We designed the Apple Teacher program to help you build skills and stay inspired. You’ll discover new ways to enhance creativity and productivity by unlocking the magic of iPad, Mac, and built-in apps. You’ll get news and fresh ideas, featuring real stories, product tips, and great educational apps. And after completing online quizzes, you’ll receive an official Apple Teacher logo that you can share with the world.

Apple has always cared about education, kids, and teachers.

Thanks to FabFocus for sponsoring The Loop this week.

With only one touch, FabFocus uses advanced human recognition A.I. to detect people in the foreground, automatically blurring the background to create a professional-looking depth of field effect. Unique to FabFocus, the app enables multiple bokeh effects, transforming point lights into your choice of hexagons, stars, hearts and more!

The Loop sponsorship special — 33% off this week only. Get FabFocus Now.

Apple on Wednesday sent out an invite to press for a special event the company will hold at its Cupertino, Calif. campus on October 27. I will be at the event and will bring you all the news. […]

Developer Camp is a three-day hackathon and community event, held regularly in cities all around the world. It relies on a certain pattern to create trust and foster cooperation — right up until the presentations begin. Our next event is all about bots.

This looks like a great event. The camp works with girls, boys, men, and women, so everyone has a chance to learn to code or hone your skills.

With only one touch, FabFocus uses advanced human recognition A.I. to detect people in the foreground, automatically blurring the background to create a professional-looking depth of field effect. Unique to FabFocus, the app enables multiple bokeh effects, transforming point lights into your choice of hexagons, stars, hearts and more!

Loop sponsorship special— 33% off this week only. Get FabFocus Now.

And according to one of its customer representatives, the Swedish music streaming company is not keen on going beyond its AirPlay support for Apple TV and coming out with its own Apple TV app soon.

This certainly isn’t because of anything Apple is doing to prevent Spotify from making an app—Pandora is on Apple TV, so it’s possible. I wonder if Spotify is just being childish here.

Up for bid will be a slew of speakers and speaker boxes, more than half a dozen recording and live sound consoles, various vintage effects, analog and digital tape machines, guitars, drums and more. The full auction, “Property from the Estate of Frank and Gail Zappa,” will be held by Julien’s Auctions on November 4; the company will hold a public exhibition of the items October 31 through November 3.

His house was sold to Lady Gaga. There’s a lot of history in these items.

Netflix Inc’s shares jumped as much as 20 percent on Tuesday, after the company added 50 percent more subscribers than expected in the third quarter.

I love Netflix and use it all the time. It’s original programming is among some of the best out there these days. The fact they are increasing the investment in content is a good sign for customers.

Apple has hired a Carnegie Mellon University professor to head up a team working on artificial intelligence as tech giants increasingly place big bets on machine learning as a key part of their future.

Apple seems to be all-in with AI, which is a good sign for the future.

BFD Black Album Drums is an expansion pack for BFD3 inspired by the drum sound featured on the 1991 “Black Album” by Metallica. Produced and recorded by Chocolate Audio (the team behind Imperial and Modern Retro) and featuring the exact same 1980 Gretsch kit that was played on the album along with Zildjian cymbals, a Tama Bell Brass snare and a Ludwig snare.

I love these types of expansion kits. You can get the perfect drum sound that you’re looking for without much hassle.

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Friday said it expected to take a hit to its operating profit of about $3 billion over the next two quarters due to the discontinuation of its fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 smartphone.

The outlook brings to about $5.3 billion the total losses the global smartphone leader has forecast as a result of the overheating issues, after it said on Wednesday it would suffer a $2.3 billion hit to third-quarter profit.

That’s just the hit you can see. There is no telling how much this will affect the sales of other products—if consumer confidence fades, this could get worse.

Using advanced facial recognition A.I., FabFocus detects people in the foreground and automatically blurs what it distinguishes as the background. It’s that easy to take an amazing portrait with a professional depth of field effect.

The app will be released next week. This is going to be very popular.

Thanks to Marketcircle, makers of Billings Pro for sponsoring The Loop this week.

Tired of manually creating invoices and keeping track of your time slips with spreadsheets? Billings Pro is a simple time-tracking and invoicing app for the Mac, iPad, iPhone & Apple Watch. It’s used by lawyers, consultants, photographers, graphic designers & more all over the world.

Track time from any Apple device – whether you’re at the office, working at a coffee shop, or tracking time for an on-site client meeting. Whip up invoices lightening fast from your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. Choose from over 30 professional templates on the Mac or customize your own. Keep track of overdue invoices, set recurring invoices, and add client payments no matter where you are.

New in Billings Pro is the Mini Timer on the iPhone. Now you can start, pause, or resume a timer from anywhere in the app just by tapping or swiping up.

This is very cool.

