Amplified: Glass, Charge Thyself

Jim and Dan talk about Google Glass and its myths, escaped water buffalos, Peter Gabriel and his flute, Pandora, Spotify, and iTunes Radio (now with NPR), “The Techtopus”, wage suppression, and more.

Apple tests Related Search on App Store

The new related search suggestions mark one of Apple’s first attempts to augment App Store search results with visual semantics for apps. In testing the feature, I was able to get suggestions for specific sub-categories such as “business news” and “video game news”, “writing” and “story ideas”, or “healthy cooking” and “food recipes”; each set of related searches included new results that were more specific and relevant to the suggested search.

I like this. Anything Apple can do to show more relevant results will help them and the user.

Your words

Matt Gemmell has a really nice piece explaining why he doesn’t post on sites like Medium and instead writes for his own site.

NPR on iTunes Radio

Digital streams of Morning Edition, All Things Considered and hourly newscasts will be available on a new 24-hour streaming NPR channel on iTunes Radio.

Great news for everyone.

CSS Diner

It’s a little game to help you learn CSS selectors. Type in the correct selector to complete each level.

Very nice.

Voila: Screen Capture & Screen Recorder for Mac [Sponsor]

Record anything on your screen, edit it with powerful yet efficient tools and share them with just one-click!

Voila Mac Screen Capture Tool from Global Delight makes screen captures a piece of cake with its intuitive and brilliant features. Capture in HD, edit and annotate with tools like arrows, text, stamps, callouts and much more while being able to share instantly to the likes of YouTube, Dropbox, Evernote, Tumblr, Flickr and more!

Voila is especially useful for educators, students, designers, corporates and the like who need brisk, high-performance and solid screen captures without breaking a sweat. Creating tutorials, training manuals, lessons, DIY videos etc. is now super easy and you also get to manage them expertly with Voila’s smart organizational abilities. It’s that simple!

Go ahead and give it a Try! Download Voila now and enjoy 15 day Free Trial.

Pixelmator

My thanks to Pixelmator for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. Pixelmator is one of the apps that I use every day and have for years. It’s very powerful, but yet approachable, allowing new users to instantly manipulate their images. There is no better image editor.

High-Octane Rock drum loops

Perfect for fans of John Bonham, Simon Phillips, Alex Van Halen, and Dave Grohl, this is the groove inspiration you’ve been looking for – a powerful source of rock drum loops inspired as much by the classic grooves of rock as much as more contemporary rock styles. Just pure, live rock drums. No beat detective. No sequenced samples. This is live, steaming, sweaty, raw rock and roll – the way it was meant to be.

Sounds perfect.

Google begins damage control for Google Glass

The Google Glass team posted “The Top 10 Google Glass Myths” trying to stem the tide of bad press. They didn’t mention how creepy the company is—perhaps that’s for another “Top 10” list.

Microsoft peeks into bloggers Hotmail account

Microsoft went through a blogger’s private Hotmail account in order to trace the identity of a source who allegedly leaked trade secrets.

A March 17 court filing by federal prosecutors reveals that Microsoft’s Office of Legal Compliance approved the decision after confirming that the leaked data in question included proprietary Microsoft code.

Wow.

Concept designs for Apple TV

I usually don’t link to concepts, but these ones for the Apple TV and remotes that go along with it are pretty good.

IDG founder Pat McGovern dies

I met Pat a number of times during my 10 years working at Macworld. He built an empire with IDG and will be missed.

Happiness

This is so true. It drives people crazy.

Pixelmator [Sponsor]

Pixelmator is one of the apps that I use every day and have for years. It’s very powerful, but yet approachable, allowing new users to instantly manipulate their images. There is no better image editor.

Amplified: NDA’d Brown Paper Bag

Jim Dalrymple and Dan Benjamin talk about Jim’s visit to Austin for SXSW and his interviews at the iTunes Music Festival, buying and listening to albums vs. songs, the new iPads, the 8GB iPhone 5c, Steve Jobs and Apple making televisions, iOS 7.1, CarPlay availability, and more.

Listastic for iPad & iPhone

Many thanks to Listastic for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. Listastic for iOS is hands down the easiest way to create, manage and share lists of any kind!

Striking the right balance between function and simplicity, Listastic makes it a breeze to prioritize and collaborate on important ideas or tasks without the typical complexity.

Easily share a grocery list with your significant other, tasks with a team of colleagues or even gift ideas with friends & family.

Now available for iPad & iPhone, Listastic is free to download, and only $1.99 to ditch the ads and enable some great additional features!

A big thanks to readers of the Loop for checking out Listastic, available now on the App Store!.

It’s an iTunes world

During iTunes Festival this week, I spoke with Soundgarden, Imagine Dragons, and Capital Cities about selling albums on iTunes. The story is posted on Fortune.com.

The Loop Magazine 2.2 released

A new update for The Loop Magazine was released today with the following changes:

  • Up to 4x faster downloads!
  • Push Notifications and Background Updates – major bug fixes and improvements.
  • “First launch” setup improved.
  • More responsive “Manage Storage” menu.
  • Other minor bug fixes.

It’s a great update and can be downloaded free on the App Store.

My interview with Apple’s Eddy Cue

I had a chance to speak with Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice President for Internet Software and Services, about iTunes Festival last night.

iTunes Festival SXSW: Imagine Dragons interview

I must admit, I didn’t know what to expect when I sat down to speak with Imagine dragons. Here’s a band that has taken the world by storm in the last year or so and have every right to be riding high on that wave. What I found was a group of humble musicians that are truly thankful for everything they have.

Listastic for iPad & iPhone [Sponsor]

Listastic for iOS is hands down the easiest way to create, manage and share lists of any kind!

Striking the right balance between function and simplicity, Listastic makes it a breeze to prioritize and collaborate on important ideas or tasks without the typical complexity.

Easily share a grocery list with your significant other, tasks with a team of colleagues or even gift ideas with friends & family.

Now available for iPad & iPhone, Listastic is free to download, and only $1.99 to ditch the ads and enable some great additional features!

A big thanks to readers of the Loop for checking out Listastic, available now on the App Store!.

Android SDK for wearables coming soon

Google executive Sundar Pichai told the South by Southwest conference Sunday that the company plans to release in two weeks a software development kit based on Android for makers of wearable devices, such as smartwatches.

I wonder what the tagline will be for this? “Viruses on your wrist” or “Android: Fucking up every part of your life.”