MacNN has done something interesting — an “exit poll” of sorts, where they asked questions of 1,000 iOS users at four Northern Virginia Apple Stores, a task that took only two hours given the stores’ high foot traffic. In short, only about 20 percent of the people (200) also used a Mac, and just 20 percent of them (40) said they were capable of performing maintenance tasks. That last number was slightly higher for iOS, with 29 percent of people saying they were capable of performing basic maintenance. The takeaway is that most users — at least those who go to an Apple Store in Northern Virginia — treat their Apple devices as appliances. Of course, people in those stores may not be entirely representative of the Apple user base in other ways, but it seems safe to say that we Mac users who can do basic maintenance tasks are very much in the minority, and we have to take that into account when evaluating Apple’s actions. Be sure to read the full article!

Jason Snell of Six Colors surveyed 24 Apple experts, including our own Adam and Tonya Engst, Rich Mogull, and Josh Centers, to get a sense of how Apple did in 2015. The grades that Apple earned were: A for the iPhone, environmental and social issues, and overall hardware quality; B+ for the iPad; B for the Apple TV and Mac; C+ for software reliability and quality; C for the Apple Watch; C-/D+ for cloud services; and D for developer relations and HomeKit. Head over to Six Colors to read the full report, including our comments.

Circus Ponies, maker of the outline-based information management app NoteBook, has closed its doors. Despite the joke on the company’s Web site about going to “that great Alphabet company in the sky,” Circus Ponies has not been purchased by Google parent company Alphabet. You can try sending email to Circus Ponies support if you need technical support or a copy of NoteBook 4.0, but the company doesn’t guarantee a reply. As with most orphaned software, Notebook will likely continue to work fine at least until the next version of OS X, but Notebook users should start looking for a replacement.

Apple’s MacBook line has changed significantly in the past few years: screens have been upgraded to Retina resolutions, optical drives have disappeared, and upgradability has been curtailed to reduce size and weight. But there’s one notable exception: the 2012 13-inch MacBook Pro, which remains surprisingly popular. Developer Marco Arment lists some reasons why he thinks that’s the case, including the machine’s optical drive, upgradable RAM and hard disks, and low cost. Apple should be asking itself if the constant push for smaller and lighter is meeting the needs and desires of all of today’s users — keeping old models available isn’t a long-term solution. We’d like to see Apple serve this group of users with a new MacBook that retains the design goals of the 2012 13-inch MacBook Pro while using newer technologies. It’s not like the MacBook line could get any more confusing than it already is.

If you have a new iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, are you familiar with Apple’s new “3D Touch” gesture? It’s like Force Touch on an Apple Watch, but where Force Touch is associated with the entire screen, 3D Touch is connected with a particular interface element. And where Force Touch presents a menu for the watch screen you’re looking at, 3D Touch can provide either a quick-actions view or a peek-and-pop content preview, both of which are contextual to where you made the 3D Touch. In a post from late last year, Raluca Budiu of Nielsen Norman Group explains the benefits of 3D Touch, and while acknowledging the significant challenges the new gesture faces, she encourages iOS developers to support the feature so we users have a chance to learn it — if too few apps support 3D Touch, we will be disappointed too many times to build the gesture into our usage patterns.

If you live in the United States and own any sort of airborne drone that weighs between 0.55 and 55 pounds, you must register it with the Federal Aviation Administration. Existing drone owners have until 19 February 2016 to register, but new drone owners must register them before flying them. Registration is free for the next month but will cost $5 after that. The registration lasts for 3 years, and is applicable to all of your drones, not just one. So if you received a drone as a Christmas present, be sure to register it, or you could face civil penalties of up to $27,500 and criminal penalties of up to 3 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Ouch.

Great news for fans of The Beatles: the Fab Four’s catalog arrived on just about every streaming service on 24 December 2015. The Beatles are now streaming on Amazon Prime Music, Apple Music, Deezer, Google Play Music, Microsoft Groove, Rhapsody, Slacker Radio, Spotify, and Tidal around the world. The band’s music is now also available for purchase from services other than iTunes, such as Amazon.

For those who have been grumbling about Apple’s App Store (which, let’s face it, is just about everyone), we have good news: Phil Schiller, Apple’s highly regarded Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, is taking over the App Store from Eddy Cue on all Apple platforms: Mac, iOS, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. Cue remains in charge of iCloud, iTunes, and Apple’s professional apps (as well as Apple Pay, Maps, and other things), so hopefully this change will allow him to focus more on those areas. Jeff Williams, who oversees development of the Apple Watch, has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer. In other Apple executive news, Johny Srouji has been promoted to Senior Vice President for Hardware Technologies.

Most Apple TV coverage has been U.S.-centric, but Sarah Hendrica Bickerton offers her perspective on the Apple TV as a New Zealander, and it’s not a sunny one. Bickerton reports that Siri and iTunes TV shows are not available, and even iTunes movie releases lag weeks behind the rest of the world. While Netflix is finally available in New Zealand, it doesn’t even offer the Netflix original series “House of Cards” due to muddy distribution rights. Despite all of that, Bickerton is bullish on the new Apple TV due to tvOS and its associated App Store. Her article is a welcome reminder of how technology often isn’t evenly distributed around the world.

Managing Editor Josh Centers once again joined host Gene Steinberg for The Tech Night Owl Live podcast. In this edition, they talk about Josh’s new living room setup, his disappointment with the Apple Watch, and rumors surrounding the Apple Car.