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With all of the ridiculous things being written about Apple giving away a U2 album, I thought it was time for a good laugh. I laughed at this.

Every new product Apple unveiled last week has ignited vocal, public derision from a series of threatened competitors, including Samsung, luxury watch maker LVMH and PayPal. However, their attempts to direct attention away from Apple may likely backfire, just like earlier attempts to demonize Siri, Maps, iCloud and Touch ID.

Fear is not a great motivator, but it’s one that can easily be spotted.

From Reuters:

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is set to launch two new iPads and release the next version of its Mac operating system at its next event on Oct. 21, a Daily Dot report said, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Nope.

The Verge:

Over the last decade we all made an enormous effort to transform Macworld editorial from a magazine mentality to a web site mentality. And honestly, it worked: By the end, the magazine was essentially a curated collection of the best stories from the web site, cut down and copy edited and with nice photographs. The economics of the business just didn’t make it possible to continue.

The demise of print is a sad but understandable result of the age we live in. That being said, the demise of Macworld is sad in a completely different way.

Take a captivating ride through nearly 150 years of entertaining history and present-day story of the world’s largest family controlled brewer.

Instant Oscar winner!

Businessweek: Almost everything else on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, Calif., is different. The executive wing once radiated nervous energy, with handlers scurrying to anticipate the whims of Apple’s temperamental co-founder. Now there’s tranquility in the hallways, a reflection of the … Continued

It’s a big day, iOS 8 is available to download from Apple. Just go to Settings > General > Software Update on your iOS device.

I’ve been using the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus for a week now. I picked them up from Apple after the event ended on September 9 and have been switching back and forth for the last seven days.

One thing has become very clear over the last week: The choice over which of these to buy will be the most personal decision that iPhone owners have ever had to make when choosing a device. […]

Photoshop maker Adobe Systems forecast disappointing revenue for this quarter and reported lower quarterly sales at its digital media business, which includes the Creative Cloud software suite.

Adobe shares fell nearly five percent in extended trading.

That’s not good. No reason to panic though.

Macworld:

If you’re upgrading to iOS 8 on Wednesday, you must resist the urge to upgrade to iCloud Drive if you want to continue to sync your phone to your Mac. Why? Well, iCloud Drive only works with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. And you all know which OS we’re still waiting on.

You can go back and upgrade at any time, but unless you want a file-syncing nightmare on your hands, you’ll wait for Yosemite’s official release.

Good advice.

The AMS RMX16 was the world’s first microprocessor-controlled, full-bandwidth, digital reverberator. Heard on hundreds — if not thousands — of seminal recordings from the 1980s onward, the RMX16 is still found in nearly every major recording studio the world over.

I can’t wait to try this out.

Apple:

Ready to make the switch to iPhone? Here are some tips for moving your photos, music, documents, and more from your Android phone to iPhone.

Awfully helpful of the nice boys and girls at Apple to assist Android users like this. Samsung should be copying this in about 15 minutes.

Entertainment Weekly:

Thanks to the way music licensing contracts were written at the time, the show lost its rights to use the original versions of the songs it had so deeply woven into its fabric, and was forced to replace them with generic knockoffs while it was still in broadcast syndication. Later, when it moved to cable and home video it did so with the same soundalikes.

On Oct. 28, Shout! Factory will release the first complete series-spanning WKRP DVD set, with its original soundtrack gloriously restored.

As pointed out in the comments, about 98% of the original music will be included. Some of you may never have even heard about this show but for many of us, we loved and enjoyed a wonderful ensemble cast that created what I believe is the single greatest punchline in the history of television – “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

This reeks of worry and fear.

New York Times:

Longsword enthusiasts are resurrecting ancient sword technique as a modern, organized sport, with timed bouts and complex rules.

This isn’t LARP but a whole different aspect. I’d love to see one of these tournaments on TV or in person.

Audits are important in all aspects of your work from time to time. Susan Robertson gives you some tips on conducting a full audit of your CSS code.

Slash’s new album “World On Fire” dropped last night and so far I’m impressed. I had it pre-ordered, so I was ready for it.

Retro Report:

How did cars become “computers on wheels,” so automated that some are about to start driving themselves? The story begins forty-five years ago with a quest to make cars safer and the battle over the air bag.

The piece starts off talking about the fight to get air bags into cars but ends with some chilling thoughts on “cars of the future” and how they will collect, collate and disseminate data.

Quartz:

It now costs 1.6 cents to produce each US one cent coin due to the high price of zinc, which makes up 97% of each coin, according to the Wall Street Journal. President Obama has proposed phasing out pennies and nickels (5-cent pieces) on numerous occasions, including in the 2015 budget, but Congress has yet to bite.

