BUSINESS INSIDER SPOTLIGHT: Coronavirus is mandating that managers learn to lead from home. CEOs Deidre Paknad and Nate Quigley have helmed distributed startups for years, and they gave us proven techniques for navigating remote teams in a time of crisis. Here's the full transcript.

<p class="source"><span>Charday Penn/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Being a digital nomad isn't the only way to build travel into your life and career.</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>The idea of long-term travel is appealing to a lot of people. But how do you do it when you have a full-time job and bills to pay?</li><li>We're sharing the stories of professionals - from marketing consultants to tech employees to hairstylists - who've made travel fit into their lives and their careers.</li><li>Some of them became freelancers, some asked for transfers, and others took a sabbatical or leveraged their travel to advance their careers.</li><li>"You are in control of the life you want to live, and if travel is a priority for you, than plan ahead and take advantage of the opportunity to do so," said Myam Yusuf, a Seattle-based hairstylist at Antonio Salonwho builds sabbaticals into her schedule every January.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime?module=article&amp;area=summary">Click here for more BI Prime stories.</a></li></ul><p>The idea of long-term travel is appealing to a lot of people. But if you didn't take a gap year or backpack around Southeast Asia after college graduation, it's easy to feel like you've missed the boat. Unless you work in a field that lends itself to the digital nomad life and want to live out of a suitcase for the rest of your life, you're stuck with two weeks of vacation a year until retirement. Right?</p><p>Not necessarily. </p><p>There are, in fact, plenty of options somewhere in between. I know firsthand from my own life; last year, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/i-took-a-year-off-work-travel-world-questions-career-finances">I took a year-long career "pause" to travel</a>. And to further illustrate, I'm sharing the stories of other professionals - from marketing consultants to tech employees to hairstylists - who've also made travel fit into their lives and their careers. Some work for themselves, some are freelancers, and some are full-time employees who've found creative ways to swing multi-month trips. </p><p>If they can do it, couldn't you? Here are a few ideas to ponder.</p><h1>1. Ask for a transfer to another location</h1><p>Ana Cristina had spent her career in San Francisco and New York but always dreamed of living abroad. So, in what she describes as a "now or never" moment, she started browsing her company's job board for international roles. </p><p>"I kept myself open to a broad range of jobs and locations," she explained, ultimately landing a new job with her employer, a major tech company, as an advertising video specialist in Dublin, Ireland. </p><p class="source"><span>Ana Cristina</span></p><p class="caption">Ana Cristina exploring Prague, Czech Republic.</p><p>She's loved living in the European city, and the move has allowed her to travel much more than she was able to in the States. "Being part of a global company, I have the flexibility to work from remote offices and tag on a few extra days to explore," she said. In the past two years, she's been to 30 new countries and checked off bucket-list items like running the Berlin marathon. </p><p>Of course, living far from home hasn't come without tradeoffs. "I sacrificed a comfortable lifestyle and being near family and friends, and I took a considerable pay cut," she admitted. "But in return, I've met people from all over the world, learned the importance of independence, and consider myself so much more adaptable, curious, and open-minded." </p><p>If you're employed by a large, global corporation, chances are there are similar opportunities. Or, if you're not ready to completely uproot your life, look for shorter-term stints - like covering someone's parental leave or filling in during a busy time.</p><p class="source"><span>Nicholas Granzella</span></p><p class="caption">Nicholas Granzella skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho.</p><p>When Nicholas Granzella, a Washington-based emergency medicine physician (and my brother), worked for a previous employer, he was able to arrange a one-month remote assignment in Sun Valley, Idaho to help out during ski season. "It was a win-win - it helped fill a needed role and it allowed me to explore (and ski in!) an amazing new destination," he shared. "It was a life-changing trip." </p><h1>2. Take a sabbatical </h1><p>Creative UX Writer Karina Portuondo also wanted to live abroad and had arranged an international transfer with her employer, a technology company. But a few months before she was set to leave, her team reorganized and asked her to stay in her role in San Francisco. </p><p>"By then, I had already had my heart set on a life change and I had given up my lease," she explained. So, she negotiated with her managers to let her take a three-month sabbatical instead. </p><p>Portuondo used the experience to explore Tanzania, Morocco, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The sabbatical was unpaid, but the break was worth it. "I did have to leave everything buttoned up before I left, with documented plans and contacts for all my projects," she said, but once she left she wasn't expected to check in with the office at all. </p><p>While the company doesn't typically offer these types of leaves, it does make exceptions in certain circumstances. Portuondo was glad she made the request and encouraged others to do the same, even if it's not common practice. "If I hadn't have asked, I wouldn't have gotten it," she said. "So my advice is to wait for when the timing seems right and put it out there."</p><p class="source"><span>Myam Yusuf</span></p><p class="caption">Myam Yusuf in Nusa Penida, Indonesia.</p><p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/HairbyMyamAmber/">Myam Yusuf</a>, a Seattle-based hairstylist at Antonio Salon, builds sabbaticals into her schedule every January - she's traveled to Zanzibar, Tanzania, and Bali in the past three years. In an industry that's completely dependent upon client interaction, many people in her shoes feel like they can't break away, but she's been able to make it work by choosing a time of year that tends to be less busy, after the holiday rush. </p><p>"Now, my clients know to expect me to be gone around this time of year and can plan accordingly," she said. "I explain to my clients that I need to take some self-care time to rest and reboot so I can come back with a fresh set of eyes. This also gives them something to look forward to hearing about when I see them again in the new year."  </p><p>Her boss has been supportive, too. "He is an advocate for taking time off to explore, so it's been easy as long as I gave enough notice," she shared. </p><h1>3. Freelance to create your own flexible schedule</h1><p>One of the most common ways to have a travel-friendly schedule is to take on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-start-freelancing-and-earn-more-than-before-2019-7">freelance</a> or consulting projects, where you have the flexibility to work wherever you'd like, instead of going to the same office every day. </p><p><a href="http://bit.ly/2XfYi0A">Peter Brooks</a> made this shift a few years ago, leaving his full-time role to found 28th &amp; Foster, a growth marketing consulting firm for early-stage startups. He meets with his clients in person when he needs to, but otherwise has the freedom to do his job remotely. And he takes advantage of that as much as he can to jet to new destinations. "Normally, I am away from home at least a week every month, and sometimes longer," he shared. </p><p class="source"><span>Peter Brooks</span></p><p class="caption">Peter Brooks at a Buddhist temple in Cambodia.</p><p>Lest you think that means he's relaxing on a beach somewhere, Brooks is quick to admit that he puts in about 60 hours each week. "I generally work 100% of the time while I am abroad, whether it's stopping in a client's local office or working remotely," he said. Overall, as long as he has his laptop and a stable internet connection, he's good to go, though he added that the time difference can be challenging.</p><p>"A lot of my clients are in California, New York, and Western Europe, so it can become difficult working and being available for their core business hours," he said.   </p><p>Still, to him, it's worth it. "I love meeting new people, seeing new cultures, exploring new sites, and expanding," he said. "I have never gotten so much enjoyment for any other activity quite like traveling." </p><h1>4. Use travel to advance your work</h1><p><a href="http://www.aldenwicker.com/">Alden Wicker</a>, an NYC-based journalist, sustainable fashion expert, and founder of ethical fashion and travel website <a href="https://ecocult.com/">EcoCult.com</a>, didn't just want to travel for the sake of travel - she wanted to deepen her understanding of her work by learning more about how clothing is made around the world. </p><p>So she spent a year abroad, visiting factories and workshops and writing about her experiences, which inform her career even now that she's back. </p><p>"I'm still working on stories based on my research. I now have contacts and friends all over the world, too, for future stories," she said. "I have a new perspective that incorporates my conversations with factory owners and managers, garment workers, artisans, entrepreneurs, and designers, almost all from the Global South."</p><p>When she set off on the trip, she wasn't sure if she'd return to New York, but she quickly realized that full-time nomading wasn't the path for her. </p><p class="source"><span>Alden Wicker</span></p><p class="caption">Alden Wicker and her husband in Jaipur, India.</p><p>"In a lot of ways, for me and my husband, this year of traveling was an experiment," she explained. "A lot of travel and digital nomad influencers talk a big game on social media about what you could accomplish if you just take the leap, but we learned what was possible and practical, and came back to New York with a renewed focus, having sliced away all the 'what ifs.'"</p><p>Sometimes, she added, "it's only when you go all in can you be satisfied that you tried it, and it didn't work, so you move on with excitement for the next chapter." </p><p>Her advice for those who plan to combine a job with travel: Pick a few destinations and stay a while. While she typically spent a week or two in each place, she recommended that "a month or more is probably better and less expensive. You can't really do deep work when you're moving between places."</p><h1>5. Do a remote year - or quarter</h1><p>On that note, if you want to take your job or freelance gig abroad, but aren't ready for all the ups and downs that travel can bring, programs like <a href="https://remoteyear.com/">Remote Year</a> and <a href="https://www.hackerparadise.org/">Hacker Paradise</a> are designed to simplify things. The idea is that the company provides the itinerary (typically one city per month over the course of two to 12 months), and handles all the logistics, from booking flights and lodging to hosting coworking spaces and travel experiences. </p><p>For writer and editor <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lbrothers/">Laura Brothers</a>, this was the perfect option. "I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and do something totally different," she said. "But, I had never traveled long term before, and especially not while I was working, so having a company take care of the nitty-gritty details was great." </p><p class="source"><span>Laura Brothers</span></p><p class="caption">Laura Brothers working in Cape Town, South Africa.</p><p>She asked her company to work remotely while embarking upon a four-month program through Remote Year - and they agreed. She spent a month each in Croatia, Portugal, Spain, and South Africa, clocking a full-time schedule in each place.</p><p>"Everyone was very receptive and we worked out an arrangement where I would work US hours Tuesday through Thursday. I was available those days for meetings and client calls, and then Monday and Friday I was free to work the hours that suited me," she said.</p><p>She loved the experience so much that she continued traveling after the program ended (and switched to freelancing, so that she has a more flexible schedule). "I wasn't ready to stop (and I'm still not!) seeing new places and cultures and experiencing new things," she said. </p><p>Of course, not all of these options will work for everyone. But I hope the takeaway is this: There are options. And if traveling is important to you, it's worth getting a little creative to see how you can fit it into your life. As Myam Yusuf put it, "You are in control of the life you want to live, and if travel is a priority for you, than plan ahead and take advantage of the opportunity to do so."</p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/deepak-chopra-how-to-unleash-your-happiness-creativity-productivity-2019-11">Deepak Chopra explains how to unlock your natural happiness, creativity and productivity</a></h3>

