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Macstories:

Screenshot apps tend to fall into one of two categories: managers and editors. On iOS, screenshot management apps dominate, likely because until Apple added a ‘Screenshots’ album to the Photos app with iOS 9, there was no good way to separate screenshots from snapshots of family and friends. On the Mac there are fewer apps, but their feature sets tend to be deeper.

This article casts a broad net to provide an overview of the top screenshot apps on iOS and Mac and help you find the apps that meet your specific needs.

This is a wonderful ridiculously long list of a number of screenshot methods and apps. You’re sure to find one that does just what you need.

Petapixel:

If you’re a Mac user and are annoyed that OS X automatically launches Apple Photos every time you connect a device or insert a memory card, there’s good news for you: you can disable the program from launching for all devices with a single command.

I find this change by Apple really annoying in particular because, every time you format your memory card (which I do often), OS X/Photos (an app I’m never going to use but can’t delete – thanks Apple!), forgets and treats it like a new device. So being able to kill this activity using a Terminal command is a Godsend.

Universal Audio are simply the best audio plug-ins on the market. They remain true to the analog versions, while giving you the flexibility to make the best music possible. This is all I use.

NSNorth is more than a tech-talk focussed event. It is designed to inspire you to learn something new amongst an encouraging and aspiration-driven group of friends.

I’ve heard great things about this conference. It takes place April 28-30, 2016.

Drum Werks IX is a powerful collection of slow and mid-tempo rock drum loops. A hard rocking addition to Beta Monkey’s versatile Drum Werks line of drum loops and samples, Drum Werks IX offers nearly 600 acoustic drum loops and samples in comprehensive Groove Sets™, from moody 60 BPM vibes through power rock stomping at 90 BPM.

I love Beta Monkey drum loops. They are played by real drummers and recorded in a studio, so your songs sound like your played with a real drummer—because they are. I’ve been buying loops from Beta Monkey for years.

This is kind of cool. You come across a video you want to watch and you bookmark it to Zinc using a Safari extension. You can then bring it up on your Apple TV or other device to watch it later.

ZDNet:

I used the Internet for years before there was a Web, but when Tim Berners-Lee proposed the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system, to his boss at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, we didn’t know it but we were on the brink of a revolution.

Berners-Lee’s idea wasn’t new. You can trace it back to Vannevar Bush’s As We May Think article in July 1945. Personally, I think Ted Nelson’s 1960 Xanadu hypertext vision had even more influence on how the Web would turn out. And, of course, Apple’s HyperCard did give us a hypertext system that might have beat Berners-Lee to the Web… except HyperCard was totally network unaware.

The door was open for Berners-Lee to turn the hypertext dream into our Web reality.

Hard to believe it wasn’t that long ago. Us old folks will remember what it was like accessing the internet before the World Wide Web. You kids nowadays don’t know the struggles we had using Archie, Gopher and Mosaic.

“The creation of backdoors and intercept capabilities would weaken the protections built into Apple products and endanger all our customers. A key left under the doormat would not just be there for the good guys. The bad guys would find it too.”

Exactly right. The government—all governments—need to realize that leaving a door open is a door that’s open to everyone, not just law enforcement. They don’t seem to get that.

Good for Apple.

A lot of people have been asking me about guitars this Christmas, so I thought I’d show you the acoustic I’m using. If you’ve ever heard me talk about acoustic guitars, you know I love Taylor—I think they are the best.

The one I’m using is the 612ce 12-Fret. It has a smaller body, which makes it really easy to play, but it’s warm with a huge sound. I’d highly recommend this guitar.

Bloomberg:

Painters put brushes to canvas, sculptors take chisels to marble, potters shape clay on a wheel, but the process for handblown glass is, to put it mildly, slightly more obscure.

“I’ll be out in the world selling my work at a festival, and I’ll ask a child if they know what glass is made of,” says Lisa Aronzon, 58, a glass-blowing artist based in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. “I’ve actually had a child say, ‘Plastic?’” When Aronzon explains that glass is made of sand, “Their eyes light up. … It seems like magic, or alchemy,” she says. And in a sense, it is.

I’ve never done it but I’ve always been fascinated by glass blowing. I could watch people do it all day long.

