Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Sept 14, 2015 (IV)

choi

(9) Josh Tyrangiel, Touch Me Harder; The grinding work behind a single iPhone feature. www.bloomberg.com/features/2015- ... 3d-touch-iphone-6s/

The last paragraphs (continuous, without omissions)::

"Apple’s faith in design helped make it the first company to reach a market cap of more than $750 billion. It also means that every few years it has to bet its future on the instincts of a few people with strong opinions about how things should work. [Jonathan] Ive[, an Englishman and Chief Design Officer of Apple Inc,] would rather be sentenced to life with a flip phone than subject his designs to focus groups, so when the company makes a change like 3D Touch, its business plan, basically, is to trust that he and his team are right.

"For all that’s changed at Apple, that faith is what links it most strongly to its roots. In January 2007, when the first iPhone was announced but not yet on shelves, Jobs escorted the device on a voyage through America’s media outlets. In the middle of a drab conference room on a high floor of a New York City office tower, he placed the device into the hands of journalists who would, presumably, write that it was as world-changing as he claimed. Jobs dropped the phone to prove that the glass wouldn’t shatter. He activated the speaker to demonstrate call clarity. It seems obvious now, but the minimalist Jobs had even pared away the physical keyboard, and that had to be sold, too. He asked a volunteer to tap on the virtual keyboard that had replaced it on screen. He was in full seduction mode, and about to reach his crescend—

“ 'It doesn’t work.'

“Jobs paused and tilted his head, not unkindly, in the direction of the disturbance.

“ 'I keep getting typos,' the volunteer said. 'The keyboard’s too small for my thumbs.'

“Jobs smiled and replied: 'Your thumbs will learn.'

My comment:
(a) One of the two feature stories in this issue (and cover story, too), along with the next two), this is length, but essentially gives away nothing about how 3D Touch works. And this article isn’t evasive about the nothingness, either, but rather than being upfront (as the opening statement, say) buries the sentence in the middle:  "Apple isn’t in the habit of explaining how it makes things work, because the people at Samsung can read, and hold a patent on a similar technology."

So unless you are an Apple stalwart, you should not waste time reading it.
(b) The quotation above makes Jobs look like a guru, Confucius or Yogi Berra. And we all know that most Confucian quotations are made up.
(c) "Several years ago the designers and engineers realized that phones contained so many functions—messaging, maps, apps, links, photos, songs—that people were wasting a lot of time retreating to the home button to bounce between them. This is the ne plus ultra of First World problems, but Apple exists, unapologetically, to eradicate even the tiniest bit of friction between its products and its users."

ne plus ultra (n; New Latin, (go) no more beyond: [adv] nē not; [adj] plūs more [the conjunction 'plus' in English came directly from this Latin word but is pronounced slightly differently]; [preparation] ultrā beyond):
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ne_plus_ultra

* Latin preposition super above (This super becomes German preposition über above.
(d) “Apple would like its customers to think of it as an effortless company, where transcendent technology emerges like freshly baked bread from an oven. It’s just as much an illusion as Disney’s happiest place on earth.”

Magic Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Kingdom
(The official tagline for Disneyland [at Anaheim, California] is "The Happiest Place On Earth,” while the tagline for Magic Kingdom [at Walt Disney World Resort, near Orlando, Florida] is "The Most Magical Place On Earth")

https://vk.com/doc518200_4187911 ... =9a175436e00fcca024

choi

(10) The second feature story is:

Big Drought Spell. Drought is a global curse, from rural Australia to inland California to megacity Brazil. And it's only getting worse.  
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-global-drought-stories/

I will skip the part one of the story, on Australia.
(a) Karen Weise, Not a Drop to Drink.
(“In 1871, Leland Stanford was building his railroad across California's Central Valley when he spotted a lush wheat field amid the dry prairie/ "Wonderful!" he said, according to lore. "Here we must build teh town." Fresno was founded the next year and is now home to half a million people. Th  area, so lush it was first called Green Bush after a local spring, became the center of the country's food production, irrigated with canals fed by the dense Sierra snowpack.”)

Note:
(i) Fresno, California
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno,_California
(the largest inland city in California; The name Fresno means 'ash tree' in Spanish, and an ash leaf is featured on the city's flag)
(ii) History of Fresno. City of Fresno, undated
www.fresno.gov/Government/Depart ... rvation/History.htm
(“Fresno was founded by the Central Pacific Railroad Company in 1872. The location for the town was uninviting at best, with barren sand plains in all directions. Leland J Stanford, a Director for the Railroad, is credited with selecting the site of the new station. On a scouting party in 1871 Stanford noticed a wheat field belonging to AY Easterby, lush and green in the middle of the dry prairie. Stanford announced, ‘Wonderful! Here we must build the town!’ ”)


(b) Blake Schmidt, The Unwashed.