This has always been my favorite Mötley Crüe song.

Horace Dediu has a look at iTunes growth after Apple reported its earnings. I’ve long held that it’s the ecosystem that Apple’s competitors can’t easily copy. The company was very stealthy in the early 2000s in building the infrastructure for what we have now with the App Store, music and video delivery. It all just syncs and works—that’s what consumers want to happen. I’m not saying it doesn’t need work, but even as it sits, Apple’s ecosystem is pretty remarkable.

A former IDC researcher:

“So, the mantra became, preserve the growth rates; to hell with the actual numbers. Even the growth rates are fiction. The fudge is in the “others” category, which is used as a plug to make the numbers work out. In fairness, we did do survey work, calling around, and attending white box conferences and venues to try to get a feel for that market, but in the end, the process was political. I used to tell customers which parts of the data they could trust, essentially the major vendors by form factor and region. The rest was garbage.”

So they make shit up.

Jared Sinclair opens the books on his RSS reading app, Unread. These are some sobering numbers, to be sure. I use Unread and really like the app.

Apple’s acquisition of talk-radio service Swell appears to now be a done deal: the start-up’s App Store app and website shut down this morning.

I’m shocked at the lack of security in this piece of shit operating system. SHOCKED!

Apple on Tuesday updated Apple TV with a number of new channels from around the world. […]

Kind of scary.

Wow, I just don’t know what to say about this store opening.

And this is why BlackBerry and Dell can’t do anything right.

Bose alleges that Beats has infringed on 50 years’ worth of research, development and engineering of noise cancelling tech, and that its current lineup of these devices incorporates “at least 36 U.S. patents and applications,” broken down into 22 granted patents and 14 applications currently undergoing review. Beats products named as having infringed upon Bose’s IP include the Beats Studio line, which include the new Studio Wireless Bluetooth headphones.

I wonder if Apple and Beats saw this coming?

I laughed out loud several times.

Headquartered in San Francisco, which also serves as its debut market, Fixed first launched this January, allowing residents to snap photos of their tickets using an iOS device. Afterwards, Fixed checks for common errors before proceeding to write a customized contest letter on your behalf, which is sent to the city.

Seems the city of San Francisco are being dicks about this.

Brianna Wu released her game for iPhone and iPad to the App Store this week. I’ve been following her progress for about a year and really like what I’ve seen. You can download the game for free or you can watch a trailer first.

This could be interesting, but I’d still use the Uber app. I don’t use Facebook Messenger, but I can see the benefits for both companies.

You’re a free spirit. You don’t like rules. You expect to be asked about your trophy beard.

The main purpose of this book is to help product managers who work specifically with digital projects build better — less complex, more focused, less long-winded and more intelligent — products. By featuring lessons learned from real-life projects, the book provides a structured framework for strategic product management — to help build the right products, at the right time, for the right people with just the right amount of process involved.

I have a lot of respect for Rian van der Merwe, the author of this book. You should have a look.

Pedro de Noronha, managing partner at hedge fund Noster Capital, who says Apple “might become obsolete in two-to-three years.”

A new book from Shawn Blanc, “Delight is in the Details” describes how to make good things great. Shawn says it’s “an audio book, eBook, and interview series for people who make things.”

“There has not been a single conversation about Google’s interest,” said one source. “There was never a price, never a negotiation, never anything.”

Good to see Kara Swisher put this one down.

I really enjoyed this article by Oscar Nilsson.

These are some impressive numbers.

Apple on Tuesday reported a $ billion profit for its fiscal quarter—revenue for the quarter was $37.4 billion. These results compare revenue of $35.3 billion and profit of $6.9 billion in the year ago quarter.

“Our record June quarter revenue was fueled by strong sales of iPhone and Mac and the continued growth of revenue from the Apple ecosystem, driving our highest EPS growth rate in seven quarters,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are incredibly excited about the upcoming releases of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, as well as other new products and services that we can’t wait to introduce.”

iTunes Radio has been coming up with some great First Plays lately. The latest is a tribute to JJ Cale put together by Eric Clapton that includes Willie Nelson, Tom Petty and Mark Knopfler. Clapton should play iTunes Festival London—just sayin’.

This isn’t the type of ad I’m used to seeing from Apple.

I don’t know how I managed to miss this earlier, but Robert Plant has signed on to perform at iTunes Festival London—Plant is one of my all-time favorite singers. His solo career has been great, but his vocals as the lead singer of Led Zeppelin are just incredible. I’m hoping for some classic Zep songs during that show.

Apple will be bringing iTunes Festival to London, England for the eighth straight year, the company said on Sunday night. iTunes Festival London brings some of the world’s biggest bands together for 30 nights of concerts and they are all free. […]

I just pre-ordered mine.

Every CSS project starts out with good intentions, but inevitably, one too many people eye-dropper colors into nooks and crannies that you never knew existed. CSS Colorguard helps you maintain the color set that you want, and warns you when colors you’ve added are too similar to ones that already exist. Naturally, it’s all configurable to your tastes.

This sounds really cool.