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You can now subscribe to the new podcast I do with Merlin Mann on iTunes.

Take 30 seconds and have a good laugh.

In a letter to be sent Tuesday and obtained by The Washington Post, a coalition of tech firms, security experts and others appeal to the White House to protect privacy rights as it considers how to address law enforcement’s need to access data that is increasingly encrypted.

Added support for the Apple Watch – now you can use PCalc without taking your phone out your pocket! Includes a full calculator app, a tip calculator, and a glance to see the result of your most recent calculations.

It’s great to see PCalc on the watch.

Samsung has just released a public beta of its new feature called Samsung Flow, which is essentially a ripoff of Apple’s Continuity – introduced last year. This new feature will allow users to start a task on one device, and be able to pick it up and continue from another.

Can this company can up with nothing original? I’m all for competition, but Jesus, this continuous copying is getting tiresome.

Elvis is just a badass.

British Pathé:

Follow us through the 20th Century and dive into the good and the bad times of the past. Feel free to explore more than 80,000 videos of filmed history and maybe you’ll find stuff no one else has ever seen.

Do not go to this site if you want to get any work done today. Thanks to my friend Antonio Rosario for the huge time suck.

Everyone has been focused on the new gadgets coming out of Cupertino, but Apple’s Mac team has been killing it lately. First the new MacBook, and now updated MacBook Pro and lower-priced iMac with a 5K display. […]

I had the good fortune to be around for the dawn of some of the most significant technological developments in human history: the arrival of personal computers, the emergence of the Internet and the World Wide Web, and the current dominance of social media and mobile devices. These and other technological advances continue to alter our world at an ever accelerating pace. One day Apple is on the verge of bankruptcy. The next day (or so it sometimes seems), it is the largest most profitable company on earth. Who’d have guessed?

There are a lot of people I wish would retire from writing about Apple – Ted Landau is not one of those people. Many of us owe a great debt of thanks to Ted for all of his many years of service to the Mac Community. For me personally, I was a fan of his writing at MacFixIt and he was always extraordinary helpful whenever I emailed him. As a podcaster, I interviewed him several times and, as a speaker at Macworld Expos, I was lucky enough to sit and chat with him on many occasions. Quiet, soft-spoken, gracious, kind, knowledgeable, Ted is all that and more. We wish him all the best in his retirement!

The Wall Street Journal:

Investor Carl Icahn said he expects Apple Inc. to introduce an ultra-high-definition television in 2016. But after nearly a decade of research, Apple quietly shelved plans to make such a set more than a year ago, according to people familiar with the matter.

Apple had searched for breakthrough features to justify building an Apple-branded television set, those people said. In addition to an ultra-high-definition display, Apple considered adding sensor-equipped cameras so viewers could make video calls through the set, they said.

Ultimately, though, Apple executives didn’t consider any of those features compelling enough to enter the highly competitive television market, led by Samsung Electronics Co.

It’s been an open secret for years that Apple has tested many variations of television sets but just couldn’t find a way to include features compelling enough to bring it to market. Regardless of what Icahn wants or believes, Apple will do what’s right for Apple. And, as many of us have argued for many years, an Apple-branded television set isn’t going to happen.

Jim Dalrymple and Merlin Man talk about firsts, staying healthy and active, and the virtues of consistent beer.

Download the MP3 of this episode.

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WALTR is the first Mac app in the world to allow users transfer and playback unsupported formats such as MKV, AVI, FLAC & more – directly from the native Videos/Music app.

iTunes is the only option Apple gives us for loading media onto our iPhone, iPad or iPod touch from our Macs, and it limits the audio and video file formats we can upload. That’s a thing of the past thanks to WALTR from Softorino. This awesome Mac app lets you upload a long list of file formats — such as MKV, AVI, MP4, CUE, FLAC, APE, ALAC, OGG, AAC, AIFF and WAV — to your iOS device without ever touching iTunes. Just fire up WALTR, connect your iPhone or iPad to your Mac via USB, and drag files to convert and upload them so you can watch or listen on the go. It really is drag-and-drop simple, and file transfers are surprisingly fast.
 
No iTunes required; No jailbreak required; No need to worry about 3rd party converters;

• the awesomely cool app name is inspired by Walter White from Breaking Bad.

• this is the same app that discovered 4K video playback on iPhone 6

You can try out WALTR for free and a license costs US$29.95 but you can use the Loop exclusive coupon ‘HEINEKENSPECIAL’ for a 33% discount.

