Katie Floyd posts excellent week-in-reviews posts, and I thought I’d offer my thoughts on some of those headlines.
Apple introduced an update to the MacBook Line. The update includes faster processors, longer battery life and a new Rose Gold option.
The MacBook, historically, has been a product which has lower-end hardware and broader appeal than the Pro variant. These MacBooks seem to make a different set of compromises, where the hardware is still lower-end but the price is not, and it’s viscerally appealing (to me and I presume others) but it’s not so broad because of the single USB-C port. I’ve seen a couple in the wild, so I presume they’re popular.
That new MacBook Pro (and hopefully a Retina External Cinema Display) that I’ve been longing for might just be announced at WWDC. Apple has announced the World Wide Developers Conference will kick off June 13th in San Francisco.
It’s difficult not to think about it, but I’ve prepared my bank account for purchasing a refreshed MacBook Pro for 6 months now, so I’m trying to go into this WWDC without any expectations. But I assure Apple executives my bank account is ready for a MacBook Pro!
With regards to WWDC, I haven’t received word about my ticket status yet so I hope they’re are still tickets to be had!
Last week the iTunes Movies and iBooks store suddenly went dark in China.
China and Apple must have such a complicated relationship. China wants to keep Apple’s manufacturing in China, but likely resents an American company putting a camera, microphone, and Internet-connected device into Chinese people’s lives. Similarly, Apple saves a lot of money manufacturing in China and makes a lot of money selling their devices there, but likely resents the privacy compromises it has to make to do business there and the control the Chinese government retain over Apple’s business there.
In legal news this week, the Justice Department has dropped its New York case against Apple in an effort to obtain a passcode for an iPhone 5s. … This news comes on the heals of a report that the FBI paid in excess of $1 million for the hack that was used to access the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone 5c.
This is a PR battle that I’m pleased Apple to have won. The Feds and government officials must be so embarrassed to have learned nothing from the San Bernardino iPhone, and Apple have been schooling them on the facts about encryption. I’ve been so accustomed to government getting what they want that it’s almost unusual to be happy with this result.