7 successful freelancers, entrepreneurs, and employees share how they managed to travel the world without quitting their jobs

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/BI</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>It's sometimes said that watches are an investment. In many cases, that's true, but you tend to have to lay out at least a few thousands dollars to obtain a timepiece that's likely to appreciate in value over time - or even <em>maintain</em> its value.</p><p>Some investment watches are quite durable. The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/rolex-submariner-is-the-ultimate-luxury-sport-watch-2016-8">classic Rolex Submariner</a>, made mostly of high-grade stainless steel, leaps to mind.</p><p>But some people don't want an investment watch. They simply want a solid, versatile timepiece that can, as we once said of the venerable Timex, take a licking and keep on ticking. Imagine a weekend watch that can go to the beach, be taken swimming and camping, or just be a companion when doing yard work. </p><p>A good choice for that duty is what I call the "tactical" watch, because it's designed with military use in mind. Or at least, the rigors that a soldier or sailor might face.</p><p>Perhaps the most famous tactical watch is the Casio G-Shock, but digital watches have fallen out of vogue. So here's a new option: the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/REACTOR-73808-Gryphon-Tough-Polymer/dp/B008C8SLE4/ref=pd_srecs_cs_241_12?ie=UTF8&amp;dpID=41a-ekyDiBL&amp;dpSrc=sims&amp;preST=_AC_UL250_SR162%2C250_&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=18CMN3PVCR52T5ZG7KHT">Reactor Gryphon</a>.</p><p>At $350, this isn't a cheap watch. But that isn't crazy pricey, either, for an incredibly solid piece that's designed and built to function well in all kinds of conditions. Reactor is playing in the same ballpark with Luminox, a company that manufactures a popular tactical watch that's associated with the Navy Seals.</p><p>Reactor let me borrow a Gryphon, and I wore it do as many things as I could think of. I got it wet, took it out to drive sports cars, made it my go-to weekend timepiece, and even found some ways to wear it under dressier circumstances, thanks to its bold orange face, which jazzed up some outfits.</p><p>I also chatted with Reactor's founder, Jimmy Olmes, whose previous foray into the horology business was with Freestyle, a surfing brand. </p><p>Olmes explained that Reactor's approach has been to design watches that can be sold profitably and to construct around the watches a business that provides value for the consumers and takes some of the heat off retailers.</p><p>"Our business in amazingly good, in a difficult watch market," he said. </p><p>The keys are to combat widespread discounting by guaranteeing dealer margins; to speed up the service cycle from six-to-ten weeks to 48 hours by using Reactor's service center; and to avoid over-distributing Reactor watches so that they don't blend in with everybody else.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/BI</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Reactor sells a wide range of watches, not just tactical pieces such as the Gryphon. There are styles that will appeal to both men and women, to everyone from armchair quarterbacks to serious outdoors folks.</p><p>What's cool about the Gryphon is that it's actually a watch inside a watch. To provide a depth rating of 200M/660 ft., the guts of the watch, including a quartz movement with a 10-year battery, were encased in stainless steel, while the exterior of the watch was crafted from a lightweight polymer borrowed from the firearms business. The crown screws down.</p><p>It has a nice, thick nylon-and-rubber strap with laser-cut holes, and although at 42mm it's a a chunky watch on paper, it doesn't wear that big. The Gryphon also has the best lume of any sport or tactical watch I've ever seen, thanks to a substance Reactor calls NeverDark. The only watch I own that glows anywhere near as bright in very low light or complete darkness is my Seiko Diver, a legend for its lume. </p><p>The unidirectional bezel clicks solidly and precisely, and the face is quite legible. There's a small date window at six o'clock, and timekeeping was very precise. Importantly, the Gryphon was comfortable to wear all day, rain or shine, hot or cold.</p><p>This is a serious watch, at a reasonable price for the build quality and the thought that went into its design. I didn't punish it, but I could. It would also look good if it were a little beat-up, a strong test for any sport watch. And if I were headed out for camping, rafting, climbing, or hiking, this would be my go-to watch. </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/watch-office-weekend-rolex-omega-leather-2016-11">How to pick the perfect watch for the office and the weekend</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="lidzdqNzE6VGOFIoF8dz6AJ54-bmpNcU" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

