A federal court in New York has come down hard on Apple in a closely watched case over ebook pricing. In a ruling issued Tuesday morning, US District Judge Denise Cote ruled that the company “brilliantly” organized a conspiracy to raise prices and thwart competition.
In a 160-page ruling, Cote points to phone calls, emails and the words of Apple founder Steve Jobs to conclude that the company orchestrated an illegal “scheme” in which five major publishers changed their pricing practices. The court said that the prime target of the conspiracy was Amazon, whose Kindle tablet competes with Apple’s iPad, and whose pricing practices infuriated publishers.
Apple ends “App Store” lawsuit against Amazon
“We no longer see a need to pursue our case,” Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said. “With more than 900,000 apps and 50 billion downloads, customers know where they can purchase their favorite apps.”
Respect your customer
James Stratford bought a Blu-ray movie and was met with advertisements when he put it in the machine. He brings up a good point—we pay for the damn movie, don’t advertise to us or at least let us skip it.
iOS 7 dynamics
Rene Ritchie:
It’s not pixels painted so much anymore as particles placed, and not areas touched so much as directly manipulated.
Rene’s right in saying that there’s a lot going on with iOS 7 beyond the design. The way the operating system interacts with things around it is amazing.
BlackBerry CEO asks for patience
BlackBerry has been asking for patience for years now.
Universal Audio adds Flex Routing to Apollo, releases Millennia EQ, Pultec Passive EQ plug-In collection
More great releases from Universal Audio. This is why I love this company.
Universal Audio’s latest UAD Software v7.1 provides some extremely useable enhancements to the Apollo Audio Interface. Key among them is Flex Routing, which enhances your workflow with new features such as headphone bus routing, selectable pre/post Aux sends, and the ability to freely route any console input to hardware outputs.
Revered for its startling realism and transparent musicality, the Millennia NSEQ-2 has quickly become a go-to parametric EQ for many of the world’s leading studios and mastering houses. Its unique Twin Topology design and pure Class A transformerless circuitry offers a less-is-more approach to the audio chain, yielding a powerful, sonically neutral, analog EQ that brims with spectacular clarity.
Pultec Passive EQ Plug-In Collection
Building on a decade of the world’s most intensive modeling research, UA has recreated the famed Pultec EQ experience – one that’s nearly indistinguishable from the original analog hardware.
Pro Tools Keyboard Shortcuts
Every shortcut you ever wanted.
“Welcome To The Jungle” isolated guitar
Slash is such a great guitarist.
Samsung Galaxy S3 bursts into flames
I have to agree with Philip Elmer-Dewitt here; where are all the articles claiming Samsung is doomed? That’s what would happen if it was Apple.
What Gmail knows about you
When Google hands over e-mail records to the government, it includes basic envelope information, or metadata, that reveals the names and e-mail addresses of senders and recipients in your account. The feds can then mine that information for patterns that might be useful in a law-enforcement investigation.
There is no such thing as privacy on the Internet.
A beer fridge that will only open with a Canadian passport
That’s one way to protect your beer.
Antialiasing 101
Paul Lewis takes a look at antialiasing, what it means for developers and how it looks to users.
MoneyWell [Sponsor]
MoneyWell is personal finance software that increases your wealth while reducing your debt using the tried-and-true envelope-budgeting method.
Clickbait
I love this new site. It takes some of the stupidest articles from the media and makes fun of them.
The Beatles anomalies list
This is great. A list of all The Beatles songs and strange little things that happen on each of them.
Thinking about content in a redesign
Rian van der Merwe takes you through a situation with a client where he had to convince them to focus on content during the redesign.
The beer map of Europe
Just in case you needed to know what beer is called in different countries.
5 years of the App Store
Apple is celebrating 5 years since the App Store first opened with a number of free apps for you to download.
Minimalism
If done correctly, minimalist design is one of the best and most effective approaches to creating beautiful websites. Not only is the target audience subjected to less clutter and noise, but you can use colors, textures, and fonts to create a very simple yet very memorable experience for the person viewing your site.
Exactly. Minimalism doesn’t mean ugly or so spartan that it looks empty.
Improve your Web design projects
The first few things you do after a potential client contacts you about a web design project are the most important. In fact, these initial steps can spell the difference between a good or bad project.
I don’t envy designers. It takes talent to get the client to express what they want in a way the designer can satisfy their expectations.
Don’t be an asshole
Remember, this is a controlled test. A dog will start to panic, making the experience even worse for them. A dog also can’t perspire. If you see a dog in car, call the police.
If you leave your dog in the car, you’re an asshole.
The failure of Android’s open
Daniel Eran Dilger:
Open Source enthusiasts love to tell you Android is winning, and that it is winning because it is open. But they’re wrong on both counts. The history of computing makes that abundantly clear, as do the current leaders in profitability.
Some great points in this article.
“Just Do It” celebrates 25 years
Nike’s campaign is one of the best ever.
Video of the San Francisco plane crash
Terrible accident.
Appsfire
I’d like to thank Appsfire sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. Appsfire is a delightful and elegant mobile guide to the best apps. If you believe the App store is not doing enough to help you find the apps that are right for you, try Appsfire. It features an incredibly fast and accurate app search, curated lists of apps and deals, it shows you the apps your friends like and more. In addition, they also help developers grow which is very important. Download Appsfire in the App store or get it here.
Here’s a question for AT&T, Verizon and others
I know, I know, but it’s funny.
UI principles for interaction design
Interaction Design is here to facilitate interactions between people and their environment, which in our case it is a website. Interaction designers are only concerned with how users and computers interact, unlike UX designers who take into account all user-facing aspects of a software or system.
Why Google Reader was shutdown
Marco Arment:
Google Reader is just the latest casualty of the war that Facebook started, seemingly accidentally: the battle to own everything.5 While Google did technically “own” Reader and could make some use of the huge amount of news and attention data flowing through it, it conflicted with their far more important Google+ strategy: they need everyone reading and sharing everything through Google+ so they can compete with Facebook for ad-targeting data, ad dollars, growth, and relevance.
Bingo!
Most hated
Philip Elmer-Dewitt does a little investigation on the company that says the iPhone 5 is the most hated smartphone and the Galaxy one is the most loved. It’s funny.
Apple vs. Google: The commoditization wars
Mike Elgan:
Apple sells hardware and software. To Apple, services are free things they offer to support the sale of their hardware and software. So Apple wants to de-commoditize hardware and software and commoditize services.
[…]
Google, on the other hand, is a services company that makes hardware and software to support its services. So Google wants to make services less commoditized and hardware and software more commoditized.
Great article.