Designed with simple controls, comfortable ergonomics and beautiful filters in mind, allowing you to take photos that are instantly ready to share with the world.

What makes a great camera stand apart is not down to features, per pixel sharpness or the amount of lenses in your bag. What matters is that the camera gets out of the way and lets you take the pictures you want.

I’ve been using this app since it was first released and love it.

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A buckwheat pillow is kind of like a beanbag for your head. The hull fill provides unique support that’s superior to soft traditional pillow types. Hullo’s features include:

• Quality construction & organic materials.
• Breathable fill that provides cool comfort all night long. No more flipping to the cool side in the middle of the night!
• American-made craftsmanship.
• Free shipping.
• 60-night money-back guarantee.

Drop what you’re doing—go and check out Hullo. Try it for 60 nights. If it’s not your favorite pillow, send it back to us for a refund.

Thanks to Igloo Software for sponsoring The Loop this week. What if you could get 5% of your day back? What would you do?

You already have enough work to do today and shouldn’t have to waste time looking for the things you need to do your job.

Igloo makes it easy to find what you need, when you need it. And it’s not just for locating your traditional intranet stuff like HR policies and expense forms. It also helps you find experts, talk about problems and share content with your team. So stop digging through your inbox for that file from 3 months back and give yourself the tools you need to do your best work.

Try it yourself or send your IT guy to investigate Igloo, an intranet you’ll actually like.

Some of these are fascinating. Some are dopey, true, but even those help show what is possible. Good food for thought.

iMore:

Jony Ive will give Charlie Rose a look inside “Apple’s secret design studio” in an upcoming episode of 60 Minutes that will be aired on Sunday, December 20 at 7:30PM ET & 7PM PT on CBS. Rose’s tour of Apple’s “store of the future” with retail chief Angela Ahrendts will also be highlighted on the show.

While this may be interesting viewing, don’t get your hopes up to see any “secrets”. I’ve been inside Apple’s labs and studios and whenever an outsider is present, all the good bits are well hidden and/or covered in black cloth.

Apple:

Apple and China UnionPay announced a partnership to bring Apple Pay, which transforms mobile payments with an easy, secure and private way to pay, to China. China UnionPay cardholders will be able to easily add their bank cards to Apple Pay on iPhone, Apple Watch and iPad, providing added convenience and security to everyday shopping.

“China UnionPay is dedicated to promoting payment innovations and providing secure, convenient mobile payment experiences for its hundreds of millions of cardholders, aligning multiple parties in the industry,” said Chai Hongfeng, executive vice president of China UnionPay. “We’re very excited to offer Apple Pay among a diverse set of innovative payment options that work with China UnionPay QuickPass.”

“Apple Pay has revolutionized the way millions of people pay every day with their iPhone, Apple Watch and iPad,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “China is an extremely important market for Apple and with China UnionPay and support from 15 of China’s leading banks, users will soon have a convenient, private and secure payment experience.

“Extremely important” may be the understatement of the year. This is the single most important thing to happen to Apple Pay since it was first announced.

Ars Technica:

John Chen, the Blackberry chairman and CEO, is ripping Apple’s position that granting the authorities access to a suspected criminal’s mobile device would “tarnish” the iPhone maker’s image.

“We are indeed in a dark place when companies put their reputations above the greater good. At BlackBerry, we understand, arguably more than any other large tech company, the importance of our privacy commitment to product success and brand value: privacy and security form the crux of everything we do. However, our privacy commitment does not extend to criminals,” Chen wrote in a blog post titled “The encryption Debate: a Way Forward.”

Well, if anyone would know a thing or two about a tarnished brand, it would be the CEO of Blackberry. I’d rather have Apple making sure law enforcement requests have a “clear legal authority” rather than Chen’s plan to roll over whenever the government wants to “help us be safe”.

Macstories:

Pigment works in a rather unsurprising way: the app launches to a library of digital coloring books, ranging from animal figures such as butterflies and birds filled with smaller patterns to flowers, geometric shapes, 3D structures, and the omnipresent mandalas for a total of 200 illustrated works. Most of the books’ artworks have been licensed from Shutterstock, but there are also books by independent artists as well as patterns created with Assembly, Pixite’s innovative design tool for iOS. It’s a good selection of themes and patterns, in line with popular trends in adult coloring books and a solid start for an app that wants to replicate the coloring experience on an iPhone and iPad.

