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Sam Radford:

Then there’s the size though. For some reason—and I’m really not sure why—the larger screen makes reading the magazines a much more enjoyable experience for me. Perhaps it’s because the apps were originally designed for the larger size and then scaled down for the Mini. But, whatever the cause, having my magazines on my retina screen Air is a whole lot more desirable. I’m choosing to read there rather than picking up the physical copies lying around my house.

Interesting thoughts from Sam. Personally, I still like the reading experience on the iPad mini more than the physical copy.

I don’t know how accurate this is, but clearly they make a lot of money.

Apple setup a donation page on iTunes dedicated to helping the Red Cross support victims of the Philippine Typhoon. Apple said that 100% of the donations will go to the Red Cross. This isn’t the first time Apple has used iTunes to help people around the world—an iTunes page was also setup to help victims of Superstorm Sandy, the tsunami in Japan and the earthquakes in Haiti when those disasters happened.

If you’ve got a MacRumors forum account, change your password and change the password for any other accounts that use the same password.

This is a pretty useful tip, new to me. Click on a document in the Finder, then hit space to open the Quicklook preview. In the upper-right corner, you’ll see a button that says “Open with xxx” where xxx is the default application for that document type. If you press and hold the button, you’ll see a list of other applications that will also open your document.

Nice.

Just fascinating to read.

Outdoor Photographer:

Aerial imaging using consumer-level “drones” is now within reach of any photographer.

In the past few years, developments in a new form of remote-controlled unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) called “multi-rotors” have opened up easy-to-accomplish, aerial imagery to photography on a budget.

Eric Cheng is a world class photographer and does a great job of explaining how you can get into arial shooting.

Smile has released a new app in their PDFpen suite of PDF editing tools. PDFpen Scan+ lets you scan documents, articles, receipts, and more, using your iPhone or iPad camera.

PDFpen Scan+ includes OCR on the device, with support for 16 languages. The OCR is performed on the device, so you can use it even if you are not connected to the internet or if you have sensitive documents you can’t share with an online service.

Once OCR has been performed, the text in the scanned document can be copied and pasted into another document or the PDF can be exported with searchable text included. You can also open your scans in PDFpen for iPad or PDFpen for iPhone for further editing or share them via Dropbox, Evernote and other services for seamless editing on your Mac.

PDFpen Scan+ is available on the App Store at the intro price of $4.99. Check out the video demo to see all the powerful features packed into this indispensable tool.

The only thing scummier than Samsung are its lawyers.

Today is Remembrance Day (in the Commonwealth countries) or Veterans Day (United States). Thank you to all those who sacrificed their lives so we could be free.

Dave Foley, from The Kids in the Hall, presents his take on the end for BlackBerry. Poignant.

Despite the incredible “power” of Office’s productivity, Microsoft’s own depiction of its software running on its hybrid tablet results in a $500 error. Charged with adding up just seven rows of numbers, Microsoft Excel running on the Surface comes up with a total of $9,000, as can be seen in the zoomed in detail below.

Frank Shaw’s head must have exploded.

I thought this was a great quote.

Last weekend at Garrison Bespoke, an upscale tailor shop in Toronto, a potentially lethal scene was unfolding in the back room, where employees were taking turns trying to stab Michael Nguyen, Garrison’s co-owner, with a hunting knife.

The latest technology improvements don’t always come in the newest phone.

Many thanks to BlissList for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. BlissList is an iPhone app that enables you to buy from all stores in one central place, with just one account.

While social shopping hubs such as Pinterest and Wanelo do a great job of helping you discover products from different stores, they require you to go to each store’s site to buy those products. What stands between you and the perfect pair of jeans and shoes is that you have to go through a painful, multi-step checkout process at different stores. Not to mention, the inconsistent buying process between stores and the small canvas of a mobile phone make you want to tear your hair out. BlissList eliminates all these hassles by providing a centralized and convenient way for you to buy the products you want. With BlissList you can add any product from any store and securely check out in one place, so your credit card is not all over the web. Additionally, you can connect with your friends for social funding for your products. BlissList is free and there are no service fees or price markups. Buy your shoes and keep your hair. Download BlissList on the App Store.

A great article from Charles Arthur that delves into the differences between market share and installed base.

Allyson Kazmucha does a nice review of the Olloclip with lots of comparison photos. I’ve always wondered if these things were really worth it, but it looks nice.

Jim and Dan talk about the new iWork, iMac performance for recording, Universal Audio’s Apollo, guitar cabinets, IK Multimedia’s iLoud, MacBook Pro 13-inch keyboard and trackpad issues and a fix, desktops, Alfred and launch-bar style alternatives, and more.

Besides emphasizing Office, Elop would be prepared to sell or shut down major businesses to sharpen the company’s focus, the people said. He would consider ending Microsoft’s costly effort to take on Google with its Bing search engine, and would also consider selling healthy businesses such as the Xbox game console if he determined they weren’t critical to the company’s strategy, the people said.

Xbox is the only Microsoft product I currently use.

Everyone needs a beard.

Don’t worry it’s safe for work. I don’t know how this works and I don’t think I want to.

Lots of new features in the latest version for iPhone and iPad.

In Issue 14 of The Loop Magazine:

Jim Dalrymple reviews the new iPad Air and and then looks at which iPad—the Air or the iPad mini—is right for you; Victor Agreda, Jr. discusses “Magic and Creativity”; Alex Vollmer explains everything about using Audiobus in “Get on the Audiobus”; and Roy J. Moss reveals “What They Don’t Tell You About Being A Sysadmin”.

All logos should have a death metal version.

Federico Viticci:

With iOS 7, Apple has introduced the possibility for third-party developers to support custom shortcuts with external (Bluetooth) keyboards in their apps. Keyboard shortcuts, longtime favorites of OS X power users, can now be enabled in iOS apps.

Last night the Jets played the Blackhawks. Hijinks ensued.

As Jim (and many others) reported yesterday, Apple has published a transparency document, detailing governmental requests seeking information about individual users or devices.

At the very end of the main body of the report are these two sentences:

Apple has never received an order under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. We would expect to challenge such an order if served on us.

As stated in the linked article, if Apple is ever served with a Section 215 order, they will not (unless they are granted some relief) be able to publicly discuss that fact. But, if Apple continues to publish transparency reports, the sentences quoted above will obviously be left out. A bit of a canary in a coal mine. Good move, Apple.

I will definitely get some use from this.