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.

I’m definitely going to see this movie.

Kiss your afternoon goodbye. Enjoy.

Pixelmator for iOS just keeps getting better. In the latest release, the guys added Dynamic Touch, which lets users adjust the brush size of all Retouch tools by painting with their tip or a larger area of their finger; the Pixelmator for Mac repairing algorithm has been added to iOS; and they published the Pixelmator for iOS User Guide and video tutorials.

This is one of my favorite apps and companies. Just go buy their software.

Merlin and Jim talk about the future, David Gilmore, and underrated guitarists.

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It has tremendous potential and lots of room for growth if only someone were to give it some love. Is that someone you?

I like this app. I think someone could do a lot with it.

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.

One of the best ways to measure how a product is being received by its owners is customer satisfaction. This statistic alone is highlighted by Apple continually as the barometer in which they measure a product’s success. Many pundits will look to Apple Watch sales as the metric for its success. But the real question is, do people love it? The answer is yes.

I agree that pundits will look for sales numbers and I also agree that satisfaction is an important question in determining success.

Cool, but no.

When I posted earlier today about Neil Young pulling his music catalog from streaming services because of poor quality, I kept wondering why he would do that. Neil is right, quality does matter, but not at all costs. […]

Neil posted this to Facebook today:

Streaming has ended for me. I hope this is ok for my fans.

It’s not because of the money, although my share (like all the other artists) was dramatically reduced by bad deals made without my consent.

It’s about sound quality. I don’t need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution. I don’t feel right allowing this to be sold to my fans. It’s bad for my music.

For me, It’s about making and distributing music people can really hear and feel. I stand for that.

When the quality is back, I’ll give it another look. Never say never.

Neil Young

Global Human Resources Chief Denise Young Smith said at Fortune Brainstorm Tech on Tuesday morning that Apple’s next “diversity report” will come “sometime this summer” and will reveal some progress on recruiting diverse employees. “We did have some movement in our hiring or women and hiring of minorities,” said Young Smith, noting that about 35% of Apple’s recent recruits are women. The upcoming report, which Young Smith claims will have “more transparency” than its report last year, will show an uptick in hiring African-American and Hispanic recruits as well.

Apple should hire the most qualified person for the job, regardless of their gender or color of their skin.

They guys at 3 Monkeys Amps are building me a new amp and are documenting the progress on Facebook. This beast is hand-wired and built from scratch by hand. I can’t wait!

A book review from Om Malik. It sounds like an interesting read.

Apple on Wednesday updated its iconic iPods with new colors and a host of new features for the iPod touch. […]

“‘I can’t support this, you need to pay us from the first stream,’” Borchetta, the CEO of Big Machine Records, says he told Apple execs. “And those conversations led up to the weekend where Taylor posted the blog.”

Taylor Swift did a great thing.

I haven’t used this, but Yamaha is a great music company. This may be worth checking out as you look for an outdoor speak this summer.

Ben Brooks’ post on the problems keeping up with a personal journal resonated with me. I’ve tried this over the years too and could never keep it up.

Merlin and Jim talk about Apple Music.

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Apple on Monday released an update for iTunes supposedly fixing some issue with iTunes Match and Apple Music. You can download the update by launching the App Store on your Mac and clicking Update.

All I had to do to turn my phone into a stealth Google Photos uploader was to turn on the backup sync, then uninstall the app. Whereas one might reasonably believe uninstalling the app from the phone would stop photos from uploading automatically to Google Photos, the device still does it even in the app’s absence. Since making this discovery, I have re-created the issue multiple times in multiple settings on my Galaxy S5.

So, you delete Google Photos and it continues to upload your photos without your consent. Perfect.

Thanks to Hullo for sponsoring The Loop this week. Have you ever slept on a buckwheat pillow? It’s kind of like a beanbag for your head. The hull fill supports your head and neck in a way that can’t be matched by traditional pillows.

Hullo’s features include:

• Quality construction & organic materials
• Breathable fill that provides cool comfort all night long. No more flipping to the cool side in the middle of the night!
• American-made craftsmanship
• Free shipping
• 60-night money-back guarantee

Drop what you’re doing—go and check out Hullo. Try it for 60 nights. If it’s not your favorite pillow, return it for a refund. You can’t lose!

Have you heard about HTC lately? 2015 is shaping up to be an awful year for the company. In March the company had a market cap of $4.06 billion, and today—only a few months later—it’s worth less than half of that. The stock price, at about two bucks a share, is at a 10-year low. HTC just wrapped up the second quarter of 2015, where it posted a net loss of $258 million. And the trend is downwards—year over year, HTC’s monthly revenue was down 38% in April, 48% in May, and 60% in June.

I feel bad for HTC. They have tried to make some good products, but Samsung’s tactics have pushed them down.

Some good advice here from Apple, especially heading into summer for much of the world.

Due as a part of El Capitan this fall, and available right now as a public beta is the first major update to Photos for Mac, the replacement for iPhoto and Aperture that Apple launched earlier this year.

Here are the major additions you can expect to see in Photos when 1.1 arrives this fall (or when you install the public beta, depending on your enthusiasm):

I always enjoy reading Jason’s look at software.

iMore mentioned that some people that signed up for the iOS 9 beta have been notified that it’s available to download. Mac Rumors says that OS X El Capitan will also be available to day. You can sign-up on Apple’s site to test both versions.

The new version for the Mac is here. I haven’t tried the Mac version, but I’m really impressed with what they’ve done with the iOS version of the apps.

Bad ads on the Internet are a real problem, even on some of our favorite sites. Rene Ritchie has been very open about addressing this issue with iMore, and I commend him for that.

A great compressor plug-in from Universal Audio. I always like watching the videos they publish for little tips and tricks on how to use them.