A wonderful article from Steven Aquino. It certainly puts the difficulties we have with Siri, and other technologies, into perspective.

Nura is a new headphone that integrates unique soundwave technology to automatically measure your hearing (from the outer ear all the way to the brain) and adapt music perfectly to you. In order for headphones to deliver the right sound, they must be matched to the listener. Nura even recognizes you when you put them on.

This is an absolutely fascinating concept. I haven’t tried them, so I don’t know how accurate it is or how they sound, but watching the video on the top of the page, I love the strategy the company is going for.

Following similar moves by Amazon, Comcast and others, Netflix is now working on a feature that will allow subscribers to download certain programs for offline viewing, according to industry insider and Penthera COO Dan Taitz. And Taitz thinks there will be a landscape shift when the new Netflix feature arrives.

“We know from our sources within the industry that Netflix is going to launch this product,” says Taitz. “My expectation is that by the end of the year Netflix will be launching download-to-go as an option for their customers.”

Yes, please.

My thanks to iNVASIVECODE for sponsoring The Loop this week.

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If you want a team of ex-Apple engineers and designers working for you, reach out.

Today, more than 100 million voice calls are made every day on WhatsApp – that’s over 1,100 calls a second!

Wow. I don’t even know what else to say.

“It was just one dumb decision after another,” Michelle Hammontree, communications director for Pinecrest said.

You’ve got to love stupid criminals.

Priceonomics:

Michelin’s food critics, known as “inspectors” by the company, only awarded a top ranking of three Michelin Stars to around 100 restaurants in 2016. Restaurants that receive a Michelin Star for the first time can expect a flood of food tourists; losing a Michelin Star devastates restaurateurs. Gordon Ramsay, the celebrity chef who makes young chefs weep on his show Hell’s Kitchen, cried when he lost two Michelin Stars in 2013.

Which is a bit weird, because Michelin is a tire company whose annual reports highlight the cost of rubber and growth in the passenger car market.

Michelin began publishing its “Red Guide” in 1900, when both cars and food tourism were novel luxuries. Its creators hoped that a guidebook offering information about hotels, restaurants, and roadways would lead people to drive more—and buy more Michelin tires.

Obviously, there are several examples from the beginning of the Age of the Car of how automobile travel created entire industries. The Michelin Guide may be the one that has gone the furthest past its original intent to something more popular than the original tire company could have ever imagined.

Mashable:

I traveled to the Persian Gulf earlier this year to visit that carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman. I wanted to see what life on this carrier actually looked like while at war. The pilots flying combat missions for weeks at a time — they must feel like they are at war. But do the other personnel on the ship? Would I?

And of course, I wanted to see for myself what life was like on an aircraft carrier. Would it be like the movies? Would I feel like a little boy again? Though I spent only two days onboard the Truman, and oftentimes, at least on the flight deck, it did look just like Top Gun. Steam and chaos in incomprehensible orchestration. And the pilots — just like in Top Gun — wearing their flight suits everywhere, walking around like they own the place.

When I was a little kid, I got the chance to go on an American aircraft carrier outside of Halifax’s harbour (it was too big to dock). I’ve always wanted to go back onboard as an adult.

On Thursday, after a week’s worth of testimony and arguments, the jury came back with its verdict in a case that’s been decades in the making. At trial, Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and Robert Plant testified as well as Michael Skidmore, the Trustee of Spirit songwriter Randy Wolfe’s estate, who demanded in his lawsuit a rewriting of rock ‘n’ roll history. The jury also heard from a Spirit bandmember, musicologists and other witnesses and experts opining on such subjects as whether Led Zeppelin had heard “Taurus” before composing their popular song and whether the two songs were substantially similar.

We are delighted to announce that Stephen Friend has transitioned from his role as President of Sage Bionetworks to Chairman of the Board, and the promotion of Lara Mangravite to President. As chairman of the Board, Dr. Friend will continue to work with Sage at a strategic level while stepping away from responsibility for day to day operations. Dr. Friend has accepted a position with Apple Inc. where he will work on health related projects.

Awesome.

