hmm ...

chartier:

It’s a solid first-party option for users who are new to podcasts, iOS, or both, but I wager it’ll create the Instapaper Effect (the good kind) for third-party podcast apps.

i currently listen to my podcasts in approximately date order and use a smart playlist for that. although i’d love to have my podcasts separated from my music, there doesn’t appear to be a way to play podcasts in the new app other than: 1) click a tile with the picture of the podcast i want to play, 2) click the episode i want.

There is a calculator at the end of the article that lets you see how it breaks down for you. I ran a lot of numbers through it and I think I have the algorithms figured out. There are three parts to the rate:

1. A base price just to service the account = $0 if you only have basic phones, $10 if you only have tablets/jetpacks/USB (or basic phones), and a max of $50 if you have any smartphones on the account.

2. A per-device charge = $40 per smartphone, $30 per basic phone, $20 per jetpack/USB, and $10 per tablet.

3. A usage charge = $10 per 2GB of usage.

Plus taxes, of course, which is never shown in the rate, but ends up only being around $5-10.

Looking at the individual plan rates, most of those people will probably want to keep their current plans unless they have more than the minimum plan or have an iPad or jetpack — under the new plan, one smartphone + 2GB is $100, which would break even with 900 minutes (vs 450 minimum), 1000 messages and 2GB.

But for family plans, it’s different - it’s funny how similar these new rates look to the current rates for family plans … in my case, I have two iPhones on a small family plan (700 minutes + 2GB each + 1000 messages each), which is:

1. $50 to service the account.

2. per phone = $10.

3. per phone = $30 for the minimum of 2 GB data + $10 for 1000 messages.

When you break it down this way, you can see what they did = they swapped the old $10 to service the phone and $40 usage ($30 for 2GB data + $10 SMS) -to- $40 to service the phone + $10 for usage. So for people on plans like mine, this is a break-even deal, with a few perks:

1. The new plan is worse if I wasn’t using SMS at all, is the same with 1000 messages each, and is better if I wanted unlimited SMS (SMS is now unlimited in the new plan).

2. The new plan is the same for 700 minutes of voice, but would be better if I was using more than that.

3. And the new data plan is better overall - I can save money by dropping to 2GB combined (which I cannot do now), it’s the same for 4GB total, and if I need more than 4GB, it’s $10 per 2GB in the new plan vs the current rate of $30/$25/$16 per 2GB for the base amount. I’m guessing that overages are also $10 per 2GB in the new plan vs the current $10 per 1GB overage. Not sure how mobile hotspot works here - they haven’t released details on that yet.

I also have a “jetpack” (4G LTE card) with a $50 plan for the minimum 5GB plan (even though I typically use less than 2GB). In the new plan, I could add it for $20 and bump my usage up by 2GB for a total of $30 (or $20 saved).

And I could use that savings to add my iPad (I have 4G but have not turned it on yet) for just $10 + $10 for another 2GB. Overall, the plan works for me - I’ll be switching on June 28.

minimalmac:

My favorite take on today’s event yet. I think Kyle nails it in several ways. Starting here:

Apple’s hardware is getting to the point where it’s so good that it’s good enough for nearly everyone, so dramatic improvements like a retina display for Macs is a relatively minor improvement for users.

Like I said earlier, there is plenty in today’s announcements to want but, unless your tasks depend on you having the newest and fastest, nothing to really need. 

More importantly, and thus thrust of the post, he really nails what Siri means for the shape of possible future hardware from Apple:

…Siri could make the smartphone unnecessary for a lot of people in the same way that the iPad makes the PC unnecessary for many regular users. That’s what a disruptive innovation is, and it provides Apple with new, untrod territory to explore. If Siri continues to get better, and makes good on its promise, it will allow Apple to create new kinds of computing devices that do to the iPhone what the iPhone did to the iPod. 

I agree and think in only a couple of years time we will be in smack-our-head-we-shoulda-seen-that-coming territory largely due to Siri.

mosx:

This tip is pretty neat. It is based on the idea that Yahoo! is on a subdomain. Redirecting any calls to search.yahoo.com to DuckDuckGo leaves Yahoo!’s other services essentially intact.

If you use the “edit your hosts file” method, ALL of your search engines will go to DuckDuckGo if you configure it to use Yahoo instead. I tested this on Windows XP with Firefox, Safari and Chrome - no more Google search for me.

minimalmac:

So, today Apple released a very nerdy but quite well written in a way that humans can understand white paper on iOS security. It’s a fascinating read and I urge you to do so in full. At the outset, Apple provides the following explanation about the first level of security in iOS — The Secure…