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Great article from Harry McCracken detailing some of the people that said “Apple must…” do this or that.

Rene Ritchie wrote a great article on Google, and all large companies for that matter. I agree with everything he said, until this:

I value my privacy. I’m deeply concerned about who collects my data and how they use it. But I’m no more concerned about Google owning Nest than I am Nest existing in the first place.

The problem that I have is that Nest sold a product—we bought that product, used it and we’re satisfied with that transaction. With Google, the transaction is Google mining my data looking for information so they can show me the best advertisement.

With Google, I am the product.

When the CEOs of Apple and Samsung, accompanied by several in-house lawyers, meet for their (court-requested) settlement negotiations on or before February 19, there will probably be flexibility on both sides relating to the billions of dollars in license fees that may change hands, but if Samsung wants a deal, it will have to accept, as HTC did before it, an anti-cloning provision that would allow Apple to still bring lawsuits if Samsung’s products resembled Apple’s offerings too closely in ways that could actually be avoided by means of designarounds.

Good. There is no sense in going through all of this only to have Samsung copy the next thing Apple comes out with.

I saw this on Huffington Post. It is truly incredible how powerful our devices are these days.

This is a nice ad, I wonder where they came up with the idea…

Peter Cohen:

The Mac mini is overdue for a major refresh. It’s been well more than a year, and it’s been several years since the Mac mini had any significant work done to it. That’s got me thinking about what Apple could do it and probably should do to it.

It will certainly be interesting to see what Apple does with the Mac mini. Clearly, Apple’s interest has been with the iPhone and iPad, as well as the MacBooks and Mac Pro in recent years.

On Thursday night, KSDK in St. Louis reported on a high school lockdown. And it was one that they had caused. Kirkwood High School went into lockdown earlier that day and, after more than an hour, people in St. Louis began finding out why.

I would be pissed off.

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Sam Rijver:

I’m using quite a few iHealth products to measure a few things regarding my health. I have measurements of my blood pressure, blood-oxigen levels, weight, activity and sleep patterns and more. I do this because it’s useful information I can use to monitor my own health. More importantly I can (choose to) provide this information to my physician during my yearly check-up. I have yearly check-ups due to heart disease running in the family and with the iHealth products I can provide a great amount of data points for about 80% of the tests they run on such a check. It’s great. It’s useful. It’s also scaring the crap out of me that Google might go out and buy the company for an insane amount of money. I just can’t shake the feeling that if that happens I would feel worried about the implications of Google getting their hands on that kind of data.

For me, all of this commentary comes back to simple point: people don’t trust Google. Eventually that has to come back and bite them in the ass.

That’s quite a headline from Consumer Reports. And the FTC goes after Apple.

CNET News:

If you’re one of the people more interested in watching Super Bowl commercials than watching the actual game, you’re in luck. YouTube has offered early access to Super Bowl commercials for those who just can’t wait.

The Google-owned company on Thursday announced the Ad Blitz channel on YouTube.

Or, if you are unlucky enough to live in a place like Canada where the Super Bowl ads are replaced by local market ads for mufflers and mattress superstores, this channel lets you see what all the buzz is about.

Goalies are known as “The drummers of hockey” so 14 minutes of insanity from netminders is pure gold.

Modern Farmer:

About 80% of the world’s maple syrup comes from Canada and 90% of that comes from Quebec which produced 96.1 million lbs of syrup valued at $270 million in 2012.

We wrote about this when it first came to light in 2012 but this “illustrated update” is interesting too. The idea of a “International Strategic Reserve” of maple syrup still cracks me up.

The Dissolve:

In January 1994, a group of filmmakers from Chicago went to the Sundance Film Festival to accomplish the impossible, by selling a three-hour documentary about two inner-city teens hoping to get to the NBA. By the time they left, their lives had changed, and so had the way non-fiction filmmaking is perceived.

The movie still holds up as a powerful commentary on sports and the role it plays in the lives of too many “disadvantaged youths”.

But it’s also a wonderful film in and of itself. Even if you’re not a fan of documentaries, I’d encourage you to watch it.

Don’t forget to hit reload, there are some real gems in there.

I would lose my fucking mind if this happened to me.

Matt Drance:

Put simply: the Internet we know and depend on will become something very different. The business relationship with your provider will change its focus from consumption (how many ones and zeros came over the wire) to behavior (what kind of ones and zeros). The latter is much more discriminatory and insidious.

This week, Merlin Mann sits in to chat with Jim about the Nest acquisition, the problem with Google’s opaque creepiness, Jim’s upcoming trip to NAMM, plus some special interactive tips from Jim on working the pentatonic blues solo.

Homework: Practice on GnR’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.”

5by5’s bandwidth for January provided by CacheFly: The fastest, most reliable CDN in the business.

Sponsors this week:

• Ting ($25 off)
• Shutterstock (25% off everything with discount code “DANSENTME114”)
• Freshbooks (They’re giving away birthday cakes!)
• Squarespace (10% off everything with discount code “NEWYEARS”)

In this issue, Don Lehman examines what “Post PC” really means; Darren Murph looks at how Land Rover is investing in brand loyalty; Kirk McElhearn looks back at the beauty of mono recordings; Dermot Daly discusses the iPhone’s 20 year reign; and Chris Domico gives us an inside look at the life of a freelance musician.

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This looks like a great app, and it’s free.

I laughed out loud at this comic.

Are you kidding me? The deal for Apple to reimburse parents for money their kids had spent on apps was already done and then the FTC swoops in.

Very interesting, but I’ll stick with my jeans and t-shirt for now.

This is very cool.

[Via Swissmiss]

Apple Inc will refund consumers at least $32.5 million to settle a longstanding complaint that the technology company billed U.S. consumers for charges incurred by children through mobile apps without their parents’ consent.

Or, you know, you could just look after your kids and take responsibility for what they do.

This an odd device.

This is the best sounding Boss pedalboard I’ve heard in years.

First, let’s get the most mysterious thing about the Galaxy S5 out of the way: Yes, it will come in both metal and plastic versions as has been rumored, with the metal version costing around 800 Euros and the plastic model coming in at around 650 Euros. It’s pretty much similar to what Apple has done.

Maureen O’Connor writing for New York Magazine:

There is such a thing as too much information for you. There is such a thing as information the speaker will later regret. But if an audience is willingly and pleasurably consuming the information, then by definition, that is the right amount of information for them. Assuming the information in question is yours to share — your life, your ideas, your stories, your pictures, your theories about elf genealogy in Lord of the Rings — you cannot share too much of it. There are no captive audiences on the Internet.

I enjoyed this article.

Recode:

The principle of the idea is that the speech of 300 million Americans is more important than the profit-making activities of four or five companies.

Unfortunately all too often “principle” falls to “commerce”.