AP: The Who’s Pete Townshend on Monday branded Apple Inc.’s iTunes a “digital vampire” that profits from music without supporting the artists who create it. Townshend said that faced with the Internet’s demolition of established copyright protections, iTunes should offer … Continued
Monthly Archives: October 2011
∞ Yoko Ono to introduce Steve Jobs tribute at MTV Music Awards
Billboard:
“Like John Lennon, the man I love deeply, Steve Jobs was a dreamer who changed the world,” Ono is expected to say during the online awards ceremony that begins Oct. 31 at 8:30 p.m. PT at www.omusicawards.com. “But of course when we lose a genius of that caliber, they are never really gone. They live on all around us, through our memories, their words, and their work. Their spirit grows in us forever to the end of the days.”
∞ Streaming live TV
John Gruber:
Apple is only going to get serious about TV if they find a way to get past that paradigm.
Exactly. The paradigm is traditional TV as we know it. Turn on the TV and watch whatever is there. Apple feels that model is broken and until that changes, the company won’t enter the market in a big way. However, if Apple has figured out a way around that model, look out.
∞ Apple's iPhone 4S commercials
iCloud Siri, Snow Day
∞ Lotus founder Mitch Kapor on racial bias in Silicon Valley
Lotus founder Mitch Kapor says that Silicon Valley investors are too quick to fund startups from people like themselves, overlooking black entrepreneurs in the process.
∞ Pros and cons of the Internet circa 1996
Jared Newman reported on this gem for Technologizer where he shows how students were given the pros and cons of using the Internet in 1996. I love this con: Speed — Some Internet activities can take a long time, especially … Continued
∞ Elements 2.1 text editor for iOS
Elements 2.1 allows the user to sync their settings, appearance preferences and scratchpad contents between multiple devices using Apple’s new iCloud platform. Now if you set a specific theme, font style or default file extension on your iPhone, iCloud will remember that preference and copy it to your other devices as well.
∞ ChronoSync [Sponsor]
ChronoSync is the easy way to synchronize, backup, and create bootable backups. Synchronize between folders on your Mac, other Macs, PCs, external drives or anything you can mount on your Mac. Set up a Synchronizer document to schedule and automatically … Continued
∞ More tablets than PCs for schools
Neil Hughes for AppleInsider: IT directors who spoke with Piper Jaffray indicated that within the next five years, they expect to have more tablets per student than they currently have computers. And since the iPad represents 100 percent of tablets … Continued
∞ Google's Halloween Doodle
Massive pumpkins.
∞ Apple's 1993 gift catalog
Some classic stuff in there.
∞ MIDI guitar controllers
Toby Pitman for macProVideo.com: I’m a good example of a guitarist who is really into synths but finds triggering these sounds from the piano interface very frustrating as technically I’m just not good enough on the piano. As soon as … Continued
∞ Mona Simpson's eulogy for Steve Jobs
Steve’s sister Mona Simpson published her eulogy in the New York Times today.
∞ Siri and 911
John S. Wilson, a health policy analyst, talking about how Siri could revolutionize our 911 system.
Once the word “emergency” is spoken to Siri, a range of beneficial activity could commence. First, the phone could video call 911 utilizing Skype or a similar VoIP video service. This would allow first responders to have a much better context of the emergency at hand. Armed with a live video and audio feed of the event, visual cues could assist the first responders as they deconstruct the problem. Second, Siri could send the GPS location of the caller.
I’m not sure how far off in the future something like this would be or how practical it would be. What if you spoke “emergency” by mistake? Interesting thoughts though.
∞ Zora Belle handmade clothing
Lots and lots of talent.
∞ Paying for digital publications
A well thought out piece from Shadoe Huard on what he would like to see from digital publications and what would make him part with his money to pay for them.