This is the best watch to buy if you want an indestructible timepiece

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>To hear Apple CEO Tim Cook tell it, augmented reality - the hot new technology for projecting digital images into the real world, Pokémon Go-style - is "<span>a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-on-augmented-reality-a-big-idea-like-the-smartphone-2017-2">big idea like the smartphone</a>."</span></p><p><span>But to Alex Kipman, Microsoft Technical Fellow and chief inventor of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-hololens-leader-alex-kipman-ted-2016-2016-3">Microsoft's pioneering augmented reality headset HoloLens</a>, that's underselling it. </span></p><p><span>Augmented reality and virtual reality technology will have a far bigger impact than smartphones ever did, Kipman told Business Insider in an interview. </span></p><p><span><span>"The potential of these devices," he said, is that they could one day "replace your phones, TVs, and all these screens." Once your apps, videos, information, and even social life are projected into your line of sight, you won't need any other screen-based gadgetry. Kipman calls it the "natural conclusion" of mixed reality. </span></span></p><p><span><span>That's a leap forward on par with the advent of internet, which <span>changed how people communicated and did business; the smartphone didn't really do anything new, it just put the internet</span><span> in your pocket, he says.</span></span></span></p><p><span><span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-glass-amit-singh-augmented-reality-privacy-concerns-project-tango-2017-2">Google</a><span>, </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-fake-news-and-virtual-reality-2016-12">Facebook</a><span>, </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-integrating-augmented-reality-iphone-camera-app-2016-11">Apple</a><span>, and Google-backed startup </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/beyonce-magic-leap-mermaid-2017-2">Magic Leap</a><span> are all working around the clock trying to conquer the mixed reality future for themselves.</span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span>But Microsoft, after missing the boat on the mobile market, is now in the enviable position of being one of the leading players in the nascent mixed reality market, thanks to its HoloLens headset.</span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span>And Kipman is determined not to squander that early advantage. </span></span></span> </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>While Kipman appreciates the other companies and their work - "we're all birthing a whole ecosystem" - he says Microsoft remains in first place, with the most complete platform out there. Beyond just HoloLens, Microsoft has also been investing in helping its PC manufacturer partners come up with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-acer-virtual-reality-developer-kit-launches-2017-2">Windows-compatible VR headsets</a>. </p><p>Kipman has long been adamant that the HoloLens, currently <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-microsoft-to-ship-developer-hololens-for-3000-in-march-2016-2">available to developers for $3,000</a>, will <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-hololens-alex-kipman-interview-ar-vr/">only be released to consumers when it's good and ready</a>, but he says that Microsoft is still setting the pace of innovation.</p><p>"HoloLens leads the way," Kipman says.</p><h2>The Microsoft advantage</h2><p>Microsoft has something of a history of swinging for the fences and missing. Kipman himself led development of the Microsoft Kinect, which <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-microsoft-xbox-kinect-didnt-take-off-2015-9">sold about 29 million units before just kind of fading away</a>. But while he says that Microsoft has had its share of "bloody noses" over the years, "they're in the past." </p><p>With HoloLens in particular and the overall Windows mixed reality strategy in general, Kipman says, Microsoft has an "authentic structural focus," giving it several key advantages in terms of both technology and how it goes about accomplishing its mission.</p><p>For starters, Kipman says that Microsoft boss Satya Nadella is "the most product-driven CEO ever," with the vision and foresight necessary to lead the company into this mixed reality future. It's a critical play for Microsoft, as the continued shrinkage of the PC industry makes this a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-windows-10-needs-to-improve-2016-10">do-or-die moment for Windows</a>.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>And in terms of the technology, Kipman says that HoloLens is only made possible because Microsoft has been investing in the necessary underpinnings for many years now.</p><p>Sensor technology invented for the Kinect made its way into the HoloLens; the Microsoft Surface team helps with design and manufacture of high-end hardware; the Microsoft Azure supercomputing cloud helps power the most immersive holographic apps; Microsoft-owned game studios like Minecraft maker Mojang help make it enjoyable to use; the Windows team handles the operating system, and more examples besides.</p><p>"That's the prerequisite to build a HoloLens," Kipman says. </p><h2>Versus Google and Apple</h2><p>Not even Microsoft's peers among the largest tech companies have all those resources, Kipman says. Amazon, for instance may have the Amazon Web Services cloud computing platform, but it doesn't have a major operating system, just for starters.</p><p>Indeed, Kipman says, Microsoft Windows is a big part of the puzzle. It's a popular, commonly-understood operating system that runs on a wide array of hardware, running the gamut from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-cheap-laptop-lenovo-ideapad-100s-review-2016-1">mega-cheap</a> to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/razer-launches-thinnest-lightest-desktop-replacement-razer-blade-pro-and-localised-notebooks-2016-10">ultra-premium</a>. That wide array of options is complemented by the fact that Windows lets anybody, anywhere make software for it.</p><p>"There's not a lot of companies that have done that," Kipman says.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>So while Apple may make the best hardware, Kipman says, the fact that it maintains such a vice grip on the App Store hurts the ability of developers to experiment. And while Google's Android is a wide-open platform for anybody to build anything, he thinks that Google is far less experienced in terms of high-end hardware.</p><p>In the middle, you have Microsoft, which recently <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-acer-virtual-reality-developer-kit-launches-2017-2">unveiled a new line of Windows-compatible virtual reality headsets</a>, starting at a budget $299. Now, Kipman says, Microsoft Windows supports a full range of hardware that goes from the low end, all the way up to the premium $2,999 HoloLens, all compatible with a growing range of Windows software.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>There's a lot of work to be done, Kipman says, starting with making these headsets more comfortable, ensuring that there's lots of great software for them, and even far-future-looking stuff like making it so you can actually feel physical resistance and even temperature from digital objects, so a virtual ski trip might actually feel windy and cold.</p><p>More importantly, it's early enough that it's still anyone's game, Kipman says. Having all these advantages "doesn't mean you are going to win, by the way," Kipman says. But if you want to compete with Microsoft, he says, "you better be more focused than we are."</p>  <p class="tagline">Get the latest Google stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GOOG-Quote"> here.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-hololens-companies-demo-reel-nasa-jpl-2016-3">Organizations like NASA are already using Microsoft's futuristic HoloLens - and it looks amazing</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="1kNDdnMjE6jUzKU-zaqTQa6fBPM8VERN" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Why the creator of Microsoft's craziest bet thinks its already winning the race to create tech that's a bigger deal than smartphones

