Maccast 11.18.2012 - Show #420
Links
V Opening
V Opening Music
* Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
* Mandaandthemarbles.com
V Sponsor: Citrix
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V News
V 3,600 iPad minis boosted from JFK
* Seems like one of the biggest iOS theft jobs I can remember hearing about went down this week in NY
* Interestingly the incident happened in the same building featured in the 1978 Lufthansa heist in the movie "GoodFellas".
* The story from the New York Post said that just before midnight an airport forklift was used to load 2 pallets of iPad onto a truck
* The iPads had just arrived from China and were intended to be distributed to retailers throughout the US
* A suspect, Renel Rene Richardson, was reportedly rounded up on Saturday.
* He tipped off coworkers, whom I assume reported him to authorities, because he had been asking suspicious questions about the shipment and about where the forklifts could be found.
* At this point authorities have yet to recover the stolen goods but it may only be a matter of time.
* Hopefully they do recover them. Would really suck for customers and retailer who are already dealing with long ship times and delays of the iPad mini.
V Apple's stock takes a pummeling
* The past few weeks haven't been kind to the stock market in general, but Apple's numbers have been hit particularly hard
* The price closed up 0.39% on Friday, but overall Apple is down 24.8% from it's September all time high price of $702.10
* So are stock holders running scared? New Apple hardware VP Dan Riccio sold off 20,000 of his shares this week reportedly netting him 11 million bucks. He did set aside $525,000 for charity.
* So what's going on?
* One likely reason for the sell offs by investors seems to be concerns of changes to the capital gains taxes now that the elections over. Belief is that those will rise soon, so investors want to cash out now to keep more of their gains. Makes sense.
* Other concerns could be the state of the global economy in general and maybe uncertainty of how the company will perform in the wake if the recent management shakeup.
V iMore did a nice round of an analyst done by equity research arm of Barclays ("Are the risks to Apple's stock as serious as some investors think?")
* They cite 8 potential investor concerns
* 1) Long term operating margins
* 2) competition for iPhone
* 3) competition for iPad
* 4) no “next big thing
* 5) concerns over maps
* 6) management changes
* 7) production execution
* 8) execution risks in vertical integration
* As iMore points out the first 3 items all distill down to concerns about Apple's ability to turn a profit. Based on Apple's position and revenue numbers in tablets, smartphones, and PC over the past year the question is why is this even a concern? Apple makes more profits and has seen great growth in all these segments, They also have long tern contracts in place with suppliers to seem to be able to remain profitable.
* No next big thing? Really? Apple still has yet to make a play in the TV space and they continue to lead tablets in the meantime. We also know they are planning something new in the Pro PC space, so lets see what they do. I have a hard time believing they are going to suddenly stop innovating.
* Maps in my mind has already blown over and if it hasn't I have no doubt in Eddie "the fixer" Cue's ability to get it on track.
* I have already said I believe the management changes can only leader to better control and integration of Apple's products, OS, and services. It will give them a stronger position, not a weaker one.
V The last two production execution and execution risks in vertical integration.
* This is supply constraints and production issues. These are a concern for Apple and they have had these issues, but so have their competitors
* Overall I also feel that Apple does need to get better control of product quality. Slips like the scratching issues on the iPhone 5 tarnish otherwise stellar product launches.
* Execution risks in vertical integration, basically comes down to moving away from Samsung. That is already happening to some success, but the concern would be are Apple's new suppliers up to the task, on that only time will tell.
* Net result is that most of the concerns in my opinion seem minor and I feel Apple is up to any challenges. My guess is that 2013, may not see the same aggressive product innovation or growth of 2012, but will still show Apple doing much better than the competition
V Google leads smartphones, but Apple still profits
* Gartner released their 3rd quarter smartphone report and Apple and Android combined make up 86.3 percent of smartphone market
* And on the actual hardware it's Samsung and Apple at the top. Together accounting for 46.5% of all global smartphone handsets
* The Gartner report does also break down all mobile handset sales and there Samsung holds 22.9% share, followed by Nokia at 19.2% and then Apple's iPhone at 5.5%.
* Asymco analyst Horace Dediu tweeted that there are just 3 companies in the smartphone market making a profit and that just two, Apple and Samsung, are taking the lion's share
* Dediu estimates that Apple is tops with 60% of total profits, followed by Samsung with 39%, and the HTC with 1%.
* The numbers were later clarified saying that LG does make a profit as well, but their share comes in at just 0.01%
* So I feel that I just have to mention that when so many analysts and sites like to focus on unit shipments and unit sales as the measure of who's winning the smartphone wars to me it's a distorted picture.
