This is exciting! The iPhone X will likely have 3D room tracking tech built in, making it more likely that people will experience augmented reality on the iPhone than the Oculus or Android. Here are a few stories that uncharacteristically share Apple's plans in this space. Stay tuned!
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It's pretty cool (and rare) when recent and former employers combine efforts to benefit huge groups of users. That happened today when Cisco and Apple marketing announced a sweeping partnership that will make iOS devices sing on enterprise networks. Read about it yourself here on Apple's site, or at Cisco's site
This nugget from the press release speaks to some of the stuff I worked on:
"With Apple's support, Cisco will deliver experiences specially optimized for iOS across mobile, cloud, and premises-based collaboration tools such as Cisco Spark, Cisco Telepresence and Cisco WebEx in order to deliver seamless team collaboration and reinvent the meeting experience."
It is going to be an exciting time for Apple and Cisco!
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Been a while since Apple updated its boilerplate on the bottom of every press release. Just noticed the new one when looking for Apple's Q3 Earnings:
"Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, the Mac and Apple Watch. Apple’s three software platforms — iOS, OS X and watchOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it."
As a student and fan of great mission statements, this one seems a bit remarkable and nearly revisionist historical. Apple marketing has no mention of its 30+ year computer history; nor the creation of the Apple II (which kicked off the PC revolution and made Apple a public company); no mention of iPod or iTunes (which revolutionized music) nor Apple's retail stores nor Apple TV.
While this certainly looks like Apple is leaning forward to the future (it's the first time they've mentioned the number of employees), it stills seems a bit at odds with its past. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes in a future Apple footer - perhaps the Apple Car or Apple Energy is right around the corner.
P.S. some have asked me when they changed the boilerplate - looks like the previous version was last used on June 4, 2015 and the new one showed up on June 8 as part of WWDC press releases. Here was that previous version:
"Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad."
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I was one of the lucky ones who managed to score a new Amazon Echo early...and I have to tell you I am impressed! First, this isn't what I thought Amazon could create - a super fast, seamlessly integrated personal assistant. This is Amazon not just copying Apple's simple and delightful user experience, but actually going beyond it.
You ask "Alexa" (or you can call her "Amazon") to play a song, or take a note, or turn off the lights, or check the weather, or traffic, or play an audio book...and it happens...in seconds. There is no delay at all - it almost seems like it is anticipating your request. Further, you can ask her to reorder something you already purchased at Amazon (we reordered dog food for Lucy) and it reads back your order waiting for a simple "Yes" from you to place it. From the time we thought about needing dog food to the time it was in our home was like 2 days...and we never approached a computer, or iPhone or Apple Watch. Did I mention the speaker/microphone array in this thing sounds great? When you get her attention a cool blue light "looks" in your direction then runs off with your request. Pretty cool stuff.
I've been demoing Amazon Echo (they should have just called it Alexa) to all my friends and family and while there are still a few rough edges everyone has come away impressed by what the device and the cloud can do when they are paired in this way. I tell people this is what I expected the future to be like and it has finally arrived. Amazon needs to steal a page from Apple marketing and start showing the world what this can do. I don't have that many friends ;)
Just learned today that anyone can now purchase Amazon Echo (there is no more waiting list), so here is a handy link if you are so inclined.
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Siri seems to want to tell me the temperature of a room named Grand Canyon (?) but clearly it thinks that temperature sensor isn't connected yet. Can't wait to see what Siri can really do after today's WWDC Apple Marketing announcements.
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In advance of WWDC 2015, the first Homekit apps are beginning to roll out. Check out Eve from Elgato - even works with Siri and looks like a platform for more apps soon:
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At my day job, I help Cisco focus on the future - to arrive at a place where technology makes communication simple and seamless. Part of that future is already here as many of our customers now have their own personal office in the cloud, courtesy of WebEx Personal Rooms. Rather than worry about scheduling a meeting, all they need to do is go to their permanent meeting URL and the meeting just starts. Mine is https://go.webex.com/meet/schazin
Today we announced WebEx support for Apple Watch, and boy is this going to change things. Now when I’m running late for a meeting, I simply tap my wrist, which automatically launches my WebEx Personal Room. This action instantly opens the door for all of my guests and calls me back. It’s really that simple and shows the power of WebEx and the Apple Watch – the first conferencing solution that lets you start and host a meeting from your wrist. Simply amazing.
It's not often that many of our passions combine together at a single time or place. My interests in Apple, my job, futuristic collaboration, delightful user experiences, and leadership all combined when I challenged my team not even 7 weeks ago to build Cisco's first Apple Watch app...and here it is on the same day the first Apple Watch is available. Simply amazing.
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Been reading a lot about how Apple marketing may have made some missteps in the rollout of the Apple Watch. Today, Apple seemed to acknowledge those mistakes by removing the 4.24.15 text from their website.
Many pundits point to the fact that in spite of dozens of watch styles, more than half of all Apple Watch orders were for the same one: the 42mm black Sport model (it's the one I wanted too). How could Apple get this so wrong.