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Business Insider/Snapchat</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Snapchat Discover, the section of the app where you can catch up on the day's news, is a certified hit.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Discover has attracted media companies from BuzzFeed to CNN to The Wall Street Journal. And Snapchat has continued to attract new partners <a href="http://www.vogue.com/13472731/vogue-snapchat-discover/">like Vogue</a>, which made its Discover debut last month.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Discover has also captured the love of Snapchat's users. When Business Insider <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/john-kosner-espn-digital-interview-snapchat-millennials-2016-9">interviewed ESPN's digital boss John </a></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/john-kosner-espn-digital-interview-snapchat-millennials-2016-9">Kosner last month</a>, he shared that ESPN's Discover channel gets a whopping 18 million unique viewers per month, and 2.3 million per day. That's a huge chunk of viewers. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Anecdotally, I recently talked to a 20-year-old who said she got her news exclusively from Snapchat Discover and podcasts, which might be terrifying to hear if you work in more traditional forms of media.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">But when we talk about Snapchat Discover being a success, it's worth pointing out one particular thing: Discover is the tabloid rack of the digital world. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">That doesn't mean the production value is poor; in fact, many of the stories are a seamless mashup of GIFs, videos, and text. It's impressive. And it also doesn't mean that Snapchat hasn't signed up some more serious partners: WSJ, Vogue, and so on. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Yet still, every time I open the app it feels like I'm waiting in line at the grocery store, perusing the latest and greatest in the world of tabloids. Just glance to the right for a taste. This isn't Snapchat's "fault," since each publication is responsible for choosing its own editorial direction on Snapchat. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">However, the stories that publications choose for Snapchat are an indication on what they think works on the platform, and that does tend toward a certain sensibility.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">But don't just take my word for it! </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I took notes from the past week on which headlines appeared on the first few screens of my Snapchat Discover section. Here is a random sampling of the biggest news in Snapchat world (I trimmed a few off the list that were hard to understand without a picture, but other than that, I didn't cherry-pick them).</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Here's the list:</span></p><ul><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The untold story of Michael Jordan's ban</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Kim flees Paris after $11m heist</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Zeke and Dak do it again for Dallas</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Feed the wildlife in Mafia III</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">10 ways to be beat procrastination</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Classy AF</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Is Gaga pregnant with a demon baby?</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dez Bryant: 'I'm America's most hated'</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">This beauty treatment made my eyebrows fall out</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The 21 most romantic facts of all time</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Star: 'I need weed to survive'</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">12 hidden features in iOS 10</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Australia's biggest football match</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The secret to hack your own PSL</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">18 makeout tips you need to try</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">What your sign says about your bathroom habits</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The one change the Warriors want KD to make</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">September's biggest beefs</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Beware of the iPhone 7's water resistance</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Holey Moley! Kim slays Paris</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">What the hell just happened in St. Louis</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">10 things you should never do at a wedding</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">21 times texting was too real</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The sex ed they should've taught in school</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Kim K ditches Spanx after attack</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Is Adventure Time Finn-ished</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Did Tim Tebow homer on his first pitch? You bet he did</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Olympians visit the White House</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">21 times Tumblr was way too real about sexting</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">6 degrees of star sex</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">12 sex fears every guy has</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Caffeination across the nations</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rihanna shows us how it's done</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cartman learns about the female anatomy</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Every time Kim Kardashian has posed nude</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">America is hate-watching this election</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Gisele &amp; Tom: Shots &amp; bikinis</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">McGregor goes off at UFC 205 press conference</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">New Batman film may be coming soon</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The 18 most offensive Halloween costumes</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Drunk History on the Titanic: What could go wrong?</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lizzie McGuire is all grown up</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Political fist fight breaks out on live TV</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Who will punch Martin Shkreli in the face</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bella's best shoot ever</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Snapchat's new smart glasses</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Don't believe in love? Read this</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">9 American foods that are banned in other countries</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Men tell us why they cheated</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">19 only truly gross best friends will understand</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Why the 2016 election is so terrifying</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Boy, 3, filmed smoking weed</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Peace out, Biebs</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">7 reasons to avoid iOS 10</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Battle on skates</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">25 pictures that will change your worldview</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The lies people told to get laid</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Would you go on a date in VR?</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Last-second TD overturned in crazy finish</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">5 ways hooking up is different for men &amp; women</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">What it's like to date when you can't have sex</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">I drink 200 cups of coffee a day</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The sexual attraction edition</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">KG's amazing career in his own words</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It's 5 o'clock somewhere</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Adriana Lima &amp; Naomi Campbell slay Versace</span></li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">An iPhone-charging hoodie &amp; more sexy future tech</span></li></ul><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Snapchat declined to comment.</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/johnny-depp-pirates-of-the-caribbean-trailer-disney-2016-10">Disney's new 'Pirates of the Caribbean' trailer is here - and Johnny Depp isn't even in it </a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="RhOGc4NjE6ReyeyD7YHHwGgSpH7M3HOL" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Snapchat's Discover section is the new tabloid rack