So why does Siri seem so dumb? Why are its talents so limited? Why does it stumble so often? When was the last time Siri delighted you with a satisfying and surprising answer or action?

For me, at least, and for many people I know, it’s been years. Siri’s huge promise has been shrunk to just making voice calls and sending messages to contacts, and maybe getting the weather, using voice commands. Some users find it a reliable way to set timers, alarms, notes and reminders, or to find restaurants. But many of these tasks could be done with the crude, pre-Siri voice-command features on the iPhone and other phones, albeit in a more clumsy way.

There are many times when I disagree with Walt on his tech opinions, but I’ve had my own issues with Siri not being able to give me answers to seemingly easy questions. I’ve asked Siri about sports scores or upcoming games and, in some cases, the answers are completely off the rails. I still try once in a while, but most times, I just don’t bother.

But I suspect that people don’t ask those questions because, after trying a time or two and getting no answers or wrong answers, they just give up on Siri.

This is another good point. I can use Siri accurately to set a timer and play some music. Most other things, I just type the question into Google. Recently when I press the Siri button on my iPhone, it immediately says “Sorry, I’m not sure what you said,” while I’m still speaking. Again, I just type my question into Google.

Before the Supreme Court, the issue at stake was not whether Samsung infringed on the patents, but instead how much the Korean company should pay based on a law that allows a patent owner to receive a competitor’s “total profit.” Should that profit be for the entire value of the smartphone, as an appeals court ruled, or only for profits attributable to the copied design?

Samsung designed their phones to completely copy Apple’s iPhone, from top to bottom. They need to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.

Bogdan Popescu responded tonight after Apple went public with the reason his account was revoked.

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Thanks to Marketcircle, makers of Billings Pro for sponsoring The Loop this week.

Tired of manually creating invoices and keeping track of your time slips with spreadsheets? Billings Pro is a simple time-tracking and invoicing app for the Mac, iPad, iPhone & Apple Watch. It’s used by lawyers, consultants, photographers, graphic designers & more all over the world.

Track time from any Apple device – whether you’re at the office, working at a coffee shop, or tracking time for an on-site client meeting. Whip up invoices lightening fast from your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. Choose from over 30 professional templates on the Mac or customize your own. Keep track of overdue invoices, set recurring invoices, and add client payments no matter where you are.

New in Billings Pro is the Mini Timer on the iPhone. Now you can start, pause, or resume a timer from anywhere in the app just by tapping or swiping up.

They just can’t seem to help themselves.

Controversy erupted last week when Apple [cancelled the account of a popular developer app called Dash. Apple told the developer “they found evidence of App Store review manipulation,” an accusation the developer denied, but Apple has proof. […]

Apple cares and they show it every time they have an opportunity to help.

Be safe people.

A Yahoo Inc media executive fired from the internet company last year has filed a lawsuit claiming a job review process implemented by Chief Executive Marissa Mayer was used to cut men from executive ranks and lay them off illegally, court papers showed.

It’s not often you hear about this type of lawsuit.

After five years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday in the bitter patent dispute between the world’s two top smartphone manufacturers over the amount Samsung should pay Apple for copying the iPhone’s distinctive look.

There is absolutely no doubt that Samsung stole everything it could from the iPhone. They should pay up and stop stealing.

The court said that there was substantial evidence for the jury verdict related to Samsung’s infringement of Apple patents on its slide-to-unlock and autocorrect features, as well as quick links, which automatically turn information like addresses and phone numbers into links.

It’s obvious that Samsung blatantly stole this from Apple. Time to pay up for your thieving behavior, Samsung.

There are some big regrets here. Bessemer Venture Partners seem to have passed up on every good idea that ever came along in the history of tech.

This is a great piece from Om that focuses on photography, but also looks at Instagram and Snapchat.

At a hearing in San Francisco federal court on Thursday, U.S. District Judge James Donato said he was “concerned” with Airbnb’s position because the San Francisco statute targets only bookings processed by Airbnb, not what the company publishes on its website.

Basically, the law would require Airbnb to verify that the person renting the property was registered with the city. Airbnb is saying that it is the responsibility of the person to follow the law and they are providing a publishing service.

Twitter shares plunged on Thursday, a day after technology website Recode reported that Alphabet’s Google and Disney would not bid for the social network and Apple was unlikely to be a suitor.

The stock fell 19% on the news. Twitter is in a tough spot—they have a ton of users and everyone recognizes the brand, but they can’t make a profit.

Google’s self-driving vehicles are mastering complex situations on public roads, from cars going the wrong way to bicycles darting in front of traffic, as the technology company strives to win the high-profile race to achieve full vehicle automation, executives said on Wednesday.

These are the types of situations that worry me the most about self-driving cars—normal everyday traffic accidents. Good to see Google is focusing on what may appear to be mundane incidents.