Yearly Archives: 2015

Jim talks to a blogger named John Gruber about remastered music, Apple’s earnings report, and respect from readers.

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Mashable:

This is the largest summertime hot air balloon festival in North America. The balloons fly twice each day for three days, compared to the nine days of ballooning in Albuquerque’s famous Balloon Fiesta which includes more than 600 balloons.

Up in the air, it was absolutely silent. Like the quietest thing I’ve ever heard (granted I live in New York, so perhaps it was more just that I appreciated such silence). Intermittent, and rather startling blasts from the propane burner kept us floating through the air. The wind wasn’t strong so we moved slowly, over houses, backyards and crowds that gathered to watch. The people waved up at us: the balloon pilots were praised like celebrities in this rural New Jersey town.

I tell all my beginner photography students – if there’s a balloon festival near you, go. You’re guaranteed to get great photos because hot air balloons are huge, colorful and only fly during the Golden Hour. No matter what kind of camera you have, you won’t be disappointed by the images you capture.

Ars Technica:

This remarkable $599 camera lets you watch while completely unobserved from distances so great that people can’t even see you, much less know that you’re watching them.

Check out the video. The camera has insane amounts of really good zoom.

My thanks to Igloo for sponsoring The Loop this week. Igloo allows you to share files, coordinate calendars, provide updates and manage projects easily.

• Why use the latest, sleekest devices if you are going to use them to stare at an intranet website that looks like it was built in the 90’s?

• Igloos are CSS and HTML5 friendly, which means they can be customized to look amazing.

• They are also responsive right off the bat, which means that everything you can do at your desk, you can now do on the go, on your phone.

• And just like your favorite Apple devices, Igloo helps you do your best work.

• Share files, coordinate calendars, provide status updates and manage projects. Igloo’s not just for your traditional intranet stuff like HR policies and expense forms. It also lets you work better together with your teams.

• For example, with Igloo’s latest release, Wolf, you can preview Photoshop, InDesign, HTML or CSS files straight from the platform, making it easier for co-workers to give feedback on creative assets.

• Head over to igloosoftware.com to sign up for a free trial today and invite up to 10 of your favorite coworkers to try it too.

It’s been an interesting and confusing day. I arrived at Apple this morning to talk to them about my issues with Apple Music and to hopefully fix my problems. The good news is that I have about 90 percent of my music back. […]

Rene Ritchie:

To make a bad analogy, if they’ve already broken into your house, they can break into the locked drawer in your desk as well.

well said.

I love my Apple Watch and just the thought of losing it is scary, but having a way to turn off Apple Pay on the Web is nice.

Just look at the company’s historic success with the iPhone and you can tell that we are indeed living in strange times! So far Apple has taken down Nokia and left Motorola, HTC and Samsung gasping for air. The profits have not stopped flowing to Cupertino. Apple has reported $42.3 billion in net income so far for the first three quarters of this fiscal year. That’s more than the company’s profits for all of 2012.

I’ve said this before, but no company that reports a profit in the billions of dollars should be worried about doom and gloom. It’s based on what Wall Street predicts, which seems flawed to me.

But that’s not the story at all. For one thing, Android overtook the Wintel world way back in 2012. The story here is that mobile utterly dwarfs desktop and laptop computing. Civilization has been changing under our very noses, and today even the second largest mobile platform outsells the world of Wintel.

This is an interesting take from Bryan Chaffin.

Jason Snell has a great transcript of what Tim Cook said to analysts during the earnings call today. In case you missed it, Apple reported a profit $10.7 billion on revenue of $49.6 billion.

Microsoft reported a $3.2 billion quarterly net loss, hurt by charges related to its Nokia phone business and job cuts, and weak demand for its Windows operating system.

The company took a charge of $7.5 billion in the fourth quarter related to the restructuring of its Nokia handset business, which it acquired last year.

Ouch.

Basically, the companies argue that a refusal to limit damages to infringing features could have huge impact in an era when consumer products incorporate many highly sophisticated components within a single device. That Samsung can be successfully sued over singular design features and forced to pay damages based on overall device sales rather than a portion of profits sets a dangerous precedent, the group argues.

I could see their point if Samsung had of taken one feature and incorporated it into a smartphone it designed. However, Samsung stole the entire phone—hardware, software, and everything else it could lay its grubby little hands on. They were caught and should pay.

Apple on Tuesday reported a third quarter profit of $10.7 billion on revenue of $49.6 billion. This compares to revenue of $37.4 billion and net profit of $7.7 billion in the year ago quarter.

Apple said the growth was fueled by record third quarter sales of iPhone and Mac, all-time record revenue from services and the successful launch of Apple Watch.

Updated every Monday morning, Discover Weekly brings you two hours of custom-made music recommendations, tailored specifically to you and delivered as a unique Spotify playlist.

Good idea.

Betts, who has spent more than 25 years in the auto industry with companies including Toyota and Nissan, vacated his role of head of quality at Chrysler Group last year to “pursue other interests.”

Oh Apple, what are you up to.

Ed is just on fire. Much respect.

USAToday:

The airplane is one that turns heads.

Aviation enthusiasts instinctively know it is the “Beluga,” a nickname stemming from the aircraft’s uncanny resemblance to the whale of the same name.

But nearly all who see it tend to agree that regardless of its name, it’s one of the world’s strangest-looking aircraft.

I have a fascination and appreciation for the magic of flight and those crafts that are able to achieve it but this thing? Sorry. It’s one butt ugly airplane.

Apple:

All Store Services – Some users are affected. Users are experiencing a problem with the services listed above. We are investigating and will update the status as more information becomes available.

For those of you/us who are having issues accessing Apple Music and other services today, rest assured, it’s not on your end. Apple has been having frequent problems with Apple Music since last week. This is a good page to bookmark and check when your Apple cloud-based services aren’t working as expected.