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/apple-computer-ceo-steve-jobs-stands-next-to-a-new-version-news-photo/1129624">Mario Tama/Getty Images</a></span></p><p class="caption">Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs stands next to a new version of the iMac computer featuring a 17 inch monitor at Macworld Conference and Expo July 17, 2002 in New York City. Jobs demonstrated the MAC OSX 10.2 and the Jaguar system during his keynote address.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/apple">Apple</a> told investors on Wednesday to expect revenue from its holiday quarter to be around 8% lower than previously anticipated.</li><li>CEO Tim Cook largely blamed weak iPhone sales, "primarily" in China. The company saw its stock plunge in after-hours trading and when the market opened on Thursday.</li><li>The last time Apple made such a shocking announcement was in 2002, years before the introduction of the iPhone.</li></ul><p>On Wednesday, Apple announced revenue for its holiday quarter would be significantly lower than expected. This is a warning so rare for the company that the last time it issued a similar letter to shareholders was 16 years ago.</p><p>Originally, Apple told investors to expect revenues for its holiday quarter, which ended in December, to be as high as $93 billion - after halting trading on Wednesday, the company announced it was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-warns-holiday-quarter-was-a-huge-miss-2019-1">now revising its quarterly revenue guidance</a> down to $84 billion, a decrease of nearly 8 percent. </p><p>The company largely blamed this on disappointing iPhone sales, "primarily in greater China," said CEO Tim Cook on CNBC. Cook also said last night's surprise announcement was due to "macroeconomic and some Apple specific" issues, including its year-long $29 battery replacement program.</p><p>Apple's stock plunged dramatically in after-hours trading on Wednesday, and on Thursday morning, the stock opened at $144 - making it the fourth most valuable company, behind Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. In August, Apple became the first US company to hit a market cap of $1 trillion, but its stock took a beating as the market suffered through the "Red October."</p><p>But this isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened. </p><p>Back in 2002, it warned investors in a letter to expect revenues around $1.4 billion - down from its original guidance of $1.6 billion.</p><p>At this time, Apple was largely just selling personal computers, and had been selling its original iPod for less than a year. The iPhone wouldn't be announced until 5 years later in 2007.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">A man touches the Apple iPod mp3 music player on display during the Macworld Conference and Convention January 8, 2002 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The company's reasoning 16 years ago was fairly similar to the issues flagged in Wednesday's letter: unexpected sales loss in countries outside the US (it cited weak markets in Europe and Japan), and a slow "Father's Day and graduation time" sale season, according to this June 19, 2002 <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2002/06/18/technology/apple/index.htm">report by CNN</a>. </p><p>Apple blogger John Gruber pointed out the 2002 letter, written by then-CEO Steve Jobs, clocked in at a concise 200 words. Comparing that to Cook's 1,400 word letter yesterday, Gruber <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2019/01/steve_jobs_and_apples_last_previous_earnings_warning">wrote</a>, "delivering bad news was one area where Steve Jobs really shined in a way that Tim Cook just can't."</p><p>The fact remains, however, that even with the revised down revenue guidance, Apple will still announce massive profit for the quarter relative to the competition. To put things into perspective, Apple's iPhone sales alone <a href="https://twitter.com/bdsams/status/1080591725788319744">earn the company more money than the revenue Microsoft generates</a> - as a company.</p><p><strong>Here's the letter Jobs wrote to investors in 2002: </strong></p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Apple today announced that it expects to generate revenues of about $1.4 billion to $1.45 billion in the June quarter, down from previous guidance of about $1.6 billion. The lower-than-expected revenues are primarily due to soft demand in the consumer and creative markets such as advertising and publishing. Geographically, revenues in Europe and Japan have become particularly weak. The revenue shortfall is expected to be offset significantly by higher-than-expected gross margins primarily due to lower costs of some components. Accordingly, the Company has revised its earnings guidance to $.08 to $.10 per diluted share, compared to previous guidance of $.11 or slightly higher.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">"Like others in our industry, we are experiencing a slowdown in sales this quarter. As a result, we're going to miss our revenue projections by around 10%, resulting in slightly lower profits," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We've got some amazing new products in development, so we're excited about the year ahead. As one of the few companies currently making a profit in the PC business, we remain very optimistic about Apple's prospects for long-term growth."</p><p><strong>Here's the letter Cook <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/">published Wednesday</a>: </strong></p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">To Apple investors:</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Today we are revising our guidance for Apple's fiscal 2019 first quarter, which ended on December 29. We now expect the following:</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Revenue of approximately $84 billion<br />Gross margin of approximately 38 percent<br />Operating expenses of approximately $8.7 billion<br />Other income/(expense) of approximately $550 million<br />Tax rate of approximately 16.5 percent before discrete items<br />We expect the number of shares used in computing diluted EPS to be approximately 4.77 billion.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Based on these estimates, our revenue will be lower than our original guidance for the quarter, with other items remaining broadly in line with our guidance.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">While it will be a number of weeks before we complete and report our final results, we wanted to get some preliminary information to you now. Our final results may differ somewhat from these preliminary estimates.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">When we discussed our Q1 guidance with you about 60 days ago, we knew the first quarter would be impacted by both macroeconomic and Apple-specific factors. Based on our best estimates of how these would play out, we predicted that we would report slight revenue growth year-over-year for the quarter. As you may recall, we discussed four factors:</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">First, we knew the different timing of our iPhone launches would affect our year-over-year compares. Our top models, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, shipped in Q4'18 - placing the channel fill and early sales in that quarter, whereas last year iPhone X shipped in Q1'18, placing the channel fill and early sales in the December quarter. We knew this would create a difficult compare for Q1'19, and this played out broadly in line with our expectations.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Second, we knew the strong US dollar would create foreign exchange headwinds and forecasted this would reduce our revenue growth by about 200 basis points as compared to the previous year. This also played out broadly in line with our expectations.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Third, we knew we had an unprecedented number of new products to ramp during the quarter and predicted that supply constraints would gate our sales of certain products during Q1. Again, this also played out broadly in line with our expectations. Sales of Apple Watch Series 4 and iPad Pro were constrained much or all of the quarter. AirPods and MacBook Air were also constrained.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Fourth, we expected economic weakness in some emerging markets. This turned out to have a significantly greater impact than we had projected.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">In addition, these and other factors resulted in fewer iPhone upgrades than we had anticipated.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">These last two points have led us to reduce our revenue guidance. I'd like to go a bit deeper on both.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Emerging Market Challenges</strong></p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China. In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">China's economy began to slow in the second half of 2018. The government-reported GDP growth during the September quarter was the second lowest in the last 25 years. We believe the economic environment in China has been further impacted by rising trade tensions with the United States. As the climate of mounting uncertainty weighed on financial markets, the effects appeared to reach consumers as well, with traffic to our retail stores and our channel partners in China declining as the quarter progressed. And market data has shown that the contraction in Greater China's smartphone market has been particularly sharp.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Despite these challenges, we believe that our business in China has a bright future. The iOS developer community in China is among the most innovative, creative and vibrant in the world. Our products enjoy a strong following among customers, with a very high level of engagement and satisfaction. Our results in China include a new record for Services revenue, and our installed base of devices grew over the last year. We are proud to participate in the Chinese marketplace.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>iPhone</strong></p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Lower than anticipated iPhone revenue, primarily in Greater China, accounts for all of our revenue shortfall to our guidance and for much more than our entire year-over-year revenue decline. In fact, categories outside of iPhone (Services, Mac, iPad, Wearables/Home/Accessories) combined to grow almost 19 percent year-over-year.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">While Greater China and other emerging markets accounted for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline, in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be. While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Many Positive Results in the December Quarter</strong></p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">While it's disappointing to revise our guidance, our performance in many areas showed remarkable strength in spite of these challenges.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Our installed base of active devices hit a new all-time high-growing by more than 100 million units in 12 months. There are more Apple devices being used than ever before, and it's a testament to the ongoing loyalty, satisfaction and engagement of our customers.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Also, as I mentioned earlier, revenue outside of our iPhone business grew by almost 19 percent year-over-year, including all-time record revenue from Services, Wearables and Mac. Our non-iPhone businesses have less exposure to emerging markets, and the vast majority of Services revenue is related to the size of the installed base, not current period sales.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Services generated over $10.8 billion in revenue during the quarter, growing to a new quarterly record in every geographic segment, and we are on track to achieve our goal of doubling the size of this business from 2016 to 2020.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Wearables grew by almost 50 percent year-over-year, as Apple Watch and AirPods were wildly popular among holiday shoppers; launches of MacBook Air and Mac mini powered the Mac to year-over-year revenue growth and the launch of the new iPad Pro drove iPad to year-over-year double-digit revenue growth.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">We also expect to set all-time revenue records in several developed countries, including the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Korea. And, while we saw challenges in some emerging markets, others set records, including Mexico, Poland, Malaysia and Vietnam.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Finally, we also expect to report a new all-time record for Apple's earnings per share.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Looking Ahead</strong></p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Our profitability and cash flow generation are strong, and we expect to exit the quarter with approximately $130 billion in net cash. As we have stated before, we plan to become net-cash neutral over time.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">As we exit a challenging quarter, we are as confident as ever in the fundamental strength of our business. We manage Apple for the long term, and Apple has always used periods of adversity to re-examine our approach, to take advantage of our culture of flexibility, adaptability and creativity, and to emerge better as a result.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Most importantly, we are confident and excited about our pipeline of future products and services. Apple innovates like no other company on earth, and we are not taking our foot off the gas.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">We can't change macroeconomic conditions, but we are undertaking and accelerating other initiatives to improve our results. One such initiative is making it simple to trade in a phone in our stores, finance the purchase over time, and get help transferring data from the current to the new phone. This is not only great for the environment, it is great for the customer, as their existing phone acts as a subsidy for their new phone, and it is great for developers, as it can help grow our installed base.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">This is one of a number of steps we are taking to respond. We can make these adjustments because Apple's strength is in our resilience, the talent and creativity of our team, and the deeply held passion for the work we do every day.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">Expectations are high for Apple because they should be. We are committed to exceeding those expectations every day.</p><p style="padding-left: 40px;">That has always been the Apple way, and it always will be.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-apple-created-perfect-phone-design-smartphone-2018-11">All smartphones look the same today for 2 key reasons</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Apple's surprise warning to shareholders marks the first time the company has had to do this in 16 years

