Happy Independence Day to all of our American readers and friends. I hope you have a fun and safe holiday celebration.

The author makes a very interesting point but it’s hard for “average people” to want to go to the effort of absorbing real news when it can be so depressing and when sharing it can invite aggressive and unpleasant reaction.

I’m not a huge fan of this style of game but the original was a great way to show off the iPad when it first came out.

As Snell says, “This is a tech unicorn, an unannounced feature on a nonexistent product, and it’s important to keep that in mind.” But it’s also helpful to remember, Apple has done this kind of thing many times in the past and it’s always (generally) worked out – after a period of time when tech pundits bitch, moan and complain about it.

There’s never a time when you should put off doing backups. I did a few months ago and sure enough, I had a hard drive crash and lost months worth of data.

I first saw this model on my honeymoon and thought it bizarre it was relegated to the back of the museum’s gift shop. Glad to see it got the conservation and display it deserves.

Obviously, there are several examples from the beginning of the Age of the Car of how automobile travel created entire industries. The Michelin Guide may be the one that has gone the furthest past its original intent to something more popular than the original tire company could have ever imagined.

When I was a little kid, I got the chance to go on an American aircraft carrier outside of Halifax’s harbour (it was too big to dock). I’ve always wanted to go back onboard as an adult.

A UPS is one of those unsexy things you don’t know you need until you need it. If you live in an area with spotty power or frequent weather-related outages (I live in an old apartment building that frequently has power outages for seemingly no reason), a UPS can save a lot of aggravation and frustration.

I can get completely lost in NASA imagery and putting it on the Apple TV so I have access to larger images sounds great.

Gruber does a great job of tearing apart Nilay Patel’s silly, whiny piece but the key argument for me is his “If it weren’t for Apple we’d probably still be using computers with VGA and serial ports. The essence of Apple is that they make design decisions “no one asked for”.” This is what Apple does. It’s what they’ve done since Steve Jobs came back to the company. They move forward. They don’t wait for the market to make the decision for them. They make the decision for the market. And, in the vast majority of the cases, the market agrees with Apple – eventually.

If you’re lucky enough to be a kid who lives within range of one of these Apple Camps, sign up ASAP. They fill up fast and I’ve heard a lot of good things about them.

You may not know what “foley” is but you’ve likely heard it in every live-action movie you’ve seen in the past 100 years. It’s a fascinating but unfamiliar job on a movie, one that is critical to the “realism” of what we see on screen. This video does a great job of showing the work that goes on behind the scenes with foley artists.

I’ve only just started to use Instagram more seriously. The “need” to post from the iPhone was a real pain. If you use both Instagram and Lightroom, this $10 donationware plugin will really come in handy.

It’s sadly typical that, with anything Apple announces, there’s always a segment who will rend their garments and cry to the heavens about how much they hate whatever it is Apple is doing. The reaction to macOS Sierra is no different. As Adam points out, no one is forcing you to use macOS Sierra or any of its newest announced features.

What a great story. I wish this young lady much success in her programming career.

This thing is quite literally the ugliest car I’ve even seen. If this is the future of “luxury driverless automobiles”, I hope I’m dead before I see this abomination on the road.

Gruber sits down with the Apple executives to talk about all the news Apple announced at the keynote.

Not a huge surprise given some of the things Trump has said about Apple at the very least.

As a photographer, this makes me sad. I still remember the first time I saw the Milky Way as a kid. I was walking up the long driveway on my dad’s farm in Nova Scotia and was struck by how bright it was. I looked up and my jaw literally dropped. I stood there for at least 30 minutes, staring at all the amazing stars I had never seen when I lived in the city.

The Hip are a great Canadian band that, sadly, most Americans have never heard of. If you live near the Canadian border or have access to the CBC feeds, I’d encourage you to watch what will undoubtedly be a bittersweet concert.

With all the crap going on in the past week, I thought this story might lighten the load. Now, excuse me. I’ve got something in my eye.

This is just the beginning for major changes in Messages. Apple will follow in some ways and lead in others but, make no mistake, Messages in many forms will become its own significant platform in Apple’s Services category.

Really interesting WWDC video from Apple’s Head of Security Engineering and Architecture, Ivan Kristic. Thanks to Brian Katz for the link.

It’s interesting seeing the commentary on the latest version of the watchOS. Everyone seems to agree it’s going in a better direction. The question I have is will it be enough to get people like me to actually buy an Apple Watch?

For the riding community, this is going to be really interesting to watch. Electrics in general are the future and there have been a lot of attempts at electric motorcycles. I’ve test ridden the Zero Electric and it was an interesting experience. But, I’ve gone on record to say I think whatever electric bike Harley introduces will be a failure.

A typically long but well-written overview with more details of the big new iOS we’ll be getting in the fall.

I noticed the change as well. Cook bookended the keynote and didn’t appear in the middle. And that’s not a bad thing. For me, it’s always been about what is being presented. I pay little attention to who is doing the presenting.

If no other reason, I’ll look forward to Safari 10 for this alone.

I know less than nothing about this stuff so I’ve been reading as much as I can about it. Green is a cryptographer and professor at Johns Hopkins University and writes about this subject fairly clearly.