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A new company called Virtual is claiming that it can imitate nearly any Android or iOS device almost perfectly in software, on any platform, with nearly ‘native quality’ performance. It does this with a combination of virtualization and emulation technology and it could change the way that developers test apps.

Apple’s CarPlay is really catching on manufacturers. On Tuesday, nine new car-makers, including Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Mazda and Ram, signed on to provide CarPlay in future models of its cars. This is going to be a must-have feature for me in my next car.

What a beautiful guitar.

Much respect Tim and the rest of the folks at Apple.

My thanks to Twocanoes Software for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. Winclone is a great way to make a complete backup of your Boot Camp partition so that you can quickly restore back to Windows in Boot Camp. Boot Runner provides an easy way to switch between OS X and Windows on dual boot Macs. Works great for both individuals and dual boot labs.

When you get a new Mac or have issues with your Windows installation in Boot Camp, re-installing Windows is time consuming and difficult. Winclone makes it easy to make a complete copy of the Boot Camp partition, and restores it back to the exact same state on your existing or new Mac. Winclone supports migration of Boot Camp partitions between Macs, moving your Boot Camp partition to an external drive to free up space, and more. It works great for mass deployment. Boot Camp can be deployed as an OS X installer package and you can also use it with existing Windows tools such as SCCM and Sys Prep for easy mass deployment.

If you manage lots of dual boot Macs, Boot Runner provides a great way to manage the OS selection. You decide which OS by selecting OS X or Windows prior to logging in. It works great in labs. Administrators can fully customize and manage the selection screen, and can remotely select the OS through network policy. Boot Runner includes a scheduling feature to make sure that the Mac is booted into Windows for important system and virus updates. Check out the intro video to learn more.

Winclone and Boot Runner are available for purchase and download today at twocanoes.com and both have full phone and online support options.

Bill and Melinda Gates gave the new Stanford graduates some excellent words to live by.

Apple introduced a new Photos app during its Worldwide Developers Conference that will become the new platform for the company. As part of the transition, Apple told me today that they will no longer be developing its professional photography application, Aperture. […]

Jim and Dan discuss Google Glass streaming live video, Google TV, Apple TV, HBO Go and cable companies, Apple’s iCloud strategy, The New York Times and Walmart, placing trust in news organizations, Dropcam, Nest and privacy limits, the MacBook Air to Surface Pro 3 upgrade path, Bono’s (Red) rant, and more.

Sponsored by HostGator (use code DANSENTME for 50% off VPS) and Shopify (visit shopify.com/5by5 for 3 months free).

It makes me want to pull my hair out just looking at this mess.

Levy has been part of many great publications, but at Medium he will be starting a tech hub “that strives to bring well-reported, lively, and meaningful reporting and writing to what is already shaping up as a terrific platform for the written word.”

Interesting.

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The Daily Dot:

Where Google I/O keynotes of years past have included huge reveals like the Chromebook notebook line and Nexus tablet, this year’s event was different…but that didn’t stop it from being crazy in its own right.

It’s not really the “only thing you need to read” but it might just be one of the most amusing things you read about today’s Google I/O keynote.

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Macworld:

Corporations generally limit their altruism to charity, not to core product and business decisions. Apple likely sees a competitive advantage in privacy, especially when its biggest direct competition comes from advertising giant Google and the enterprise-friendly Microsoft. Apple believes consumers not only desire privacy, but will increasingly value privacy as a factor in their buying decisions.

It will be interesting to see if, going forward, average consumers start taking these kinds of issues into consideration when purchasing and using various products and services.

On Tuesday, Google Inc. officially began offering the Livestream video-sharing app in its MyGlass store. The software lets Glass wearers share what they are seeing and hearing with other Livestream account holders free of charge by using the command, “OK Glass, start broadcasting.”

Sweet holy shit! No, Google!

This is just priceless. Much respect to David Tovar, Vice President, Walmart Corporate Communications, for a great response.

Net Neutrality advocates are running a campaign called Occupy Google. According to its Twitter timeline on this page, a number of arrests were made last night.

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Flickr:

Flickr’s new service for Apple TV brings all your photos to life on the big screen, where you can engage with the Flickr community, explore the world’s most interesting photos, and use our powerful search capabilities to browse billions of photos within the most extraordinary online photo collection.

For the first time with Apple TV, sign into Flickr and view all your photos, videos, Favorites, Albums, and Groups. In one click, make any album into a slideshow or screensaver ready to share with friends, or customize in real-time with over fifteen different slideshow and screensaver modes.

I haven’t had a chance to try this out but if it works as advertised, I will use this a lot.

