Apple’s iOS reached 20.3 percent share of the market for the first quarter of 2015 in Europe’s big five countries of Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, according to a new report from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.
iOS 9 wish list
Federico Viticci came up some a list of things he would like to see in the next version of iOS. As you might expect, some of the things on the list are fixes for the current operating system, but it’s an interesting read.
Apple’s Beats relaunch
Swedish music streamer Spotify has more to lose from Apple’s anticipated Beats Music revamp than its competition, according to new usage data, as iOS accounts for a majority of Spotify’s active users.
Apple really has to do this right. We’ve seen music services do big, splashy relaunches and users really don’t care—I really don’t care. There are some key points that Apple needs to take care of to beat out Spotify—if they don’t, it’s going to be a tough road ahead for them. Music is very important to Apple, there is no doubt about that, but they have to keep the focus and intensity on this that they’ve shown for their other products.
Yosemite clusterfuck
Craig Hockenberry:
I started reporting these issues early in the Yosemite beta release and provided tons of documentation to Apple engineering. It was frustrating to have a Mac that lost its network connection every few days because the network interfaces were disabled while waking from sleep (and there was no way to disable this new “feature”.)
Marco Arment and many others are having similar issues.
Gold plate your Apple Watch for $399
They pay for shipping and promise a three-day turnaround. I feel like doing it just to see how it works.
Godsmack and Pantera perform “Walk”
Great performance.
Using Activity Monitor to check CPU activity
When an app isn’t responding or working correctly, it might use more of the processor (CPU) than it should, even when the app doesn’t seem to be doing anything. As the CPU gets busier, it uses more energy, which reduces the length of time that your Mac can run on battery power. It also generates heat, which can cause the fans in your Mac to spin faster.
I’ve used this from time to time to see if an app was dragging the system down.
Star Wars at Amazon
I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, but obviously the people at Amazon are. They are selling everything from toys to dog outfits in the Star Wars theme.
Apple Watch Human Interface Guidelines
As you design your Apple Watch app, understand the foundations on which Apple Watch itself was designed:
Some great information posted on Apple’s developer Web site.
A new website for web designers and developers [Sponsor]
A new and exciting website has recently been launched for web designers and developers.
You likely spend hours every morning browsing through hundreds of posts on your RSS feeds, hoping to stumble across relevant stories. Webdesigner News was built to provide web designers and developers with a single location to discover the latest and most significant stories on the Web.
They search through hundreds of posts on blogs, social media, and news channels, to deliver the most essential stories of the day. The content covers quality news, fresh tools and apps, case studies, code demos, inspiration posts, videos and more.
With frequent updates throughout the day, you’ll always find something interesting and fun to read.
Click here to visit the Webdesigner News website and subscribe to the newsletter for the latest stories of the day.
Apple Campus 2 progress
Pictures and videos in this update. The scale of this project is just unreal.
Twitter’s multi-billion dollar mistake
Mathew Ingram:
The idea that someone could monetize Twitter before Twitter itself got around to doing so was what one investor called a “holy shit moment” for the company.
I wonder what would have happened if Twitter embraced the third-parties years ago.
HelloTalk: Learn a new language on your iPhone
Thanks to HelloTalk for sponsoring The Loop this week. Finally, learning and practicing a new language is easier and more intuitive than ever before. Introducing HelloTalk, the language app where your teachers are native language speakers from around the world. You just pick the language you want to learn—there are over 100 from which to select—and almost instantaneously you’ll be in touch with native speakers of that language … and you’ll start learning and practicing immediately.
HelloTalk isn’t a course you strictly follow; rather, you learn and practice at your pace and in the manner that best meets the way you learn. Practice foreign languages with people around the world. Simultaneously speak and type the language you’re learning. Record your voice before speaking to your HelloTalk friends and compare your recording to standard pronunciations. Change your friends’ audio messages to text for better understanding, and receive help to improve your grammar. Easily translate whenever you don’t understand, and so much more.
With HelloTalk, you’ll discover learning a new language is fun … and fast. Download your copy for iPhone or Android today.
Amplified: The Beard Wins
Jim and Dan talk about the Apple’s record second quarter results, the Apple Watch’s issue with tattooed skin, and more.
Sponsored by MetaCDN (Use the code ‘5by5’ for a 10% discount for life) and Macminicolo (Get a full year of hosting for just $100).
Apple acknowledges Apple Watch tattoo issue
The company updated its Apple Watch heart rate support page, noting that tattoos could affect the watch’s ability to read your heart rate.
Unpair your Apple Watch and iPhone
A new Apple support article covers the steps needed to unfair your watch. Might be handy to bookmark for the future, although it’s easy to find in the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.
Philip Michaels on Microsoft’s HoloLens
Some great thoughts, although using it must of been kind of freaky.
Twitter, LinkedIn lose $6 billion market value after poor earnings
Shares of LinkedIn Corp, operator of the most popular social network for professionals, fell 20 percent in early trading on Friday, wiping out more than $6 billion of market value, after the company slashed its full-year forecast.
LinkedIn reported on Thursday its slowest quarterly revenue growth since it went public four years ago.
The surprisingly weak results followed Twitter Inc’s on Tuesday. Twitter’s stock fell by as much as 24 percent, slicing about $6 billion off its market value.
Social media companies are a bit to volatile for me.
