Dear Friends,
When people think about Apple’s success they normally think about iPhone, iPad and Mac but there are a bunch of other success stories for Apple technology that are overshadowed by the huge numbers of iPhones that are sold. I read a story today about how one half of all the top hospitals in the USA are starting to use Apple’s HealthKit apps on a trial basis to monitor patient health. The ability to monitor things like blood pressure, weight, heart rate, or glucose levels remotely could help to control the rapidly rising cost of health care. Just imagine that you have this information and do not need to go to the medical provider or hospital but just push “send” and your health stats are sent for review. Learn more about this here.
HomeKit is also becoming more and more accepted as a standard for home automation apps. While I love home automation, it is frustrating to have to open several apps to open the door, turn on the lights, adjust the thermostat, etc. With HomeKit that may become a thing of the past. Independently of HomeKit, Nest and Kevo lock have teamed up to integrate their products. Now when I leave the house and lock the door, I get a notification asking me if I wish to set the Nest thermostat to “away”.
There were reports this week of strange Apple vehicles with several cameras prowling the streets with speculation of enhanced mapping or maybe even driverless cars. There was also a renewed report that Apple was negotiating with content providers to create a web-based TV service which I am sure will happen eventually. I think that the need for cable or satellite will diminish fairly quickly.
There was also good news this week on the net neutrality front. The Chairman of the FCC laid out his proposal to treat both wired and wireless data services a public utilities. This would ensure that all internet service providers treat all traffic equally rather than creating “fast lanes” for those that pay more. Sure, there will be opposition from those that might profit from different classes of service, but in all respects, it is my opinion, that the internet is indeed a public utility and the concept of net neutrality is vital for a free and open net.
Pssst…don’t tell anyone but I have a great deal for this week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive. The MacBook Pro 13-inch Retina is one of the most popular Macs available and we are fortunate to have a good supply of Apple Certified Refurbished MacBook Pros that feature a 2.4 GHz i5 Intel processor, 4 GB of RAM and a 128 GB SSD drive. These also feature the stunning Retina display that has over 4 million pixels and 2560 X 1600 resolution. This unit has a battery that will last up to 9 hours between charges and the latest 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0. With a backlit keyboard, Thunderbolt 2, and an HDMI port this is an ideal laptop. I am going to make the bundle simple: purchase this MacBook Pro 13-inch Retina with AppleCare for only $1149. That’s $100 off our normal prices and $300 off the price of a new one. AppleCare gives you Apple’s 3-year warranty protection as well as 3 years of free Apple technical support. This is a great value! Snag this deal here before it is gone!