Adult coloring books have been around for a while. As soon as I saw the iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil, I knew they would be a good fit for people like me who can’t draw but like to color.

BusinessInsider:

Apple announced a sweep of management changes on Thursday, which includes the appointment of Tor Myhren, who has become the company’s vice president of marketing and communications.

43-year-old Myhren will join in early 2016 from well-respected ad network Grey Group, where he was worldwide chief creative officer and president of its New York shop Grey New York.

Now he’s moving client-side. At Apple he’ll be responsible for all the brand’s marketing efforts — everything from its big TV campaigns, to packaging, and retail store displays.

It’s been rumored for a while that Phil Schiller hasn’t been happy with Apple’s ad campaigns in the past 18 months. This is a sign the company is looking to shake up how it projects itself to the consumer.

Westjet:

On December 9, 2015 we celebrated WestJet’s 12,000 mini miracles day. WestJetters wearing blue Santa hats joined Blue Santa with a goal of making 12,000 mini miracles happen across our network over a 24-hour period. A mini miracle is simply an act of kindness that evokes a positive response from someone.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this day a success. We ended up counting a grand total of 31,793 mini miracles

Canadian airline WestJet does this Christmas themed video every year and every year, it brings a tear to my eye. It shows that it doesn’t take much to spread a little goodwill during the holiday season. You can do it too. Try something as simple as buying a coffee for the person in line behind you.

The Deck Network is booking First Quarter and 2016 schedules now. There are efficient packages available for multi-month campaigns and The Deck can offer a nice price to first-time advertisers too. If you want to get your message in front of millions of curious and savvy readers, start your new year marketing right, and drop a note to The Deck.

I use The Deck here on The Loop because they deliver small, tasteful ads and they work with some of the best sites on the Internet.

The Verge:

This isn’t an investment column, and I am not an investment adviser. But here’s a free financial tip: if any company actually mass-produces a new, safe, practical, affordable, reliable, proven, much longer-lasting type of battery for digital devices, buy stock. Buy a lot of it. Because batteries are the key to every electronic device we now depend upon — especially smartphones and laptops — and they are the weak link in the system.

He’s right. And it’s not just digital devices. Better batteries are the key to the electric car’s future, too.

Apple adds LA to the growing list of world-wide cities, plus more than 300 cities in China.

Great find by Tina Roth Eisenberg. I have cables everywhere that could benefit from this.

Jim and Dan talk about the new Apple Smart Battery Case for iPhone and more Apple news.

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You can get the new Sonos Controller app from the App Store and try Apple Music on your Sonos system beginning today. I’ve been testing it out for the last couple of weeks and it works just like the other services on Sonos.

The App Factor:

Long exposure photography lets you capture light trails, motion blur, and better low light shots. While the built-in Camera app doesn’t let you control shutter speed and light sensitivity, there are lots of apps available in the App Store that do.

The iPhone is a great camera – for a phone. It’s low light capabilities aren’t very good. But, with proper technique and some clever apps, you can create pretty good low light images with your iPhone.

Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi joins the show for a wide-ranging half-hour discussion about Swift.

Great job.

iMore:

If you’re a big fan of comedic fairytale-esque stories (who isn’t?), or just want to catch up on one of ABC’s generally well-praised outing from 2014, you can currently grab the first season of Galavant for free on iTunes.

Galavant stars a hero of the same name as we follow his humorous journey to get his “happily ever after.” The story sees Galavant going after King Richard, who stole his love, with characters breaking out into musical numbers along the way.

Sadly, this isn’t available on the Canadian iTunes store so I can’t grab it but for our American readers, go get it now. No telling how long it will be available.

What if you could get 5% of your day back? What would you do?

You already have enough work to do today and shouldn’t have to waste time looking for the things you need to do your job.

Igloo makes it easy to find what you need, when you need it. And it’s not just for locating your traditional intranet stuff like HR policies and expense forms. It also helps you find experts, talk about problems and share content with your team. So stop digging through your inbox for that file from 3 months back and give yourself the tools you need to do your best work.

Try it yourself or send your IT guy to investigate Igloo, an intranet you’ll actually like.