In the coming month, you’ll see a translation button on feed stories and profile bios written in languages different from your own. The Instagram community has grown faster and become more global than we ever imagined. And we’re excited that you’ll soon be able to understand the full story of a moment, no matter what language you speak.

Sounds like a great feature.

I’ve always loved Charvel.

Mikah Sargent, writing for iMore, with a heart-sickening tale:

On the night of Monday, June 13, someone stole my 12.9-inch iPad Pro from my bag during the annual Beard Bash event. I won’t go into the gritty details, but suffice it to say my valuables (as well as those of my colleague Serenity Caldwell) were in a secure location. Unfortunately, secure doesn’t always mean nothing bad will happen, and in this case, something bad did happen: My iPad Pro was removed from my bag, Serenity’s belongings were stuffed into my bag to make it look full (I guess), and the iPad Pro went bye-bye.

Read the rest. Some solid advice.

Here’s another take on the same topic (shared by Loop reader Andrew Leavitt). One key bit from this post:

Turn on ‘Restrictions’ and lock changes to ‘Location Services’

I found this second article to be a bit out of sync with the current iOS interface, wondering if this is no longer good advice or if the interface is just a bit different. Anyone know if you should be using Restrictions to lock Location Services? Or is that unnecessary?

Great read from Neil Cybart. He walks through three distinct business models, from the Mac as digital hub, to the no central hub model (with iPad, iPhone, Mac, and iPod being equals), to the iPhone as hub model.

Very interesting, all with some numbers to back up the logic and a peek at the Neil’s take on the post-iPhone future.

No.

The Mac is an incredibly valuable part of Apple’s ecosystem. If people were, en masse, leaving the Mac for iOS, that might make some (albeit small) amount of sense. But the Mac is an integral part of Apple’s big picture strategy.

The reasons to do this are obvious and simple. PC sales are flagging. While the market for desktop computers and laptops is still enormous, it’s seen as dead. You can see it in all the worldwide tech reporting. It’s become a boring replacement market as people keep their systems longer and longer.

True, sales may be flagging, but it’s all about the ecosystem. Macs help sell iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, etc.

Spin off the Mac? I don’t think so.

Caitlin McGarry, writing for Macworld, digs into iOS 10’s new iMessage app. An all around interesting read, but this stuck out:

Federighi used a funny image creation app called JibJab to demonstrate the features in his WWDC demo. JibJab lets you create and share e-cards with people, and the iMessage extension allows you to select from a gallery of faces in your Camera Roll and drop a friend’s face on a JibJab GIF. When you share that image with someone, it will appear in the same iMessage conversation with a button beneath the image to install JibJab. Whereas Facebook Messenger would kick you to the App Store to finish downloading the app, in iMessage, you’ll remain inside your conversation. JibJab will appear in the new iMessage app drawer, which you can open without ever leaving Messages.

This is a subtle change, but a huge win for developers, an OS level viral mechanism developers can use to help spread the word about their app. This sort of discovery mechanism can help a developer build awareness, all without having to take out an ad or pay for PR.

From the Oxford University web site:

Sir Jonathan Ive is Chief Design Officer of Apple Inc and designer of the iMac, PowerBook, iBook, iPod, iPhone, iPad, AppleWatch and MacBook. Six of his products appear in the permanent collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). In 2012, he received San Francisco MoMA’s Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2013 he was awarded a gold Blue Peter Badge. His others accolades include an Inaugural Medal (1999) and Benjamin Franklin Medal (2004) of the Royal Society of Arts, the Design Museum London’s first Designer of the Year award (2003), the Design and Art Direction (D&AD) President’s Award and the Royal Academy of Engineering’s President’s Medal (both 2005), and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s Product Design Award (2007). In 2012, D&AD named Sir Jonathan’s team at Apple the Best Design Studio of the past 50 years. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Well earned.

The Wirecutter:

For many people, a UPS falls into the murky gray area between need and want. If you have a desktop computer or network-attached storage, you may need a UPS to prevent your drives from losing data in the event of a sudden power outage. And if you have digital phone service through your broadband provider, and the company skimped on your equipment by not including a battery, you may need a UPS to power your phone modem during a blackout so that you can reach emergency services. But a UPS is also handy during mundane power outages, since it allows you to pass the time on Facebook or Netflix while you wait for the juice to return.

