A lot has changed at Apple since Steve Jobs was running the company, and as successful as the company was under Jobs, I think it is doing even better under Tim Cook. It seems that Cook kept all that was good about Apple while introducing welcome changes such as more openness, more support for charities (including matching employee contributions), and most recently taking a stand against discrimination, such as the law recently enacted in Indiana, on which Cook wrote a powerful editorial in The Washington Post this week. It is worth reading, and it is interesting to see Apple take a public stand on social issues. And now, the other news of note from the past week:
- South Carolina attorney Bill Latham of The Hytech Lawyer has published his Summer 2015 list of useful iPad apps for attorneys. His list includes a bunch of great apps that I use all the time in my law practice.
- Toronto attorney Phil Brown shares his thoughts for getting the most out of ABA TECHSHOW. Worth reading if you are headed to the conference in Chicago in a few weeks.
- California attorney David Sparks talks about the Apple Watch.
- Normally it is a very bad thing when someone steals your iPhone. But Matt Stopera of BuzzFeed had his iPhone stolen when he was in a bar in New York in 2014, and a year later he learned that someone in China was using it. He posted about it, and his story ended up going viral in China. Stopera and the new owner of his iPhone started chatting, and then Stopera flew to China to visit the man and get his iPhone back — with Stopera learning that he became a minor celebrity in China. Stopera wrote this article describing the whole situation, and while his story is rather long, it is a nice story of how something that started out bad ended up very positive.
- HBO’s CEO Richard Piepler revealed in an interview with CNBC that 60% of viewers of HBO-GO use an Apple device.
- Joseph Keller of iMore reports that Lisa Jackson, Apple’s VP of Environmental Initiatives (and former head of the EPA) talked about Apple’s impact on the environment in a conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal.
- The fantastic 1Password app was updated again this week. Federico Viticci of MacStories writes about the new features. But he doesn’t mention my favorite new feature. You can now tap a password and have the app display the password in a very large font. This is great because, in those rare instances where a website doesn’t let 1Password on my computer enter the password automatically, I can just look at the password on my iPhone, and this feature makes the password large and very easy to see, making it easier to type even a long and complicated password. I just cannot say enough good things about 1Password.
- The Apple Watch won’t be in stores until April 24, but Juli clover of MacRumors reports that the App Store is already starting to include iPhone apps that include the ability to install apps on an Apple Watch.
- The SnapPower Charger looks like an interesting KickStarter project. Just replace the faceplate on your outlet — no rewiring required, and in the video it takes just a few seconds — and the SnapPower Charger draws power from the screws in your outlet to give you a 1 Amp USB power port (suitable for charging an iPhone, or slowly charging an iPad) without getting in the way of the two outlets. Only $14.
- And finally, amid rumors that Apple is working on an electric car, Tesla has announced that it is working on its answer to the Apple Watch, the Tesla Model W. Oh, did I mention that they made this announcement on April 1st? Click here for all of the details of this revolutionary device.
Candidly, I’m not so sure that social justice is or should be the mission of any for-profit corporation. It’s perfectly fine for executives and employees to advocate on their own, but it’s quite another to use investors’ resources for activity not in line with the company’s primary business purpose.
Tim Cook’s editorial would have been fine, if it weren’t entirely inaccurate. He was dead wrong about the content and effect of RFRA legislation (something I would expect you, as an attorney, to know), and he was also dead wrong about his assertion that Apple does not discriminate. Apple doesn’t hire just anyone, nor do they contract with just any supplier. No, they have very high standards for both employees and suppliers, and they must discriminate in order to protect those standards. Apple also appears to have no material issue conducting business in countries which not only discriminates against sexual orientation, but punish alleged deviants with execution. Perhaps if Tim Cook and Apple were consistently outspoken on the issue of discrimination, they would be more credible.
I wholeheartedly agree that individuals, merchants, and employers should not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, but I also haven’t seen any evidence that such discrimination is an actual chronic problem in the United States. Whatever the cause, compelling a business to provide in a situation they’d otherwise prefer to avoid doesn’t serve well either the merchant or the consumer.
Amazing how the owner of an iPhone got their unit back from someway halfway around the world … there is hope for humanity!