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>About a month ago, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/i-made-a-bold-move-from-iphone-to-android-and-i-completely-regret-it-2015-4">I wrote passionately about how</a> I had tried Android for 8 months and it simply wasn't for me. </p><p>Eventually, I came to the conclusion that Google and Android were just getting it wrong. The massive customization I had to undergo in order to get my phone to work the way I wanted felt more like a burden than a bonus.</p><p>Apple loaned me an iPhone 6 Plus device recently to test, and after three weeks I feel even stronger about my anti-Android feelings. iPhones don't do anything crazy; they just work. And it's that distinction that makes it the best phone to have.</p><p>Here are my first impressions.</p><h3>On the outside</h3><p>This is no amazing discovery, but the iPhone 6 Plus is a much more aesthetically appealing device to carry around with you than my former Samsung Galaxy Note 3.</p><p>It looks and feels premium, and has a much more confident look. This is no surprise. Apple's metal and glass has always triumphed over Samsung's plastic. But once you go to plastic and come back to metal, you really feel the difference.</p><p>The iPhone 6 Plus is also thinner and fits in my hand better than my old Note. It doesn't feel as bulky, though it does feel oddly like a larger device. It's a little taller with just slightly less width. It's more comfortable to get your hands around, though it's impossible to use with one hand.</p><p>I will, however, give the Note 3 the edge when it comes to the brightness and colors on the screen. In side-by-side examples, I found the Note's display to be more vibrant and colorful. When you pull up something like the colorful "Candy Crush" on both phones, you can see a marked difference.</p><p>I had the same experience watching Netflix, HBO GO, etc. The Note 3 just has a more vibrant display.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h3>Camera</h3><p>This makes a huge difference. Maybe one of the biggest differences of all. I tried multiple different camera apps on my Android phone and they were all awful.</p><p>Maybe the worst part about them all was that they took forever to load. The whole point of taking pictures with your smartphone is convenience. I want to snap and go and that's it. If it's super beautiful, that's a bonus. This never worked out for me on my Note 3, and as a result I took fewer pictures.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>This was especially tough moving from an iPhone in the first place. I use my iPhone camera for all sorts of things other than just taking pictures with friends or at events. </p><p>It serves as a digital scanner and a note-taking app because it can snap a picture so quickly. All of that functionality was completely lost on me when I was living with the Note 3. It doesn't open up fast enough, and the camera app both by Samsung and the Google substitute I used were not good.</p><p>Quality-wise I didn't see a ton of difference. I've always loved the iPhone camera and the 6 Plus is fantastic as well. When I got around to actually taking pictures on the Note 3 they were also solid. For what it's worth, specification-wise, the iPhone 6 Plus is an 8-megapixel camera, and the Note 3 is a 13-megapixel camera.</p><p>Of course there is a lot more that goes into making a camera take high quality pictures, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-megapixels-dont-paint-the-whole-picture-2015-4">and megapixels don't tell the whole story</a>. So it's no surprise that I felt the iPhone 6 Plus picture quality was just as good if not better. </p><h3>iOS vs. Android OS</h3><p>This is, of course, where the biggest divergence is. The operating system is the most important thing about any phone because it's the window to all that you do. iOS just crushes Android on this front.</p><p>I originally left iOS because I was bored with it. iOS has gone through changes over time, but mostly thanks to minor tweaks each year. I used to hate that, but now I think it's just fine. A phone <em>should</em> feel familiar and focus on speed and ease of use, and that's what iOS, for the most part, nails.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Apple has also mostly solved my big problems with iOS in recent updates. Having a quick reply on text messages is a huge help. And while widgets on Android were sometimes helpful (for example, date, weather, sports scores on my homescreen), I mostly ended up turning them off because it got messy and took up way too much battery life.</p><p>I'm also locking my phone now for the first time ever because the fingerprint sensor is so solid. (I never had the patience for 4-digit codes). It's worth noting that the latest Note, the Note 4, has a fingerprint sensor as well, but my Note 3 did not.</p><p>Apple's iOS is simple. It's just a bunch of app icons on a screen. Tap what you want, and you're in. That's really all you want your phone to do. Using your phone is all about getting and sending information quickly, and complicating that experience is a mistake.</p><h3>Apps</h3><p>Apps are so much better for iOS than Android. After using both for long periods of time, it's so clear to me that developers are putting all their efforts there and phoning in Android apps in far too many cases.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>For example, the Spotify app works better with the controls built into iOS so I can play, pause, and skip tracks without having to launch the app. Android can technically do the same thing, but it didn't always work well on my Note 3.</p><p>My beloved 1Password app <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/1password-app-integrations-2015-5">integrates with Safari and the operating system</a>, so I can easily log into sites and apps without having to type my password. I just need a fingerprint.</p><p>The camera app is better, reminders and calendar are better and smoother, and the alarm clock is much more user friendly. I've even started using Apple's built-in Mail app for the first time in years and have been enjoying it so far. (The Gmail app is miles better on Android, the iOS version is slow and annoying to use).</p><p>I'm also loving having back iOS-only apps that I had to find alternatives for on Android. The big one for me is <a href="http://tapbots.com/tweetbot/">Tweetbot</a>, my favorite mobile Twitter client.</p><p>And the general note here is really that the iOS version of most apps is so much better. They're generally smoother, have fewer bugs, and look much more beautiful. The same goes for native iOS apps. There's more developer love for Apple and it goes a long way for the consumer.</p><h3>The problem is fundamental</h3><p>If it's not abundantly clear by now, I won't be buying an Android phone again.</p><p>Apple is getting it right and Google and Android are getting it fundamentally wrong. My phone should be easy to use, quick, and should work the way I want it to work right out of the box.</p><p>While Apple tends to get that, Google and Android seem actually <em>too</em> focused on putting the experience in user's hands. The problem is, technical acumen varies from consumer to consumer. If you don't get it right out of the box, if it doesn't "just work," then you're assuming too much about your audience and bound to frustrate them.</p><p>Building on that, as someone who does have technical acumen, I just don't want all these options. I don't like going to the restaurant that purports to make every kind of food on the planet, sporting a 10 page menu. I like the restaurant with 15 selections on one clean sheet.</p><p>Sorry Android, but you've lost a customer.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-power-user-hacks-2015-4">5 clever iPhone tricks only power users know about</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="huN2Zzczr6N8qz_gUrYzZxcxaCD8z5Sv" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

After 3 weeks of using an iPhone after switching from Android, I'll never go back

