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Apple:

There’s a great big universe in the new iPad Pro. It’s the largest iPad ever and takes your creativity and productivity to an epic scale.

Apple’s new ad for the iPad Pro. Damn that thing looks huge.

• 3D Multishape technology
• Fanless air-cooled design
• Single universal zipper port
• Organic HD Twill outer shell
• Go 10 years without a battery charge
• Compatible with large variety of third-party cases
• Unlocked, contract-free
• Preinstalled w/ SleepOS
• Three sizes: 32, 64 or 128 Gigahull capacity

Upgrade Today →

BGR:

Once Tesla rolled out its new Autopilot software a few weeks ago, it wasn’t long before we started seeing videos of Model S owners engaging in some downright foolish and dangerous behavior.

Say what you will about the guy shaving in the Model S while zooming down the Autobahn, at least he had the good sense to stay in the driver’s seat.

This is idiotic – not only on the part of the driver but also on the part of Tesla. It’s completely irresponsible to put this software out in the wild without proper controls in place.

Macworld:

You may not need to read this column for yourself, but read it nonetheless and help those with less wariness take better heed: Don’t download software for OS X from anywhere but the developer’s own website or Apple. Period.

But the experience last week of a user noticing that a download of Skype from MacUpdate was wrapped in an installer that contained adware and trialware reminds me to run the flag up the pole again to remind folks who weren’t aware—and to ask all of you who understand the issue to help your friends, colleagues, and family avoid these risks.

We old-timers remember the days of lots of sites to download software. Sadly, those days are long gone. Tell your friends and family about this article and warn them about downloading software from any place other than the Mac App Store or the developer’s own web site.

Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. persuaded a judge to throw out a lawsuit by employees of the company’s retail stores in California seeking back pay for time spent in “demoralizing” security searches when they left work for the day.

The ruling by a San Francisco federal judge Saturday releases the company from having to compensate as many 12,400 former and current employees from 52 stores throughout the state a few dollars a day for time spent over a six-year period having their bags and Apple devices searched at meal breaks and after their shifts.

I’m sure this is very disappointing to the workers. Having worked in this kind of environment, it is not a fun thing to have to do, especially during a rush. You can waste a lot of time waiting for a security droid to check bags. But the writing was on the wall last year when the Supreme Court ruled against Amazon employees in a similar case.

Cool Material:

Here we are, some 83 years later, and the Zippo brand continues to thrive. Why? Well, there are a number of reasons—a determined founder, some clever ad placements, war—but one that shouldn’t be overlooked is collectibility, which is something Zippo has catered to—both knowingly and unknowingly—since its earliest days.

My father(s) all had Zippos and as a kid, it was a treat to be allowed to light their cigarettes (it was a different time) with one of them. They were Canadian sailors and had Zippos that were custom made with the name and image of their ships on them. I haven’t used a Zippo in a dozen years but I can still hear the click of it opening and closing in my head.

The question here is, is Facebook protecting its users from spam, or are they taking action to prevent a potential competitor from gaining a foothold?

Thanks to Carbon Copy Cloner for sponsoring The Loop this week. What’s your plan when your Mac’s hard drive dies? Plan ahead and get back to work in minutes with a Carbon Copy Cloner bootable backup. CCC—the app that saves your bacon.

Jim’s Note: I’ve used this app for many years. I trust and love it.

Jim and Dan talk about the latest Apple news.

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Developed by Softube, the Marshall Legends Bundle gives you three iconic Marshall amps — the Plexi Super Lead 1959 and the new Bluesbreaker 1962 and Silver Jubilee 2555.

Each of these classic Marshall amplifiers feature Unison™ technology for Apollo interfaces, giving you the same distinct tone, touch, and feel of each individual amplifier.

Yes, yes!

Quartz:

Perhaps most universal of all color systems is Pantone—the lingua franca of color.

Sound familiar? Unless you work in design, chances are your first encounter with the mythic New Jersey-based color standards company was via a color-coded mug, iPhone case or in a Sephora makeup counter. In recent years, the design of Pantone’s color chips have become a graphic trope: always a plain band of color with a white bar and some words and black numbers in Helvetica on the bottom.