It’s one of those things we all know but inertia seems to keep America from getting rid of this useless coin.

Ars Technica:

The space shuttle Enterprise has been ensconced aboard the USS Intrepid for just over two years. It sits in a silent warehouse, dramatically lit so it appears to be cruising in a dark vacuum. Tourists can wander around or under it at the exhibit; they can even walk up some stairs and get nose-to-nose with the Enterprise, staring down its long axis through a thick layer of glass.

While the whole thing evokes space exploration, the Enterprise has never actually made it out of Earth’s atmosphere.

I saw the Enterprise at The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution years ago and, even though I’m not a Star Trek geek, I was sad a ship named “Enterprise” never made it into space.

Two out of three brand companies that measure brand value put Apple in the No. 1 position.

Text can be beautiful, simple, wild, engaging, exciting and a wide number of other things. It can stir emotion and helps users understand your message. Type can be a wide number of things but one thing is common – it must be readable.

I hate going to a Web site and struggling to read the text. Sometimes trying to be cute just makes the site unreadable.

Billboard:

With lead single “The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)” set to be featured in a massive media campaign from Apple, valued at $100 million by multiple sources, U2 has already scored arguably the biggest launch in music history. And it’s one that’s already fraught with a little controversy, from angry retailers to Grammy and SoundScan guidelines.

Oseary (U2’s manager) rang Billboard on Sept. 11 to address the many questions about the launch, and what’s next (another album?) from this landmark deal with Apple.

For a band that many (not me) consider to be irrelevant to today’s music, this campaign is a concerted effort to market and reinvent what was once called “The World’s Greatest Band”.

Apple:

If you would like U2’s Songs of Innocence removed from your iTunes music library and iTunes purchases, you can choose to have it removed. Once the album has been removed from your account, it will no longer be available for you to redownload as a previous purchase. If you later decide you want the album, you will need to get it again. The album is free to everyone until October 13, 2014 and will be available for purchase after that date.

Here you go.

This is a story I wrote for Fortune about Apple’s iTunes Festival London. There are some interesting tidbits in here that haven’t been published before.

Apple® today announced a record number of first day pre-orders of iPhone® 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the biggest advancements in iPhone history, with over four million in the first 24 hours. Demand for the new iPhones exceeds the initial pre-order supply and while a significant amount will be delivered to customers beginning on Friday and throughout September, many iPhone pre-orders are scheduled to be delivered in October. Additional supply of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be available to walk-in customers on Friday, September 19 at 8:00 a.m. local time at Apple retail stores.

I’d say the iPhone 6 is off to a good start.

TechCrunch:

Separately, TechCrunch has heard from multiple sources that Square and Apple were recently in acquisition talks, but that Square walked away.

Nope.

If you watched Apple’s event on Tuesday, you no doubt heard that Tim Cook gave away U2’s newest album to about 500 million iTunes users. Three days after the release, Interscope Records said the release is “the biggest album launch ever.” […]

New York Times:

JPMorgan Chase’s chief financial officer, Marianne Lake, took the stage at a financial conference on Tuesday under strict orders not to mention her company’s involvement in Apple’s new payment system.

But when Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, at a news conference in California at the same time, finally brought up Apple Pay, one of Ms. Lake’s deputies in New York took a green apple out of her bag and put it on a table on the stage, signaling that Ms. Lake was free to discuss the service.

“So we are very excited about Apple Pay, and Chase customers will be able to participate in that,” Ms. Lake said, noting the appearance of the apple with a nod of her head.

The elaborate measures that Ms. Lake took to keep Apple Pay under wraps until the chosen time underscore the degree of preparation — and investment — that went into a partnership that has the potential to transform one of the banking industry’s most fundamental business lines.

I love these insider stories about how Apple cajoles, forces, convinces and beguiles companies into doing the things Apple wants to do in the ways Apple wants to do it.

Macworld:

Near Field Communications (NFC)—the technology behind those swipe-free terminals and now Apple Pay—is nothing new. The technology has existed since the late 1990s and appears in many forms, including key fobs, payment cards, and even (on certain phones) Google Wallet. It isn’t necessarily the most widely deployed payment technology, but it certainly isn’t new.

Which begs the question: Why all the hype about Apple Pay? Is it merely the Reality Distortion Field hyping something that’s actually ho-hum? Or is there something deeper here?

Rich Mogull is my go to guy when it comes to Apple security and issues surrounding it. As usual, he writes well and simply about a complicated topic.