Samsung did the ALS ice bucket challenge today with its phone, pitting it against the competition. Stay classy Samsung.

The Apple TV is showing up as ‘Unavailable for pickup’ at Apple Stores across the U.S., with multiple NY Apple Stores we called saying that in-store stocks had been exhausted by demand created by the promotion offering $25 iTunes credit with every purchase, along with that generated by the upcoming London iTunes festival as well as the recent Lollapalooza livestream.

iTunes Festival is incredible in so many ways for Apple and its customers. It looks like they may have underestimated demand this year though.

What a great story. Not a bad player to choose for your favorite either.

Jim and Dan talk about Balmer’s final departure from Microsoft, Apple commercials, Pokemon coming to the iPad (and the iPad gaming ecosystem), Dan tries to stump Jim’s music knowlege, and more.

It’s really interesting that eBay and PayPal fit so well together, yet investors feel PayPal would do better without the eBay baggage.

The Blueprint is an online retail site for the next wave of connected devices and wearables. Check out the Blueprint today to discover beautifully designed products like Drop — the iPad connected kitchen scale. Drop is a smart scale that makes perfect baking easy with interactive recipes, smart substitutions, recipe rescaling, and more. Say goodbye to #BakingFail forever. With Drop, you’re on your way to creating one perfectly yummy masterpiece after another.

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There are some great tips in here.

Some people are sick bastards.

Behold, Hanx Writer, created by Tom Hanks. Hanx Writer recreates the experience of a manual typewriter, but with the ease and speed of an iPad.

I must admit, this is a pretty cool app. It’s great when someone can take a passion, like a typewriter, and create an app. The @AppStore will have a live chat with Hanks this morning at 9 am PT.

An interactive children’s story platform, that lets you create a 3D character of your child and make him/her the hero of every story.

Go watch the video—it’s brilliant!

This article demonstrates how to use CSS transforms, perspective and some scaling trickery to create a pure CSS parallax scrolling website.

Check out the demo.

Today marks five years since the passing of one of the world’s most unique innovators of all time, Les Paul.

Much respect Les.

Wow, these are just great.

Certainly worth looking at the numbers and reading Tim Cook’s message.

Sébastien Page:

Even though they might not be able to activate the lost or stolen device, they might still try to put it up for sale, and if you don’t know what to look for, you might very well be buying an iPhone that has been locked and cannot be activated.

Good advice.

Nice post from Guy English. I agree with this bit: “That said, being opinionated isn’t the goal. Being useful is.”

Rob Richman reminds us that sometimes you should be thankful to be alive.

This is how you can help. 100% of your donations go directly to the Make-A-Wish foundation. The Cancer Journal Project is completely self funded. We don’t keep a dime of your donation.

Help if you can.

I’ve always been a fan of Jackson, especially the Dinky models. They just feel really good in my hands.

Thanks to The Blueprint for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. This week The Blueprint is featuring the IN1 is a multi-tool utility case for your iPhone 5/5s. Like a built-in swiss army knife for your phone. Choose from 8 colors. Get yours for $44.95, ships in 24 – 48 hrs.

This was more interesting than I thought it would be.

I’d love to have one of the EVH guitars. Not a bad price.

Very sad news for the music industry, but after reportedly suffering a stroke earlier this year, it appears that Malcolm may not recover enough to rejoin the band.

Dan and Jim talk about the Apple/Samsung lawsuit, Twitch.tv and the death of Justin.tv, Russian Hackers, 1Password, Google and Barnes & Noble’s partnership, anonymity online, Wampler pedals, Godsmack, and more.

Sponsored by Sifter (Visit 5by5.sifter.me for an extended free trial of the most simple issue tracking tool around) and Squarespace (use code GUITARS for a free trial and 10% off your first purchase).

Corey funded the band’s first album through Indiegogo and it turned out great. Here’s a chance to help with the second one and support indie musicians.

I’m not usually impressed by this type of thing, but this is cool.

A three-day, 500+ developer hackathon, iOS DevCamp is the largest iOS event outside of Apple’s own Worldwide Developer Conference.

It takes place August 22-24 in San Jose, California.

This comes amid reports that Google is trying to buy Twitch, Justin.tv’s parent, for $1 billion.

Great looking update if you’re a Dish satellite subscriber.