Yearly Archives: 2015

Brilliant Song.

There’s been a number of these types of articles written, but this one has a couple of new tips.

I’ve been around for each version of iTunes, but strangely, I don’t remember it changing so much.

[Via MacStories]

When he got to the hospital, Robson told staff that he had been tracking his heart rate on the watch, and had two weeks of back data. “Going in with the data certainly reduced my stay by a couple of days,” he told MedCity News. It also assured that he could have the operation nearly immediately.

Because the hospital could check his Apple Watch data, Robson did not have to wear a heart monitor for a week before the medical team at Scripps Mercy could confirm the diagnosis of sick sinus syndrome.

These are the types of things that Apple Watch can do. It is truly amazing how this device has changed people’s lives.

More than 100 IBM employees occupy Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., campus helping build iPhone and iPad apps for IBM customers such as Citigroup Inc., Sprint Corp. and Japan Post Holdings Co.

Things are looking different inside IBM, too. Once a company of blue suits, Wintel PCs and BlackBerrys, Big Blue is on track to become the world’s largest corporate user of MacBooks. On Wednesday, the company will apply lessons it has learned to introduce a new service intended to help other companies adopt Macs.

This is an important relationship for both companies. It’s really bizarre how things change so dramatically over time though.

CNET:

Apple’s latest mobile OS is now on 85 percent of all iOS devices, according to Apple’s App Store Distribution page. That figure refers specifically to all iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches that visited Apple’s App Store on Monday, August 3.

And what about iOS rival Android? The latest flavor, namely Android Lollipop, is on just 18 percent of all devices running Google’s mobile OS, according to the latest Android Developers Dashboard.

I feel less smug about these adoption numbers than I feel sorry for the mess adoption is for Android users.

Not just any leather, but the luxury full grain leather used to craft all of Pad & Quill’s handmade goods. So we turned to Victorio, a 4th generation Italian leather tannery artisan. His tannery uses legendary soft-tumbled method to transform full grain American steer hides into a luxury leather watch band that will hug your wrist with pliable comfort, while being as rugged and durable as your active life demands.

I just love the quality of Pad & Quill products. I own a couple of their bags and they are top notch.

WIRED:

Motorcycles are not made for surfing. They do not float. They are not waterproof. All of which explains the biggest problem Robbie Maddison had when he tried to use one as a surfboard.

“We sank the motorcycle over a hundred times,” he says.

None of that stopped the Aussie stunt rider from combining his adult profession with his childhood passion to create Pipe Dream, a short video in which Maddison rides the wicked waves of Teahupo’o on a modified KTM 300 motocross machine.

First time I saw stills from the video, I thought it was pretty good photoshop work. Then I started watching the video and thought, that looks like fun. Then I saw him surf the waves of Teahupo’o and thought he was a crazy person.

I’ve heard of this happening with other people when they lose credit cards. Apple Pay is updated automatically—brilliant.

Releasing classic albums on reel-to-reel, duplicated from the original master tapes. You would expect these tapes to sound good of course, and you should expect they would sound better than the LP and digital sources. But you will be shocked at just how much better they do sound.

This is just outstanding. They are having an event at the California Audio Show to meet Jacqui Naylor, and listen to a full-playback of a new Tape Project release from Jerry Garcia and David Grisman.

Such a great post by Jeffrey Zeldman, and one we can all relate to in one way or another.

For ten years, Macminicolo has been hosting thousands of Mac minis in a high end data center. The minis are used for all sorts of services. The Mac mini “has become Apple’s most popular server system.”

Readers of The Loop can signup for a twelve month trial for just $10/mo. Come see what a Mac mini can do. Signup here.

The Wall Street Journal:

We don’t love paying through the nose for the ink, and the arrangement means that at the first sign of printer trouble, many of us just dump the thing and buy a new one.

Epson’s new move is a sly one. Rather than compete on price, the printer maker is dropping the cartridge issue entirely.

