When is a social network not a social network? When “using” a social network is a requirement to access services you really wanted to use. Like email. Or videos.
I know Google wants Google+ to work, but forcing people to use it isn’t the way to make it popular. Thankfully, they’ve learned that. At least for now.
My thanks to Hullo for sponsoring The Loop this week. You already know the ergonomics of your desktop workstation are important; have you considered your sleep ergonomics? You spend around one-third of your life sleeping—a lot of time for your head and neck to be in one position. Whether you are a side sleeper, a back sleeper, or a stomach sleeper, proper positioning and support of your head are important for quality sleep. Have you ever used more than one pillow, or folded your pillow in an attempt to find a comfortable position? Somewhat like a bean bag, Hullo can be shaped to hold your head in a comfortable position, and keep it there throughout the night. One simple pillow can make a difference you’ll appreciate, every night. Guaranteed. Check out Hullo.
The Wall Street Journal:
Six firms— Amazon.com Inc., Google Inc., Apple Inc., Facebook Inc., Netflix Inc. and Gilead Sciences Inc.—now account for more than half of the $664 billion in value added this year to the Nasdaq Composite Index, according to data compiled by brokerage firm JonesTrading.The concentrated gains are spurring concerns that soft trading in much of the market could presage a pullback in the indexes. Many investors see echoes of prior market tops—including the 2007 peak and the late 1990s frenzy—when fewer and fewer stocks lifted the broader market. The S&P 500 is up 1% this year while the Nasdaq has gained 7.4%.
Other indicators are also flashing yellow. In the Nasdaq, falling stocks have outnumbered rising stocks this year, sending the “advance-decline line” into negative territory, a phenomenon that has come before market downturns in the past, investors and analysts said.
That kind of concentration is always worrying and certainly may be cause for the skittishness of Apple’s stock recently. As always, if the link doesn’t work, do a Google search on the headline. The WSJ lets Google post stories outside of its paywall.
Sir Ian McKellen:
“Live from Chateau Marmont in Hollywood,” I scramble up the best eggs in the world for my Facebook followers, to celebrate the success of my new film “Mr. Holmes”.
It’s good to see that Sir Ian cooks like mom(s) did – with no idea of how much of any ingredient to put in. Just go by feel and expereince and it comes out perfectly. I’ll definitely be trying this method next time I make scrambled eggs.
NPR:
“I noticed this one little girl with these incredible eyes and I instantly knew that this was really the only picture I wanted to take,” he says.She would become the subject of McCurry’s iconic photograph “The Afghan Girl” — one of National Geographic’s most popular covers.
It is one of the most incredible portraits to ever appear in National Geographic and the back story is fascinating.
The Wall Street Journal:
One month after Apple Inc. started selling Apple Watch at its own stores, the company said it will bring the device to Best Buy stores in August.Apple said its smartwatch will be available at more than 100 Best Buy stores in the U.S., expanding to over 300 outlets before the holiday shopping season. Best Buy will be the first major U.S. retailer beside Apple to sell the device.
This is a sign Apple wants to get the Watch in front of even more customers and that they have caught up on demand. It’s also in preparation for the upcoming holiday season when Apple expects the Watch to be a huge seller for Christmas.
The Verge:
This is about what it’s like to drive a supercar for the very first time, and to do it in the unforgiving streets and avenues of New York. Here’s what I learned.Just blocks away from picking it up, I ran the 650S at full speed over a seemingly shallow divot in the atrocious pavement that I didn’t see — I’m not sure I could’ve seen it from my vantage point. The entire car shuddered with a smack that woke me more effectively than the La Colombe coffee I’d just finished. It echoed in my brain for the next several hours. I can still hear it. No one wants to hear that sound; it’s the sound of sadness.
It’s a funny story about getting to drive a vehicle 99.9% of us will never own. His description of the streets and paranoia of driving in New York City definitely ring true for me. While I’ve never ridden a supercar in The Big Apple, I have ridden a motorcycle many times and, with their relatively unforgiving suspension, bikes can be a real challenge in Manhattan.
Jim talks to a blogger named John Gruber about remastered music, Apple’s earnings report, and respect from readers.
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Mashable:
This is the largest summertime hot air balloon festival in North America. The balloons fly twice each day for three days, compared to the nine days of ballooning in Albuquerque’s famous Balloon Fiesta which includes more than 600 balloons.Up in the air, it was absolutely silent. Like the quietest thing I’ve ever heard (granted I live in New York, so perhaps it was more just that I appreciated such silence). Intermittent, and rather startling blasts from the propane burner kept us floating through the air. The wind wasn’t strong so we moved slowly, over houses, backyards and crowds that gathered to watch. The people waved up at us: the balloon pilots were praised like celebrities in this rural New Jersey town.
I tell all my beginner photography students – if there’s a balloon festival near you, go. You’re guaranteed to get great photos because hot air balloons are huge, colorful and only fly during the Golden Hour. No matter what kind of camera you have, you won’t be disappointed by the images you capture.
Ars Technica:
This remarkable $599 camera lets you watch while completely unobserved from distances so great that people can’t even see you, much less know that you’re watching them.
Check out the video. The camera has insane amounts of really good zoom.
My thanks to Igloo for sponsoring The Loop this week. Igloo allows you to share files, coordinate calendars, provide updates and manage projects easily.
Why use the latest, sleekest devices if you are going to use them to stare at an intranet website that looks like it was built in the 90’s?
Igloos are CSS and HTML5 friendly, which means they can be customized to look amazing.
