If you’re hearing school bells, chances are they’re coming not from the teacher but from some electronic gadget. These magazines take a look at some modern-day necessities for school.
For a magazine meant to extol the virtues of Apple’s sublime gadgetry, iPhone Life sure has a funny way of showing allegiance. Take, for example, a cartoon appearing as a part of a caption contest. It depicts a crudely drawn black-and-white rendering of Snow White wearing the new tech glasses of Apple’s arch rival Google. For shame, iPhone Life! In the cartoon, the wicked stepmother stands menacingly in the background, luring the fairy princess with an apple. And if cheekily giving face time to competitors doesn’t have Steve Jobs turning in his grave, this will: “No need, wicked stepmother, I’ve already been poisoned by Apple,” reads the winning caption entry. But wait, there’s more. CEO and publisher David Averbach, in the mag’s cover feature, says it’s time Apple users put Jobs’ old-fashioned “graphical user interface” behind them and embrace the new, simpler aesthetics of the upcoming iOS 7 operating system. Is nothing sacred?
Macworld’s September edition goes deep iOS 7 update. But the features are based mostly on Apple’s spring developer conference and pre-release info, and beg the question: Why not just wait until it’s out? Besides the addition of the possible Pandora-killer iTunes Radio and a much-needed maps upgrade, it’s hard to get a handle on what’s truly different. (Though one upgrade we like is free audio calls via Facetime over Wifi.) Overall, Macworld isn’t just for fanboys. It offers a good overview of how you can get the best use of your Apple gadgets, but it isn’t afraid to say when others do it better. The editors recommend instant messaging service WhatsApp and Evernote among others. Macworld is a great magazine, but it’s desperately in need of Apple design expertise.
MacLife has so few advertisements you have to wonder how it stays alive. Then you read it and realize it’s one big sales job for Apple products. In case you didn’t know, Apple’s “productivity suite” is coming to the web! What can a $50 iTunes gift card buy? Read MacLife to find out (Or skip that and just order some movies and music you like.) Of course, it is nice to find out what keyboard case is best for the iPad, since it’s impossible to type on the built-in ones, although we’ve tried for years. We’re particularly intrigued by the iPhone case that is supposed to work as a battery charger. Finally, the mag asks: Is it worth it to pay the hefty subscription fee for Adobe Creative Cloud? The answer: You betcha.
The decline of the personal computer may be affecting media coverage of the industry. The 30-year how-to publication PCWorld.com goes all digital after this issue. PCWorld.com shows it still has some relevance with a test covering 20 cities to determine the fastest 3G and 4G wireless networks. Not so surprisingly, Verizon has the fastest 4G service in New York with more than double the speed of AT&T. Nationally, though, AT&T rates better than Verizon. For 3G service, New Yorkers should turn to T-Mobile, the survey found, giving its sexy commercials some validity. Sprint is the big disappointment in the survey. Softbank, in the process of buying Sprint, has its work to do. Other features — which read like a user’s guide — cover personal computer tips including which sites to visit for PC help, and how to use Firefox built-in security.
In its rather puffy lead story on the legacy of Mayor Bloomberg, the New Yorker purports to score the past dozen years. What we get instead is a dull softball game in which, for example, his disastrous management of the school system doesn’t even pop up until the seventh inning. Wondering about surging rents and stagnant middle-class incomes? Let’s first ask Bloomberg for his assessment of President Obama’s performance. At least it is gleamingly clear what truly interests Bloomberg, and it doesn’t involve rolling up his sleeves like Jimmy Carter and tackling education and poverty. “I don’t know how to answer,” Bloomberg said, asked if he’d like to buy the New York Times, unable to cloak his Charles Foster Kane-like ambition. And what about the Financial Times? “If they called and said, ‘Look at it.’ Would you look at it? I suppose.”
Time does a fine job commemorating this week’s 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. The quotes and memories from civil-rights figures like John Lewis, Andrew Young and Harry Belafonte are fascinating. But what really caught our eye was a two-page-wide photo of the crowd gathered around the Lincoln Memorial’s reflecting pool that showed thousands of blacks and whites intermingling peacefully as they took in the speech. The editors fail to make note of this, but about 65 pages later radio journalist Michelle Norris observes that “many of the historic images show close-ups of brown faces. But the massive crowd that day was largely integrated… The US press did not linger on that fact, but the international press was awestruck by the diversity. It was the central theme of the foreign coverage.”