Having determined what would serve customers, Tim Cook and his team did an impeccable job of executing to provide those products efficiently. By giving customers what they want in a cost-effective manner (from the company perspective) Apple generated huge profits.

On the other hand, the switch from +Google Maps to an in-house system was apparently driven by internal business decisions in the battle against Google and +Android. Rather than focusing on what was best for customers, Apple was looking at what was perceived to be best for Apple. At some point Apple Maps may be superior to the Google product but it's clearly not today.

When creating the iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air and other products, Apple waited until the product was ready for prime time to avoid alienating customers. This time they rushed and customers are paying the price. No company is perfect.  How Apple follows up this hiccup in the next year or two will tell us a lot about the post-Steve Jobs era.

Reshared post from +Jeff Jarvis

Should I say it? Oh, what the hell, I can't resist…
NYA NYA NYA!
Murdoch backs down from his high horse about Google as a parasite and now wants the gentle giant to link to his Times of London, which is obviously showing chinks in its pay wall. 

First Apple came up with Thunderbolt, the crazy fast port that it developed with Intel and they followed that up with the Lightning connector for the new iPhone and iPods.  If you think of weather, we don't get bolts of thunder, we get bolts of lightning. The ports should probably be called LightningBolt and Thunder.

Then there is the problem of physics. Lightning is of course the arc of electricity that we see as a bright flash of light. Light travels at about 700 million mph. Thunder is the sound that accompanies a flash of lightning and it travels at about 700 mph. Despite the fact that thunder travels at about 1/1,000,000th of the speed of light, that's the name that has been applied to the speedy computer interface while the Lightning is used to label the relatively laggardly USB2 based iOS connector.

Reshared post from +Jim Fawcette

Don't Buy Mobile Phone Insurance

SFGate.com's James Temple does a follow-up on his stolen cell phone and explains why getting insurance isn't worthwhile.

* Deductibles are high, such as AT&T's $199 for the iPhone
* You're not guaranteed a true replacement even with insurance. "Replacement equipment may, at our option, be refurbished equipment or different equipment of like kind and quality."
* Cracked displays may not be covered. 
* Loss due to nuclear war isn't covered (really! both fission and fusion)
* If the carrier doesn't provide adequate coverage, you've signed away your right to sue.

Temple: "Instead of buying insurance, Consumer Reports recommends that consumers hold onto their previous phone and simply switch back for the remaining term of the contract in the case of a loss. "

Reshared post from +Dan Gillmor

Bill Nye deserves the thanks of anyone who wants actual science to be taught in science classes.

America's economic competitors hope he'll fail, of course — they want US schoolchildren to learn religious myths rather than reality.

Southeast Michigan and particularly Dearborn is home to what is reputed to be the largest concentration of Arabs anywhere outside of the Middle East. Many if not most of those people of Arab descent are Muslims of various sects including both Shia and Sunni, but many are also Christians and there are even atheists. 

Those Arabs live side by side with people descended from Europe, South Asia, the Far East and just about everywhere else practicing Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sihkism and every other faith or lack thereof under the sun. For the most part they coexist in relative harmony aside from the usual crap that afflicts any urban center, pretty much anywhere in the world. They all live under the same laws as Americans anywhere else in the country. 

Left to their own devices, the vast majority of people will just try to go about their own daily lives, earning a living, raising families, and trying to have a little fun along the way. Being in a continuous stay of conflict is just too damn hard. No matter what part of the political or religious spectrum you hail from, extremism is never a good thing. If that's what you want, please go find yourself an enclave in rural Idaho and keep to yourself. 

Leave us peaceful folk alone!