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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.

This is a great idea. I love Pandora’s service—whenever I play a station, I get hit after hit after hit. Brilliant service.

This is a very cool idea. I’m not sure how I feel about having it stuck to the fretboard or what residue might be left over, but this would allow you to make some cool sounds.

Taylor Swift:

Taylor Swift is giving her fans on Apple Music a special surprise this holiday, The 1989 World Tour LIVE. The 1989 World Tour LIVE was filmed in front of 76,000 fans at the ANZ Stadium in Sydney, Australia on November 28, 2015. The 1989 World Tour LIVE captures Taylor’s entire performance from Sydney with never seen footage filmed backstage and during rehearsals with surprise musical and special guests that appeared on The 1989 World Tour.

Beginning Sunday, December 20, The 1989 World Tour LIVE will be available in its entirety exclusively to Apple Music members around the world

I expect this to be the first of many such exclusives. Apple has a lot of clout and can make these kinds of deals very lucrative for artists.

C450 AMG posted an internal document from Mercedes detailing which models would feature Apple’s CarPlay technology for 2016. I’m a big Mercedes fan and can’t wait to try CarPlay at some point.

I’m not a big case user, but I do use a battery case, especially when I’m on the road. The need for battery far outweighs any other consideration when I’m away from home and Apple’s new Smart Battery Case fits that requirement. […]

Thanks to Marketcircle for sponsoring The Loop this week. Marketcircle has been developing Mac apps since 1999 that help small businesses do big things. Newly released is Daylite 6 with Cloud – manage your contacts, projects, to-dos, and schedule all in one app. Get the best of both worlds, a native app with the convenience of the cloud. Try it now on your Mac, iPhone & iPad, for yourself or with your team and take advantage of these great new features.

TidBITS:

I haven’t been able to determine why it’s happening, or if there’s anything to be done about it, and it’s certainly only a minor irritation. I’m technically proficient and relaxed about errors that don’t cause data loss, but I am concerned that inexplicable behavior like this could start to undermine an inexperienced user’s trust in iOS as a predictable, reliable system — Touch ID is in essence lying to the user through this error message. Technically there’s no real damage here, but psychologically, it’s a bad thing — it’s important for interfaces to communicate clearly, accurately, and reliably to build user trust.

I’ve been dealing with the same (minor) issues as Adam has for just as long. It seems to be very common. There’s no real concern (these issues aren’t deal breakers) but they certainly are annoying and frustrating when they occur for no apparent reason and have no apparent solution.

This week, Merlin and Jim talk haircuts, computer peripherals, and weird bands. Also, Merlin shares his obsession with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song “Maps”.

Links:

• Accidental Tech Podcast: 146: Control + Money + Smallness
• Track Apple refurb deals with up to 40% discount | RefurbMe us
• Maps (Yeah Yeah Yeahs song) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps – YouTube
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Maps” [Acoustic][Sessions@AOL] – YouTube
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Maps” (iTunes Originals version)
• Ted Leo – Since U Been Gone / Maps – YouTube
• Conflict Catcher – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Dream Theater – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• david lee roth running with the devil (vocals only) 1978 – YouTube
• Readdle
• Scott Weiland – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walmart Pay’s QR code-based checkout process will involve opening the Walmart app, selecting Walmart Pay, activating the camera, scanning the code displayed at the register and waiting for the cashier to finish bagging your items. An electronic receipt will automatically be sent to the Walmart app.

Yeah, that’ll work.

Some great tips here from Brett Terpstra.

Mashable:

Apple’s first ever battery iPhone case has generated a range of reactions and emotions. Some people simply can’t get over the hump.

I caught up with Apple CEO Tim Cook, who was in town to participate in an Hour of Code event, to take his temperature on the $99 iPhone 6 and 6s case, with the noticeable battery pack hump on its back. We asked Cook if he is excited about the hump.

“You know, I probably wouldn’t call it ‘the hump,’” said Cook, who added he was aware of the comments surrounding the Smart Battery Case.

I find the Sturm und Drang over this case to be fascinating. I have no opinion about the design until I’ve seen it for myself but the amount of electronic ink spilled over this on both sides speaks to many things, not the least of which is Apple is under intense focus no matter what they do.

9to5Mac:

Apple Watch is at the top of many holiday wish lists this year and luckily for gift shoppers it’s received numerous discounts since Black Friday. In fact, Target and B&H are both offering significant Apple Watch promotions right now.

This morning Best Buy jumped into the fray with the best straight up Apple Watch deal we’ve ever seen: $100 off any Apple Watch Sport or Apple Watch model. More than 20 different watch configurations are eligible for this discount.

This looks to be the sweet spot for Apple Watch pricing. It’s also interesting that these deals are coming from the stores and not Apple. Will the lower price encourage you to buy an Apple Watch this holiday season?

As Apple Watch enters the critical holiday shopping season, it looks likely to get a sales boost from happy customers, almost two-thirds of whom are planning to give one as a gift, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Tuesday.

I’m not surprised. Apple Watch has changed my life and I’m sure other people are seeing the same thing.

Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, says that the company was in talks with Apple to be included in its still forthcoming cable-killing TV-subscription service — but that Apple has placed development of that service on hold.

I’m not sure what caused the company to put this hold. Perhaps they are making their services better before launching something so important. Whatever the reason, I’m really looking forward to it.

BGR:

One of the more interesting aspects of Apple’s legal battle with Samsung is that it gave us an unprecedented look behind the veil of secrecy that typically shrouds all aspects of Apple’s product development and day-to-day operations. Over the course of discovery, innumerable court filings, and a fascinating trial, the inner workings of Apple were brought to the forefront for the first time in history. From photographs of iPhone prototypes to how Apple conducts market research, Apple’s legal battles with Samsung provided tech enthusiasts with a treasure trove of previously top-secret information.

With Samsung now agreeing to pony up for damages, we thought it’d be a good time to take a step back, reminisce, and take a look at some of the more interesting nuggets of information the hard-fought patent dispute brought to light.

The downside to lawsuits is this kind of insider info can often be gleaned from court filings. Apple has to give up some of its secrets in order to go to court. I’ll be the first to admit I love this kind of stuff, especially about prototypes. To me, they are fascinating glimpses into “alternative Apple universes” and things that might have been.

I’ve been on a tear lately about Apple Music and how it doesn’t work properly. I know there are a lot of people that are very happy with the service, and I’m really happy for those people. However, there are … Continued