This chip design is strictly technical, lifted from the layout of a tool used by designers to specify and standardize color when communicating with printers and fabric dyers. So how did it find its way onto mugs, home goods, hospital scrubs, nail polish and even boxer briefs?

The story of Pantone is very interesting. I once sat in a pub in San Francisco during a Macworld Expo with a very drunk Pantone executive who spilled some insider details on how the company orchestrated its way out of the restrictions of the design studio and into the wide open world of pop culture.

Come to the dark side. We have waffles!

TidBITS:

Reports emerged yesterday that a security exploit broker paid $1,000,000 for a browser-based iOS 9 attack, setting a record for buying and selling a computer exploit, at least in public. Security firm Zerodium announced the news via its Twitter feed, and stated that the exploit is an “untethered jailbreak” that works on all the latest versions of iOS.

As is typical with Apple security stories these days, you shouldn’t be overly concerned, but it should raise a few hairs on the back of your neck.

As always, Mogull writes clearly and non-technically about these issues. With his background in security, he offers up many details in this post that will have many of you shaking your head.

CBC:

A five-year-old girl’s bravery in saving her mother and baby brother following a car crash last summer was recognized in a ceremony at Edmonton police headquarters Monday.

The SUV careened down a 12-metre embankment, slammed into a tree and came to rest on its roof. The Royal Canadian Humane Association described how Lexis awoke to her 10-week-old brother’s cries.

After unsuccessfully trying to wake her mother, she took things into her own hands.

What an amazing little girl.

Plex:

There truly isn’t any other platform we’ve wanted to be on for as long as we have the Apple TV. Today’s the day, and we’re celebrating. The app is free in the app store for everyone, and requires the latest media server.

The instant the fourth generation Apple TV was announced with an app store, we here at Plex pumped our fists in the air with excitement, as we raced to download the new Xcode and read the developer documentation.

I used Plex in its original iteration but not since. It’s come a long way and many readers will swear by the software and be very excited by this Apple TV version.

The Verge:

Twitter’s “favorite” button, the service’s primary way for users to signal agreement, acknowledgement, laughter, support, and occasionally (and perversely!) utter hatred, is officially dead.

The company said today that it is replacing favorites with “likes,” to be represented in its apps and on the web by red heart icons. The changes, which also apply to Twitter-owned Vine, represent the company’s latest effort to simplify the user experience as it looks to attract new users.

“We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers,” product manager Akarshan Kumar said in a blog post. “You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite.”

I’m not sure how this change will make Twitter “easier and more rewarding” for new users. We’ll all get used to it eventually but, personally, I like the idea of “favoriting” more than using the Facebook “Like”. Probably because I’m more of a Twitter user/fan than Facebook.

Atlas Obscura:

When you travel internationally, power outlets provide a pretty good reminder that you’re not in Kansas anymore.

Outlets vary wildly depending on the part of the world, both in the shape of their sockets and the voltage with which they’re compatible. For those who travel across multiple regions, it can be frustrating. And it’s probably too late to solve this problem, because of decisions made more than a century ago.

If you don’t travel internationally, you won’t know the aggravation of the world’s power outlets. Here is an interesting video about the British outlets and why they may be the best design.

What’s your plan when your Mac’s hard drive dies? Plan ahead and get back to work in minutes with a Carbon Copy Cloner bootable backup. CCC—the app that saves your bacon.

Jim’s Note: I’ve used this app for many years. I trust and love it.

Some Halloween links to spread the Halloween spirit. Have a great Halloween and be sure to save some candy for us!

Thanks to Marketcircle for sponsoring The Loop this week. Marketcircle, helping small businesses grow with amazing Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad apps. Marketcircle is a Mac-based software company in Toronto that develops award-winning apps to help you save time, stay organized, and work happier. Serving the Apple/Mac community for over 10 years, Marketcircle’s Daylite and Billings Pro can take your business to new heights.

Billings Pro is a time tracking and invoicing app that helps freelancers and small businesses create beautiful and professional invoices in as little as 60 seconds. With less time managing invoices, you have more time to focus on clients and do the work you love.

New in Billings Pro: support for El Capitan, and iOS 9, including multitasking support.

Read about how small businesses have grown with the help of Billings Pro.

