Yearly Archives: 2015

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The folksy roots, the founder breakups, the dysfunction — all those things made Twitter a very human and a much beloved service. It was a service everyone (especially those in the media) wanted to love — and yet it is 2015 and the narrative around the company has become negative and toxic. The more I read all these things about the company, the more I wonder — how did Twitter lose the plot, the narrative. Till not too long ago, the press was generally very kind to the company.

It’s very true, there’s been very little positive out of Twitter in a while.

I began using OS X El Capitan shortly after last week’s WWDC keynote when I met with Apple to talk about the latest release of the operating system. […]

iPhone Photography Award:

From intimate, thought-provoking moments to stunning, captivating scenes, this year’s iPhone Photography Award winners are nothing short of impressive.

The three Photographers of the Year Awards go to Michal Koralewski of Poland, David Craik of the United Kingdom and Yvonne Lu of the United States. Their photographs take full advantage of the iPhone to quietly capture their subjects without disturbing the atmosphere.

Always amazing to see what photographers can do with the iPhone. Inspires me to want to shoot more with it.

Re/code:

Here are the real numbers, according to Robert Kondrk, the Apple executive who negotiates music deals along with media boss Eddy Cue: In the U.S., Apple will pay music owners 71.5 percent of Apple Music’s subscription revenue. Outside the U.S., the number will fluctuate, but will average around 73 percent, he told Re/code in an interview. Executives at labels Apple is working with confirmed the figures.

Those totals include payments to the people who own the sound recordings Apple Music will play, as well as the people who own the publishing rights to songs’ underlying compositions. That doesn’t mean the money will necessarily go to the musicians who recorded or wrote the songs, since their payouts are governed by often-byzantine contracts with music labels and publishers.

No surprises here as the 70+% is pretty standard. What I’m curious to know is how much will those “basement musicians” Apple mentioned get? Apple talks of unsigned artists being able to get their music listened to on the service. If those artists get 70% of the revenue, it might generate significant money for them.

Mic:

The Internet has a wealth of concerts, but it can be next to impossible to wade through the options. Places like Netflix and Hulu carry the classics, like The Last Waltz and Gimme Shelter, while random YouTube pages carry snippets of concerts. But somewhere in the middle are hidden gems — complete nights from historic moments in music.

From the Beach Boys to Rage Against the Machine and B.B. King to Nirvana, here are eight historic shows available at your fingertips.

I am so watching the daylights out of that Rage Against The Machine concert right now.

I’d like to thank Microsoft for sponsoring The Loop this week. This year, Microsoft is making major investments in developer and cloud tools to move beyond Windows and bring great support to iOS developers and other popular platforms. As part of this focus, Microsoft is sponsoring Altconf this week and will be there to show you some of the cool new services and free tools to help you take your apps to the next level.

I also want to thank Microsoft for sponsoring the Beard Bash party on Monday June 8th. Life may run on code, but we all know developers run on beer.

If you cannot attend Altconf or the Beardbash, you can learn more about what is possible at http://AnyDevAnyApp.com.

I wonder if the 140 character limit on regular tweets is sacrosanct, or if its days are numbered, too.

Techcrunch:

After years of user-growth struggles, Twitter just announced that its CEO Dick Costolo has chosen to step down July 1, though he’ll remain on the board. Twitter co-founder and Square CEO Jack Dorsey will be the interim CEO.

Dorsey will continue to be Square’s CEO, but will fill in for Costolo until Twitter finds a replacement. Dorsey was previously Twitter’s CEO before being forced out and replaced by co-founder Ev Williams in 2008. Dorsey became Twitter’s executive chairman in 2011 when Costolo became CEO.

Chaos is never good for a publicly traded company and Twitter has certainly had many ups and downs during Costolo’s tenure. Many hope the next CEO, who ever he or she may be, will finally give the company a direction both users and Wall St can look forward to.

Design Taxi:

To promote its newly announced music service, Apple has rolled out three new ads showing its product’s ubiquity.

Its first ad—titled ‘Apple Music—Worldwide’—features music as the go-to companion for every situation in life. From the routine daily commute to moments of sadness, Apple Music never fails you. The second spot gives you a glimpse of the past with the ‘History of Sound’, presenting Apple Music as the future of the music industry.

The final commercial delves into the features of Apple Music and how it houses all your favorite sounds.

Apple Music is available to users at the end of this month—let’s see if it is able to live up to its big promises as advertised.

I always love when Apple posts new ads. I especially love all the “ad experts” pontificating about them the next day.

Merlin and Jim talk about TV. Subscribe to this podcast Sponsors: Hover — Hover is the best way to buy and manage domain names. Use code GREENBOTTLE for 10% off. Harry’s — Go to Harrys.com and use the promo code … Continued

Apple kicked off its Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday in San Francisco, Calif. While some of the presenters (not mentioning any names) weren’t up to the usual Apple polish, the company did introduce some nice updates.