A UPS makes sense in a lot of scenarios, but not in all of them.

A UPS is one of those unsexy things you don’t know you need until you need it. If you live in an area with spotty power or frequent weather-related outages (I live in an old apartment building that frequently has power outages for seemingly no reason), a UPS can save a lot of aggravation and frustration.

9to5Mac:

Space fans with 4th-gen Apple TVs are in for a treat, as NASA has released its popular app on the platform. It was already available for iOS, Android and Fire OS, but this is the first time you’ve been able to access it directly on your Apple TV.

You get live streaming NASA TV, including a real-time view of the Earth from the International Space Station, as well as on-demand access to over 10,000 NASA videos and more than 15,000 photos, either individually or as a slideshow.

I can get completely lost in NASA imagery and putting it on the Apple TV so I have access to larger images sounds great.

MIT Technology Review:

Some security experts who inspected that new version of iOS got a big surprise.

They found that Apple had not obscured the workings of the heart of its operating system using encryption as the company has done before. Crucial pieces of the code destined to power millions of iPhones and iPads were laid bare for all to see. That would aid anyone looking for security weaknesses in Apple’s flagship software.

Security experts say the famously secretive company may have adopted a bold new strategy intended to encourage more people to report bugs in its software—or perhaps made an embarrassing mistake. Apple declined to comment on why it didn’t follow its usual procedure.

I can’t imagine that this is unintentional or a mistake. It’d be good to get an official comment from Apple on the strategy, given the press this is getting.

I love every bit of Magic Leap I’ve seen so far. Still no products, but they’ve done some impressive demos.

ESPN:

LeBron had spent the weekend watching old Muhammad Ali fights, in awe at the champ’s perseverance. His longtime friend and adviser, Nike executive Lynn Merritt, had suggested he study the way Ali carried himself in those epic 12- and 15-round fights. The way Ali took punches, knowing his opponent would eventually tire. The way he taunted opponents, flaunting his superior skill and talents, knowing he would get into their heads. His teammates needed something else, though. Something they could connect to that would make them believe this series was not over. And so LeBron gathered everyone in the Cavaliers locker room before Game 3 and played a portion of Steve Jobs’ commencement address to Stanford University in 2005.

Good story, especially the part where Kevin Love independently does his own Steve Jobs channeling. Note that the headline link takes you to a page with AUTOPLAY.

Terrific idea. The company is called Pearl, and the product is a backup camera built into a license plate frame, designed to replace the license plate frame on the rear of your car.

The RearVision license plate frame features two high-quality HD cameras and is self charging via a built in solar panel. It communicates, wirelessly, to an adapter you plug into your cars OBD port.

From the site:

Through advanced image processing, it analyzes the video streams to detect obstacles in your path, providing audible alerts and sending visual alerts to your phone.

There’s also a dash mount for your iPhone. The RearVision app streams video from the camera (via the dash mount) to your iPhone.

No substitute for pictures. Click here to see this for yourself.

Daring Fireball:

“No one” asked for the iMac to remove the floppy drive or switch from ADB ports to USB (at a time when PCs weren’t shipping with USB either, which meant few — I mean really few — existing USB peripherals on the market). There was a huge outcry when the iPhone 5 dumped the proprietary-but-ubiquitous 30-pin port for the proprietary-and-all-new Lightning port. MacBook Air fans are still complaining about the new MacBook’s solitary USB-C port.

This is how it goes.

Gruber does a great job of tearing apart Nilay Patel’s silly, whiny piece but the key argument for me is his “If it weren’t for Apple we’d probably still be using computers with VGA and serial ports. The essence of Apple is that they make design decisions “no one asked for”.” This is what Apple does. It’s what they’ve done since Steve Jobs came back to the company. They move forward. They don’t wait for the market to make the decision for them. They make the decision for the market. And, in the vast majority of the cases, the market agrees with Apple – eventually.