Universal pictures has unveiled the “first look” clip from the upcoming movie about Steve Jobs. It’s just a teaser but it looks interesting. Fassbinder was an odd choice to portray jobs but he is a very good actor and the rest of the cast is equally accomplished.

One of the odd things about getting older is movies are being made about the times I’ve lived in and, in the case of parts of this movie, events and presentations I was at and tangentially involved in. It’s kind of a weird feeling and I don’t know how unbiased I’m going to be watching this film. But I am looking forward to seeing it.

Tim Cook was George Washington University’s Commencement Speaker for Spring 2015. He goofs around a bit, gives some of the usual graduate advice and talks about his early years at Apple.

The New York Times:

For many of the largest Silicon Valley technology companies, mapping software undergirds numerous software applications and features in their products. For Apple, it is little different. To that end, Apple confirmed in an email on Sunday that it had bought Coherent Navigation, a Bay Area navigation company, further bolstering Apple’s mapping technology and services.

This is obviously a move by Apple to continue to improve its Maps app. The Sunday confirmation from Apple is interesting too. Another sign of its softening of its former hard line position with regards to PR.

From today’s New York Times Sunday Magazine, a poignant, thoughtful read about a woman determined to take her own life before Alzheimer’s can rob her of her mind. Be warned that this is dark at times, a tough read, so be on solid mental footing before you dig in.

According to the complaint, he registered the Celluride website in 2003 and developed a mobile phone prototype in 2006. It was then, the complaint said, that he encountered Kalanick at an office Kalanick was renting from his friend in San Francisco.

Halpern said in the complaint that with Kalanick’s promises to keep the information confidential, he shared his concept, designs and prototype.

I’m not sure of the legal issues here, but if Halpern’s company was public at the time, didn’t Kalanick just launch a competing service, Uber, and win?

I haven’t had this happen, and I hope you haven’t either, but if you do Apple has some advice for you.

Can you imagine the backlash and media uproar we would see if Apple ever sold an accessory that ruined iPhone displays? “Casegate” would be sung far and wide, and even your local news anchor would demand on air that Apple take action. Well, you won’t see quite that amount of attention in this case, but it look like Samsung is selling shoddy protective cases that leave customers with badly damaged smartphones.

Zach is right, the uproar would be amazing if this was Apple.

Audio latency is the phenomenon of sound reaching the ear at some point after it was created. In the natural world, latency is caused by physical distance from the sound source. The further away the sound source, the more latency. With digital audio there is also latency, and in this case it’s caused by buffering. MainStage (or any other audio software) needs some time to process audio data before it can be passed on to the Core Audio driver.

Some helpful information from Apple.

“HomeKit has been available for just a few months and we already have dozens of partners who have committed to bringing HomeKit accessories to market and we’re looking forward to the first ones coming next month,” Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller said in a statement.

This is great news!

Jim and Dan talk about Pixelmator for iPhone, Scott Forstall is producing a Broadway musical, Apple Pay is creaming Walmart in the mobile payment war, how to back up your Apple Watch, Facebook begins testing instant articles from news publishers, the American Deluxe Stratocaster HSS Shawbucker, and more.

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My thanks to Hullo for sponsoring The Loop this week. Have you ever slept on a buckwheat pillow? It’s kind of like a beanbag for your head. Hullo includes…

• Quality construction & materials.
• Cool, comfortable support.
• 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, return it for a refund. No-brainer!

There are some really cool items in this collection that are for sale. Have a look if you’re into Apple collectables.

Hosted by longtime Objective-C hacker, Pixarian, and CAM board member (in order of seniority: 26 yrs, 22 yrs, 13 yrs) Dr. Michael B. Johnson, this lively evening will feature a number of special guests from back in the day, including former solidThinking developer and current VP of Tools at Pixar Guido Quaroni, ur-NeXTSTEP developer Andy Stone, and several others too shy to let us give out their names (some of whom might work at a local fruit company).

I went to this event last year and will try again this year.

If given the chance, I couldn’t strap one of these things on my back fast enough. I’d give up body parts to be able to fly one of those things.

Apple Watch content backs up automatically to your companion iPhone, so you can restore your Apple Watch from a backup. When you back up your iPhone to iCloud or iTunes, your iPhone backup will also include your Apple Watch data.

Some great information here from Apple.

Have you ever slept on a buckwheat pillow? It’s kind of like a beanbag for your head. Hullo includes…

• Quality construction & materials.
• Cool, comfortable support.
• 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, return it for a refund. No-brainer!

I have this plug-in and it’s amazing.

I like the Sunset Metallic and 3-Color Sunburst, but I’d take any of them.