I went to Cupertino to meet with the Apple TV team yesterday, and to pick up a unit to try out for myself. What struck me about the new model was Apple’s attention to detail—this is the most “Apple” Apple TV the company has ever released. […]

AmpliTube 4 is a guitar and bass tone studio for Mac/PC that works as a standalone application and as a plug-in for your favorite DAW. AmpliTube recreates the entire guitar/bass signal chain from instrument to recording device, and does so in a very realistic and intuitive way. But it also does it in ways you never dreamed possible.

AmpliTube has been around for years and is one of the best amp software packages on the market. I’m looking forward to trying this out.

Wired:

Although South By Southwest has long been one of digital culture’s foremost summits, recent events suggest it’s time to re-assess that. SXSW’s organizers have publicly foundered over some of the event’s programming on online harassment—undoubtedly one of the most important and complex topics facing digital culture today. And that they’ve messed this up so monumentally exposes a fundamental problem with the very events that purport to champion the issue.

This may seem too “inside baseball” and uninteresting but it’s actually an important issue on many fronts – it’s about the continuing and vehement online harassment of women by cowards and the companies and organizations, like SXSW, who don’t have the courage to stand up to that same harrassment themselves.

Mashable:

Inside the Apple bubble, a giant campus with more than 10,000 employees, it’s easy to lose introspection. Yet, when I ask Schiller if Apple does everything well, his answer surprises me.

“No, of course not, of course not,” he said. “And we don’t want to sound like we’re perfect. We never are, we always have to get better and always have to listen to where we’re not doing well.”

Well written and visually interestingly laid out piece by Ulanoff. I’ve met Schiller several times and I’ve always found him interesting and engaging. Then again, we both love hockey so that means I’m biased.

ZDNet:

During its quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, Apple CFO Luca Maestri was keen to point out how beneficial swapping out PCs for Macs can be.

“There are currently over 30,000 Macs deployed within the company with 1,900 more being added each week. IBM tells us that each Mac is saving $270 compared to a traditional PC, thanks to the much reduced support cost and better residual value.”

Those of you who work in IT have known this for years. When I worked in a corporate environment, it was obvious there was more tech support needed for the PCs than the Macs. One company I worked for had 40 PC support techs who were busy all day, every day. They had two Mac guys for the same number of machines. They spent most of their day doing “fun IT” stuff and not troubleshooting and putting out fires. When you’re talking about thousands and thousands of Macs, that $270 per machine adds up to real cost savings for corporations.

Apple announced its fiscal fourth quarter results and the company reported quarterly revenue of $51.5 billion and quarterly net profit of $11.1 billion.

The growth was fueled by record fourth quarter sales of iPhone, the expanded availability of Apple Watch, and all-time records for Mac sales and revenue from services.

John Coates:

Aerial is a Mac screen saver based on the new Apple TV screen saver that displays the aerial movies Apple shot over New York, San Francisco, Hawaii, China, etc.

Aerial is completely open source, so feel free to contribute to its development!

These Apple TV screen savers are beautiful and they look just as good on your Mac’s desktop.

Fusion:

The Nobel Prize for chemistry was announced earlier this month: three scientists shared the almost $1 million award for their work on how cells repair DNA.

Once again it did not go to John Goodenough, the 93-year-old physicist regarded as the father of the lithium ion battery. You probably haven’t heard of him, but for years, pundits have predicted that Goodenough would win science’s highest honor. And for good reason. His work transformed society. His is possibly the most revolutionary invention yet not to win the prize. What’s it to you? Well, your life wouldn’t be the same without his work.

It’s hard to disagree with this characterization of the importance of the lithium ion battery. And that importance will only grow as we move forward with more and more kinds of electronics — in particular, electric cars.

CocoaConf Yosemite is set for next spring and I’ll be there again next year. I had a lot of fun here at the last conference.

Alphr:

Time to flex your Apple knowledge, with a quiz that delves into the company’s history and pulls out past classics (along with some lesser known products). Are you an Apple nerd extraordinaire or do you find it hard to tell your iPods from your iPhone? Take the quiz and see how you fare.

As I suspected, I’m not nearly as familiar with this stuff as many of you are. To be fair, I wasn’t around during the time of the really early Apples and Macs so I don’t recognize many of them. Still, I made it to the “Apple Nerd” category of the quiz.