The Loop Magazine: Apple’s New MacBook
The Loop Magazine released a new issue today with eight new articles. You can download the app for iPhone and iPad and get a free preview of every article in this month’s issue. You can purchase the issue for $1.99 or get a subscription for just $1.99 per month and get access to all of the issues.
In this issue:
Review: 12-inch MacBook: Jim Dalrymple got his hands on one of the new MacBooks Apple recently introduced and gives you his thoughts, from the Retina display to using the one USB-C port.
Skating To Where The MacBook Is Going To Be: Rene Ritchie takes a look at why the all-new MacBook is ahead of the curve and why competitors will have a hard time catching Apple.
The MacBook: A New Mac Laptop For A New Mac Customer: Peter Cohen tackles the criticism lobbed at the new MacBook and why he thinks they are wrong.
What Entertainment Looks Like In The Cord Cutting Age: Cable TV isn’t gone yet, but Darren Murph imagines what the future of TV will look like.
Behind The Mask: This is a really great piece written by Mateusz Stawecki. He talked to some of the people we hear speaking at conferences and finds out what bothers them about public speaking.
Apple Pay: Technology Done Right: Jim Dalrymple looks at Apple Pay and how the new payment technology is working for developers.
To Live, Or To View? Periscope and Meerkat Are Turning Life Into ‘Show & Tell’: Darren Murph looks at how some new apps have changed we way we share our lives.
My Life with iPad: The iPad recently turned five years old. Jim Dalrymple talks about his love of Apple’s tablet device.
San Francisco’s luxury bus
Would you pay $6 to commute in a bus that looks like a cafe crossed with a Virgin America plane?
A luxury-bus startup called Leap Transit relaunched in San Francisco last week, carting passengers from the wealthy Marina district to downtown. It’s the latest company to offer a high-end alternative to public transit.
I’d do it.
iOS 8 adoption breaks 80 percent
According to Apple, iOS 8 is at 81 percent, iOS 7 has 17 percent, and earlier OSes are at 2 percent.
Samsung profit plunges 39 percent
Samsung Electronics Co. said its first-quarter net income has plunged 39 percent as the smartphone business saw its profit shrink to less than half from a year earlier.
And
Sales fell 12 percent from a year earlier to 47.12 trillion won while operating income dropped 30 percent to 5.98 trillion won, in line with Samsung’s earnings preview earlier this month.
The wider-than-expected drop in net profit was due to a big profit plunge in Samsung’s mobile business. The maker of Galaxy smartphones said its mobile division generated 2.74 trillion won in quarterly profit, compared with 6.43 trillion won a year earlier.
Ouch, sucks to be Samsung. This may look like the smartphone market is falling, but it’s not. Apple sold 61.1 million iPhones, up 40 percent over last year.
Pixelmator for Mac adds support for Force Touch trackpad
Pixelmator 3.3.2 is out, featuring lots of new stuff — Photos app support, Force Touch trackpad support, jaw-dropping Repair Tool enhancements, and much more.
This is just great software. I use it everyday.
djay for Apple Watch
The guys at Algoriddim do a great job with their software.
IK Multimedia releases UltraTuner for iPhone and Apple Watch
UltraTuner is the most precise digital tuner available for iOS, providing precision down to .01 (yes, that’s 1/100th) of a cent. UltraTuner is 10x more precise than mechanical strobe tuners, which are generally considered the “gold standard” of precision tuners, and they typically don’t fit into your shirt pocket.
This looks very cool. The screenshots of it on the Apple Watch are just great.
BIAS FX for iPad
BIAS FX turns your iPad into a world-class, guitar amp-and-effects processor. It gives you an endless collection of insanely great-sounding guitar pedalboards, ultra-high definition stereo rack effects, dual amps and dual signal chain. You can share and download users and artists signature guitar pedalboards from the cloud.
Yes. Download!
Decoding Eddie Van Halen’s “Little Guitars”
Alex Vollmer is a very talented guitar player and he’s come up with an explanation and video of how to play Eddie Van Halen’s “Little Guitars.” It’s great.
Amplified: I Smashed The Watch
Jim and Dan talk all about the Apple Watch.
Sponsored by CleanMyMac 3 (Visit the link to check what’s new in CleanMyMac 3), Hover (Visit hover.com/5by5 to support the show and get the domain of your dreams), and Macminicolo (Visit macminicolo.net/100 to learn more and get a full year of hosting for just $100).
HelloTalk: Learn a new language on your iPhone [Sponsor]
Finally, learning and practicing a new language is easier and more intuitive than ever before. Introducing HelloTalk, the language app where your teachers are native language speakers from around the world. You just pick the language you want to learn—there are over 100 from which to select—and almost instantaneously you’ll be in touch with native speakers of that language … and you’ll start learning and practicing immediately.
HelloTalk isn’t a course you strictly follow; rather, you learn and practice at your pace and in the manner that best meets the way you learn. Practice foreign languages with people around the world. Simultaneously speak and type the language you’re learning. Record your voice before speaking to your HelloTalk friends and compare your recording to standard pronunciations. Change your friends’ audio messages to text for better understanding, and receive help to improve your grammar. Easily translate whenever you don’t understand, and so much more.
With HelloTalk, you’ll discover learning a new language is fun … and fast. Download your copy for iPhone or Android today.
Apple reports $13.6 billion profit for second quarter
Apple on Monday posted revenue of $58 billion and quarterly net profit of $13.6 billion, for the company’s second fiscal quarter. These results compare to revenue of $45.6 billion and net profit of $10.2 billion in the year-ago quarter. […]