Media

Apple’s newest Apple Music commercial plays to NASCAR and country music fans

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[VIDEO] Billboard:

Brantley Gilbert made the most of an opportunity on July 23, debuting a new, 60-second black-and-white Apple Music commercial during a NASCAR race that bore his name this year, the Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Brickyard 400.

The spot will likely appeal to fans of both country and rock, two genres that trail pop and hip-hop in the penetration of streaming services. Shot over two days near Leiper’s Fork, Tenn., the video incorporates images of a wide-open field, motorcycles on a country road, rural neighbors in a small-town diner and an American flag, backed by snippets of Gilbert’s current single, “The Ones That Like Me,” plus Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” Kendrick Lamar’s “Backseat Freestyle” and Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild.” Other acts whose names are visible in Gilbert’s playlist include Johnny Cash, Metallica and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

Apple Music touts a three-month free trial in the spot, after Gilbert delivers a simple hook: “My country. My people. My music. Apple Music.”

The feel of the commercial is spot on. Click over to the main Loop post and watch for yourself.

The Rock’s crazy, long form Siri commercial

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[VIDEO] Not quite sure what to make of this. At almost 4 minutes long, it’s too long for a commercial, though it could easily be cut into reusable snippets. Could this be the beginning of a long-term deal between Apple and Dwayne Johnson (formerly known as The Rock)?

And what about the voice of Siri itself? In the commercial, it’s the voice we all know and love, that of Susan Bennett. But in iOS 11, Apple is shifting to a synthesized voice, a voice that, to me, bears no resemblance to the Siri we’ve all grown to know and love.

Is this new investment in Susan’s Siri voicing a sign that Susan Bennett will have a home in iOS 11?

No matter, take a few minutes, click through to the main Loop post, and watch The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, take Siri through his day. Boring, this is not.

UPDATE: Just installed iOS 11 beta 4 and the old Siri voice is back, no settings changes on my part. So could the synthesized Siri voice be an experiment, one that was rolled back? Or is this new version a better synthesis of Susan Bennett’s Siri? Either way, it’s good to have you back, Siri.

Steven Soderbergh’s latest film shot entirely on iPhone

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Variety:

Juno Temple is set to co-star with “The Crown’s” Claire Foy in Steven Soderbergh’s next movie, sources tell Variety.

The official title of the pic, which Soderbergh will direct, is currently unknown, but sources says it has a working title of “Unsane.”

Plot details are being kept under wraps, but insiders say Soderbergh shot the entire film on an iPhone, similar to the indie hit “Tangerine.”

Big fan of Soderbergh. His movies include Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and the Oceans 11 series, just to name a few. He does love to experiment.

The most popular drum beat in the world

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[VIDEO] Dave here. I’ve been playing music since I was a kid. I started with an out-of-tune, broken down, flea-market guitar, then moved on to pretty much any instrument I could get my hands on. Master of none, tryer of all. But the one instrument I could never quite get going with is the drums.

I always felt awkward trying to make my feet do one thing while each hand did something completely different. Part of it was not understanding the rules. Then came the video embedded in the main Loop post. For some reason, watching this video, it all just clicked for me. And so I thought I’d share it with you.

To me, the best part of this video is the look on the drummers face. The thousand yard stare. Enjoy.

Here’s a sneak peek at Disney’s coming Star Wars Land

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Disney doesn’t add entire new lands that frequently. A new land is an entire new, heavily themed area for the park, with new rides, new attractions and, of course, new shops.

In this case, both DisneyWorld and Disneyland are getting a new Star Wars Land, which is said to open in 2019. TechCrunch Editor-in-Chief Matthew Panzarino wrangled an invite to see what the new land is going to look like. Follow the headline link to step through the slide show, and check the video embedded in the tweet in the main Loop post for a panning shot of the 3D model.

Latest Apple Park drone footage, the homestretch

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[VIDEO] As you’ll see in the video embedded in the main Loop post, things are really coming along. The focus this month is the landscaping. Keep an eye on the details, like all the shrubs and trees, and the landscape leveling/grading. And, about 2:45 in, you’ll see they’ve moved the historic Glendenning Barn into place.

