Unbelievable agility for a company the size of Apple (even in 2001)!
I asked Tony Fadell about the iPod timeline for my fast project page. Summary: 😯. pic.twitter.com/mf0CfbAEtB
— Patrick Collison (@patrickc) January 12, 2020
Category: Technology
More Than 1 in 20 Americans Usually Work from Home
New 2018 data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that more than 1 in 20 Americans now usually work from home. Telework has recently overtaken public transit as the third-most-popular commuting method in the country.
Continue reading “More Than 1 in 20 Americans Usually Work from Home”70% of Apple Watch Buyers are New to Apple Watch
According to CNBC, Apple says a whole 70% of Apple Watch customers are buying their very first model. And this is before the new Series 5 has been released.
Apple Watch Series 4: An ECG on Your Wrist
Amazing how far the Apple Watch has come since it’s debut in 2015!
From Apple.com:
Electrodes built into the Digital Crown and the back crystal work together with the ECG app to read your heart’s electrical signals. Simply touch the Digital Crown to generate an ECG waveform in just 30 seconds. This data can indicate whether your heart rhythm shows signs of atrial fibrillation — a serious form of irregular heart rhythm — or sinus rhythm, which means your heart is beating in a normal pattern.
Each beat of the heart sends out an electrical impulse. With the ECG app, Apple Watch Series 4 can read and record these impulses by connecting the circuit between your heart and both arms.
The resulting ECG waveform, its classification, and any notes you’ve entered on related symptoms are automatically stored in the Health app on your iPhone. You can share them with your doctor and have a better-informed conversation about your health.
Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends, 2018 Version
Definitely worth watching. Highlights (via Recode.net) include:
- 2017 was the first year in which smartphone unit shipments didn’t grow at all.
- People, however, are still increasing the amount of time they spend online.
- Mobile payments are becoming easier to complete.
- Voice-controlled products like Amazon Echo are taking off.
Continue reading “Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends, 2018 Version”
iPhone Slowdowns Explained
I ran across a good article at Macrumors that does a great job of explaining the reasons behind the recent iOS slowdowns on older hardware. If you’re experiencing slowdowns, this is definitely worth a read. I have high hopes that a battery replacement will breath new life into my aging iPhone 6 Plus. Since upgrading to iOS 11, I have experienced all of the symptoms outlined in Apple’s iPhone and Battery Performance support document:
In cases that require more extreme forms of this power management, the user may notice effects such as:
– Longer app launch times
– Lower frame rates while scrolling
– Backlight dimming (which can be overridden in Control Center)
– Lower speaker volume by up to -3dB
– Gradual frame rate reductions in some apps
– During the most extreme cases, the camera flash will be disabled as visible in the camera UI
– Apps refreshing in background may require reloading upon launch
To get your battery replaced, visit the Contact Apple Support page, click on See Your Products, sign in to your Apple ID account, select which iPhone, and click on Battery, Power, and Charging and then Battery Replacement.
After completing the above steps, you should have options available to you to take your iPhone to an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider, mail the device to an Apple Repair Center, or both.
For more details, see the full article at Macrumors.
John Hancock Offers Apple Watch to Vitality Customers for Just $25
John Hancock has announced that new and existing members of its Vitality life insurance program can receive an Apple Watch Series 3 with GPS only for an initial payment of just $25 plus tax. Over the next two years, monthly payments are based on the number of workouts completed.
By connecting the Vitality Today app to Apple’s Health app and confirming sharing of data, customers can earn Vitality Points for Light, Standard, and Advanced Workouts in the Workout app. Customers can share steps measured by their iPhone or Apple Watch, as well as active calories from the Apple Watch. Vitality members must earn at least 500 fitness-related Vitality Points per month over two years to avoid owing any of the installments.
An innovative life insurance solution that rewards healthy living!
Mac OS X Sierra: Displaying Thumbnails in Preview by Default
I use thumbnails in Preview on Mac OS to merge PDFs a lot. Dragging thumbs from the sidebar of one PDF to another is a quick and easy way to merge multiple PDFs. It has always annoyed me that there is no longer an easy way to show the sidebar by default in Mac OS X Sierra. After a little Googling, I found an easy way to fix this by editing the plist file for Preview.
- Go to: ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Preferences/
- Locate and open the preferences file – com.apple.Preview.plist
- Set “
PVPDFSuppressSidebarOnOpening” to false - If you don’t see it, simply add the following to com.apple.Preview.plist:
<key>PVPDFSuppressSidebarOnOpening</key>
<false/>
UPDATE FOR HIGH SIERRA:
Twitter user @ZiadFazel wrote in with an update for Preview in Mac OS X High Sierra.
- Go to: ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Preferences/
- Locate and open the preferences file – com.apple.Preview.plist
- Find
<key>PVSidebarViewModeForNewDocuments</key><integer>0</integer> - Change
<integer>0</integer>to<integer>1</integer>Thanks, Ziad!
The Increasing Importance of Customer Experience
I was reading an interesting article about the changes occurring in the banking industry which stated that banking will have to completely change its vision of the business: the important thing will no longer be products or distribution channels, but the customer experience.
The problem is not what the branch offices look like, but the behavior of the consumer: bankers should be aware that customers are not going to return to the practice of making frequent visits to bank offices unless we take away their mobile phones. And that’s not going to happen. Banks need to view the digital customer experience as an asset akin to a physical branch and give it the appropriate funding, attention, and support it deserves. For most customers, it will be their first, and in many cases – only, interaction with the brand. When was the last time you went to a branch to do your banking?
The increasing importance of customer experience holds true, to varying degrees, for all industries. Customer experience today is what branding was for the last five decades.
Apple Watch Can Detect Abnormal Heart Rhythm with 97% Accuracy
According to the results of a study* conducted by the University of California, San Francisco and the app, Cardiogram, Apple Watch can detect the most common abnormal heart rhythm with 97% accuracy.
From TechCrunch:
The study involved 6,158 participants recruited through the Cardiogram app on Apple Watch. Most of the participants in the UCSF Health eHeart study had normal EKG readings. However, 200 of them had been diagnosed with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (an abnormal heartbeat). Engineers then trained a deep neural network to identify these abnormal heart rhythms from Apple Watch heart rate data.
Each year, more than 100,000 strokes are caused by an abnormal heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation – the most common abnormal heart rhythm responsible for 1 in 4 strokes. It’s pretty amazing to think that soon there will be technology available on our wrists that can identify and warn us of abnormal heart rhythms, including atrial fibrillation.
*I’m proud to have participated in the Heart eHealth study and am currently participating in the mRhythm study, the goal of which is to compare the heart rhythms gathered by the FDA-approved AliveCor monitor against those from the Cardiogram App/Apple Watch to assess its validity and accuracy in detecting arrhythmias.
via TechCrunch