Here’s how to get the reduced Apple Education discount on iPad 6, MacBook Air or any other eligible Apple product.
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Enlarge / Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., speaks during an event at Lane Technical College Prep High School in Chicago, Illinois, on Tuesday, March 27, 2018. (credit: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview with MSNBC and Recode on Wednesday that Silicon Valley, and notably Facebook, should be far more careful with its customers’ data in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica disclosures.
“I think the best regulation is no regulation, is self-regulation,” he said, according to Recode. “However, I think we’re beyond that here.”
Cook reiterated points that he and former CEO Steve Jobs made previously, that Apple’s business model—unlike Google, Facebook, and many other tech companies—is predicated on selling physical products rather than capturing data about customers.
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Apple’s first big event of 2018 is less than 24 hours away, only unlike most of its keynotes, this one won’t be live streamed. Don’t worry. Cult of Mac will be in attendance at Apple’s “field trip” event and of course we’ll be live blogging everything with up-to-the-minute info on all the new goodies. Not […]
(via Cult of Mac – Tech and culture through an Apple lens)
This story continues at The Next Web
The Next Web
Uber appeared set to hire Assaf Ronen, the former vice president of Amazon’s voice and natural user interface shopping, to lead its products — but it looks like that isn’t going to happen due to a discrepancy in his working history, according to Recode.
Uber discovered a discrepancy related to his tenure at Amazon, where the company appeared to be under the assumption he was working at Amazon at the time of offering him the job, and rescinded its offer, according to Recode. Ronen had actually left Amazon at the very end of 2017 and was not actually working at Amazon at the time, according to Recode, which posted a memo of new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s explanation of what happened. Ronen was brought in to take over the lead product role following the departure of former Twitter product lead and Google Maps exec Daniel Graf.
Since taking over, Khosrowshahi has tried to distance himself from the Uber under former CEO Travis Kalanick . Often times, CEOs will tell you that their number-one job is recruiting. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has mentioned it on a quarterly earnings call at least once a year for the past three years, for example, usually something to the extent of “my primary focus is on recruiting.” That’s obviously going to be a big tenet that will determine Khosrowshahi’s vision for the company and, ultimately, his legacy.
Current product VP Manik Gupta will be running the company’s product operations in the mean time, according to the memo obtained by Recode. Ronen would have been a marquee hire for Uber, but as the company has gone through a myriad of blunders under Kalanick, in addition to one of its autonomous vehicles being involved in an accident with a pedestrian on Monday, it looks like Uber is facing another hiccup in its turnaround at the top.
We reached out to Uber for additional comment and will update the story when we hear back.
While Apple has long wedged products like iPhones and Macs into TV shows as a form of marketing, the company appears to be taking a more open stance about it, a report suggested on Wednesday.
AppleInsider – Frontpage News
According to a report from Reuters, Google has been working on monetizing all the product searches that pass through it and almost inevitably go to Amazon by pointing buyers to other places they can purchase the same item. Search results won’t be affected, so you’ll likely still see Amazon among the top results if you look for something, but the sponsored shopping results will start showing products from its Shopping Actions partners.
Google is looking to turn product searches into purchases from select retailers with Shopping Actions was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
Android Police – Android news, reviews, apps, games, phones, tablets
He’ll remain at Greylock as a venture partner.
Venture capitalist Josh Elman is taking a senior role at the stock-trading company Robinhood, a move that will equip Robinhood with product expertise but also reduce the amount of time Elman spends at Greylock Partners, where he has established himself as a well-known consumer investor.
Robinhood said Wednesday that it had hired Elman, who worked as a product exec at big tech companies like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, as its VP of product. It’s part of a broader leadership ramp up at the company as it begins to apply its no-fee trading platform to assets like cryptocurrencies. The company is also searching for VPs of engineering and customer support.
Elman will become a “venture partner” at Greylock — which is typically not a full-time role but allows a venture capitalist to sit on boards and advise the firm, even if not always leading new deals. Elman has helped Greylock over the last six years make investments in social media companies like Houseparty, Medium and Nextdoor. Elman will remain on his existing Greylock boards.
“In January, I started talking with a few of my partners about how I want to spend the next decade of my professional life,” Elman said in a statement. “What gets me the most energized is when I can dig in on product with a hyper-growth company.”
Robinhood is positioning itself as a rival to Coinbase, the consumer portal for trading assets like bitcoin. Robinhood promises to offer lower fees to appeal to millennials like those who use the app to trade public stocks.
The hire was first reported by TechCrunch.
Once upon a time, Apple was a company that wouldn’t announce a new product until it was ready to ship. I still remember how smug Apple bloggers used to be when Apple’s rivals would announce a new smartphone or some other product that wouldn’t ship for a month or so. Those days are long over. Apple now regularly announces products that aren’t ready to be released. What’s more, several of the company’s recent products have been plagued with delays or manufacturing difficulties. In fact, it took Apple about a year to figure out how to build AirPods quickly enough to meet demand. That’s definitely not something that would have happened even a few short years ago.
