“Due to a sharp decline in tourism and visitors to the area, we have made the difficult decision not to extend our lease,” an Apple spokesman said in a statement. “We are offering all of the store’s employees other jobs within Apple and we look forward to serving our Greater Atlantic City customers through our other southern New Jersey, Delaware Valley, and Greater Philadelphia area stores.”

The realities of retail affect everyone.

A special “Decade Collection” range of Beats Headphones are currently being promoted by online retail merchants ahead of scheduled availability on June 4, suggesting Apple will officially announce the collection during its keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

I’ve never been a big fan of Beats—I just don’t think they sound good.

My thanks to Marketcircle for sponsoring The Loop this week. Are you looking for a better way to manage the relationships you build with customers? What about organizing your workload better? Is closing more deals vital to your business? If any of these sounds like you, then you seriously need to give Daylite a try.

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Ben McCarthy:

Obscura 2 was created from scratch. I threw out every preconception I had with Obscura 1, to rethink what a camera app should be. Design work on O1 originally began not long after the announcement of iOS 7, and since then app design trends have shifted in new directions.

I’ve always found designing a camera app a fascinating set of problems. It’s unlike designing other apps in a number of ways.

I love these “inside baseball” stories of how indie developers go about creating their work. It’s especially satisfying to read something from a developer of an app I really like written in “plain english” so even non-coders can understand it. If you’re a “serious” iPhone photographer, Obscura 2 (affiliate link) is well worth the $5.

According to KIRO 7 News, an Echo Dot recorded the private conversation of a husband and wife in Portland, Oregon and sent it to the husband’s colleague all the way in Seattle. The colleague then called Danielle (the woman involved) and told her to immediately unplug all of her Echo speakers.

WTF?!

Samsung must pay Apple $539 million for infringing five patents with Android phones it sold in 2010 and 2011, a jury has found in a legal fight that dates back seven years.

Good, now pay up.

Obscura is designed to make it fast and easy to capture stunning images. Whether you’re shooting in portrait or landscape, the Control Wheel fits into your hand perfectly. You won’t be fumbling around trying to capture a photo when you’re in a hurry – everything is accessible with one thumb. Finely tuned haptic feedback gives the devices a sense of physicality, so you can feel every adjustment.

This is a great app.

This is a complete waste of time. But I loved every minute of it.

The idea of this game is a game minimalist’s dream. Click and roll your mouse to generate points. Get enough points, wheel over and grab a multiplier or other bonus thingy. All to increase the points you gather with your mad mouse skills.

Eventually, you will win. Works on iOS Safari, but not nearly as free wheeling.

Khoi Vinh, on last year’s App Store redesign:

I myself paid it scant attention until one day this past winter when I realized that the company was commissioning original illustration to accompany its new format. If you check the App Store front page a few times a week, you’ll see a quietly remarkable display of unique art alongside unique stories about apps, games and “content” (movies, TV shows, comics, etc.). To be clear: this isn’t work lifted from the marketing materials created by app publishers. It’s drawings, paintings, photographs, collages and/or animations that have been created expressly for the App Store.

This whole writeup is terrific, but what really struck me was this Pinterest catalog pulled together from screen grabs Khoi took of various App Store pages. Fantastic work on all counts.

And bravo to the App Store team for pulling this off.

Boing Boing:

In 2003 Bill Gates tried to download Microsoft Movie Maker from Microsoft.com. His confusing, frustrating, futile experience prompted him to write a terrifically scorching email to the managers in charge of the project. It starts off pretty mild, with just a hint of the brutally funny sarcasm to come. (“I typed in movie maker. Nothing. So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying – where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist? So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.”) It gets better from there.

Here’s a link to a PDF of the actual email exchange. Start at the bottom with Bill’s email, then work your way up.

I feel your pain, Bill.

Looking for a Mac game? This is a nice resource, with enough of a writeup on each game to give you a sense if it’s your cup of tea.

I can’t praise this essay from Federico Viticci enough. After a long, harrowing bout with cancer, Federico writes about his second life, and a renewed focus on exercise, mindfulness, and gratitude.

There’s not one bit of preachy here. This is personal reflection. Take a few minutes to read it. This really resonates with me. There’s value here.

Apple has signed a deal with Volkswagen to use Volkswagen vans as self-driving shuttles designed to transport employees around its various campuses and office buildings in the San Francisco Bay Area, reports The New York Times.

Apple has been working on developing the shuttle program, called “PAIL” or Palo Alto to Infinite Loop, since last summer. At the time news of Apple’s work on the program first surfaced, the company was said to be planning to install its own self-driving software in a commercial vehicle from an automaker, which has turned out to be Volkswagen.

I never expected Apple to do this. Despite rumors that the company’s program is having problems, Apple must be very confident about its self-driving technology.

Uber Technologies Inc is not shuttering its entire autonomous vehicle program, a spokeswoman said, adding that it will focus on limited testing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and two cities in California. It aims to resume self-driving operations this summer, likely with smaller routes and fewer cars.

I wonder if Uber was having trouble getting its license back after it was suspended by the governor of the state.

In this video, learn how to add parallel compression to drums, even out a bass performance, and bring presence to acoustic guitars with the dbx 160 Compressor/Limiter.

This is one of my favorite plug-ins from UA. This video will show you why.

The Computer History Museum originally posted this back in 2013, but for some reason, this made it all the way to the top spot on Hacker News this morning.