* Apple's smaller unit share actually nets them the most profit, so who's really winning?
V On the PC side, Windows 8 seems to be getting very mixed reviews and might ultimately mean more customers for Apple
* Internet software firm Avast conducted a survey of PC owners for USAToday to see how many PC owners planned to buy and new Windows 8 system
* The survey covered a huge sample of 350,000 poll responses.
* Of those surveyed just 16% said they were planning a new computer purchase. That seems in line with the trends we seeing with declining PC sales in general.
* But what was good news for Apple, and not so good for Microsoft, is that of that 16% 42% said their next computer purchase was going to be an Apple product
* 30% planned to buy a new iPad and 12% a Mac.
* Another report from Cowen and Co. seems to confirm that the iPad mini isn't so much cannibalizing iPad sales as it is bringing new customers to Apple at the expense of PC sales.
* That's more good news for Apple as I imagine the delayed PC purchase from the iPad combined with the halo effect tends to lead to a future Mac sale or at least more iOS devices in the household.
V iMacs may not be home for Christmas
* Even when Apple announced their new iMac models they gave an indication that shipping times were going to be close to the holiday season
* According to Apple the 21.5" iMacs would be shipping sometime in November with the 27" models arriving in December.
* In the latest quarterly results call Tim Cook reiterated that they expected iMac shipments to be significantly constrained due the the product line being "in transition".
* Even before the announcement of the new systems I had a source tell me that at least the 27" models were likely to see delays because of difficulties in the manufacturing process.
* What we are getting now is more specific details on what the nature of the problem is.
* There seem to be at least two potential issues and it could be that both are actually giving suppliers trouble.
* The first is the new lamination process on the display. That is actually what my source had eluded to as an issue.
* Apple is now laminating the LCD and glass layers to make a much thinner display
* The second reported trouble spot may be the “friction-stir welding” technique that Apple mentioned during the announcement.
* That welding process is also used in automobile and airplane manufacturing, so it seems less likely, but maybe transitioning it to consumer electronics manufacturing is proving trickier than expected.
* The net result unfortunately may be disappointed customers this holiday season and that's not likely to play out well for Apple.
V Increased data usages tied to iOS bug
* Several of you reported to me that it seemed like your cellular data usage went up when you installed iOS 6 despite any change in cellular data using behavior.
* I had not really noticed a large increase in my personal data usage since upgrading, but enough people have mentioned it to make it clear something was afoot.
* Now several sites have reported confirming a bug in iOS 6 that might be the culprit.
* PRX (Public Radio Exchange) and This American Life get credit for doing the digging and the bug appears to be related to the AV Foundation framework which handles audio streaming among other things.
* This American Life say the bug in the form of a whopping CDN data bill for October.
* What's seems to be happening is that the requesting player application will start making multiple requests per second and then close them rapidly.
* The file still gets streamed properly by the additional request all overlap and have some bandwidth overhead.
* The new result is that the total amount of data streamed can end up being significantly larger then the actual size of the source data file.
* In one case PRX saw a single 30MB episode cause the transfer of over 100MB of data.
* PRX did their testing over Wi-Fi, but it's believed the same behavior should be occurring over cellular and LTE
* If all this is accurate, and there is no reason to believe it isn't, Apple has a big problem.
* This is costing people real money on both sides of the equation and I can only imagine will result in a class action being filed against Apple and the cell companies.
V Apple.com 'start' page returns
* According to AppleInsider Apple's startpage has returned after going MIA and redirecting users to the main apple.com homepage back in June
* The page, which is set as the default when you first install Safari is at apple.com/startpage
* The design appears to not have changed, so it's unclear why Apple was redirecting the URL for the past 6 moths.
* It features Apple's latest products, the latest news headlines, featured videos, Apple store products, movie trailers, and an "iTunes this week" section.
V Apple HDTV still on again off again
* Depending on who's source you believe Apple either is just about to launch their own HDTV or they are a long way off
* Seems like we like to just cover all bases right? Good news is that with both rumors out there it's 100% sure that one of them is right.
* This week Barron’s reported Jefferies analyst James Kisner saying the product release was "imminent"
* AllThingsD then shot down that claim saying that Apple is talking with cable companies about a new TV service, but that their sources don;t thing anything is ready.
* Apple themselves have already been pushing analysts away from the idea that they have a product ready and Apple has yet to notify programmers that they are ready to start shipping a new product.