It reminded me of the first launch of the "Yum" colored iMacs. In that day, no one had any idea which color would be the most popular and retailers could not easily return unsold stock. How many Tangerine or Strawberry iMacs should Apple make? What if no one wanted to buy the Lime green model? While Apple eventually took the burden off its channel partners by allowing them to trade in any unsold inventory, it seems to me that Apple missed a huge opportunity to change the rules of preorder supply and demand management- something I expected to be job one of Tim Cook's Apple.
Why didn't Apple create the ability for people to use the Apple Watch app - installed weeks ago on every iPhone with iOS 8.3 (and completely worthless until it can be paired) - to identify their favorite watch model long before April 10th rolled around?
Apple would have known what models to build and produced a much better user experience - letting loyal users purchase the Apple Watch from the same iPhone it would later be paired to.
At the very least, in the spirit of ResearchKit, Apple could have helped users create a preorder queue and alerted them in advance to models in short supply, instead of making them do what I'm sure many people (like me) did on the wee hours of April 10 - finding a backup model that had a better chance of shipping on 4.24.15 than the model they really wanted.
Note to Angela Ahrendts: you can do better.
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Dug this out of a drawer from back in the day at Apple marketing. Kinda like this band as much as the Milanese Loop. Enjoy!
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Dawned on me that I never finished this story. I'm going to recap it this week...so stay tuned.
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Quite a few readers asked me to share a bit more about how my last trip to the Flint Center changed my life (as I referenced in last week's post) so this post is about how Apple Marketing changed everything. Before iPod, iPhone, iPad, iWatch, that last trip to the Flint Center changed my life.
Funny, I’m not really sure what compelled me to walk over to the Flint Center at DeAnza College in Cupertino that day in 1998. I remember being very busy but somehow I knew I had to be there.
This was the day that Apple Computer, Inc. was going to introduce a secret new computer to the world. The press were waiting outside in the early morning California sunshine with their personal passes to a “Very Special Event” in hand. Inside, Steve Jobs was walking through his final rehearsal on the very same stage he introduced the original Mac in 1984. Today was Steve’s first product introduction since coming back to the company he founded and subsequently pushed out of by John Sculley and the Apple board of directors in 1987.
The Think Different posters of Lucille Ball and Pablo Picasso were looming large in the back of the hall. Elvis was playing softly on the sound system. The company was running on fumes. The stage was literally set for a remarkable day.
Somehow I convinced one of the folks responsible for the Apple special event to let me help and they made me a special badge I gladly hung around my neck. I trotted off to see what I could do as one of the few allowed to get this close this early. I tried getting into the hall while Steve was still rehearsing but found all the doors locked. I noticed a satellite truck outside connected via large cables to the television cameras inside. Somewhere someone was shouting about parking and reminding others to check for passes. I heard the building would be filled to capacity. The excitement was palpable and mysterious.
I sauntered outside to the rear doors where I could see and hear the foreign press corps gathering.
That blue arrow points to me, in the blue shirt.
At first glance I estimated more than one hundred reporters and cameramen all jockeying their equipment and bodies into the best position to enter the building. Technicians were checking and rechecking their equipment and battery and sound levels. I headed over to the action. As soon as I arrived my newly printed pass with a large Apple logo and the single word “Steve” caused cameras and microphones to be thrust in my face. “What are we going to see today?” “Have you seen it?” and “Are you Steve Jobs?” where just a few of the questions I tried to deal with. Truth was, I did know what they were going to see and I had seen it, or at least Styrofoam models of it. And while I’m not Steve Jobs, I did work for him – but that's another story.
Later this week, I'll tell you what I learned inside Flint Center those sweet sixteen years ago. Perhaps we will look back at September 9, 2014 as a day that changed our lives...again.
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So the rumors are true, and on September 9, 2014 at the Flint Center at DeAnza College, Apple will introduce...something entirely new.
Remember, this is the location Apple has only used for truly major new introductions. The original Mac came out of its bag on that stage, as did the original iMac. That event, which changed my life, not only saved Apple from bankruptcy, but also wrote the playbook for every other iDevice launch since then. You can see inside the Flint Center in this video, What do they have in store for us now! Can't wait for the world to find out!
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Would take the time to make the cable look like something more valuable than a cable.
Sent from my iPhone
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Imagine sellling the #1 smartphone in a country as large as Japan.
Now imaging being the company that holds positions #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, and #10...simultaneously.
Stop imagining...that company that is doing that right now is Apple. Here's proof. What's more, the iPhone is suddently helping improve the trade deficit between Japan and the US and soon to hold 50% market share of smartphones in the country.
This is classic Apple - suddenly, anything Apple sells is in vogue throughout all of Japan: to be seen as cool, you need that white, black or gold Apple logo in your hand. Remember how it seemed like suddenly everyone in the US was wearing white headphones in 2005? That's how it is for iPhones in the land of the rising sun, today.
Bodes well for Apple marketing: the smaller size of the iPhone 5 and smaller iPad Mini has huge upside while Samsung, being a Korean company, can't easily follow Apple into Japan.
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