CarPlay Shown Off in New Promo Video from Volvo, Wi-Fi Connections ‘Coming Soon’

Following this morning’s announcement from Apple that it will officially begin rolling out its “CarPlay” iOS vehicle integration with Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo on board as the first launch partners this week, Volvo has published its own press release announcing the launch. Volvo’s promotional materials include a new video briefly showing off CarPlay in action.

Volvo also goes a step beyond the basic CarPlay implementation to take advantage of the large portrait touch screen on the upcoming XC90 SUV, making both Apple and Volvo controls available simultaneously.

Volvo enhances Apple’s capabilities by linking them to a specially-developed interface that allows drivers to use voice and touch controls to access Apple features and services, ensuring the entire interaction is always safe and easy to use.

With Apple CarPlay, users will immediately recognise their basic iPhone applications, such as phone, messages, music and navigation. The initial offer also features third party audio apps including Spotify, the popular music streaming service.

Volvo’s press release also makes clear that while the initial implementation of CarPlay will require a wired connection using an iPhone’s Lightning connector, Wi-Fi connectivity will be “coming soon”.

Apple Debuts New Ad Campaign for iPhone 5c on Tumblr [iOS Blog]

Apple has launched a new campaign for the iPhone 5c on popular social blogging platform Tumblr, reports 9To5Mac. Featuring the tagline “Every color has a story”, the campaign’s page contains five videos each representing a different theme based on the combination of a certain iPhone 5c color and case. For instance, a video showing the yellow iPhone 5c and a black case displays a pattern mimicking concert lights, while another ad featuring the blue iPhone 5c and a white case imitates skaters on an ice rink.

The page also appears to be showing up as a “Sponsored Post” for a number of Tumblr users, indicating that Apple paid to promote its content on the network. The campaign itself is notable as Apple has traditionally remained off of social media aside from its official iTunes Facebook page and official App Store Twitter profile.

Apple revealed in its Q1 2014 earnings call that it saw lower-than-expected sales of the iPhone 5c due to high sales of the iPhone 5s, with other reports suggesting that the 5s was outselling the 5c by a two-to-one margin. Shortly after the phones were introduced, Apple scaled back iPhone 5c production while ramping up iPhone 5s production to meet customer demand.

Apple Hiring Engineers and Supply Chain Managers in Asia to Speed Up Production

Apple is hiring engineers and supply chain managers for its operations in Asia as its seeks to expand and quicken the production of new and existing products, reports the Wall Street Journal. These new teams will work out of the company’s main Asian campus in Shanghai, China and its office in Taipei, Taiwan.

The report states that the company is hiring engineers away from HTC, Inventec and other Taiwanese tech firms to build an engineering team in Taipei. These new hires will quicken the pace of production by working closely with Apple’s Asian suppliers on hardware components for the iPhone and iPad. They also will oversee software quality assurance.

Apple has added several hundred new engineers and operations staff in China over the past two years, with a blitz of hiring that began in mid-2013, people familiar with the matter said. The total number of engineers and operations staff in China now exceeds 600, they said.

Apple also is adding supply chain managers to its Asian staff in response to ongoing criticism of working conditions in select supplier factories.

Apple’s new operations in Asia may help combat supply constraints that have plagued recent product launches. The company admitted during its Q1 2013 earnings conference call that production issues limited the supply of the iMac during the holiday shopping season. More recently, Apple warned of low Retina iPad mini inventory prior to the tablet’s launch in late 2013.

Apple Announces ‘CarPlay’ iOS Vehicle Integration Feature

As indicated last week, Apple today announced its CarPlay iOS vehicle integration feature at the Geneva International Motor Show, which allows an iPhone to take over the in-dash display of a car, providing access to aspects such as navigation, phone functions, messages, and music.

CarPlay will be accessible this week with vehicles from manufacturers such as Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, while other manufacturers such as BMW Group, Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar Land Rover, Kia, Mitsubishi, Nissan, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Subaru, Suzuki and Toyota will receive the update later.

“CarPlay has been designed from the ground up to provide drivers with an incredible experience using their iPhone in the car,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPhone and iOS Product Marketing. “iPhone users always want their content at their fingertips and CarPlay lets drivers use their iPhone in the car with minimized distraction. We have an amazing lineup of auto partners rolling out CarPlay, and we’re thrilled it will make its debut this week in Geneva.”

The feature was originally named iOS in the Car and was revealed last year at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). While Apple executives went on record to say that the functionality was “very important to the company” and is an essential “part of the ecosystem,” reports earlier this year stated that CarPlay was plagued by development issues. However, a video of the feature surfaced last month, and showed support for multiple resolutions of external displays, touch input and hardware controls, and voice input.

CarPlay will be available as an update to iOS 7 and works with Lighting-enabled iPhones including the iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, and iPhone 5.