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V Productive Macs Bundle
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V Feedback, Comments and Commentary
V Office for iOS Feedback and more
V Hans from Denmark wrote in to say that if you rely on track changes in Word and you want an iOS solution, you should check out Quick Office HD for iPad (USD $19.99)
* As he notes, it's not a complete feature for feature match to Office on Mac, but it does offer creating, editing, and viewing changes in .doc and .docx files
* It looks like it supports creating, viewing, and editing of Office 1997 - 2010 Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files
V Has also gave an update for iOS 6 Maps in the Copenhagen area.
* Originally Flyover covered just a 3 km area around the city. He says that was recently expanded to about 30km and that direction in that area at least have proven accurate. He does note that the POI info needs work.
V A month later than expected Apple also finally rolled out iOS turn by turn directions to in Australia
* How's it performing for you?
* Eddie Cue has already reportedly become heavily involved in the day to day operations of the mapping teams, so positive changes are expected to come quickly.
V If you're still not happy with Apple's maps there were reports this week that Google has begun outside testing of a stand alone Google Maps app for iOS
* The question is will Apple let it in the store?
* They have a history of being particularly rough on letting Google's apps in. Both the Google and Google Voice apps had delays
* Google also has said they aren't positive Apple will let it in, but at least they'll try.
* Reportedly it will have turn-by-turn built in. Reportedly one of the features they refused to let Apple have and ultimately one that caused Apple to implement it's own solution.
V Bradley had an idea on why sometimes deleting an app on iOS may cause it to re-sync when you connect via USB
* "I would suggest going into iTunes preferences and resetting all warnings. This should force a message to appear asking him to confirm whether or not he really wants to remove the app from his device when he syncs it to iTunes"
* I think this warning though is the "Purchased items" one. iTunes will tell you it had found purchased items on your device and ask you if you want to sync them to your Mac. If you don't then the next time you sync the items will be removed because iTunes doesn't have a copy of the App to sync over.
* There is a "Do not ask me again" checkbox.
V I had the same issue recently where I removed an app on my Phone, but on the next sync over a USB cable it was put back on.
* I was able to fix it like this:
* I deleted the app on the device
* Then I did a wi-fi sync (when I did that it became unchecked in iTunes)
* Then I docked and sync'd via the cable and after that the app wasn't moved back to my phone.
* After that I seemed to be able to delete apps on my device and the immediately sync via the cable and they would stay removed.
* In watching the Apps in the app list in iTunes, with wi-fi sync enabled, I could see that when I deleted the app on the device and then pressed sync (when not hard wired) in iTunes in a few seconds the app would become unchecked in iTunes.
* Seems that maybe apps that were installed prior to iOS 6 updated have this strange "re-add" behavior, but once you removed and then re-install after that the can be removed and stay removed.
V iTunes Match renewal issues?
* I received and email from Michael. iTunes Match is now a year old and renewals are coming due.
* Some customers seemed to have received a notice that their subscriptions failed to auto-renew and that their was an error with payment
* This seemed to start on the 16th and this thread has some details
* Reportedly Apple iTunes support has informed some customers that there was an issue, but that it's now fixed.
* My iTunes Match streaming over LTE issues seem to be resolved and others are noting not getting the false "expired" notices either.
* Michael confirmed that as of Sunday his renewal issues have not been resolved.
V Clearing Cookies in Safari
* So sometimes if your having issues on a web site, especially one that offers a "remember login" feature, one potential fix can be to reset your cookies.
V In Safari on the Mac
* Safari > Preferences
* Go to the 'Privacy' tab and click the 'Remove All Website Data…' button
* It will ask you if you are sure you want to remove all data, click OK and ALL your cookie data will be removed for ALL sites
V You can also go to Safari > Reset Safari…
* Check the box for 'Remove all website data' and click 'Reset'
* In this case you won;t be asked to confirm removing all the data
V In iOS
* Settings > Safari
* Tap the 'Clear Cookies and Data' button
* Confirm by tapping 'Clear Cookies and Data'
* But in both these cases you'll remove all the cookies and data in Safari for all sites. What if you just want to remove the cookies for a single site?
V On the Mac
* Safari > Preferences > Privacy
* Wait until you see the 'Details…' button under the 'Remove All Website Data≥' button
* In the Details sheet, use the search field and type the domain for the site you want to remove cookies for. i.e. 'apple.com'
* Select the site and then click the 'Remove' button
* You can also simply select one or more sites from the list and do the same thing.
