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Federico Viticci and John Voorhees from MacStories have teamed up to talk about apps on a new weekly podcast called AppStories. AppStories launches today, but has been in the works for more than a year.

I’ve had the chance to listen to the premiere episode and I have to say, I found it fascinating, well worth the listen. The focus is on the app store, the apps we love, and the developers behind those apps.

Listen to the first five minutes. You’ll have a real sense of the show. My two cents? This is a podcast worth your time.

Here’s a link to the first episode. If the link is not yet live, give it a bit of time and try again.

This is so good.

That’s a pretty big hiccup but, if anyone can do it, Apple can.

Privacy advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have again outlined how Google is successfully dumping millions of low-cost Chromebooks on U.S. schools, enabling the mass collection and storage of information on children without the consent of their parents or even the understanding of many school administrators.

Come on, Google.

Bose Corp spies on its wireless headphone customers by using an app that tracks the music, podcasts and other audio they listen to, and violates their privacy rights by selling the information without permission, a lawsuit charged.

In order to do this, customers need to download an app from Apple or Google and fill out their information. Technically, he probably had to agree to the terms of service, but still, not a good move by Bose.

Tim Cook’s acceptance speech for Newseum 2017 Free Expression Award:

“We know that these freedoms require protection,” Cook said of First Amendment rights. “Not just the forms of speech that entertain us, but the ones that challenge us. The ones that unnerve and even displease us. They’re the ones that need protection the most. It’s no accident that these freedoms are enshrined and protected in the First Amendment. They are the foundation to so many of our rights.”

“This is a responsibility that Apple takes very seriously,” Cook said. “First we defend, we work to defend these freedoms by enabling people around the world to speak up. And second, we do it by speaking up ourselves. Because companies can, and should have values.”

Cheers, Tim.

I tell all my students to check out the photographs on Flickr’s Explore page, either to see how others shot the same thing or to use it as a way to train their eye for composition and other elements.

Of course, I’m biased but, if you’re looking for a vacation this year, you’ll find a lot to like about my home country, especially on the occasion of our 150th anniversary.

Apple’s lead in mobile performance–powered by the efficiency of iOS 10 and the computational speed of its custom A10 Fusion Application Processor–beats the newest, leading premium Androids in a wide range of tests from processor and 3D benchmarks to real-world device startup and app launching and multitasking. Not even 6GB of RAM and the extra cores of Qualcomm’s fastest Snapdragon 835 can prop up the laggard, inefficient Android OS.

I played with a Google Pixel at a phone store recently and it was truly awful. Slow and laggy.

I’ve been using Apple’s newest iPad for a couple of weeks now and love it. The more I used it, the more I realized that it wasn’t the features that make this iPad so good, it was Apple’s strategy in releasing it that I was impressed with. […]

This is great news for those who didn’t get the apps before now.

As a motorcyclist, I experience this on a regular basis and it really is terrifying. Please, don’t text and drive.

Adding Lampang, Thailand to the list of places I never want to go riding.

The ocean is even more terrifying than you imagined.

Is it just me or is anyone else really curious as to how he managed to steal this many phones?

Another amazing video using skills and techniques fast disappearing from our technology-focused world. I’d love to have one of these canoes.

On April 18, the Newseum will award Apple CEO Tim Cook the Free Expression Award in the free speech category. Cook has used his spotlight to take a public stand on major societal issues, including racial equality, privacy, protecting the environment, access to education and LGBT rights.

The second annual Free Expression Awards recognize those who exhibit passion for and dedication to free expression. Honorees have taken personal or professional risks in sharing critical information with the public, have been censored or punished by authorities or other groups for their work, or have pushed boundaries in artistic and media expression.

Congrats, Tim.

Many will forget that one of the reasons why the original version of the Apple Stores had theater space was for events like these. Turns out, Apple didn’t need anything other than products to bring people into the stores. Sadly, it means these kinds of (possibly) interesting events are very few and far between.

Fascinating article. Before I read it, I thought the sculptor was being a dick, from the way he was being portrayed in media reports. After reading this piece, I think “Fearless Girl” should be removed.

Hey kids! Come see how we did things in the good old days.

I love these kinds of “science meets fiction” articles. I would have bet money that the redshirts were the unluckiest Star Trek crew members.

So, deep voices make things look bigger? There’s definitely a dirty joke in there somewhere. And I have quite a deep voice.

Very clever and inventive use of a drone.

Apparently, this is everything you could ever want to know about Clips.

I can barely get a yo-yo to go down and back up. This guy is doing stunts that would have me strangled by my own string. And his choice of music is inspired.

I had no idea the world of pinball game creation could be so full of intrigue and drama.

I’m not sure where the “Siri is dying” part of the story comes from and the web site’s layout is annoying as hell but it’s an interesting article nonetheless.

Thanks to djay Pro for sponsoring The Loop this week.

djay Pro, Algoriddim’s award-winning DJ application, is available for macOS, iOS, and Android. Now it’s also on Windows 10, bridging a native desktop and touch experience across every platform and fulfilling our mission of making everyone a DJ. Anywhere. Any time. Any platform.

Apple Inc is considering teaming up with its supplier Foxconn to bid for Toshiba Corp’s semiconductor business, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported on Friday – the latest twist in the sale of the world’s second-biggest flash memory chipmaker.

Makes perfect sense. Guess who the largest chipmaker is? Samsung.

This has been an eternal frustration for Mac users, more so for those of us who used the OS before OS X when these error messages seemed even more frequent. They’ve always been frustratingly opaque.