud (Microsoft). What about Google you might ask? Well, first, as we don’t like to pay for online stuff, we prefer to be the product of advertisers. Second, we stopped using bookmarks a long time ago, we prefer the Google search field.

“Work can’t solve for all the things we’re missing right now, but a shared sense of purpose goes a long way. A belief that we can do more together than we can alone, that people of good will, driven by creativity and passion and that certain itch of a big idea, can still do things that help other people in our own small way to teach, to learn, to create, or just to relax at a time like this. Even as the things we make require us to operate at the very cutting edge of technology, in materials, products, and ideas that didn’t exist just a few years ago, this year has forced us to face plainly the things that make us human — disease, resilience, and hope.” — Tim Cook

Poor Apple, iPhone sales are 20% down compared to last year’s quarter. Look, people, it's 2020 and we are in the middle of a pandemic. Stores are closing, opening, then closing again. Yet, Apple is able to pull it off big time. Thanks to the Mac, iPad and services, Apple is able to come out with a great quarter! That’s what is interesting: when one product line is performing poorly, others take the lead. September quarter is going to be a monster one as the iPhone 12 and Apple Silicon Macs sales takes over the stage. 

Apple this week updated their strange application, Clips, to version 3.0. Clips looks like a technology demonstration to me. I hear it is popular among the young crowd. Maybe.  I’ve played with the new version a bit and really like the new design which is cleaner and more enjoyable to use. After playing with, boy this app is power hungry; my iPhone 11 Pro get’s very hot! Still an interesting ting to play with. 

Here is an interesting design concept of a possible Apple Search service. What I find interesting is the use of the Siri branding. I don’t know if Apple would use it or simply call the service: Apple Search. I would prefer the latter as Siri is not known to sound like “good” more like “good enough” or “behind the reste of the crowd”. 

This curve ball wasn’t expected: Apple comes up with beta 1 of macOS Big Sur 11.0.1. Why? Why now? Does this mean 11.0 GM is really around the corner and will ship soon on new Macs, including the first Apple Silicon ones? Why do I keep thinking Big Sur (based on Beta 10) was far from ready? Something is clear to me, I’m not upgrading my iMac anytime soon, but I understand that my upcoming Mac Pro could come pre-installed with it.

After much writing and compositing, the third edition of the Numeric Citizen Introspection newsletter is out! I’m quite happy with the end results. It’s getting better with each release. It’s still free. Can’t wait to build the next edition!

Please, read, share and like! 👈🏻 🙏🏻

Comments are welcomed!

I’m always impressed by the turn over speed of major new releases of iOS. iOS 14 adoption rate is already surpassing iOS 13 after less than six weeks of availability. Wow.

Apple’s iPhone ecosystem is running at blazing speed to adopt new technologies. There is nothing like that in tech. Even if people are keeping their old iPhone longer, by supporting old devices, Apple can set the bar for new privacy features and make them available to a vast portion of the users. This is something we rarely talk about.

Matt Birchler in a funny post hightlights how twisted Apple’s stance can be when it comes to pushing their agenda: in this cas, the protection of the environment.

I think it is a mandatory thing to openly challenge something Apple does even if you like their products as much as we possible can. I did it in my long article “The Rotten Side of Tim Cook’s Apple“ and l’ll continue to do it.

Thanks to an article from John Gruber’s website, Daring Fireball, I discovered a new Apple-centric blog yesterday: Basic Apple Guy. After spending a few minutes on it exploring the content, I kind of fell in love with it and and started to wish it was mine. I’m impressed by the simplicity and the content quality. RSS feed already added to my collection.