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Daniel Jalkut was asking on Twitter about screenshot apps. Skitch for Mac seems possibly abandoned, and has become very buggy in 10.13. What are folks’ favorite Mac screenshot tools these days? — Daniel Jalkut (@danielpunkass) October 4, 2017 He got … Continued

I can’t disagree. I did the same iOS search for “Pubs near me” in Apple Maps, Waze and Google Maps. Apple Maps found none within two kilometers, Waze found three and Google Maps found all four.

Today, along with a new family of hardware products [link], we’re introducing Google Pixel 2. We want you to be able to ask even more from your phone—so we’re giving you the highest-rated camera ever that helps you take great pictures and interact with the world around you, all-day battery life, and an Assistant that understands you better and helps you get more done.

I’m not sure about Google’s camera claims, but features like Google Lens sound interesting.

Today, we’re welcoming two new products to the Google Home family: Google Home Mini is small and mighty for hands-free help in every room. And Google Home Max is our biggest and best-sounding Google Home ever. They’re both radically helpful, and packed with the power of the Google Assistant, including some brand new features.

I haven’t seen or used either of these products, so I’ll reserve judgement. I have seen and listened to Apple’s HomePod and I know how good it sounds for music. There’s still a lot of questions to be answered with the HomePod, but I think I’ll wait until it’s released.

When it comes to multi-room audio, Sonos is still the gold standard. But the company has lagged behind on the smart speaker revolution, promising only that integration with assistants like Amazon’s Alexa would come in due time.

There is a ton of good news from Sonos today.

The European Commission said on Wednesday it was taking Ireland to the European Court of Justice for its failure to recover up to 13 billion euros ($15.3 billion) of tax due from Apple Inc, a move labeled as “regrettable” by Dublin.

Both Apple and Ireland are appealing the ruling that any money is owed, so this seems a bit heavy-handed by the EU.

I never played with model rockets as a kid but this would be a “blast” to attend.

This is a great list with a wide variety of free and paid apps.

Really interesting (and really geeky) analysis.

This is one of those apps that really show off the upside of AR. I would have loved to have something like this when I did tech support.

Teach a machine using your camera, live in the browser. No coding required.

A new experiment done with Google.

I like this idea rather than the mentioned bans or discounts. It also reminds me of the joke: “Want me to put my iPhone down? Be more interesting than my iPhone…”

You’ll be missed, Tom.

Apple on Tuesday released an update to iOS 11, bring ing the current version to iOS 11.0.2. The latest version fixes an issue where some users reported hearing crackling noises during calls, and it also fixed a problem that caused some photos to be hidden.

You can update by going to Settings > General > Software Update on your device.

I’ll be installing macOS High Sierra on Thursday and after I back everything up and ensuring I have a good bootable backup drive, I’ll do is this.

This is a fascinating look at how the guitar rigs are set up. I was surprised to see that they are not using Tube amps anymore.

So good.

Tom Petty, the rocker best known as the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, is dead at 66, CBS News has confirmed.

Much respect, Tom.

Thanks to Bombich Software for sponsoring The Loop this week. Bombich Software has released Carbon Copy Cloner 5, an upgrade to its bootable backup software for macOS. The upgrade features scheduled task grouping and sorting, guided setup and restore, task history trend charts, a health check for backups, advanced file filtering, and includes hundreds of improvements and fixes.

Carbon Copy Cloner 5 requires macOS 10.10 or later and will be compatible with APFS and Apple’s macOS 10.13 High Sierra release this autumn. A full-featured thirty day trial version is available.

Carbon Copy Cloner is an app that I’ve used for years, in fact, since it was first released. The new version goes a long way to make the software easier to use, while still adding more advanced features.

You can get 15% off Carbon Copy Cloner until September 3 by using the code LOOPINSIGHT at checkout.

The PGA TOUR hired Brad Mangin to shoot the Presidents Cup with his new iPhone 8 Plus. Using the 12MP dual cameras on the new iPhone while taking advantage of the intimacy of such a pocketable device, Brad is able to capture stunning professional photos that would be tough with larger, traditional cameras. At the 2017 Presidents Cup, Brad is taking advantage of the new Portrait Lighting feature on iPhone 8 Plus to put a sharp focus on faces around Liberty National. The photos provide a unique look at the PGA TOUR through the eyes of a photographer who has been covering sports for 30 years.

Incredible.

Portrait Lighting is pretty amazing.

Introduced in 1982, the KORG SDD-3000 Digital Delay was popularized by U2 guitarist, The Edge, to forge one of the most identifiable guitar sounds in the history of rock. Far from a one-instrument-pony, however, the SDD-3000 also found a home in early new wave and 80’s synth music. Fully endorsed by KORG, the KORG SDD-3000 Digital Delay plug-in for UAD and Apollo interfaces exactly captures the original unit’s colorful analog circuitry, and burnished-sounding 13-bit delays.

There is no company that does better emulations than Universal Audio. Take a listen to the sounds on the company’s page.

Thanks to Twocanoes Software for sponsoring The Loop this week. If you are upgrading to High Sierra and have a Boot Camp partition, check out Winclone 6. Winclone 6 is the ideal Mac App for backing up your Boot Camp partition. You spent a ton of time getting your Windows setup just right, and Winclone makes sure that you can always get back to that same setup. Winclone creates a exact clone of your Boot Camp partition, including all Windows system files, applications, and data. If you have a failed update, bad drive, or ransomware attack in Windows, you just restore your Winclone backup and you are back up and running.

Get 50% off Winclone 6 with code WCLOOPHS through Sept 30th.

This is a wonderfully cheesy and funny video from the Velcro folks but they have no chance of convincing us to call it “hook and loop”.

I’ve been using Edovia’s screen sharing app for some time now and love it. If you need such an app, give this a try, you won’t be disappointed.

Apple has released macOS 10.13 High Sierra, the newest operating system for Mac. To improve High Sierra security when installing system software (such as UAD drivers), the software must be explicitly allowed to load in the Security & Privacy pane within macOS System Preferences.

These are my most used audio plug-ins, so compatibility is a must for my music machine.

I just love this song.

Apple has released a small update to its recently released iOS 11 on Wednesday. Go to Settings > General > Software Update on your device to download the latest. Apple says the update provides “bug fixes and improvements.”

You’ve undoubtedly seen these kinds of tricks on many other websites. Be aware of how they try to convince you to “BUY NOW”.

While this study is on Americans, there’s no reason to believe other countries would do any better. Many of us seek out more information about our favorite sports team than we do science news.