“Do Not Disturb” will fix itself

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Do Not Disturb scheduling feature will resume normal functionality after January 7, 2013. Before this date, you should manually turn the Do Not Disturb feature on or off.

The design lesson

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In graphic design, nothing is what it actually is. Everything other than content is representative of something else. Additionally, much of the content is also merely representative of something other than what it actually is.

Stealing from developers

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Both of these services are dangerous for app developers because they offer simple, one-tap installs of pirated apps and do not require that devices have been jailbroken in order to do so. This is an enormous problem, as it opens up the arena for their use from the relatively small fraction of users with jailbroken devices — as was the case with Installous — to any unscrupulous users of iPhones and iPads.

Don’t steal from developers people. Bad karma shit will come back on you.

Creating a multi-item slider

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This isn’t something I’d use for The Loop, but there are plenty of Web sites that this type of slider would work very well. I like these when done right.

Apple store heist

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Armed robbers broke into a central Paris Apple store on New Year’s Eve, stealing goods with an estimated value of one million euros.

That’s a lot of product.

The State of The Loop, and some changes

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I wanted to take a minute and thank all the readers of The Loop in 2012. You are the most incredible group of people and I really appreciate the fact that you take the time to read the site and offer your feedback. […]

EZPR [Sponsor]

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Want great press for your startup, app or company? EZPR specializes in getting great stories written about what you’re working on.

Goodbye Facebook

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Joe Caiati outlines his reasons for pulling the plug on Facebook, including the ability to use Twitter to keep up-to-date. If I had to choose between Twitter and Facebook, I’d probably make the same choice, but there are plenty of people that still get a lot out of Facebook. I think it’s the people that use it as a small personal network of friends instead of trying to build a massive network of people they don’t know.

20 iconic guitars

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Rolling Stone’s list is good, but clearly missing some iconic models. I think everyone’s list would be a little bit different.

iExplorer – Transfer Music from iPhone and iPad to iTunes

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Thanks to Macroplant for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop with iExplorer.

iExplorer makes a great gift this holiday season for any iPhone or iPad owner. The app’s one-touch music transfer seamlessly copies all your music and playlists from your device back into iTunes. Its messages feature allows you to search and export all your messages to PDF files or other formats. The app also offers access to your device’s voicemails, photos, and much more.

Ozzy Osbourne airport

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For while Liverpool has John Lennon Airport and New York JFK, the record company boss who discovered Black Sabbath is calling for Birmingham Airport to be named after Sabbath front man Ozzy Osbourne.

This has to happen.

Apple drops patent claims against new Samsung phone

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Last month Apple asked to add the Galaxy S III Mini and other Samsung products, including several tablet models, to its wide-ranging patent litigation against Samsung.

In response, Samsung said the Galaxy S III Mini was not available for sale in the United States and should not be included in the case.

Of course, that’s just one product listed in the claim — there are plenty others.

New York City Mayor blames iPhone for increased crime

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“If you just took away the jump in Apple, we’d be down for the year,” said Marc La Vorgna, the mayor’s press secretary.

On the radio, Mr. Bloomberg said that Apple products appeared to be the preference for many thieves, noting that he was not including thefts of competing devices, like the Samsung Galaxy, in his count.

Just when you think politicians can’t possibly be any more stupid, along comes Mayor Bloomberg and his press secretary.

17.4 million devices activated on Christmas Day

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In order to appreciate the magnitude of new devices activated on Christmas Day, Flurry established a baseline using the average from the first 20 days of December. Over this period, daily activations averaged around 4.0 million per day, with variance of a few hundred thousand in either direction per day. On Christmas Day, activations soared to more than 17.4 million, a 332% increase over the December baseline. By comparison, Christmas Day 2011 held the previous single-day record, having reached 6.8 million device activations. Christmas 2012 is more than 2.5 times larger than Christmas 2011, which surpassed its own baseline by more than 300%.

There are lots of happy people out there.

Apple’s Preliminary Proxy Statement

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Apple this week released a preliminary proxy statement in a filing to the SEC. The filing is an announcement of the 2013 annual stockholders meeting, as well as questions that will be voted on at the meeting and details of executive compensation arrangements.

Facebook’s inability to invent

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Om Malik:

Facebook’s Poke app, a copy of red-hot Snapchat rose almost to the top of the iTunes appstore on launch. A few days later it has tanked, making me wonder: can Facebook really invent any new Internet behavior or is it destined to be a copycat forever?

It seems to me that Zuck did great creating the concept of Facebook, but that’s where things stopped. The ability to invent or create beyond that initial concept has escaped everyone at Facebook.

What to look for in Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects

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Unfortunately, not every crowdfunded project lives up to expectations. Often, these projects ship later than expected (roughly 75%) and sometimes the actual product doesn’t quite match what you’re shown in the pitch video. Why is that?

Some good advice.

Choosing a color scheme for your Web site

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The color scheme of the website is an indispensable part of ensuring a healthy and effective user experience. It is the color scheme of the website which determines its success or failure. You may have the best content possible on your website, may provide the most lucrative product deals and etc, but if the color scheme is not inviting and engrossing enough, you may better bid adieus to your aspirations for online business success.

I would argue that layout is equally important, but color choice is vital.

Instagram changes spark class action lawsuit

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The lawsuit, filed by San Diego-based law firm Finkelstein & Krinsk, says customers who do not agree with Instagram’s terms can cancel their profile but then forfeit rights to photos they had previously shared on the service.

“In short, Instagram declares that ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law and if you don’t like it, you can’t stop us,'” the lawsuit says.

I’m not sure that this is worthy of a lawsuit, but clearly Instagram did not think through these changes.

Netflix outage blamed on Amazon

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The outage impacted Netflix subscribers across Canada, Latin America and the United States, and affected various devices that enable users to stream movies and television shows from home, Netflix spokesman Joris Evers said. Such devices range from gaming consoles like the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 to Blu-ray DVD players.

The most popular GitHub projects of 2012

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It’s amazing how often I find myself at GitHub these days. Whether it’s a WordPress plugin or a developer’s app, more people are using it all the time.