Apple’s HomePod speaker is another good example. It was announced in June 2017 during Apple’s big WWDC 2017 keynote, and yet it didn’t begin shipping until February 2018, a whopping eight months later. Apple’s silence might have suggested fans would have to wait nearly that long to see Apple’s AirPower wireless charging pad released as well, but it looks like we might not have to wait quite that long to see it hit stores.
Apple unveiled the AirPower wireless charger in September 2017 during its big iPhone event. On one hand, it made sense to announce a wireless charger at an event where Apple introduced its first ever iPhone models to support wireless charging. Of course, it also would’ve made sense to release the charger around the same time as the iPhone 8 in September or at least the iPhone X in November. But alas, it has now been more than six months since Apple’s AirPower announcement and the product still hasn’t shipped.
Two independent reports published recently suggested that the wait for the AirPower pad was finally coming to an end, with a release planned for sometime in late March. Now, a third report can be added to the list. Digitimes on Tuesday reported that Apple will release the AirPower charging accessory by the end of March, which would give the company just over two weeks to get its act together.
“With Apple set to launch its in-house designed wireless charging pad AirPower by the end of March, Taiwan suppliers of glass passivated package (GPP) bridge rectifiers needed to support the device expect their shipments to double in the first quarter of 2018 from a quarter earlier and rise further in the second quarter, according to industry sources,” the Taiwan-based site wrote.
It’s still not clear why it has taken Apple and its manufacturing partners so long to get things in order for the AirPower’s launch. The accessory is somewhat unique, allowing users to wirelessly charge three different devices at once. Most wireless charging pads only have one coil, though there are a number of “wireless triple charger” accessories available now from Chinese accessory makers. While these Chinese chargers are priced far lower than the rumored $ 199 price point Apple is supposedly planning for the AirPower mat, they also aren’t compatible with the Apple Watch like the AirPower accessory.
Of note, Digitimes makes no mention of release timing for the AirPods wireless charging case that will need to be released before AirPods owners can make use of the AirPower mat.
Assaf Ronen has been running the e-commerce giant’s voice shopping efforts.
In another high-profile executive departure at Uber, product head Daniel Graf is leaving the company, according to sources. His replacement is Amazon’s top voice shopping VP, Assaf Ronen.
It is not clear where Graf, who had previously held top product jobs at Google (good) and Twitter (not as good), will be going.
Update: Uber confirmed the hiring of Ronen and the departure of Graf, who will remain as an adviser for a time. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi also sent a memo to staff (see below).
Uber declined to comment, and Graf did not return a message requesting comment.
Ronen is a big get, having done stints at Microsoft and Amazon. At the e-commerce giant, he was VP of voice and natural user interface shopping — no, the Israeli entrepreneur was not responsible for the evil Alexa laugh — a big area of growth there.
The move is another sign that Khosrowshahi, who replaced the ousted Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick as CEO, is consolidating his management team. He has hired a new COO and top legal officer, for example, as many from the Kalanick era depart. Culture head Frances Frei left recently, although she will remain an Uber adviser.
Graf came to Uber in late 2015, as head of Marketplace Dynamics, managing the algorithms that matched drivers with riders and set prices; he reported to then-VP of product Ed Baker. Graf later replaced Baker when he left the company in March 2017.
In an interview with TechCrunch last fall, Graf seemed stoked about the new regime: “If I look where we are now, with Dara on board, with our product pipelines, with what we’ve shipped over the last few months with our business numbers, if I look at all this as a holistic picture, I couldn’t feel better about the company.”
Graf is not the only top product executive to leave in this new era of Uber. As Recode first reported, Graf’s direct report and head of driver product Aaron Schildkrout left the company in December 2017 — a decision, he told staff in an internal memo, that was long in the offing.
Here is Khosrowshahi’s memo to Uber staff. (I am the leaked-to reporter mentioned, although I work hard for my money, Dara, so props please!)
Team Uber:
I wanted to let you know about some changes in the Uber Product world. After nearly 2.5 years at Uber, Daniel has decided to leave. This was not an easy or quick decision. In true Swiss fashion, Daniel wanted to ensure that 2018 planning and perf were done, the team was stable and I had a plan for leadership of the team going forward.
We had hoped to announce this in a few weeks, but unfortunately it leaked to a journalist and we wanted to let you know first.
Fortunately, we’ve got some good news, too: Assaf Ronen will be joining Uber as SVP and Head of Product beginning later this month. Assaf currently leads Alexa voice shopping for Amazon, and previously spent many years at Microsoft running a number of consumer and enterprise products including Skype.
I am so grateful to Daniel for all he has achieved. He is a brilliant product strategist, an enthusiastic evangelist for Uber’s products (while at the same time always taking a measure of our competition), he is never satisfied with “good enough,” a fantastic team builder, and is incredibly hard-working. Daniel has agreed to stay on as an advisor to the company and help get Assaf up to speed.
As I’ve said, we’re going to lean in on product this year — it’s the core of our service and will be key to our continued success in the future. Thanks to Daniel for helping lay an incredible foundation, and welcome to Assaf as he gets started soon!
Onward,
Dara
