Uncategorized

It’s interesting that Apple is going back to what they used to focus on – in-store demonstrations and training.

Apple today announced plans to launch dozens of new educational sessions next month in all 495 Apple stores ranging in topics from photo and video to music, coding, art and design and more. The hands-on sessions, collectively called “Today at Apple,” will be led by highly-trained team members, and in select cities world-class artists, photographers and musicians, teaching sessions from basics and how-to lessons to professional-level programs.

Sounds like an expanded version of what they used to do at the stores. I like it.

While the percentage remains at 7% for movies, music, and books, this does nothing but hurt small publishers, some of who rely on these revenues from Apple’s affiliate program. It means some sites may not be able to continue or will be forced to increase the number of affiliate links to make up the difference. Apple still takes their 30% from developers (affiliate revenues came out of Apple’s share), so this means Apple makes more money and users of affiliate links make significantly less.

My thanks to Letter Opener for sponsoring The Loop this week.

Letter Opener for macOS

Working together with Windows users shouldn’t be problematic at all. Still, some email messages can not be natively read by the Mac and are packed into Winmail.dat or MSG files that have to be extracted and displayed somehow. Letter Opener for macOS does that with a simple double-click!

Letter Opener for macOS Mail

The plugin to stop the Winmail.dat file flood for good.

If Winmail.dat files are a reoccurring problem, Letter Opener for macOS Mail is the solution. Installed into Mail it opens and displays the files directly inside Apples Mail application, so the user can forget about Winmail.dat files entirely.

BoingBoing: If you live near a lake in the US, you’ll soon be able to zip across it in this Kitty Hawk Flyer. According to their site, the “ultralight aircraft,” which is financially backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, will … Continued

Fascinating that the blue whale is, possibly by necessity, picky about the size of krill patch it eats.

I love bowling but wouldn’t this level of skill take a lot of fun out of the game?

It’s just as bad as you would imagine it to be.

The best part of this photo series is CNET explains some of the wonderfully nerdy science signs. My favorite is number 40.

Good news in general for pros and specifically for users who want his commercial plugin products.

I’m not usually one for recommending TV shows here but this one is so good, I feel compelled to.

In honor of yesterday’s Earth Day, watch this.

This is the part of online shopping that pisses me off the most – the blatant price gouging and fluctuations based on factors not found in brick and mortar stores.

It’s a weird ad but funny because I’ve heard these arguments and more made by dozens of potential motorcycle owners trying to convince themselves or their significant other to “let” them have a bike.

If speed is all that matters, this video is for you.

Adding words to the dictionary sounds mundane but it is actually a fascinating process.

Discovering new artists is hard for everyone – listeners and labels alike. Anything that brings awareness to new voices is probably a good thing.

There’s a lot more chaff than wheat here but it hasn’t stopped the tech press from losing their minds over what may or may not be hinted at.

While the concerns are valid, I don’t think Apple looks at it the same way Moren does. Features will get added if Apple wants to add them. Not for any profit or loss reasons. That’s not better than what Moren argues though.

A Slovakia-based company unveiled the commercial design for a flying car priced at more than $1 million on Thursday, saying it was ready for pre-orders with first deliveries expected by 2020.

This may surprise some of you, but the flying car concept is not new. The interesting part of the puzzle here will be the regulations that it will have to overcome.

Heartfelt shout-outs to Tim Cook from the Emmys and Oscars stages — how would that sound? Or lest we get too ahead of ourselves, how about a title card that reads “Apple Films” or “An Apple Original Series” in front of your favorite new movie or TV show?

It all has a bit of a ring to it, right?

This is a fascinating read. We all know that Apple is interesting in expanding into video, but they are going to have to do something more than a series featuring Dre or Planet of the Apps if they want to be serious about it.

This is almost as creepy as the original. Really well done editing.

On specs alone, this camera will make many sports shooters drool. The price ($4,500) puts it out of reach of most sane beginners and enthusiasts but the feature set will (slowly) make its way down the Sony line. Regardless, Sony has thrown down the gauntlet to Canon and Nikon.

Wow. This is really scary. Take a look at his example of making Apple.com’s URL look correct but end up at a potential phishing site.

Yeah, you can now find and play specific songs. And albums. But, Pandora Premium is so much more than music on-demand. With Premium, you can find the music you love, but maybe more importantly, the music you love finds you. Effortlessly. It adapts to you by using all the signals – thumbs, replays, skips and stations adds – you’ve given us over the years to help curate your Pandora stations. You’ll see it from the moment you open Premium for the first time.

When Pandora Premium launched it was only available for people that directly paid the company. Now you can upgrade to premium if you subscribe through iTunes. I’ve been using it since the day it was released and it does a damn good job of knowing my musical tastes and playing songs that I love.

In honor of Earth Day 2017, Apple has posted some interesting and (mildly) funny videos about their efforts at sustainability.

Davis is one of the most influential figures in music and this is just one of many similar exclusives Apple Music will get over the next few months and years.

The previously mentioned niece has discovered the constant fun of Instagram video. I couldn’t turn off notifications fast enough. Sorry Emily.

Icebergs are a fairly regular occurrence off Newfoundland but this one is especially huge.

My “baby” sister did this for my niece. It’s a great way to re-purpose an old iPhone and gives the child a cool new toy.