∞ Backblaze cloud backup service improves speed, adds features
Backblaze, the cloud-based backup service, introduced a 2.0 release this week. CEO Gleb Budman describes 2.0 as “unlimiting unlimited” in a blog post. With Backblaze, you can back up your entire Mac’s contents to a secure online repository, for safe … Continued
∞ Telltale's Jurassic Park game hits Mac, iPad this November
Telltale Games has announced the “gold master” status of Jurassic Park: The Game, coming to four platforms including the Mac on November 15, with an iPad version expected to be released shortly thereafter. The game is based on the enormously … Continued
∞ Apps as TV channels
John Gruber: Imagine watching a baseball game on a TV where ESPN is a smart app, not a dumb channel. When you’re watching a game, you could tell the TV to show you the career statistics for the current batter. … Continued
∞ Philadelphia Inquirer tablet giveaway hasn't lived up to hype
Los Angeles Times: At the Sept. 12 tablet launch, the publisher predicted that the first batch of 5,000 units would sell out in a week. Six weeks later, only about half of the narrow black computers have moved. “In the … Continued
∞ HP TouchPad stock depleted
An email sent to The Loop reader Michael today: Dear Michael, Making sure customers have a positive experience when they purchase our products is a priority for us. In some cases, limited inventory makes it challenging to fulfill all customer … Continued
∞ Tumult Hype
I’d like to thank Tumult Hype for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop.
Tumult Hype lets you create animated HTML5 content that will wow your website’s visitors. Its output works on all modern browsers and mobile devices like iPhones and iPads. No coding necessary.
Tumult Hype has a trial available, and can be purchased on the Mac App Store or its own Tumult Store for $29.99.
∞ Talking to Siri ebook released
Talking to Siri introduces you to Siri. This short, focused book teaches you how to use Siri from the ground up. You’ll learn how to achieve the the highest recognition rate as you talk. You’ll discover which categories Siri responds … Continued
∞ More stupid advice for Apple
Apple has been incredibly successful over the last decade, but yet there are people out there that always think they know better.
Jason Perlow for ZDNet talking about what Apple must do:
If we have learned anything at all from the company’s most recent 3rd quarter sales figures, we must ultimately recognize that Apple’s revenue is highly based on an annuity or semi-annuity model of repeat customers. Repeat customers are bread and butter, but it does not create growth.
Clearly Apple has not grown at all over the last 10 years. They don’t rule the smartphone market, iTunes doesn’t sell any songs or movies, and the App Store is sure to fail any day now.
∞ Trick or Treat at the iTunes store
It’s Halloween weekend and the fun is about to begin. You don’t need to go out to enjoy yourself, you can visit Apple’s iTunes store and pick up movies, apps, music and other media to help you celebrate. 99 cent … Continued
∞ 15 other offers RIM could use to sell PlayBooks
Message from Jim: Earlier today RIM began offering a “buy 2, get 1 free” PlayBook deal. I thought it would be appropriate to help the company come up with some other special offers. I contacted Darby Lines, aka The Angry Drunk, to work some of his magic.
Take it away Darby:
- The Sampler package: Buy 4 PlayBooks and get a Samsung Galaxy Tab, a Motorola Xoom, an HP TouchPad and a Dell Streak. Enjoy the full range of crappy tablets.
∞ Review: Rockin' a Kermit wristband and an iPod nano
There are a lot of reasons to love the iPod nano. Apple’s diminutive device has been part of my music listening arsenal since it was first released and still is. The first thing I noticed about the new iPod nano … Continued
∞ The bullshit Samsung smartphone numbers
The Internet is buzzing this morning with news that Samsung has overtaken Apple as the worlds leading smartphone vendor. The problem is, there are no numbers to actually back up the claim.
Here’s an example of how it’s being reported. From GigaOM:
Samsung had a very strong quarter, according to numbers it revealed on Friday to investors. Its shipments (which it doesn’t provide specific numbers for) jumped more than 40 percent during the third quarter. Strategy Analytics estimates that amounts to total sales of nearly 28 million devices, while Apple moved 17 million during the same period.
Wait a minute. Samsung doesn’t provide specific numbers, so we are going to take their word that shipments jumped 40 percent? To make matters worse, Strategy Analytics “estimates” sales of 28 million devices.
∞ An informal e-book study
Marco Arment:
In the past, I’ve always recommended the Kindle over other e-ink readers, and buying Kindle books instead of iBooks on iOS, because Amazon had the biggest library of relevant titles and strongest content ecosystem.But Amazon’s advantage is no longer as clear in my casual searching.
I just buy from iTunes. Apps, music, books, movies, videos, TV shows. Everything. Convenience rules.
∞ Bill Gates: Billionaire, millionaire 'it's the same hamburger'
Bill Gates on being a billionaire:
“I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars, there’s a certain freedom, meaningful freedom, that comes with that. But once you get much beyond that, I have to tell you, it’s the same hamburger. Dick’s has not raised their prices enough,” he said, referring to the Seattle-area fast-food chain. “But being ambitious is good. You just have to pick what you enjoy doing.”
Anytime you want to throw a few billion my way Bill…