That’s Sir Jonathan Ive now, but even he still can’t use an iPad during takeoff and landing on a commercial flight, though American Airlines pilots can. Also, Glenn and Adam discussed our new TidBITS membership program on MacVoices, and Apple announced that the Mac App Store has passed 100 million downloads.
Jonathan Ive Honored with Knighthood -- Apple’s senior vice president of industrial design, Jonathan Ive, can now demand that his employees and everyone else address him as “Sir.” He’s been made a Knight Commander of the British Empire for his design work at Apple. Although Ive worked at Apple for several years before the arrival of Steve Jobs as CEO in 1995, Jobs and Ive launched an industrial design revolution at the company that has dramatically influenced products and design aesthetics worldwide.
Pilots Can Use iPads During Takeoff and Landing, but You Can’t -- The Federal Aviation Administration’s restriction on electronic devices — even those that don’t have internal radios or are in Airplane Mode — during takeoff (including sitting on the runway for hours) and landing has always seemed unnecessarily cautious, and Nick Bilton of the New York Times has explored that in the past. But his latest blog post makes the restriction seem even more ridiculous, since the FAA is now allowing American Airlines pilots to use iPads in the cockpit at all times. The only defense given is that it might be different if everyone was using a device during takeoff or landing, but that seems eminently testable. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if flying could become more convenient for a change?
TidBITS Membership Program Discussed on MacVoices -- Curious about how we came up with the idea for our new membership program, and why we designed it the way we did? This is inside baseball, of course, but if you like peeking behind the curtain, you’ll enjoy hearing Adam Engst and Glenn Fleishman discuss the hows and whys with MacVoices host Chuck Joiner. And yes, there is stuff in here that we haven’t said elsewhere.
Mac App Store Passes 100 Million Downloads -- Apple has announced that over 100 million apps have been downloaded from the Mac App Store in just under a year since the online store opened on 6 January 2011. The company did not break out the difference between free and paid apps, nor was the number of apps (beyond “thousands”) shared. Although inclusion in the Mac App Store is by no means a guarantee of sales success, it has proven to be a boon for many Mac developers.