When you buy an EcoTank printer — for instance, the ET-2550 — you fill up its four-chambered reservoir with ink from plastic containers included with the printer. There’s a satisfying feeling of dumping all of that ink into the tubs. You then let the printer prime itself and your ink worries are over.

Fast forward two very print-productive years. You and your family have churned out more than 35 black-and-white and 60 color pages every week. Finally, you need more ink. Epson will sell you a whole set of replacement canisters for $52. That same amount of Epson ink, in XL cartridges, would cost more than 10 times as much.

I’m a big fan of my Epson R2000 photo printer but I dread using it knowing how much I’m going to be spending on ink. I don’t know if higher upfront costs will be a game changer but it’s good to see Epson (and undoubtedly other manufacturers) stepping up to change the economics of printing.

Cool little utility from the folks at Many Tricks.

“The writing has long been on the wall for any premium Android maker: as soon as low end hardware became ‘good enough,’ there would be no reason to buy a premium brand,” said Ben Thompson, an analyst at Stratechery.com in Taipei.

That’s a great quote from Ben, and so true.

“We have not discussed nor do we have any plans to launch an MVNO,” said an Apple spokeswoman in a statement on Tuesday.

Being a mobile carrier seems like a shit show to me.

TidBITS:

Wired has reported on new research being presented at this week’s Black Hat security conference on a proof-of-concept Mac worm that could spread through the Mac’s firmware, rather than software. While Wired’s piece makes this sound like a super worm capable of leaping through air gaps and infecting the world’s Macs, the reality is more mundane. The research itself is excellent and fascinating work from Trammell Hudson and Xeno Kovah, and as always we hope Apple patches all the flaws quickly, but this isn’t something most Apple users need to lose any sleep over.

Here are the answers to your most pertinent questions about this vulnerability.

As always, Rich Mogull is the guy I trust the most for any Mac security issues. Rich’s level headed expertise is why I know the vast majority of the Tech Media’s reporting on these issues is always blown completely out of proportion to the threat. I’d encourage all of you to follow Rich on Twitter so that the next time this happens (and, because it’s the Tech Media, it will happen again), you’ll be able to confidently ignore the Chicken Little’s.

Vanity Fair:

Taylor Swift’s recent missive to Apple—the one that caused the tech behemoth to reverse course, once again demonstrating her world-beating pop power—came after some late-night soul searching, the singer tells Vanity Fair writer Josh Duboff, in the magazine’s September cover story.

“I wrote the letter at around four A.M.,” Swift says. “The contracts had just gone out to my friends, and one of them sent me a screenshot of one of them. I read the term ‘zero percent compensation to rights holders.’ Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and I’ll write a song and I can’t sleep until I finish it, and it was like that with the letter.”

As whiny as I find her music, this story shows a very self-aware young woman who knows what she wants.

Fantastic article from Shawn Blanc. I’ve spent far too much time working and not enough time enjoying life.

James Cook:

Here is how it works: When someone using iCloud Voicemail is unable to take a call, Siri will answer instead of letting the call go to a standard digital audio recorder.

iCloud Voicemail can relay information about where you are and why you can’t pick up the phone to certain people. But the coolest feature of the service is that Siri will transcribe any incoming voicemails, just as it does with anything else you say to it.

This makes sense to me. Google’s been doing this for quite a while now, but the service is surprisingly bad, considering how good Google voice is. Hopefully Apple will be able to figure out how to make the service work reliably.

I haven’t seen this in action, but it sounds cool.

Struggling to return strong profits, Samsung has slashed the retail price of its flagship smartphones — the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge — by €100. After the deduction, the revised cost of the 32GB variant Galaxy S6 is €599, whereas its Galaxy S6 Edge counterpart will slightly break the bank at €699. The smartphones were launched just four months ago.

[…]

The company is also rumored to launch two new smartphones, namely the Galaxy S6 Edge+ and the Galaxy Note 5 in the coming days.

Throw shit at the wall and see what sticks.

This is very cool. Great find by Tina Roth Eisenberg.