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XOJane:

Believe it or not, the customer service representative that you are speaking to wants to help you. Or at the very least, they want to fix your problem and get you off the line. So please. Allow the rep to do their job and actually listen to what they have to say!

It’s sad we live in a world where we need to have these kinds of things explained to people.

As a follow up to their “Need a Canadian Passport to open the beer fridge” stunt comes this one that is just as clever. It plays off the uniquely Canadian inability to remember the words to our national anthem. Still crappy beer though.

Apple on Tuesday released an update for iWork for iCloud. Each application received some new features and there are some features common to all of the apps. Changes implemented today include: […]

Macworld:

The price of buying an iMac just went down. But is a 15 percent lower price worth a 50 percent lower performance rating?

The new $1099 iMac was slower across the board, and 54 percent slower overall, than the $1299 21.5-inch system.

This is definitely the iMac for the (very) casual user but I don’t know about “value for the money”. The specs make it seem awfully anemic.

John Gruber has a nice post talking about Bloomberg’s recent “Big iPhone” story, but the part that really got me was this:

Most people keep presenting this as a “bigger is better” situation, and that Apple has thus been caught flat-footed and behind, and now with the introduction of bigger-display iPhones they’re catching up.

He’s absolutely right. The media would have you believe that Apple is playing catchup in screen size, but that’s a ridiculous assumption. Apple could have put out a larger screen iPhone any time they wanted, but they chose functionality instead of adding enormous screen for the sake of adding an enormous screen. If anything, the competitors are playing catchup in usability.

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Quartz:

Although the watch—designed in Paris and made in Switzerland—resembles its analog ancestors, it contains all the technology of a fitness tracker. It monitors distance covered (walking, running, or swimming), calories burned, and quantity and quality of sleep, all of which will sync with Withing’s existing Health Mate app. The watch, called Activité, can also tell time. It will automatically adjust to changing time zones, and its battery will last a year.

The watch will be available for $390 this autumn, in two unisex color options.

It certainly is a nice looking watch. Not my “personal style” but simple and elegant looking – which I’m not.

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WSJ:

Nest Labs is set to share some user information with corporate parent Google for the first time since its February acquisition.

Matt Rogers, a co-founder of the smart-thermostat maker, said in an interview that Google will connect some of its apps to Nest, allowing Google to know when Nest users are at home or not.

And so it begins.

This weekend, Microsoft Stores launched a trade-in program to encourage sales of the new Surface Pro 3, but the trade-in promotion named only a single device: the MacBook Air, at a value of “up to $650” toward any Surface Pro 3 purchase. At the lowest specification, that trade-in amount would let buyers walk out of a Microsoft Store with an Intel i3 Surface Pro 3 for as little as $150.

My reaction when reading this:

Apple debuted a number of new channels to the Apple TV this morning, adding ABC News, PBS Kids, Willow TV, and AOL On. […]

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AdWeek:

In an odd bit of on-stage irony, Bono gave broad praise to an audience of strangers and reserved his most pointed criticism for the old friend seated nearby: Apple design guru Jony Ive.

“One of the reasons it’s such a credit to have Jony Ive on the stage,” Bono told panel moderator and Vice CEO Shane Smith, “is because Apple is so fucking annoyingly quiet about the fact they’ve raised $75 million. Nobody knows!”

Bono went so far as to stand up, pull out an official (Red) iPad cover and remove the device, illustrating to the audience that the only actual nod to the nonprofit was inside the cover and therefore always obscured by the tablet.

“Where’s the (Red) branding?” he asked Ive. “Nobody can see that. This is modesty run amok. This is the Apple way. They’re like a religious cult.”

Great to see Bono calling Apple out on their “understated” approach to this issue. But you’ll see that change within six months.

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Angela Ahrendts:

Last month, as you might have heard, I started a new job. At some point in your career, maybe you too have made the life-altering decision to start anew. If so, you know firsthand how exciting, challenging and sometimes disorienting the first 30, 60, 90 days can be. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately myself.

I am by no means an expert at these transitions, but I’ve always tried to be consistent in how I run, exit and begin in a new business. I thought I would share a few professional and personal insights which are helping me adapt to a new sector, culture and country.

Very interesting to see this – an Apple executive blogging could be fascinating, even if always vetted by the PR Machine.

It’s so much fun seeing what people are doing these days.

John Moltz wrote a great article on how important the experience is for Apple’s customer satisfaction ratings. When you first turn on an iOS device, your first experience is very positive. It’s easy to setup and get going within minutes. That’s important.

I’ve never seen anything like the fights that go on over the Oxford comma.