How a MacBook Pro was used to cut the movie Baby Driver in real time, on location

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Editor Paul Machliss has cut some difficult movies. You’ve seen his work if you’ve ever seen the quick edits in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and The World’s End, both personal favorites.

From the linked Premium Beat article:

For the film to work just right, Machliss had to be on set editing to verify that the timing of each shot was perfect: “To make it work you had to sort of be there at the moment of creation . . . I was there every day of every moment of every take. Edgar would do a take and yell ‘Cut!’ and then from the other side of the set go ‘How was that Paul?’ . . . and sort of wait until you went . . . ‘Yes it’s good.’ Then he felt he could move on. The advantage, of course being, we knew that six months down the line we weren’t gonna go ‘Ugh, we missed a trick here,’ ‘This didn’t work.’”

And:

To keep up with the production, Machliss had to be mobile and fast. He managed to put together an editing cart, pictured above: “This was the edit cart, basically, which was loaned to me by the sound department when we very quickly learned that I had to be absolutely mobile.”

The cart is pretty bare bones — a MacBook Pro, some external hard drives, “[Avid] Media Composer with an A-grade monitor which doubled either as a second screen for Media Composer, or as a full screen in its own right when Edgar wanted to come over and say ‘How does that look?’”

Check out the image of the extended keyboard at the very end of the article. It was new out-of-the-box when the film started.

[H/T Oliver Thomas]

Federico and John and the app used by celebs to study their lines

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Federico Viticci and John Voorhees have a podcast called AppStories which I quite like. This particular episode is an interview with David Lawrence, the mastermind behind Rehearsal, an app that is used by top Broadway and Hollywood actors (like Kevin Bacon, Clark Gregg – Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Avengers, etc.) to learn their lines.

This is a fascinating listen. One takeaway is that the acting community has settled on iOS as an unofficial standard, enough of one that Rehearsal has never been ported to Android.

Side note, David Lawrence played the Puppetmaster for three seasons on the original Heroes series. Here’s a link to the interview . Enjoy.

Chris Cornell’s masterful vocals in the isolated track for Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun”

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[VIDEO] Open Culture:

The singer’s near four-octave range “made his live performances an incredible sight to watch” and his recordings a stirring experience to listen to, whether they showcased his own material or his unique talent for covering songs across a spectrum of styles and genres. “The imposing architecture” of Cornell’s voice, writes Pitchfork in a retrospective of some of his finest recorded moments, “was part and parcel to his legacy, but it would be nothing if he didn’t also know how to brilliantly arrange it.”

Keep that in mind as you listen to the isolated vocal track embedded in the main Loop post. The vocals don’t kick in until about 20 seconds in. Listen to the subtle changes, both in tone and in mode (key changes, major to minor, etc.) Chris died a few months ago, but I just stumbled on this video. We’ve lost quite a voice.

This is not a drawing

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Follow the link and marvel at this impressive piece of macro photography. When I came across this, my first instinct was that this was a photorealistic drawing, a cartoon. But no, it’s the real deal.

Cool.

Listen to radio stations around the world

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Radio Garden uses a Google Earth interface that allows you to roam the planet and click on radio stations around the world.

This is fun to play with, though I wish the collection of stations was larger, more inclusive. But worth a look.

Taking and managing screenshots in iOS 11

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[VIDEO] Every time I watch an iOS 11 tutorial, I get a larger appreciation for how big a leap forward this latest rev is. In this one (embedded in the main Loop post), Jeff Benjamin talks through the process of taking and managing screenshots in iOS 11.

Bicycle parking station in Rotterdam

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[VIDEO] Apologies to whoever sent this my way, lost the original link, so no hat tip. Video in original Loop post. That said, I absolutely love this. Not sure if this was some sort of bot post (the voiceover is clearly automated), but the video itself is excellent. Great bike-parking setup.

Apple Watch watchOS 4 wishes you a happy birthday

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[VIDEO] A cool feature, true, but what really stuck with me watching this video (embedded in main Loop post) was how bright, vibrant, and smoothly animating that screen is. Far, we’ve come.

