The bigger iPhone screen

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Zach Weigand:

I find it much more likely that Apple will just keep the phone the same width (as claimed in all the rumors), get rid of the dead space on both sides of the screen, and keep the aspect ratio 3:2.

Turn any iOS device into an AirPlay audio receiver

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Many thanks to Rogue Amoeba for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop.

Want to send audio on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad? Airfoil Speakers Touch has you covered! With it, you can send audio via AirPlay directly from iTunes or from one iOS device to another. There’s no reason to spend hundreds on costly third-party AirPlay receivers – the iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch you already own can do the job!

Airfoil Speakers Touch also receives audio from Airfoil, making it possible to send any audio from your Mac or PC to your iOS device. Cool!

Download Airfoil Speakers Touch from the iOS App Store and check out Airfoil right from our site.

Bookshelf porn

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A photo blog collection of all the best bookshelf photos from around the world for people who *heart* bookshelves.

Some amazing pics in here.

The beard according to Darth

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If you’ve been following me for any amount of time, you’re probably aware of Darth on Twitter. He takes photos of me and Photoshops them in funny and weird scenarios. Here is a page of some of the most recent ones.

Nokia sued because its Windows Phone sucks

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The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants told investors that Nokia’s conversion to a Windows platform would halt its deteriorating position in the smartphone market. It did not,” the lawsuit states. “This became apparent on April 11, 2012, when Nokia disclosed that its first quarter performance would be worse than expected. Nokia expected its first quarter 2012 non-IFRS Devices & Services operating margin to fall by 3%, and projected first quarter 2012 Devices & Services net sales of €4.2 billion.

It’s a good thing RIM owners never thought of this.

Eight Track Stereo for iPad

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When the best in portable music players of today just isn’t quite good enough, just add in a little bit of rich mahogany, shag carpeting and tacky wallpaper, it doesn’t get much better than this!

This looks cool.

Apple and 4G

Written by

Alex Brooks:

There are a number of baffling points here though, why would Apple only release an iPad with LTE capable of working on the 700Mhz band which is only used in North America? And then why on the full knowledge that the new iPad has 4G that doesn’t work in the likes of Australia and Europe did it insist on advertising so?

I admit to finding this confusing as well. Why go through the mess of being investigated in a number of countries when you could avoid it?

Apple could argue that the iPad is 4G compatible around the world, but the carriers just don’t support it yet, I suppose. That argument is flimsy at best.

Jony Ive wins British Visionary Innovator Award

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Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, has won the “British Visionary Innovator” award given out by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office in honor of World IP Day. The designer topped a list of ten notable designers, inventors, and other creative people, including Tim Berners Lee, J.K. Rowling, and Simon Cowell.

Jony deserves all of the awards and accolades he gets.

Court bans Microsoft’s Xbox, Windows 7 from Germany

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Reuters:

A court in Mannheim ruled on Wednesday that Microsoft infringed Motorola Mobility’s patents and ordered Microsoft to remove its popular Xbox 360 gaming consoles and Windows 7 operating system software from the German market.

This is getting ugly.

A look at font rendering

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The Web font revolution that started around two years ago has brought up a topic that many of us had merrily ignored for many years: font rendering. The newfound freedom Web fonts are giving us brings along new challenges. Choosing and using a font is not merely a stylistic issue, and it’s worth having a look at how the technology comes into play.

Amplified: The Beard App

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Jim and Dan talk about making friends in Ireland, the Ull conference, WWDC, Google Drive vs. Dropox vs. iCloud, Sprint and unlimited plans, Malware, Pawn Shop guitars and amps, and Dan’s new Greta.Sponsored by Sourcebits and Squarespace.

Bloom Energy confirms Apple as a customer

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Katie Fehrenbacher for GigaOM:

Apple is planning to build a massive 4.8 MW fuel cell farm for a data center that will consume 20 MW, according to Apple’s latest figures. Apple is also building an adjacent 20 MW solar panel farm at the data center. While Greenpeace has given Apple low marks for building its data center in North Carolina, where the grid has a lot of coal power, Apple actually seems to be going to significant lengths to build its own clean power sources at the site itself.

Tennessee passes ‘Gateway Sexual Activity’ Bill

Written by

Erica Ho for Time:

At the heart of the matter, most of the controversy stems from the “gateway sexual activity” line, which remains vague and was not clearly defined before the bill went to vote. Some detractors argue that it could unreasonably punish teachers for allowing students to cuddle, hold hands or even hug, whether in the halls between classes or at a school dance.

Burying your head in the sand doesn’t make things go away.

‘I’ve had my fill of frivolous filings by Apple’

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Judge Richard A. Posner:

“I deny the second half of Apple’s motion (seeking prohibition of the deposition) as frivolous and the first half (seeking substitution) as untimely. I’ve had my fill of frivolous filings by Apple. The next such motion, and I shall forbid it to file any motions without first moving for leave to file.”

