I’ve always felt that Apple’s Passbook was a good idea that never really took off. I use it for boarding passes but have found very few other uses. (I know the poster child for Passbook retail use is Starbucks but I don’t drink coffee and don’t like their tea.) Either way, I’ve felt that Passbook has been in limbo lately. I’m sure the whole “pay with your phone” idea is important to Apple but it seemed like Passbook may be one of those things that just lingers until Apple unveils the next initiative to replace it.

That may still be the case but it appears Apple isn’t entirely ignoring Passbook. Today they added a new feature that lets you charge up your iTunes credit with Passbook in an Apple retail store. This makes a lot of sense with the upcoming Family Sharing feature. I would like to see Passbook (or something like it) take off. I’m tired of carrying bits of plastic around when I’ve got a really smart phone.

Josh Centers at TidBITS walks you through how to use Passbook in the Apple Store.

Today Apple and IBM announced a partnership to use IBM’s enterprise expertise and Apple’s products to tackle enterprise sales. It seems like a good fit. There are a lot of moving pieces and, as usual, Macworld covers it well.

For years now, Apple has been building this retail/consumer battleship and largely ignoring enterprise sales. While Apple has lavished significant attention on enterprise support in iOS, they’ve never appeared to care much about selling to and supporting the enterprise. As a result, we’ve all wondered if they had some sort of plan or just didn’t care. With today’s move, it appears the plan is to offload enterprise sales and support to IBM. It makes sense. I hope it goes well for both companies.

I am a business lawyer but did my undergraduate degree in political science, which makes me a bit of a faker among some of the business types I spend time with. However, the one thing that always gives me credibility is the way I can make a spreadsheet application dance. I’ve written in the past how, for certain problems, a spreadsheet application can double as a simple application development platform. Here is the Settlement “App” I’ve built in Numbers.

If you are looking at getting better at spreadsheets, Rob Griffiths wrote up a nice summary at Macworld of nine things you should know how to do with a spreadsheet.

I’m going to declare the release of the below video demonstrating an alleged Sappphire crystal display from the next iPhone the official opening of iPhone rumor silly season. Every year about this time, the parts leaks start up giving us increased information about the next iPhone, which Apple will probably announce in September or October. While the video is impressive, I’m not sure how relevant the tests were. I’ve been using iPhones without cases since the first iPhone. Granted I’m pretty careful about it (the left pocket is for iPhone only) but I have never had a scratch on the glass of any of my iPhones.

Shattered glass is another story. The real test I would like to see with this Sapphire crystal (if this is Sapphire crystal), is shatter resistance. If Apple is incorporating this new material and it can dramatically decrease the amount of shattered screens, then we are talking.

Either way, I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more links and stories in the coming months leading up to Apple’s announcement. Moreover, if the new material is used and is more shatter resistant, I’m certain that Tim and gang will be shouting that from the rooftops at the eventual announcement.