Jordan Golson

Ron Johnson, the architect behind the Apple Retail Stores, has moved on to be CEO of JC Penney. But, he still remembers the lessons he learned while at Apple. Writing for the Harvard Business Review, Johnson reflects on what makes the Apple Store unique: People come to the Apple Store for the experience — and they're willing to pay a premium for that. There are lots of components to that...

Apple has frequently promoted how much money has been paid out to developers selling apps via the App Store. The latest pronouncement was during the iPhone 4S introduction when Scott Forstall announced that Apple had paid out three billion dollars for app sales. The point Fostall is making when sharing these totals is that developing for iOS is more profitable for developers than other...

According to a study by Metrico Wireless, a mobile performance measurement company, AT&T has the fastest iPhone 4S data speeds for both upload and download. Sprint's data speed is roughly five times slower, echoing earlier anecdotal reports of poor Sprint data connections. In all, Metrico performed 21,000 Web page downloads nationwide with the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 over the networks of the...

In a curious move, AT&T has raised the subsidized price of its cheapest iPhone to $0.99, up from free. When the iPhone 4S was announced in October, Apple specifically mentioned in its press release that the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS would be available in 8GB capacities for subsidized pricing of US$99 and for free, respectively. During AT&T's Q3 2011 earnings call with analysts on October...

The Financial Times' web app has drawn more than 1 million readers since June, growing by 300,000 readers since late September. However, the raw numbers don't tell the whole story. In its press release about breaking the 1 million mark, the FT staff built an infographic with data from its mobile website. 20 percent of FT page views are from mobile devices, and 15 percent of its digital...

Childhood classic A Charlie Brown Christmas has made its way to the iPad as an interactive book that Mashable describes as "spectacular" and "like magic". The app turns the 1965 television special into an interactive children's book, giving kids (and nostalgic adults) the chance to "play Schroeder's piano, finger paint with the gang, go carolling with the Peanuts choir, and participate in the...

Every third Thursday, the guys at Signal Snowboards make a custom (and a little off-the-wall) board to push the limits of snowboard design. This month, the guys built iShred, an aluminum-based board with a built-in iPad 2 and a light-up wi-fi beacon. The board turned out to be much more difficult to make than Signal had anticipated, but they got it done in the end -- though with the aluminum...

Algoriddim has released the latest version of its well-regarded DJing software djay for Mac. The software allows DJ's, both amateur and professional, to perform and record music sessions via a number of unique and easy-to-use features. Perhaps the largest new feature in version 4 is Harmonic Match. Djay analyzes the entire iTunes Library detecting musical key for each song, allowing the...

VolumeSnap has returned to the excellent iOS photography app Camera+. Last year, developer TapTapTap released an update to its Camera+ application with a small hack -- users could press the volume-up button to take a picture, instead of needing to press a soft-button on the screen. This was considered an unauthorized hack and Apple banned the app until TapTapTap removed the feature. Apple...

Apple has released an update to Final Cut Pro X, taking it to version 10.0.2. What’s new in version 10.0.2: - Fixes an issue in which a title may revert to the default font after restarting Final Cut Pro X - Resolves an issue that could cause files recorded with certain third-party mobile devices to play back incorrectly - Addresses a stability issue caused by changing the start time on a...

Stanford University is offering the iOS 5 edition of its well-regarded iPhone and iPad application development course free on iTunes U. Instructor Paul Hegarty attributes the course popularity to the appeal of Apple products and the instant gratification of creating apps for mobile devices. "There's something about developing for the iOS platform that's really exciting and fun because it runs...

When friends ask famed photographer Annie Leibovitz what camera they should buy, she suggests the iPhone. Appearing on NBC's new Rock Center news program, Leibovitz suggested the iPhone because it is "the snapshot camera of today", saying it is "accessible and easy". It appears Leibovitz is a firm believer in the theory that the best camera in the world is the one you have with...

Minecraft, the block-building phenomenon, arrives on the iPhone and iPad for all iOS users tonight. TouchArcade reports that initial impressions on its forums "seem positive, although some have noted disappointment with how limited the game feels compared to the 'full' version. There's no online play, for instance, only local WiFi, and your portable Minecraft worlds are devoid of both animals...

As noted by 9to5Mac, Apple has seeded a beta of OS X Lion 10.7.3 to developers. The beta, build number 11D16, asks developers to focus testing on iCloud document storage, Address Book, iCal and Mail. OS X 10.7.2 was released to the public in mid-October with iCloud support being its most notable...

Netflix today released an updated app for Android tablets, namely the just launched Kindle Fire and the new Barnes and Noble Nook, and says the update will be coming to the iPad in the next few weeks. The new design is much more immersive and provides greater focus on the growing number of titles in the Netflix catalog. In fact, the new interface displays twice as many movies and TV shows as...

The first thing many iTunes Match users will want to do upon purchasing the service is to upgrade all their matched music to the 256Kbps. Unfortunately, there is no push-button ability to do this, but it is possible with a few simple steps -- but make sure you've already turned iTunes Match on and it has finished running its initial match. From Macworld: Make a Smart Playlist Create a Smart...

MacBook Air Digitimes is reporting that small numbers of components for a 15" ultra-thin notebook from Apple will start shipping this month with mass shipments of the notebook beginning in March. Upstream suppliers of Apple have recently started shipping a small volume of components for a 15-inch ultra-thin notebook model from Apple in November and the device could be either MacBook Air or...

After a bit of delay, Apple launched iTunes Match today. The new $25/year service offers users the ability to match their existing iTunes library with high quality versions in Apple's iCloud. The new service, however, has generated a bit of confusion about what exactly happens to your music library after you have enabled it. One of the first questions, how to determine the iCloud status of a...

With today's release of iTunes Match, some users with very large music libraries are discovering an annoying restriction. Those with non-iTunes Music Store libraries with more than 25,000 songs are unable to activate iTunes Match. There simply isn't an option to select only certain songs to upload to iCloud. Fortunately, Macworld has a quixotic but effective solution. iTunes has the ability ...

Amazon's first color tablet, the Kindle Fire, began shipping today following its September introduction. The Fire, the top-of-the-line Kindle tablet, has reportedly given some potential iPad purchasers second thoughts as the Fire is some $300 cheaper than the least-expensive iPad. Image via Wired - NYTimes - "It is designed almost exclusively for consuming stuff, particularly material you...