They are also responsive right off the bat, which means that everything you can do at your desk, you can now do on the go, on your phone.
And just like your favorite Apple devices, Igloo helps you do your best work.
Share files, coordinate calendars, provide status updates and manage projects. Igloo’s not just for your traditional intranet stuff like HR policies and expense forms. It also lets you work better together with your teams.
For example, with Igloo’s latest release, Wolf, you can preview Photoshop, InDesign, HTML or CSS files straight from the platform, making it easier for co-workers to give feedback on creative assets.
Head over to igloosoftware.com to sign up for a free trial today and invite up to 10 of your favorite coworkers to try it too.
It’s been an interesting and confusing day. I arrived at Apple this morning to talk to them about my issues with Apple Music and to hopefully fix my problems. The good news is that I have about 90 percent of my music back. […]
Rene Ritchie:
To make a bad analogy, if they’ve already broken into your house, they can break into the locked drawer in your desk as well.
well said.
I love my Apple Watch and just the thought of losing it is scary, but having a way to turn off Apple Pay on the Web is nice.
Just look at the company’s historic success with the iPhone and you can tell that we are indeed living in strange times! So far Apple has taken down Nokia and left Motorola, HTC and Samsung gasping for air. The profits have not stopped flowing to Cupertino. Apple has reported $42.3 billion in net income so far for the first three quarters of this fiscal year. That’s more than the company’s profits for all of 2012.
I’ve said this before, but no company that reports a profit in the billions of dollars should be worried about doom and gloom. It’s based on what Wall Street predicts, which seems flawed to me.
But that’s not the story at all. For one thing, Android overtook the Wintel world way back in 2012. The story here is that mobile utterly dwarfs desktop and laptop computing. Civilization has been changing under our very noses, and today even the second largest mobile platform outsells the world of Wintel.
This is an interesting take from Bryan Chaffin.
Jason Snell has a great transcript of what Tim Cook said to analysts during the earnings call today. In case you missed it, Apple reported a profit $10.7 billion on revenue of $49.6 billion.
Microsoft reported a $3.2 billion quarterly net loss, hurt by charges related to its Nokia phone business and job cuts, and weak demand for its Windows operating system.
The company took a charge of $7.5 billion in the fourth quarter related to the restructuring of its Nokia handset business, which it acquired last year.
Ouch.
Basically, the companies argue that a refusal to limit damages to infringing features could have huge impact in an era when consumer products incorporate many highly sophisticated components within a single device. That Samsung can be successfully sued over singular design features and forced to pay damages based on overall device sales rather than a portion of profits sets a dangerous precedent, the group argues.
I could see their point if Samsung had of taken one feature and incorporated it into a smartphone it designed. However, Samsung stole the entire phone—hardware, software, and everything else it could lay its grubby little hands on. They were caught and should pay.
Apple on Tuesday reported a third quarter profit of $10.7 billion on revenue of $49.6 billion. This compares to revenue of $37.4 billion and net profit of $7.7 billion in the year ago quarter.
Apple said the growth was fueled by record third quarter sales of iPhone and Mac, all-time record revenue from services and the successful launch of Apple Watch.
Updated every Monday morning, Discover Weekly brings you two hours of custom-made music recommendations, tailored specifically to you and delivered as a unique Spotify playlist.
Good idea.
Betts, who has spent more than 25 years in the auto industry with companies including Toyota and Nissan, vacated his role of head of quality at Chrysler Group last year to “pursue other interests.”
Oh Apple, what are you up to.
Ed is just on fire. Much respect.
USAToday:
The airplane is one that turns heads.Aviation enthusiasts instinctively know it is the “Beluga,” a nickname stemming from the aircraft’s uncanny resemblance to the whale of the same name.
But nearly all who see it tend to agree that regardless of its name, it’s one of the world’s strangest-looking aircraft.
I have a fascination and appreciation for the magic of flight and those crafts that are able to achieve it but this thing? Sorry. It’s one butt ugly airplane.
Apple:
All Store Services – Some users are affected. Users are experiencing a problem with the services listed above. We are investigating and will update the status as more information becomes available.
For those of you/us who are having issues accessing Apple Music and other services today, rest assured, it’s not on your end. Apple has been having frequent problems with Apple Music since last week. This is a good page to bookmark and check when your Apple cloud-based services aren’t working as expected.
I’m definitely going to see this movie.
Kiss your afternoon goodbye. Enjoy.
Pixelmator for iOS just keeps getting better. In the latest release, the guys added Dynamic Touch, which lets users adjust the brush size of all Retouch tools by painting with their tip or a larger area of their finger; the Pixelmator for Mac repairing algorithm has been added to iOS; and they published the Pixelmator for iOS User Guide and video tutorials.
This is one of my favorite apps and companies. Just go buy their software.
Merlin and Jim talk about the future, David Gilmore, and underrated guitarists.
Apple:
Listen to streaming audio from the conference call.Live streaming audio requires iPhone®, iPad®, or iPod touch® running iOS 4.2 or above, a Mac® running OS X 10.6.8 or above or a PC running Windows 7 and QuickTime 7 or later. Safari or Internet Explorer also required.
This is the quarterly call where Apple talks about just how many metric buttloads of money they have made in the past three months, the ridiculous number of iPhones and Macs they’ve sold but not a word on how many Apple Watches they have put on wrists around the world.
While the conference call is restricted to analysts (some of whom will ask really stupid questions), you can be a fly on the wall and listen in to the audio, starting at 5 p.m. ET (2 p.m. PT).