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse

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“We can confirm that the Australian ‘Wake Up’ campaign, which involves a series of experiential activities taking place across Sydney and Melbourne, was created by RIM Australia,” RIM said in a statement.

So RIM, not Samsung was behind the pathetic marketing stunt.

Screwed

Written by

Five months after replacing the longstanding co-CEOs, Heins desperately needs more time to right the now-struggling company and he likely has next to nothing concrete to offer his restless audience in terms of new products and services.

Turn any iOS device into an AirPlay audio receiver [Sponsor]

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Want to send audio on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad? Airfoil Speakers Touch has you covered! With it, you can send audio via AirPlay directly from iTunes or from one iOS device to another. There’s no reason to spend hundreds on costly third-party AirPlay receivers – the iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch you already own can do the job!

Airfoil Speakers Touch also receives audio from Airfoil, making it possible to send any audio from your Mac or PC to your iOS device. Cool!

Download Airfoil Speakers Touch from the iOS App Store and check out Airfoil right from our site.

Úll Conference is the best I’ve ever attended

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I’ve been to countless conferences over the last 20 years, speaking, attending and talking to developers, but never have I attended a conference organized as well as Úll in Dublin, Ireland last week. […]

Apple in talks with EPIX to stream movies on TV

Written by

Reuters:

Apple Inc began talks earlier this year to stream films owned by EPIX, which is backed by three major movie studios, on devices including a long-anticipated TV, according to two people with knowledge of the negotiations.

I may be on the outside with this one, but I believe Apple is looking at this market for a future product.

A CSS3 cycling slideshow

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More CSS3 goodness. Although I don’t agree with what they said about being careful of CSS3 because of the older browsers that don’t support it. It’s time to move forward.

Irish Prime Minister visits with Apple employees in Cork

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I’m in Ireland this week and thought this was very interesting. The Irish Prime Minister meeting with Apple employees in Cork.

I’m in Ireland this week and picked up this little tidbit. Here is the Irish Prime Minister meeting with Apple employees in Cork.

[caption id="attachment_23285" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny visits with Apple employees in Cork, Ireland on Friday, April 27, 2012. Apple recently announced plans to expand its presence in Cork, adding over 500 new jobs to support the company's growing business across Europe."][/caption]

ScreenCastsOnline

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Many thanks to ScreenCastsOnline for sponsoring The Loop this week. Established in 2005, ScreenCastsOnline is acknowledged as one of the primary online training resources for the Mac and iOS, publishing two brand new video tutorials each and every week. ScreenCastsOnline … Continued

Engineering Red Hot Chili Peppers, mixing Adele

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Andrew Scheps’ engineering and mixing credits read like a who’s who of popular music. He mixed four tracks on Adele’s Grammy-winning album, 21, and engineered and mixed 11 songs on the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers album, I’m with You. The latter was one of his many collaborations with production legend Rick Rubin. Scheps has also worked with Jay-Z, U2, Justin Timberlake, Green Day, Metallica, and many others. As a producer, Scheps’ credits include bands such as Favez, The Duke Spirit, and Audrye Sessions.

It’s always interesting to see how the pros do it.

One-in-four iPad purchases made by first-time Apple owners

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The iPad is drawing new consumers to the Apple brand with more than one-in-four iPad owners saying the device is their first Apple product. According to leading market research company, The NPD Group’s recent Apple Ecosystem Study, 33 percent of U.S. homes, (37 million households) own Apple products. While a majority (69 percent) of these consumers own iPods, ownership of iPads is growing.

This is good news for Apple. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Mac, iPhone or iPad that draws people to Apple, once they start using the product they will buy more. The simplicity of using any Apple products will win people over.

iPhone, iPad claim top spots in Enterprise activations

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The Q1 findings showed that Apple’s iPhone 4S hit a record high, claiming the number one device spot overall, with 37 percent of all activations for the first quarter (four times that of any other device). The iPad 2 claimed the second spot overall, with 17.7 percent of activations for the quarter. With less than one month on the market, the new iPad™, released in March 2012, rocketed to the number four spot with 4.3 percent of all activations for the quarter, and an impressive 12.1 percent of activations in March alone.Good found that iPads collectively represented roughly 97.3 percent of its tablet activations for Q1 2012. Apple’s continued growth is not only being driven by consumers and the overall BYOD trend, but also by proactive enterprise deployment of iPads.

We knew Apple was doing really good in the consumer market, but this is quite impressive.

Pixelmator updated

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Image editing software Pixelmator has been updated to version 2.0.3 with the following improvements:

  • Improves the performance of the Move Tool
  • Fixes memory leaks
  • Fixes a situation where performance would degrade over time
  • Fixes issues with Export for Web
  • Fixes a problem that caused corrupt PXM files