The Loop reader Andrew Leavitt shared these pics of The Oculus Mall at the World Trade Center with us today. This is the same mall where the new Apple Store will be, although it was behind barriers when these pics were taken.

This looks incredible. Interesting to note that it’s a Spotify exclusive. I wonder if Apple is so focused on Pop music that they completely forgot about getting exclusives for other genres.

Castro 2 is the first app that is designed to help you expand your listening habits and track a broad range of shows without getting overwhelmed.

I use Castro and love the app.

Hayley Tsukayama brought up some fair points in her Washington Post article. I have two things to say about it: First, I don’t buy this “planned obsolescence” bullshit that’s talked about now and then. Apple makes incredibly long lasting products, so that notion is just ludicrous. Second, I see great things for a software button, if they decide to do it—3D Touch from the home button and who knows what else they can come up with.

Carolina Milanesi wrote an interesting piece at Techpionions:

But different is not necessarily bad. Tim Cook has a different personality than Steve Jobs and, as we learned from this week’s interviews, a different management style. We certainly see a more open, humble, inclusive, socially engaged leader that, in my view, has softened, not weakened Apple’s image as a company. As I mentioned, we cannot just look at management and think the Apple we see today has not been impacted by the markets it plays in. Let’s think about some of the things that are different today.

Tim Cook is a great leader and provides a human side to Apple that we have never seen before. I can’t imagine the challenges the management team goes through in preparing new products or working on the new products that we don’t even know about yet. In order to lose confidence in Apple, you would have to think they are no longer trying to innovate its current or future products—I don’t believe that.

Holy shit, that must hurt.

In addition to iOS 10 beta 6 being released today, Apple also updated its other operating systems watchOS, macOS Sierra, and tvOS. You can download all of them through the developer web site or via the automated software update mechanism if you have a previous beta installed.

Apple on Monday released a new beta for developers, bringing the latest version to iOS beta 6. If you have the beta installed, you can download the update by going to Settings > General > Software Update. You can also get the update from Apple’s Developer Web site.

To bolster the effort, Twitter is in talks with Apple to bring the Twitter app to Apple TV, which would potentially let millions of Apple TV users watch the streaming N.F.L. games, according to the two people briefed on the discussions.

It seems to me that Twitter is betting a lot on this streaming deal with the NFL. There was quite a bit of competition for this deal, but Twitter won. Now we’ll see if it pays off for them.

Tesla removed the word “autopilot” and a Chinese term for “self-driving” from its China website after a driver in Beijing who crashed in “autopilot” mode complained that the car maker overplayed the function’s capability and misled buyers.

It seems clear that there has to be a new term used for “autopilot.” People still need to understand they are responsible for their vehicles.

Igloo is an intranet you’ll actually like. It’s 100% cloud-based, so you’ll always have the latest version and it can be accessed from any device, anywhere. It’s time to simplify work and keep people more connected than ever before.

Cook described why the visibility of the job has been “shocking,” how he’s learned to deal with the scrutiny, and who he’s turned to for advice at pivotal moments.

I have so much respect for Tim. He is a humble, but driven man—he expects the best from his people at Apple and is willing to give everything he has to make sure the company is successful. You can’t ask anything more from a leader.

Forget beach volleyball, soccer or tennis, not to mention the steeplechase or discus. Pokemon Go is challenging the Olympics for most popular game among some young Brazilians.

I find this to be sad.

Two pools at the Olympic diving center will be drained and the water replaced on Saturday, a radical measure taken five days after the pools turned green due to what officials said was a contractor’s error.

I listened to a radio piece about this the other day and apparently there is no danger to the athletes, but it’s good to see the organizers doing the right thing.

Ride hailing company Lyft rebuffed acquisition interest from General Motors Co and will raise a new funding round instead, technology website The Information reported on Friday, citing two people familiar with the situation.

This is a great move from Lyft. I have little to no confidence in General Motors’ management or the products they have. Quality is certainly not a word that comes to mind when I think of GM.

