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.

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.

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.

Future Sonics is hands down the best in the industry. This is the company that invented professional Ear Monitors, and they continue to care about your ears and the quality of sound you hear. I’m getting these.

HTC today introduced a 24-karat gold limited edition of the HTC One M9. There’s just a slight problem: One of the three photos depicting the new smartphone was taken with an iPhone.

The most unfortunate photo taken in a while.

I love shopping on The Music Zoo Web site. I want all of these.

It’s become somewhat of a tradition now—the AltBeardBash at WWDC is in its fourth year, and we have big plans for the event next week.

As with previous years, entertainment will be provided by the Amazing Embarrassonic Human Karaoke Machine—these guys truly are amazing.

While the party is an invite-only event, I always hold a few tickets for readers of The Loop and listeners of my two podcasts, The Dalrymple Report with Merlin Mann and Amplified. So, if you’ll be in San Francisco for WWDC and would like to attend the party on Monday night, send me an email and I’ll see what I can do. I can’t guarantee entry, only that you’ll have a chance to come—as you can imagine, it’s a packed place.

We have three great sponsors for this year’s party:

• Pixelmator
• Microsoft
• UserTesting

Thanks to those companies for all the support.

Deal with it.Thanks to Bold Poker for sponsoring The Loop this week.

Bold Poker: Deal with it.

I’ve been a Marshall guy forever, but those new Marshalls can’t touch what Boogie is doing. I’m getting one of these Mark Five 25 amps. I’ll post my thoughts.

Jim and Dan talk about next week’s WWDC, Apple’s interest in music and television, and more.

Deluxe editions of Led Zeppelin’s final three studio albums: Presence, In Through The Out Door, and Coda will be released in July. As with the previous deluxe editions, all three have been newly remastered by guitarist and producer Jimmy Page and are accompanied by companion audio comprised of previously unreleased music related to the original release selected and compiled by Page.

Jimmy has done a good job on remastering some of the band’s other works, so this should be worth picking up.

I can’t imagine how much data Heineken is pushing through the cloud.

I almost had a goddamn seizure.

Seasonality Pro offers meteorologists and advanced weather enthusiasts a powerful way to explore current weather model data on iOS. View weather forecast model data at full resolution quickly while on the go.

That’s some detailed weather.

Just in case you were wondering.

Jim and Merlin cover all of the exciting news from this year’s Google IO conference.

Deal with it.

My thanks to Mapbox for sponsoring The Loop this week. Mapbox lets iOS developers add beautiful maps to their applications. Our building blocks make it easy to swap out Apple maps with our open source SDK. Choose the map design that fits your app and feels good in your hand.

I don’t often write about email clients, but I love this app. Spark is designed well, full-featured, and it’s easy to use. With support for Apple Watch, using Spark is a no-brainer.

From VentureBeat:

Today was a pretty big day for Google. At its annual I/O developer conference, the company unveiled Android M, Android Pay, Brillo, Google Photos, and more.

Google explains its new photos app and service. For now, I’ll stick with iCloud. It works well for me, syncs to all of my devices and optimizes the photos. I also don’t have to wonder what Google is doing with them when I’m not looking.

There are two basic ways to read this news. The first is to take Apple at its word — that this is a promotion for Ive that will let him focus more of attention on, well, design. That he’s delegating management administrivia to Dye and Howarth, not decreasing his involvement in supervising the actual design work. The second way — the cynical way — is that this is the first step to Ive easing his way out the door, and that his new title is spin to make the news sound good rather than bad.

Personally, I think it’s both. Jony deserves a “chief” title and this is a perfect way to introduce the public to the other lead designers on Jony’s team. I don’t think Jony is going anywhere in the near future, but it’s important for Wall St. and the public to realize that he won’t leave a giant vacuum when he does leave.

It would be impossible for Apple not to have a succession plan in place for someone as important and well-known as Jony. That plan may not come into affect for years, but it’s in place nonetheless.

“Scold” is the right word. Reading the decision, I’m struck by how many ways the Court found to say that Bromwich had crossed the line.

I think the word everyone is looking for here is: “Crooked”.

Pixelmator is one of my favorite apps of all time. I started using it on the Mac, then iPad, and now it’s available for iPhone as well. The thing I truly like about the guys at Pixelmator, is that they think about each platform and figure out the best way to get things done. They think about the details that will affect the users. That’s why I love Pixelmator and why I will continue to support them.

The new version is out. Smile Software put together a series of videos going over all the features of this great piece of software. Take a look on their Web site.

I love this song.

Jawbone sued Fitbit in California State Court here on Wednesday, accusing its rival of “systematically plundering” confidential information by poaching employees who improperly downloaded sensitive materials shortly before leaving.

This one is going to get messy.

FuzzMeasure is an audio and acoustic measurement tool to produce, analyze, and publish beautiful graphs. It delivers a comprehensive suite of features for professionals in research, acoustics, live sound, room design, and pro audio. By combining sophisticated technology with an elegant user interface, FuzzMeasure offers an unparalleled experience.

I’ve talked to the developer about FuzzMeasure quite a bit over the years. Great to see this update.

There was nothing unique about these items—they were puny in size and yet they arrived in a giant box bursting with air-filled packaging material. And I looked at that box with absolute and complete disgust, wondering, Is Amazon Prime actually an EcoCrime? Others on Twitter agreed with that take, which only reaffirmed my guilt for using Prime—for being an unwitting enabler of waste.

I’m not a member of Amazon Prime, but I know a lot of people, like Om, that are. I can’t wait to hear the explanation for the oversized packaging from Amazon.