Bushel is a cloud-based solution designed from the ground up to make it easy for regular people to setup, manage and protect their Apple devices anytime from anywhere.

This looks really nice. You can manage three devices for free, so that’s a bonus.

Positive Grid, makers of BIAS for iOS and Mac, have started a new beta program targeted to guitar players that want to help shape the future of the company’s hardware products. I love the products this company puts out.

While his treatment for dementia would ultimately pull him from the band he started, AC/DC guitarist Malcolm Young was also treated for cancer and a heart condition after than band’s last tour. So sad.

Mark Gurman has certainly been on a roll lately. If true, this is an incredible amount of integration between the Apple Watch and the iPhone.

Enjoy.

Like my good friend Peter Cohen, Disk Warrior 5 has always been my go-to utility for fixing my Mac.

The list of features in this app is just incredible. I love the guys at Smile Software and the apps they make.

If you talk about Apple to people these days, they automatically think of one of the companies mobile devices: iPhone, iPod, or iPad. Seldom do you hear the Mac at the start of those conversations. […]

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has been on a tear lately, although when you look at some of its devices, you quickly notice that they bear a striking resemblance to devices released by Apple. This is why we find it amusing that Xiaomi’s CEO is now warning its fans to watch out for knockoff Xiaomi products being sold at phone retail outlets in Chinese cities.

These guys are just incredible.

Now that’s a birthday party!

Jason Snell:

If Gurman’s reports are accurate, this new model pulls the MacBook Air line away from the MacBook Pro. In fact, it returns the MacBook Air to its roots—as a product full of choices that we consider crazy at first, because they’re out of step with conventional computer design, but that will appeal to a target audience that doesn’t actually care about those de rigueur features.

Some good thoughts in here.

Twitter is mulling the possibility of making promoted videos automatically play 6-second previews when they pop up in people’s feeds, according to people briefed on the company’s plans. If the autoplay previews were to catch someone’s eye, that person could click to watch the full video.

I think I speak for the world when I say, NO!

Karissa Bell:

In the back of one of the smaller halls at CES, a Chinese company was showing off fake Apple Watches. So, naturally, I bought one.

Dangerous Minds: If you need any proof of how much Country pop music sucks nowadays, look no further than this video which dissects and mashes-up six Country songs. All of them sound alike. This is just awful.

I remember seeing the whale quite often years ago.

Here’s the thing: in order for fees to work, there needs be something worth paying to avoid. That necessitates, at some level, a strategy that can be described as “calculated misery.” Basic service, without fees, must be sufficiently degraded in order to make people want to pay to escape it. And that’s where the suffering begins.

That’s just awful.

The residents of Green Bank, West Virginia, can’t use cell phones, wi-fi, or other kinds of modern technology due to a high-tech government telescope. Recently, this ban has made the town a magnet for technophobes, and the locals aren’t thrilled to have them.

Fascinating story. I had never heard of “electrosensitives,” but it’s becoming a thing.

I agree with Ben Brooks here. I am forever trying to find the best in everything I do—there is always something better.

I really like Mayer, but I’m not sure she can turn things around quickly enough for the critics.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco said the plaintiffs, Uriel Marcus and Benedict Verceles, failed to show that Apple made “affirmative misrepresentations,” despite citing online complaints and Apple marketing statements calling the laptops “state of the art” or the “most advanced” on the market.

People have to stop these bullshit lawsuits.

Apple on Thursday said it set a new record during the first week of January as customers purchased nearly half a billion dollars on apps and in-app purchases. What’s more, New Years Day 2015 was the single biggest day ever in App Store sales history. […]

Sounds great, but…

You have to hate it when the first words of something you expect to be good end in “but.”

Waterstones has admitted that sales of Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader had “disappeared” after seeing higher demand for physical books.

The UK’s largest book retailing chain, which teamed up with Amazon in 2012 to sell the Kindle in its stores, saw sales of physical books rise 5pc in December, at the expense of the popular e-reader.

Kindle sales had “disappeared to all intents and purposes”, Waterstones said.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know how to explain this shift in sales. While I think it’s good that people are buying physical books, I think it’s way too early to say that e-books are dead.

With seventeen of the most amazing people in the Apple community—some developers, but most not—Yosemite is a conference for the Apple community. Our speakers are some of the best and most-loved writers, designers, philosophers, and developers working in the Apple ecosystem.

I’ll be speaking at CocoaConf’s Yosemite Conference this year. I’m really excited about the line-up of speakers and meeting the attendees. I hope to see you there!

Gruber summed up my feelings on the MacBook Air.

Whatever, the reasons, my mind keeps going back to the number — approximately $20 billion dollars of iPhones — roughly 34 percent of Apple’s total sales for the three months ending December 31, 2014. It explains everything about the company, its priorities and why it is starting to show signs of wear and tear across its other product lines.

Om brings up a good point—Apple’s focus is, and has been, on the iPhone for quite a while. Let’s not forget the record Mac sales over that period of time, though. Perhaps it’s the halo effect, but the Mac is doing better than ever.

Update: Om’s original article stated $20 billion, but it’s actually $43 billion.

Swiss watch makers like TAG Heuer, the biggest brand in luxury goods group LVMH’s watch portfolio, had until recently largely dismissed the threat of “smart” gadgets, but LVMH watch chief Jean-Claude Biver says he had changed his mind on the subject.

Not a big surprise.

Matt Richman’s thoughts on the news:

In order to have even a chance of being as feature-rich as Apple Watch, then, TAG’s smartwatch will have to pair with an Android phone. However, TAG wearers aren’t Android users. Rich people buy TAG watches, but rich people don’t buy Android phones.

I agree.

There are very few companies that continue to impress me, but Algoriddim has done it time and again. It’s not only the products, but the attitude in building those products to be great that wins me over. […]

An 86-year-old woman wrote this to her bank manager. Priceless.

Stephen Hackett has a look at a dozen RSS readers for OS X and while the winner is no surprise, it’s a great read.