American storytelling, American compromise

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Mark Willis:

The stories we tell ourselves; the compromises we make to live as we do. What’s the real cost of living in our modern American culture? I’d argue, “looking ourselves square in the face.”

Drum Werks XXI Reggae

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The goal with this reggae collection was to capture the essence of the reggae drummers of the 70’s who set the standard for the elusive reggae feel and styles. Add this to more contemporary artists and groove derivations and you get a truly unique collection of live acoustic reggae drum loops.

My favorite company for real drum loops.

John Gruber on Mike Daisey

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Daisey impugned the integrity of Apple — and the journalism of ABC News — in order to work people up regarding problems that don’t exist. This only served to draw attention away from the labor, health, and environmental issues in Apple’s Asian supply chain that do exist.

Great read from John.

Consumer Reports: From bagels to iPads

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Consumer reports is at it again, this time the organization is trying to torpedo Apple’s new iPad.

I say “torpedo” because it seems to me Consumer Reports has an agenda playing out here. I would think that would be to get as much press as possible and the way to achieve that is to find a problem with the iPad 3. […]

Middle school science with iPad temperatures

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John Gruber on these heat tests going around today:

As Alex Dedalus points out on Twitter, to say this is a crap headline is give crap headlines a bad name.

This is great stuff.

Basil: A smart recipe book for iPad

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Because Basil organizes your recipes for you, you can spend more time cooking rather than organizing them. Each new recipe is tagged with its main ingredients, and adding cuisine and meal type is fast too, so your recipes are always organized. You can find just the recipe you’re looking for by sorting according to cuisine type, meal type, or main ingredients. Or you can just search them, using full-text search.

Great looking app. Best of luck to Kyle on the launch.

Apple responds to supposed iPad heat issues

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There have been a couple of stories on the Internet in the past few days that say the iPad runs a bit hotter than its predecessor. Apple on Tuesday responded. “The new iPad delivers a stunning Retina display, A5X chip, … Continued

Apple packaging

Written by

Anthony Kay:

But with Apple things are different. They don’t just use an ugly cardboard box with their logo and a few stickers slapped on it. They actually give a great deal of thought to the design of the box itself. They think about what it looks like on the shelf, how it presents the contents to the purchaser, and what the experience will be like when you open it.

Exactly right. The Apple experience begins at the store when the product is still on the shelf.

Innovator’s Dilemma

Written by

Simon Ly:

Essentially it turns around Apple’s complete willingness to destroy its own revenues. It built a phone that destroyed it’s major source of revenue, the iPod. It built Macbook Airs that have now disrupted another major source of revenue, their Macbook Pros. It built the iPad, which is already beginning to disrupt the Macbook itself.

Apple also killed off the iPod mini at the height of its popularity and introduced the iPod nano in its place. That completely disrupted the competition because at that time they were all trying to copy the mini.

The user designer disease

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The disease is a designer killer. It’s a skills killer and most importantly it’s an imagination killer. Like the chicken pox, the “user design” disease is something we all need to get in order to become healthy, happy designers.

Design landing pages

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Having knowledge on how to create an effective landing page can increase the number of site visitors that take the desired action of the web page. Lets discuss factors and considerations that can lead to a better landing page design.

Boombotix wireless speakers for iPhone and iPod

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The BB2 wireless speaker fuses Japanese urban design with mobile audio in a truly portable package. All Boombots are rechargeable, loud as &@*%, and durable enough to withstand the abuse of your lifestyle, guaranteed.

No business model

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Jenny Blumberg:

We’ve been asked before what our business model is, and honestly there isn’t one in place yet. We’re looking into a freemium model. I posted an answer on Quora that goes into more detail here. A business model that relies on targeted advertising doesn’t jive with our culture at Sepia Labs. We’d rather add amazing new features that people would be willing to pay us for, because they enjoy Glassboard so much.With that in mind, we’d love for you to use Glassboard, and with a tear in your eye, trembling lips… utter the words “You complete me.”

Sepia Labs is Brent Simmons new company. Love these guys and their honesty.

Update: The original headline of this story was “No business plan,” when in fact, it should have read “No business model.” Sepia Labs clearly has a business plan.

Apple announces dividend, share repurchase

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Subject to declaration by the Board of Directors, the Company plans to initiate a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share sometime in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2012, which begins on July 1, 2012.Additionally, the Company’s Board of Directors has authorized a $10 billion share repurchase program commencing in the Company’s fiscal 2013, which begins on September 30, 2012. The repurchase program is expected to be executed over three years, with the primary objective of neutralizing the impact of dilution from future employee equity grants and employee stock purchase programs.

Foxconn will not sue ‘This American Life’

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Foxconn said on Monday it had no plans to take legal action although the programme had hurt its reputation.“Our corporate image has been totally ruined. The point is whatever media that cited the programme should not have reported it without confirming (with us),” said Simon Hsing, Foxconn’s spokesman.

Google’s missing developer payments

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BBC:

Europe-based software writers have posted hundreds of comments on the company’s forums, saying their February fees had not been received on 7 March as scheduled.

Oops.

Goldman Sachs leaked info about Apple

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A person at Goldman Sachs Group Inc, who has not been identified or charged in a broad U.S. insider-trading probe, was caught on a wiretap leaking secrets about Intel Corp and Apple Inc, a lawyer for accused former Goldman board member Rajat Gupta said in court on Friday.

Sidekick 4.0

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Many thanks to Oomph Software with Sidekick for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop.

Sidekick is a stealth little Mac app that automatically updates laptop settings based on where you are. It takes care of annoying tasks so you can focus on what you need to do.

By controlling a huge variety of settings, Sidekick makes your laptop more secure, efficient, portable, and personalized. It can automatically change your default printer, connect to a server, run a command in Terminal, lock the keychain, change the system location…the list goes on. Visit the Sidekick website to learn more.

Try Sidekick 4.0 for free. It’s super powerful and very easy to use.

Use the coupon code THELOOP to save 20% on Sidekick.

Dell wants to challenge Apple in the tablet market

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Reuters:

As Apple’s third-generation iPad went on sale on Friday, accompanied by the now traditional scenes of fans queuing round the block , Dell’s chief commercial officer Steve Felice said the tablet market was still wide open.

I kid you not, I actually laughed out loud reading this. How many times does Apple have to lay the smackdown on Dell before they finally go away.

Ass clowns

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Colin Crawford talking about IDC’s predictions for iPad and Android tablet growth:

While I’ve a lot of respect for IDC’s ability to identify key market trends, especially in the Enterprise IT market…

Wait for it…

…but I’m not convinced they have their finger on the pulse of the Apple iPad market nor Apple’s iOS strategy.

Translation: Ass clowns.