Benjamin Mayo reports on a couple of changes found on Apple’s website:

Apple has today officially transitioned away from its aging press portal in favor of the modern Apple Newsroom, which combines company press releases, photo coverage and other news into one place. All links to apple.com/pr now redirect to apple.com/newsroom.

At the same time, the company has also updated its executive biography pages with a fresh design update to fit in with the company’s recent website design trends and adopts the San Francisco typeface, finally retiring the Lucida Grande font.

These are both minor, but welcome changes. It made no sense for Apple to continue publishing press releases on both the legacy press portal and Apple Newsroom. The design changes to executive bios were inevitable as well; this moves things one step closer toward retiring all old design on the company’s website.

Apple has updated its website with a page focusing on U.S. job creation. Perhaps the most significant number listed is the claim that Apple has created over 2,000,000 U.S. jobs when counting its corporate employees, suppliers, and work supported by the App Store ecosystem.

Much of the information given on the site is extremely detailed, such as the state-by-state breakdown that includes the following data for each of the 50 states:

• How many Apple employees work there;
• How many App Store-related jobs are funded there (as seen in the image above);
• The number of retail stores there;
• The number of suppliers based there; and
• A highlighting of App Store apps that were created there.

The data is fascinating and extensive, and worth checking out. Some of the interesting tidbits I learned about my home state of Texas are that it contains the second largest base of Apple corporate employees in the world, and that the indie game Reigns was developed here.

Good analysis by Ben Bajarin, who sums up various discussions I’ve read in my Twitter timeline lately about the quality of Apple’s services and the company’s approach to not collecting lots of data:

However, getting useful and good behavioral data is essential for Apple to make better products and services and, more importantly, compete with those services down the road. I’d almost prefer that, instead of Apple’s stance being not only to collect as little data as necessary and also to universally anonymize that data, they would simply say, “Trust us with your data. We will keep it safe and secure and we will deliver you superior products and services because of it.” I could also be satisfied with a hybrid approach where, for the most security conscious customers, Apple gives them the option to keep the existing privacy protocol as well as their differential privacy techniques, but also allow others to opt-in to giving them more data so that things like Siri, News, Apple Music, etc., benefit from that data and thus, deliver those customers a much more personalized and useful service. With some of the recent changes in iOS 10.3, I feel they are getting closer to exactly this scenario.

Ben refers to iOS 10.3’s upcoming iCloud data sharing option – a new (opt-in) setting to share iCloud-related data with Apple.

This is a complex problem: it’s still too early to understand the impact of Differential Privacy, and I don’t think Apple’s services are inherently terrible; but I also agree with the premise that by not collecting data, other companies may capitalize on Apple’s users in the future thanks to smarter services. I’d love to get more details on what Apple is working on for iCloud analytics.

Dan M., writing on Medium about the state of Apple as a pre-mortem:

It is not easy to evaluate a company I love as if they have failed. I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on Apple products, and devoted countless hours studying, admiring and defending the company. However, I started noticing too many uncharacteristic cracks, and I realised turning a blind eye would not help Apple.

I don’t agree with all of the assumptions and conclusions taken for granted in this piece. For all its problems (above all, a slow rollout of third-party domains), I wouldn’t call Siri “souped-up Voice Control”. I don’t feel comfortable with any third-party narrative around Apple’s leadership and internal conflicts inferred from the outside. And, I’m not sure rethinking watchOS and iOS around “contextual triggers” would be the best idea for the majority of customers who, unlike techies, just want to open their 5 most-used apps quickly. In general, it feels like there’s a disconnect between some of the realities painted in this story and how I see people in real life use Apple devices and software.

But, there is also a lot I agree with: the Apple TV analysis is pretty much spot-on, and Dan raises solid questions about Apple’s approach to services and how their privacy stance may prove problematic in the future. Besides personal opinions and experiences, this article outlines potential problems with today’s Apple fairly, and it’s worth reading and discussing.

Jason Snell:

As we close the door on 2016, I thought it would be useful to look back at the year gone by and ask a panel of my peers who pay attention to Apple and related markets to take a moment and reflect on Apple’s performance in the past year.

This is the second year that I’ve presented a survey to a group of writers, editors, podcasters and developers. The survey was the same as last year’s. They were prompted with 11 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5, as well as optionally provide text commentary on their vote. I received 37 replies, with the average results as shown below.

I participated in this year’s edition of the Six Colors Apple report card, which features average scores and answers on a variety of Apple topics. It’s a good overview of where Apple stands today and where it could be going next.

Good collection of various criticisms surrounding Apple’s performance in 2016 by Chuq Von Rospach. I don’t agree with all of his points (such as 3D Touch), and most of the problems he mentions don’t affect iOS users directly, but I understand where he’s coming from, and I think Apple should improve in those areas – especially estimating ship dates and catering to pro users.