Usability sins

It’s a “freemium” pay model, or a “reverse paywall,” that adds features for subscribers rather than substracting them for nonsubscribers. But it still creates classes of haves and have-nots: those who have to click the “single page” button to see a story on a single page and those who don’t.

This is based on Slate’s new membership system.

Apple pushing into mobile payments

The company has been meeting with potential applicants for two new positions at Apple focused exclusively on building a business around the hundreds of millions of credit cards it already has on file. Apple is seeking to fill head of product and head of business development positions, one of these people said.

The biggest thing that Apple has is trust—they have my credit card and have for years. I trust them with that information, so I would use a its payment system.

iPhone owners don’t trade-in for the Galaxy S5

Gazelle saw iPhone trade-in volumes drop 35% compared to where they were last year on the day the Galaxy S4 launched in the U.S. Interestingly, the Galaxy S4 didn’t even go on sale at all U.S. carriers on the same day last year, so the Galaxy S5 saw fewer trade-ins from a much larger group of potential customers.

So, current Samsung owners are trading up to the new phone, but they aren’t attracting iPhone customers to trade down.

Choosing Web site colors

I really suck at choosing colors, but I know what I like when I see it—I also know what I don’t like. Designers that can pull this off are especially talented.

Microsoft’s Azure Web Sites service

Justin Williams recently moved his Web site to Azure. Microsoft has been getting a lot of play recently with Azure hosting apps and Web sites.

Apple, Google vie for game developers

Both the companies are trying to lure game developers by offering premium placement to these games on their app stores’ home pages and features lists

Considering the reports of how few people spend money on Android apps, I’d be surprised if Apple didn’t win this battle.

Apple adds A&E, History Channel, and Lifetime to Apple TV

Apple today has added three new channels to the Apple TV lineup: A&E, The History Channel, and Lifetime. Each channel does require a cable subscription to unlock full content. At the time of launch, each channel only supports DirecTV, Verizon FiOS, and Cablevision Optimum, but the network says it will add support for more providers soon.

I always get excited about the new channels, until I see that you need a cable subscription.

Shakespeare’s annotated dictionary

If it’s real, it’s the literary find of the century. New York antiquarian booksellers Daniel Wechsler and George Koppelman believe they have found William Shakespeare’s annotated dictionary.

An incredible find.

Create Typographic Images with Typo-Painter – only $5 [Sponsor]

Typo-Painter for Adobe Photoshop will quickly become your absolute favorite plugin in your artistic toolbox! This plugin lets you create a typographic painting from any image, using any text you’d like! What’s more, it can also save your file as a vector EPS for easy editing and resizing! Now, read our lips… for a limited time only, thanks to this Mighty Deal, you can get this fantastic app for a mere $5!

Backblaze: Backup your data online for $5 a month

Many thanks to Backblaze for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. Back up all your data with Backblaze online backup. It’s unlimited, unthrottled, uncomplicated, and unexpensive. At just $5/month for all your data it’s a no-brainer.

Don’t risk losing your music, photos, movies, code, docs and whatever else you’re working on or editing. Backblaze continuously and securely backs up all the data on your computer and external hard drives.

Accessing and restoring files is easy. Quickly download and share files with the iPhone app. Need more of your data back? Use any web browser to download it or have Backblaze FedEx you a flash key or USB hard drive. Whether it’s a broken hard drive, lost external, or a stolen computer, data loss happens all the time. For less than a cup of coffee, just $5/month, Backblaze can back up all the data on your computer. 
It’s easy. Stop putting it off. Start your free trial, and get your backup started today.

blog-ios7-420x420

The Loop Magazine Issue 25

In this issue:

What’s better, an iPad or a MacBook for university; being a freelance writer; a great story about Axl Rose running off stage; nurturing curiosity through mentoring; and iTunes and Indie bands.

Flickr 3.0 for iPhone

Every day at Flickr we share our passion for inspiring photography by building world-class tools and beautiful photo displays you can access anywhere. Ten years ago we defined online photo sharing as the first major online community to store, organize, tag, and share digital photos. We could not be more excited to continue shaping digital photography with new Flickr app for iPhone coming today to the App Store and for Android in the Google Play store now.

It still shows the old version for me on the App Store.

AltConf

AltConf is a free, community driven and supported event, held in downtown San Francisco alongside Apple’s WWDC, 2nd – 6th June 2014. Hosted at a fantastic venue right across the street from Moscone West and featuring a host of amazing speakers from across the industry, AltConf 2014 is shaping up to be a fantastic event.

Love this event.

iOS 7 tips and tricks

This is a really good article from Macworld’s Serenity Caldwell and Dan Moren. I especially like the tip about having Siri learn to pronounce someone’s name.

Yahoo wants Apple to dump Google

A number of Yahoo insiders I have talked to said her plan to pitch Apple on the idea as its marquee mobile search partner is far along. The company has prepared detailed decks, including images of what such a search product would look like, and hopes to present them to Apple execs.

I’m not sure that Apple will go for this, yet. Apple will strive to give its customers the best products possible and when it comes to search Google is perceived as being the best. I don’t think Apple will let its lawsuits interfere with doing what’s best for its customers.

The anti-Apple tax people

I agree with what Rob says, until he gets to this part:

Yes, Apple shelters taxes. Yes, it’s very good at it. Yes, it sucks that they aren’t paying their fair share.

The fact is, Apple does pay its fair share. In fact, they paid billions of dollars in taxes in the US last year, more than anyone else. The fact that governments offer companies a tax break to have factories or offices in their jurisdiction is not the companies fault—they create jobs, which has great economic benefits for those regions. If you then tell a company that those tax breaks are gone, they will pick up and move somewhere else—it’s business.

This isn’t about Apple, every company works exactly the same way. This is about the way the world works.

Design process for making Units Convert 2 app

A very detailed article on the design decisions Aleksandar Vacić made and remade to get his app where he wanted it. There are a lot of great gems in here and the level of detail that you have to go through to get everything just right.

Sneak Peek at Pixelmator 3.2

Good news! A major Pixelmator 3.2 Sandstone update is on its way. Some awesomely delicious goodies are coming with this update, but the sweetest of them all is the all-new Repair Tool.

I use Pixelmator every day and have for years. It’s lightweight, very powerful and the team keeps making it better. The video of the new repair tool is cool.

Google revenue misses Wall Street targets

Google Inc’s first-quarter revenue fell short of Wall Street targets and margins narrowed as the price of its ads continued to decline, pushing its shares sharply lower.

As much as I’d love to take the opportunity to make a smartass comment like “expect more ads,” I really can’t. Like I say about Apple, it’s hard to say it’s a bad quarter when the company is making billions.

Having said that, expect more ads soon.