<p><em><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-business-insider-interview"></div><p></p></div></div>In the four years since Lowell McAdam became CEO of Verizon Communications, the company has expanded 4G LTE service, bought AOL to add content and advertising technology, and has been one of the most aggressive in breaking up the television bundle of channels.</em></p><p><em>We talked about all that and why my bill is so expensive when we sat down recently at Business Insider's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/event/ignition-2015">IGNITION 2015</a> conference.</em></p><p><em>(Edited for length and clarity.)</em></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Henry Blodget:</strong> We talked to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/comcast-ceo-brian-roberts-interview-2015-12">Brian Roberts</a> of Comcast about this whole impending competition possibly between cable and wireless. But first your CFO said at an investment conference that you might be buying Yahoo. Yes?</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Lowell McAdam:</strong> I don't think he exactly said that. Our view is their board hasn't decided what they're going to do. As far as we know, it's not for sale. And I'm pretty sure if it turned out that parts of it or all of it were for sale, we'd look at it just like we look at anything in the digital-media area at this point because it's so hot.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Blodget:</strong> If you were to look at it, what purpose would it serve for you? You just bought AOL. Why did you buy AOL and what would Yahoo do?</span></p><p><strong>McAdam:</strong><span style="font-weight: 400;"> If we look at our strategy, it is three tiers. Have the best connectivity you can have out there. Own certain platforms that drive a lot of traffic to your network. So our <a href="https://www.go90.com/">Go90</a> platform, and AOL's ad platform, fits into that perfectly. And then the third tier is a few areas where you want to get to content, or solution, or application, so that you can show that broad area of the ecosystem.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Healthcare Internet of Things is one of those because we think that will drive a lot of traffic to the network. So AOL fit in perfectly with that strategy. And if there were pieces of Yahoo that augmented AOL, perhaps, but again that's way premature. Their board hasn't made any decisions and there've been no discussions and we're not getting ahead of our headlights here. We've got plenty to do. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Blodget:</strong> So you have AOL, maybe Yahoo or other digital media. Brian Roberts bought himself a wonderful suite of cable networks. Is that something we can expect you to do?</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>McAdam: </strong>You have to look at the assets that you have. And we have tremendously strong assets between Washington and Boston, the wireline side, on the fiber side. And fiber's going to be absolutely crucial as you go forward. But our strongest asset - frankly - is the mobile network. And we cover every square inch of the US. We've got 108 million customers at this point. So we're much more of a mobile-first play.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">That's why we've gone with our Go90 platform and AOL, especially as we go into the fifth generation, which will deliver up to 1 gigabit of throughput. So today the average network is about 5 MB of throughput. This is a 200-times improvement in the speed, so it opens up every one of these technology cycles, opens up broad new product sets. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Blodget:</strong> One of the things we talked about with Brian Roberts is that he's created this amazing interface, <a href="http://www.xfinity.com/x1">X1</a>. It's in some ways superior to Netflix. A challenge for Comcast and the other cable providers is they're regional. They can't go outside their areas. I can't get it in New York. You could offer me something that I can get because anybody in the country can get it.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Is that the ultimate vision of where we go? Will you have a front-end interface to television that will be everything that X1 is, except available to anybody?</span></p><p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>McAdam:</strong> T<span style="font-weight: 400;">hat's why we've sold off some satellite properties on the wireline side, so we can concentrate on Washington to Boston. And if you look at the quality of our network, I think everybody recognizes that Verizon's network is the best. So as you shift into these new-use cases, like video, like the Internet of Things, we think mobile's the way to go. And that's why Go90's so important for us.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Blodget:</strong> You just launched it, Go90. What is it? Where is it going?</span></p><p><strong>McAdam:</strong> I<span style="font-weight: 400;">t's not just a video platform - it's a social-networking platform based on video. We have the NFL deal. We just cut a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-verizon-signs-content-deal-with-nba-for-video-streaming-app-go90-nyt-2015-11">deal</a> with the NBA, so we'll have ... many more games than you've seen before. But the interesting thing is we can get many things like Comedy Central that are distributed in certain places, but we've also got some premium content now - AwesomenessTV, which is owned by DreamWorks. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Driving at a very low cost, driving a huge number of views. Some of the episodes will come out at 6 o'clock on Saturday night. By 10 o'clock, they have more views than some of the cable-news stations do in an entire month. The 300-channel bundle is going to continue to break down. And as we do, we'll be able to provide some long form but more geared toward millennials, more short-form content like "Guidance" and other series like that as we go forward.</span></p><p><strong>Blodget:</strong><span style="font-weight: 400;"> And is the idea that Go90's content will be exclusive? I have to open the app to get to it, or will it be distributed on YouTube and Facebook and all the other places that folks are streaming on?</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>McAdam:</strong> The interesting thing about all of this is that the models are changing so rapidly. The key for us is to have assets that are easy for people to get to and they want to use. So Go90 right out of the gate will have certain things that are exclusive to Verizon, but you can download it if you're a Sprint customer or T-Mobile customer, and they're doing that. Things like the AwesomenessTV - exclusive content. My view is you premiere it on Verizon, but then you quickly distribute it, even globally.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>Blodget:</strong> So you just launched it. How many people use it?</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>McAdam:</strong> We're not going to give out any specifics on customers until we get into 2016 because we literally started advertising for it over Thanksgiving. But I would just say the subscriber counts are higher than we had predicted, and the most important thing is the number of times people revisit the site.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">And one of the things I say is it's a social-video network, so that if you're watching an NBA game and you want to literally go in and clip that footage out and send that to your social network, you can do that. Starting next week, we're going to have the Mariah Carey Christmas special - eight episodes exclusive to us. So you can clip and share that.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Blodget:</strong> How do you develop something like this within Verizon? It's very difficult historically for large companies that do one thing to compete in this space. If you want this to be a social app, there are 5,000 brilliant young people in Silicon Valley who do just that, are trying to come up with that. How do you think that happened?</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>McAdam:</strong> The first thing is we've got the view that we need to disrupt ourselves because you think of a telecom company as not one of the most agile.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">So we had a strategy, in this case, where we wanted to create a media company to deal with the digital millennials that are our there. And so we have literally a couple thousand people in Silicon Valley who are working with some of these startup companies that you're talking about, and then the real issue for us is not what do you do, it's what don't you do. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If you remember after AT&amp;T bought DirecTV, which I would argue is a very good purchase for them, there was a lot of "Verizon should go buy Dish." That's not our strategy. We're trying to skate to where the puck is going and it's not in a declining linear play - it's in digital, snackable, mobile-based content. So we use those things as a filter and AOL as a cornerstone to build on and we've got a wide array of products that are scheduled to come out next year based on that. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Blodget:</strong> The branding around Fios is fantastic. Everybody has this impression that it's lighting fast, so I asked Twitter what I should ask Lowell McAdam, and people said, "Are we going to get Fios to more people in New York City?" "When's it going to be full city?" "I want this. So when is it?"</span></p><p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>McAdam:</strong> O<span style="font-weight: 400;">ur biggest challenge with Fios is building it out. And you know we look for opportunities to learn, and I think Google has done us a favor by showing that the standard licensing agreement with the cities is probably not sustainable because, again, people do not want 300-channel bundles and the economics won't work for that.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I'll give you a factoid on our <a href="http://www.verizon.com/home/fiostv/">Custom TV</a>, which is averaging 40 to 60 channels. It became 40% of our volume the minute we launched it. And it doesn't have all the heavy weight of these sports channels that you have to pay for, whether you watch or not, and some of the 13 channels that come along with those. So we've seen that grow.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">So skinnying down the bundle helps the profitability, driving more broadband helps the profitability, and, frankly, </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">I think a big breakthrough is going to be when we start doing 5G because that allows you to cover many more homes without having to actually go into the home to provide the services.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Blodget:</strong> So what is 5G? When are we going to get it? And how much is it going to cost us?</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>McAdam:</strong> If you look at the first generation of wireless, it really lasted about 15 years before we went to the second generation. When we implemented the fourth generation, which allowed us to do all the smartphones and the videos, the time between that and going to the fifth generation is going to be four years. So the cycle just continues to move faster and faster and faster - </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">5G is much more designed for video. We call it more use-case defined.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">When you think of the thousands of devices in the Internet of Things, when you think that today 70% of our traffic is video and year-over-year our volume has grown 75%, no one sees that slowing down. So bigger capacity, faster response times. Latency is very important when you think about autonomous cars and things like that - 5G will really change the game, and I think will be another spike of growth in the wireless industry.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong><br>Blodget:</br></strong> And so when do we get it?</span></p><p><strong style="color: #222222; line-height: 22.5px;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></strong></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>McAdam:</strong> I</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> showed my board the service in November, and you don't ever go to a board with something that's not real. We'll be piloting it more broadly. San Francisco, we'll be there. We'll have it in New York. We'll have it in Boston.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I expect to have our Basking Ridge campus up in January, and then rolling it out more commercially later in the year, and then commercially more in 2017 and beyond.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Blodget:</strong> And so when you have good nationwide coverage with this, you will be able to go and sell the bundle that you just referred to that you concurrently sell to 5 million Fios households and sell it to everybody?</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>McAdam:</strong> My point is I'm not sure it would be the bundle because I think millennials don't want them. We have about 300 folks in Southern California who are working on media and I asked them, "How many people have this traditional cable bundle?" Ten of them raised their hands. Everybody else does everything over the internet.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">So I'd argue no, we won't be taking the standard bundle, and I know you have <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cbs-ceo-les-moonves-on-being-number-one-2015-12">Les Moonves here</a></span><span>. Les is one of the thought leaders in how to take his content and package it more for mobile and make it more <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-top_content">over-the-top </a>centric. And I'm hopeful that more of the content providers will go that way.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Blodget:</strong> And one of the things we talked with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/comcast-ceo-brian-roberts-interview-2015-12">Brian Roberts</a> about was the fact that it turns out that only a relatively small percentage - maybe 10% - of mobile data is actually consumed outside of home and work. And Brian talked about cable maybe moving into offering mobile phones and connectivity. Do you see much more head-to-head competition over time? </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>McAdam:</strong> I guess it depends on the model. I think the key is the technology will be there to offer an integrated, seamless product. So far, the bundle has been a bottom of the bill discount. I believe mobile-first video will take off inside and outside the home. The question is how long does it take for this to sort of come down? Is the 300-channel bundle going to be around for a decade? I tend to think not. I think it's more three to five years.</span></p><p><strong>Blodget:</strong> <span style="font-weight: 400;">So let's talk about pricing. I was recently informed that our family bill - we're working with a competitor of yours - is now over $300 a month because, of course, each child needs their own device with their own data and they can't quite figure out when it's Wi-Fi. Plus, I pay over $200 to the cable company, so $500 a month total to get all this stuff and I'm sure I could get the price down. But you're going to roll out this 5G, which I'm going to want instantly. How much am I going to be paying you in 10 years?</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>McAdam:</strong> Ask your family how many of them are willing to give up their mobile phone.</span></p><p><strong>Blodget:</strong> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Nobody. This is the problem, I concede. It's going to be the last thing other than food we give up. So, how much are you going to take from me going forward?</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>McAdam:</strong> We're going to have to see how the models evolve. AOL does a lot of ad insertion. Advertisers are very excited about that. You're starting to see programs literally completely supported - all the data usage supported by a company. So our friends at AwesomenessTV are doing a series set on a cruise ship called Royal Crush completely subsidized by Royal Caribbean cruises because they're trying to have teens see that cruises can be cool.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It's kind of those of you that are more my age and remember "The Love Boat" stories ... years ago. That's the millennial version of that. So there's a number of models. Subscription will be one, data will be one, but I think ad-supported and then completely sponsored will be in the mix as we go forward. I think your bills are still not going to be a lot lower than they are today. At least I hope.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Blodget:</strong> And that's OK. Like I can probably handle the current bill, but all these things you're talking about I'm going to want. And the other thing that I noticed as I was cramming for this interview was your wireless business has a more than 30% profit margin. How much do you need? And when you've got two competitors in the market who are frantically trying to undercut you at any turn, does that begin to have an impact? I mean, do you have any pricing concerns down the road?</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>McAdam:</strong> We get that price is always critical. But look at what Verizon's had to do in wireless and wireline - about $18 billion every year invested into the network. And so you have to get a return on that or you're not going to be able to do things like 5G. You have to have a network to deliver that, and as you go forward it's going to be more important because you're going to rely on it for healthcare and things like that. So you want us to be investing in the network.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">So if you look at what we return to shareholders and what we reinvest, I think it's a model that has to continue. People pay for quality. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Blodget:</strong> And how much going forward will owning content matter to that?</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>McAdam:</strong> It's a little bit. It's the same philosophy we would have whether it's distribution or networks or stores. You need to own enough of that to understand what drives the usage, but the key for us is the best network carrying traffic. Platforms that enable those applications to seamlessly go on the network and have just a few of those applications and content is all we're really interested in.</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/lowell-mcadam-explains-why-verizon-bought-aol-ignition-mobile-2015-12">Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam explains why he bought AOL</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="pmcmpleTrByLm2ktqdyFSsjV6_32Ok2j" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