Siri’s iOS 11 evolution

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[VIDEO] Nice video (embedded in the main Loop post) from Mac Rumors, showing off Siri’s deep-learning powered iOS 11 voices, as well as advances in contextual awareness. Well done, worth watching.

Walt Disney’s original, personal map of Disneyland up for auction

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CNN:

Disney started W.E.D. Enterprises (for Walter Elias Disney), went looking for cheap land in Southern California, and recruited artists and art directors from various studios. They began designing aspects of the park, as Walt’s brother, Roy O. Disney, lined up meetings with potential investors: banks and TV networks. But with those pitch meetings just days away, Walt realized he had no big visual for his vision; he needed a show to go with Roy’s tell. “They had all these elements, but they didn’t have them all together in something they could present to investors,” explains Van Eaton.

So, on a Friday, Walt called Herb Ryman, a friend and former Disney artist known for working quickly, with an audacious idea: draw a huge, detailed map of the proposed park.

Fascinating story, a one-of-a-kind collectible. The map goes on the auction block June 25th, expected to fetch north of $500K.

Watch Tim Cook’s MIT commencement speech

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[VIDEO] From the dean’s introduction of Tim Cook (about 5:47 in, video embedded in main Loop post):

It only seems natural that he should have wound up at the helm of the company that has changed the texture of our lives more than perhaps any other company in the history of the world.

Hyperbole? Perhaps. But there’s a core of truth there. I can’t think of a company that has changed the world in quite the same way.

The speech itself is terrific, inspirational, worth your time. I especially enjoyed Tim’s passionate words about Steve Jobs.

How the world’s most beautiful typeface was almost lost forever

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Hayley Campbell, Buzzfeed:

The history of London can be found in pieces on its riverbed. The old pipes and fossilised horse bones wash up on the shore, and with them come the lead letters that printed that history in the newspapers.

The letters ended up there mostly out of laziness, building up piece by piece over the years that Fleet Street served as the epicentre of British journalism. A typesetter’s job was time-consuming: A page of newspaper was laid out one character at a time, the pieces were put back in their boxes the same way. When the typesetters crossed Blackfriars Bridge on their way home from work they’d toss a pocketful of type over the side rather than bother.

They’re still there. There are thousands of letters slowly rearranging themselves over the years and moods of the mud, like alphabet soup.

This is the story of one of those sunken typefaces and a feud between two longtime friends. Beautifully written and a fascinating bit of design history.

Check the main Loop post for a related BBC video.

Earth — Shot on iPhone

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[VIDEO] This is one of my all-time favorite iPhone ads (embedded in the main Loop post), mostly due to the voiceover by the great Carl Sagan.

To get a sense of why I think so highly of him, spend a minute reading Sagan’s Wikipedia page. To me, he’s the real deal and his words ring true.

Hands on with iOS 11

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[VIDEO] If you missed the keynote and want to learn more about iOS 11, Jeff Benjamin from 9to5Mac has your back.

The video embedded in the main Loop post does an excellent job walking you through the interface changes, and there are a lot of them. This video is definitely worth your time.

Watch the first episode of Planet of the Apps

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From Apple’s Planet of the Apps web site:

The season premiere is finally here! Watch this groundbreaking new series about apps and their creators. Featuring Jessica Alba, Gwyneth Paltrow, Gary Vaynerchuk, and will.i.am.

The first episode is available here for a limited time. Join Apple Music to get new episodes weekly.

The feel of the show is like Shark Tank meets The Voice, all built around app developers looking for funding. You can watch the first episode, for a limited time, on Apple’s official Planet of the Apps site.

Bloomberg interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook focuses on HomePod

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[VIDEO] Some very interesting questions from Bloomberg’s Emily Chang (video in the main Loop post), including the question of HomePod being able to place a phone call, and whether Apple has retails aspirations (ordering product on your HomePod). The answer seems to be no to both. The approach seems to be, a limited version of Siri for starters, then more and more domains added in over time.

Thoughts on the iMac Pro

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[VIDEO] Some thoughts on the iMac Pro, serving the needs of the Mac Pro crowd, and a video, all in the main Loop post.