Apple announces CarPlay: in-vehicle voice and touch access to notifications, maps and music

Apple has officially announced CarPlay, its new in-car interface that’ll be compatible with new Ferrari, Mercedes and Volvo cars unveiled at the Geneva Auto Show this week. Designed “from the ground up” to bridge the gap between your iPhone and your auto, it will offer touch and Siri-based voice navigation of your smartphone services, through contacts and voicemail, through to notifications, map directions and music cueing — it will even support the likes of Spotify and iHeartRadio from launch too. The service will launch as an iOS update for Lightning-enabled iPhones (that’s version 5 and up), with CarPlay-compatible vehicles launching later this year. And if any of the above aren’t your preferred automate, Apple says that you can expect compatible cars from BMW, Ford, General Motors, Honda,Hyundai, Toyota and several more in the near future.

Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation, Mobile, Apple

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Tim Cook’s leadership style goes under the microscope in new book

Whatever you think of Apple’s products, there’s no denying that Tim Cook has played a large role in making them profitable, first as an operations executive and later in running the company. But just what kind of a leader is he? Thanks to an excerpt from Yukari Iwatani Kane’s upcoming book Haunted Empire, we have a clearer picture of what makes Cook tick. He’s both very meticulous and a motivator, according to Kane. While he’s known for holding six-hour review meetings and chewing people out for minor slip-ups, he also inspires hard work and encourages a charitable, friendly atmosphere at 1 Infinite Loop. He’s also characterized as relentless — the sort who’d go straight to the office after a red-eye flight. The excerpt likely won’t change your mind on Cook’s strategy, but it’s worth a read if you want to know what drives one of the technology industry’s most distinctive CEOs.

Filed under: Misc, Apple

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Source: Wall Street Journal

Apple Pushing Record Labels for More Exclusive Beyonce-Like iTunes Albums

Apple’s iTunes chief Robert Kondrk met with record label executives during Grammy Week in January about the potential of more exclusive album releases, like Beyoncé’s iTunes-exclusive album last December, according to Billboard.

Apple Inc.’s music chief Robert Kondrk has been pressuring major labels for releases similar to last year’s Beyonce exclusive, excluding services like YouTube and Spotify to help shore up slowing download sales, according to music executives familiar with the conversations.

While digital movie sales fell from 1.34 billion units to 1.24 billion units in 2013 due to the rise of streaming services like Spotify and YouTube, Beyoncé’s album sold 1 million copies globally on in a week iTunes alone.

Kondrk is using the album’s success to sell label executives on the prospect of exclusively releasing albums on digital storefronts like iTunes. He told executives the exclusives don’t have to be limited to iTunes as long as they weren’t on streaming services like Spotify. The move would be to preserve sales on digital storefronts.

Finally, Kondrk asked executives if they could lock down individual track sales until after a certain window of time, which would then allow users to purchase individual music tracks and listen to albums on streaming services. This is in stark contract to Steve Jobs’ sell of unbundled legal access to music when the iTunes Music Store was introduced in 2003.

In January, it was reported that digital music sales declined year-over-year for the first time since the opening of the iTunes Music Store as more users opt for streaming services such as Spotify, Rdio, Pandora and iTunes Radio.

Excerpt From New Book Offers Look at Tim Cook’s Management Style

The Wall Street Journal today published a new excerpt from former WSJ reporter Yukari Iwatani Kane’s new book Haunted Empire, Apple After Steve Jobs, offering a new look into the management style of Tim Cook.

Kane notes that when Cook started at Apple in 1998, he set high expectations for everyone working for him, asking them to act like Apple was a $20 billion company when they were a $6 billion company and to procure the best yields, delivery and prices on components.

To some, Cook was a machine; to others, he was riveting. He could strike terror in the hearts of his subordinates, but he could also motivate them to toil from dawn to midnight for just a word of praise.

Cook ran his operations meetings in an orderly and disciplined fashion, going through every item and finding any possible error in meetings that could last up to six hours long. These meetings, according to Kane, could sometimes be terrifying for employees.

Meetings with Cook could be terrifying. He exuded a Zenlike calm and didn’t waste words. “Talk about your numbers. Put your spreadsheet up,” he’d say as he nursed a Mountain Dew. (Some staffers wondered why he wasn’t bouncing off the walls from the caffeine.) When Cook turned the spotlight on someone, he hammered them with questions until he was satisfied. “Why is that?” “What do you mean?” “I don’t understand. Why are you not making it clear?” He was known to ask the same exact question 10 times in a row.

Unlike Jobs, Cook apparently used deafening silence when he wasn’t happy with something. For instance, the excerpt explains an incident where someone was unable to answer one of Cook’s questions so Cook didn’t say a word and let the silence fester, causing everyone in the room to stare at the table. The atmosphere of the room would grow to intense levels as Cook kept his eyes on the person who wasn’t able to answer until Cook pulled out an energy bar from his pocket to eat as he waited for an answer.

However, once Cook became CEO he made moves to make Apple feel more open internally than it had under Jobs. He opted to communicate with employees more often via emails and town-hall meetings. And, unlike Jobs, who opted to have lunch with Jony Ive, Cook would have lunch at the cafeteria and introduce himself to employees he didn’t know and ask to eat with them.

Haunted Empire, Apple After Steve Jobs will be published on March 18.