I saw it, found it fascinating (especially since my very first Mac programming experience was with Pascal), and thought you might enjoy this look back at the early days of Photoshop.

Stephen Silver, Apple Insider:

After years of controversies over Consumer Reports’ assessments of Apple products, AppleInsider paid a visit to the organization’s headquarters for an inside look at the testing process.

The whole thing was fascinating, but start things off with a read of this actual Consumer Reports press release, specifically targeted at Apple Insider.

Glad those fences are mended.

Are you still dependent on an older, 32-bit app? If so, the linked how-to from iMore should help. Pretty interesting.

A few weeks ago, we linked to an article that talked you through the process of requesting a copy of the data Apple associates with your AppleID. In a nutshell, that process had you jump through hoops to identify your location, then fill out a form requesting your data.

Apple just made the process both easier and more logical for EU users, and according to this post from Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac, the new process “will roll out worldwide in the coming months”.

No matter your location, follow this link, to privacy.apple.com, and log in with your Apple ID. All users should see options to correct your data and permanently delete your account.

If you don’t see the ability to download your data, check back in periodically. If you are outside the EU and see the download link, please do ping me so I can update this post. And take a look at Benjamin’s article, linked above, to get a sense of what data is being made available.

This is part of the process of complying with GDPR, but I like how front and center Apple has placed the ability to delete your account.

Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. manufacturing partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has started mass production of next-generation processors for new iPhones launching later this year, according to people familiar with the matter.

The processor, likely to be called the A12 chip, will use a 7-nanometer design that can be smaller, faster and more efficient than the 10-nanometer chips in current Apple devices like the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, the people said.

7 nanometers is the next planned design threshold for semiconductor manufacturing, with 5 nanometer designs about 3 years away.

To give a sense of the curve here:

• 2008: 45nm
• 2010: 32nm
• 2012: 22nm
• 2014: 14nm
• 2017: 10nm
• 2018: 7nm
• 2021: 5nm

A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. Next step smaller? An angstrom is one tenth of a nanometer. So the 7nm threshold we are about to breach is also the 70 angstrom threshold. Tiny.

MacStories:

MacPaw has released a brand new iPhone app that takes the ideas from Gemini 2, the company’s duplicate file finder on the Mac, and applies them to your iOS photo library. Gemini Photos uses an algorithm to analyze your photos that suggests the ones you should consider deleting. With photo files getting bigger with each improvement of the iPhone’s camera and features like Live Photos and burst mode, a utility like Gemini Photos can save significant amounts of space on your iPhone.

There are a lot of iOS apps that offer varying versions and methods for doing this with varying levels of success and utility. While I like Gemini Photos’ methodology, because I keep my photo library pretty minimal on my iPhone, it’s not a “necessary” app for me. And, with a subscription pricing model or a flat rate of $15, the price point may be steep for a casual user. That being said, if you’re running out of space on your iPhone, give the three-day free trial a shot to see if the app can save you some space.

The Sweet Setup:

1Password is one of the macOS apps I rely on most. I’ve been a 1Password Families subscriber since day one, and I am not sure I’d enjoy using a computer, tablet, or smartphone without it. Between passwords, credit card information, and more, it has become an essential element of my day-to-day workflows.

In addition to checking for hacked websites and finding weak and reused passwords, 1Password 7.0 expands the abilities of Watchtower to keep you even safer. It can now be checked against haveibeenpwned.com and tell you if your information has been compromised in a data breach (and all this is done without your passwords leaving your device).

I’ve used 1Password for years and love it. My wife is the typical non-techy who didn’t like trying to come up with a new password for every web site so she used the same one everywhere – Sydney1234. I showed her the error of her ways by “hacking” her favourite shopping site and now she loves using 1Password.

Apple:

Watch the keynote 6/4 at 10 a.m. PDT.

Along with sending out press invites today, Apple confirmed they will be livestreaming the 2018 WWDC Keynote for those of us unable to be there in person.

Lifehacker:

The app SlowQuitApps does exactly as its name implies. Now, instead of just tapping Command+Q to kill a program, you have to hold Command+Q for a second. A little circular countdown pops up on your screen, closing your app once it completes. That’s it.

This used to be a much more devastating issue but now it’s just an annoyance. Still, nice little utility to have (yes – I know you can just remap Command+Q).

The New Yorker:

Data excite advertisers. Prowling his London office in jeans, Keith Weed, who oversees marketing and communications for Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, described how mobile phones have elevated data as a marketing tool. “When I started in marketing, we were using secondhand data which was three months old,” he said. “Now with the good old mobile, I have individualized data on people. You don’t need to know their names . . . You know their telephone number. You know where they live, because it’s the same location as their PC.”

Weed knows what times of the day you usually browse, watch videos, answer e-mail, travel to the office—and what travel routes you take. “From your mobile, I know whether you stay in four-star or two-star hotels, whether you go to train stations or airports. I use these insights along with what you’re browsing on your PC. I know whether you’re interested in horses or holidays in the Caribbean.”

By using programmatic computers to buy ads targeting these individuals, he says, Unilever can “create a hundred thousand permutations of the same ad,” as they recently did with a thirty-second TV ad for Axe toiletries aimed at young men in Brazil. The more Keith Weed knows about a consumer, the better he can aim to target a sale.

It feels as if we are at a real inflection point. We can go down the path of allowing marketers unfettered access to all the data they can possible vacuum up about us, giving up privacy in favor of “better” advertisements, or we can try, using any number of personal, governmental and software/hardware-based solutions as we can develop, to lock them out of our lives.