Fast Company

As its devices mature, Apple’s next step is presenting a more unified experience for developers and users.

Apple CEO Tim Cook opened up the company’s WWDC week by noting that his keynote would focus on the company’s four device platforms: Apple Watch, Mac, iPhone/iPad, and TV. The operating systems that power these products have been the foundation of Apple’s enviable technology ecosystem—its collection of hardware, software, and services that complement each other and enhance the value of the aggregate even more than each component.

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There’s no forcing your employees into action. Here’s how to stop leading by fear and start collaborating again.

“But I’ve told them!” You’re frustrated. You’ve already explained the new procedures that will improve your team’s work and cut costs, but they aren’t listening.

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Our brains are built to treat distraction as a threat. Here are six ways to trick your brain back into focusing.

If you’ve ever been in mid-conversation at lunch only to lose your train of thought when your cell phone buzzed, a new study published in Nature Communications offers an explanation of what’s happening in your brain to cause this.

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Don’t just grin and bear it or jump ship too soon. There’s a better future at your currently employer if you’re willing to work for it.

Meet Nick. Nick is seriously considering quitting his job. He’s been in the same position for almost three years and hates everything about it.

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His taste buds are insured for more than both of Rihanna’s legs and on par with one of Madonna’s boobs, depending on the exchange rate.

It takes Tetley master blender Sebastian Michaelis more than four months of work to make a single bag of tea. The process involves leaping continents, driving all day on bumpy dirt roads, dealing with seaport strikes, battling buyers at auction houses, delivery trucks sliding off highways, speaking a made-up tea language called “Uhuru,” and enduring weather phenomena that can be so extreme that insurance companies call them “acts of God.”

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With over 50 years in journalism and scores of interviews under his belt, Tom Brokaw knows how to start a conversation with anyone.

A large part of Tom Brokaw’s career was spent in one of the country’s most visible jobs, anchoring NBC’s Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. Before Facebook’s newsfeed and Twitter’s moments, before the rise of viral videos on YouTube, Brokaw was one of three network television anchors that Americans depended on to report what was happening in the world. Over the course of a career that spans more than five decades, Brokaw talked to all kinds of people, from politicians and pundits to prisoners and civil rights workers. To say he’s honed the craft of conversation would be an understatement.

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Expect updates to the major operating systems, as well as improvements to Siri and an Apple Music overhaul.

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference next Monday will be all about the brains behind Apple devices—the operating systems. It’s not likely we’ll see any new gadgetry (I could be wrong; it’s happened), but we’ll get a busload of information about new tricks in iOS, Mac OS, watchOS, and tvOS.

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A system of audio transmitters would stand in for GPS’s satellite broadcasts and let underwater drones navigate without surfacing.

We take for granted that GPS can get us where we’re going pretty much anywhere on earth, but there’s one important place satellite navigation systems are essentially guaranteed not to work: under the sea.

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A little friction on your team can be a good thing, and these exercises can help you channel it productively.

In school, social settings, and at work, those who challenge the status quo are labeled “troublemakers” and “malcontents.” Business tends to prize a “can-do” attitude and respect for hierarchies. While we tend to valorize bold individualists in the abstract, it’s the team players who get promoted in practice.

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There’s nothing wrong with eyeing the competition when it’s right for your career—just be careful how you go about it.

There comes a time in your career when the company you work for just doesn’t do it for you anymore. You don’t feel the same thrill you once did when you see your employer’s logo first thing in the morning, and your willingness to hang around the office after working hours is rapidly declining. If you like what you do but not where you’re doing it, there’s a good chance the competition is looking mighty fine right about now.

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