A guide to San Francisco in 1937

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It’s the “Official Souvenir Program for the Golden Gate Bridge Fiesta,” which began precisely 75 years ago today. Inside it, you find a bunch of high-fallutin’ rhetoric about Progress and Commerce, but you also find more than 130 advertisements for various businesses that wanted to be included in what functioned as a visitor’s guidebook.

This is the year the Golden Gate Bridge was completed.

User experience can be designed

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Rian van der Merwe:

I’ve never fully bought into the “user experience cannot be designed” argument. You could say I’m biased because user experience design is how I choose to make my living, but I would (surprise!) disagree with that as well.

It seems to me it’s the clients that hinder most designs.

Designing for multiple mobile densities

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Travis Hines:

The sharpness of your phone or tablet’s display is referred to as density. iOS devices measure density in PPI (pixels per inch) and Android in DPI (dots per inch). The more pixels or dots you fit in one square inch on a screen, the higher the density and resolution of it.

I don’t envy designers.

Apple to DOJ: Bite me

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Philip Elmer-Dewitt:

In the space of six paragraphs the document characterizes the Justice Department’s assertions as “absurd” and “fundamentally flawed,” accuses the government of “ignoring inconvenient facts” and of siding with monopoly rather than competition.

Apple seems pretty aggressive and confident in this battle with the government.

Apple settles patent dispute with SimpleAir

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SimpleAir does not appear to have any actual products available for sale, as the company is self-described as “an inventor-owned technology licensing company.” It said it has “interests and intellectual property in the wireless content delivery, mobile application, and push notification market spaces.”

I don’t mind a company protecting its intellectual property, but I hate patent trolls.

Capo: Reverse Engineering Rock and Roll

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I want to thank SuperMegaUltraGroovy for sponsoring The Loop the last two weeks. I use Capo all the time to figure out how to play songs on the guitar and it works like a charm.

Reverse Engineering Rock and Roll: Capo is a revolutionary tool that helps you learn the music in your iTunes library. Available for your Mac, iPhone, iPod, and iPad.

Download the free trial for the Mac, and check out the new mastering-quality slowing engine that retains the detail in your music all the way down to quarter-speed!

Steve Jobs Atari memo at auction

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Sotheby’s announced on Friday that it will be auctioning off what the auction giant says is the only known surviving Steve Jobs documents from his time at Atari. The document being auctioned is a five page memo from Mr. Jobs to engineer Stephen Bristow on ways to make Atari World Cup Football, an arcade console soccer game.

I can’t even guess how much they’ll get for this.

The fake iTunes 11 story

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Clayton Braasch:

Until I see a screenshot from a better source, this is complete hogwash. I would have revealed this first, because it’s possible to fake an iTunes version string through Xcode; creating something like this would’ve been a bit more difficult, but it doesn’t matter. The entire build that was received is fake, and if any other sources call it “credible”, I find that very hard to believe.

I have no knowledge of this one way or the other, but Clayton seems pretty sure of himself.

A Mac users view of Windows 8

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John Moltz:

But how far does my respect for Windows 8 go? Well, would it surprise you to know that I wrote this entire article on Windows 8? It should. Because I didn’t. I wrote most of it on my MacBook Pro and my iPad.

John is a funny guy.

The Gruber prototype

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Daniel Jalkut:

I see The Talk Show’s format as the prototype for many other successful podcasts on the 5by5 network: Dan Benjamin plays the cool, somewhat disinterested straight-man to a “star” whose own temperament, philosophies and interests ultimately define the show. After the initial success of The Talk Show, Dan threw the net wide, inviting folks such as Marco Arment, Andy Ihnatko, Merlin Mann, John Siracusa, Horace Dediu, and Jim Dalrymple to indulge audiences with their own personalities and areas of expertise.

Very true, it’s a great formula for podcasting.

The 7-inch iPad

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Steve Jobs was quoted as saying that the 7-inch iPad was too small. While the technologies that would allow such a device have changed in the last couple of years, the reasons Apple would release it haven’t. […]

History of UA’s 1176 Compressor

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That same year, Bill Putnam is making the transition from the old standard vacuum tubes to new solid-state technology with his Universal Audio-brand preamps and compressors. The legendary engineer and equipment manufacturer had previously redesigned his original 108 tube microphone preamp (taken from his UA/United Recording consoles in Chicago and Hollywood), into the new 1108 — utilizing the recently invented Field Effect Transistor (FET). Subsequently, he redesigned his successful 175/176 tube compressor (based on the popular variable-Mu design) using FETs, and thus was born the 1176.

Bill Putnam was an absolute genius.

Talent

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Guy English:

Ultimately, the retention of talent will be Apple’s Achilles’ heel.

A flying lesson from Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson

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When the company he flew for (whilst still a frontman for Iron Maiden, mind you) commercially closed down last year, he started offering a limited number of flying lessons in a $10,000,000 Boeing 757 flight simulator. Needless to say, I was one of the first to know.

How awesome is that!

UX and UI explained in cereal

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Ever met someone who uses UX and UI interchangeably? Ed Lea created this photographic infographic to visually define the differences between user experience and user interface design and how they relate to a product.

Not cool Apple

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Paul Kafasis:

Today, we’ve been informed that Apple has removed Airfoil Speakers Touch from the iOS App Store.1 We first heard from Apple about this decision two days ago, and we’ve been discussing the pending removal with them since then. However, we still do not yet have a clear answer on why Apple has chosen to remove Airfoil Speakers Touch. Needless to say, we’re quite disappointed with their decision, and we’re working hard to once again make the application available for you, our users.

There has to be a better way to handle this and deal with your developers.

Apple’s iPad will be dominant until…

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My newest column on Techpinions:

The next time you see a forecast of Apple losing its dominance in a market, ask yourself what the competitors are doing to differentiate themselves from Apple. That answer is all you need to know.