You Searched For "amazing digital clocks" and got 12 results

BUSINESS INSIDER SPOTLIGHT: Coronavirus is mandating that managers learn to lead from home. CEOs Deidre Paknad and Nate Quigley have helmed distributed startups for years, and they gave us proven techniques for navigating remote teams in a time of crisis. Here's the full transcript.

Business Insider

7 successful freelancers, entrepreneurs, and employees share how they managed to travel the world without quitting their jobs

Adrian Granzella Larssen

This is the best watch to buy if you want an indestructible timepiece

Matthew DeBord

Why the creator of Microsoft's craziest bet thinks its already winning the race to create tech that's a bigger deal than smartphones

Matt Weinberger

Snapchat's Discover section is the new tabloid rack

Nathan McAlone

Apple's surprise warning to shareholders marks the first time the company has had to do this in 16 years

Meira Gebel

After 3 weeks of using an iPhone after switching from Android, I'll never go back

Matt Johnston

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam on when we'll get 5G, why our bills are so expensive, and why it bought AOL

Henry Blodget

'The Da Vinci Code' author Dan Brown explains how he overcame self-doubt and became a bestselling writer who's sold 250 million books

Graham Flanagan,Sarah Wyman

This CEO turned down her dream job to build an email newsletter into a business with $28 million, 25 million fans, and a clothing line at Target

Richard Feloni,Sarah Wyman

Cartels are growing marijuana illegally in California - and there's a war brewing

Julian Smith, bioGraphic

MOMENTUM: The inside story of how Jeremy Corbyn took control of the Labour party

Jeremy Wilson