* When your finished removing the cookies for individual sites click 'Done'
V On iOS
* Settings > Safari
* Scroll all the way down to the bottom and tap 'Advanced'
* Tap 'Website Data'
* Scroll down and click the 'Show All Sites' button
* Click the 'Edit' button and then you can scroll through and delete data for individual sites
* If you scroll all the way to the bottom there is also a 'Remove All Website Data' button
* When finished click 'Done'
* Well that's all great, but what if you want to delete individual cookies from a site?
V On the Mac
* Enable the Developer menu. Safari > Preferences > Advanced.
* Check on the 'Show Develop menu in menu bar' option. Close the Preferences.
* Now go to the site you want to remove individual cookies for. i.e. apple.com
* Once on the site choose Develop > Show Web Inspector
* From the Web inspector panel (or window), the the right column click on the 'Storage' tab (2nd item)
* Then click on 'Cookies' (cookie icon)
* Now in the main panel you'll see each cookie and you can select any one and press 'delete' to remove it.
* It's cool too because in this view you can see the data that individual sites track in each cookie.
V On iOS
* Only works in iOS 6
* Settings > Safari
* Scroll all the way down to the bottom and tap 'Advanced'
* Flip on the 'Web Inspector'
* Browse to the site you want to remove cookies for,
* Now connect your iOS device to your Mac via the connector cable and open the Safari app on your device.
* Open Safari on your Mac and make sure the Developer menu is enabled there too.
* Now if you go under 'Develop' you should see your iOS device listed and it's submenu should show the site your on.
* Select that URL from the Develop > iOS Device menu and the web inspector should appear
* From the Web inspector panel (or window), the the right column click on the 'Storage' tab (2nd item)
* Then click on 'Cookies' (cookie icon)
* Now in the main panel you'll see each cookie and you can select any one and press 'delete' to remove it.
* It's cool too because in this view you can see the data that individual sites track in each cookie.
V Adding users to shared PhotoStreams
* One of the new features with iOS 6 and iPhoto 9.4 in Mac OS 10.8 Mountain Lion is the ability to create shared PhotoStreams
* These can also include a "public" website gallery (hidden URL) or can be limited to viewing in iPhoto and the iOS Photos app.
V In iPhoto
* Open its iPhotos > Preferences
* Click on the Photo Stream tab
* Make sure that Photo Stream is enabled
* Now go to your iPhoto library and select the images you want in your shared PhotoStream
* Choose 'PhotoStream' from the Share menu
* Click New PhotoStream and in the sheet that appears and enter the email addresses of the people you want to share the PhotoStream with. Also enter a name for your PhotoStream
* When you create the PhotoStream emails will be sent to the people you invited and they will be able to access the PhotoStream on their iOS devices and in iPhoto or Aperture in Mountain Lion
V On iOS
* The process is similar
* Go to Settings > iCloud and make sure PhotoStream is on
* Also go into the PhotoStream settings and make sure Shared Photo Streams is turned ON
* Open the Photos app.
* Tap the 'Edit' button and select the Photos you want to Share
* Tap the Share button and in the panel that slides up choose 'PhotoStream'
* Tap the New Photo Stream… option and enter the emails of the people you want to share the stream with
* Enter a name for your PhotoStream
V If you'd also like to have Public website set up toggle the 'Public Webitew' option on
* This will display a URL and allow you to email a link to other to view your shared PhotoStream images on a website
* The is good for sharing with folks who don't have Macs or iOS devices running iOS 6 or 10.8 Mountain Lion
* At this time you cannot create protected websites, although the URL is fairy cryptic, so it is security through obscurity.
* Once set up members in a shared PhotoStream can "like" and comment on images.
* Only the creator of a shared PhotoStream can currently add images to it.
* Adding new people to a shared PhotoStream that is already set up is less than intuitive so here's how:
V On the Mac:
* Select the PhotoStream in iPhoto's Album pane
* Select the PhotoStream you want to add people to
* Click the info button at the bottom of the window
* Then you should see the 'Shared With…' section where you can add more people.
V On the iPad:
* I had the hardest time figuring this one out
* Launch the Photos app
* Tap the PhotoStream tab
* Tap the 'Edit' button
* Tao the PhotoStream you want to add people to
* A new window should appear with an Add People button. Tap that.
* In the To filed you can add people to the stream
* Tap the add button to finish.
V On iPhones and iPods
* Open the Photos app
* Tap on the PhotoStream tab
* Tap on the blue arrow for the PhotoStream you want to edit
* On the window that appears tap the Add People… option
* In the To field enter the emails of the people you want to add
* Tap Add and you're done.
V Applr private Beta
* interview with Michael
* We Have Communicators
V Closing
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V Thanks to my sponsors
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V Gazelle
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