Om Malik and John Gruber disagree on a couple of issues including the perception of Apple executives, and whether Apple should buy Netflix. They both have good points. I’m friends with both of these guys, and they themselves are friends—it’s great watch two intelligent people having a conversation like this.

Fraser Speirs posted another great article about using Apple IDs and Managed Apple IDs when preparing courses for students.

Mark is such a fabulous musician. He’s one of the people that I always wanted to meet, but haven’t.

There’s only a couple of original people in the band, but it’s amazing they still sound so good.

Twitter says the story posted on BuzzFeed was inaccurate, but wouldn’t say which parts of the piece were inaccurate. One former Twitter employee called the service, “A Honeypot For Assholes.”

“We’re disappointed that ad blocking companies are punishing people on Facebook as these new attempts don’t just block ads but also posts from friends and Pages. This isn’t a good experience for people and we plan to address the issue. Ad blockers are a blunt instrument, which is why we’ve instead focused on building tools like ad preferences to put control in people’s hands.”

Earlier today, Ad blockers found a way around Facebook’s attempts to block them. The first question is why do posts from friends and families get confused as ad content? I know Facebook makes its revenue from ads and I’m okay with that, but I’d love a way to pay them instead. If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. I don’t necessarily blame Facebook for trying to get around ad blockers because they are offering a free service (except they track and sell you).

CVS Health today is launching its own mobile payments solution that will allow customers to pay for products, pick up prescriptions, earn ExtraCare loyalty rewards, as well as pay – just by scanning the barcode in the CVS mobile app. The idea, the company explains, is to eliminate the number of steps it takes today to complete a checkout, which today is a very manual process.

I don’t even know what to say about this. Companies want to keep tabs on their customers, but their are better mobile payment solutions—of course, I’m talking about Apple Pay. I won’t use any company’s app when it comes to payments—support Apple Pay and I’m with you.

The most recognizable CBC logo is known as “the gem” or the “exploding pizza” for others. This is the logo I grew up with in Canada.

The bizarre technique has worked wonders. Santo qualified for the Olympic after winning two silver medals in the Pan American Games last year, but the pair has been forced to scale it back.

Those crazy Canadians.

I’m not really surprised that Apple programmed Siri to give some clever replies.

Make it disappear.

Kirk McElhearn:

Ratings are totally absent from the iOS 10 Music app, with no option to turn them on. Currently, on iOS 9, you can view a rating or rate a track by tapping its album artwork while it’s playing, but only for tracks in your library; you can’t apply star ratings to Apple Music tracks.

I’ve noticed this too, but haven’t said anything yet. Please Apple, don’t get rid of star ratings. I use them a lot in my music lists and for auto-playlists for music that I’ve highly rated over time. I’m hoping they just haven’t turned it on the iOS beta, but will in a future update. I’ve been rating music since iTunes first came out—losing all of that now would be a shame.

Two days ago we broke it to you that Facebook had taken “the dark path,” and decided to start forcing ad-blocking users to see ads on its desktop site. We promised that the open source community would have a solution very soon, and, frankly, they’ve beaten even our own expectations. A new filter was added to the main EasyList about 15 minutes ago.

Remember, Facebook said it was going to force ads to ad-blocking users. They already figured out a way around it. Let the games begin.

Though more than 20 states have legalized marijuana for medicinal uses, there’s still a lot scientists don’t know about it. “It’s actually quite amazing how little we really know about something that has been used for thousands of years,” says Sachin Patel of Vanderbilt University who studies cannabis. “We desperately need well-controlled unbiased large scale research studies into the efficacy of cannabis for treating disease states, which we have very little of right now. Without these studies we are basically flying blind with regard to medical marijuana in my opinion.”

Not being a user, I don’t much care, but I understand the need for more study. Some good questions.

Twitter Inc denied on Thursday rumors that the social media messaging service will be shutting down in 2017, denouncing the claim as groundless.

If the source for this rumor is true—a frustrated Twitter user—it goes to show the power of social media.