Soon, you can browse our rotating sets of stickers to join in on real-time conversations, and select from the library of hundreds of accessories, emoji, and props to make your photos more fun.

Get ready, these will be everywhere.

Serenity Caldwell takes you on a tour through Apple’s upcoming Apple Watch OS update. Of note:

Apple’s 2016 software updates are currently available only as closed developer previews. While the betas contain new features, they also contain pre-release bugs that can prevent the normal use of your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, or Mac, and are not intended for everyday use on a primary device. That’s why we strongly recommend you stay away, at least until the public iOS and macOS betas in July, if not the general releases this fall.

I depend on my Apple Watch too much to make the update and will follow this advice.

That said, take a read through the article to get a sense of the big changes.

Apple gave a terrific one-of-a-kind gift to employees who participated in Sunday’s annual San Francisco LGBT Pride parade.

I love that Apple supports this. A nice looking band.

Michael Cohen, writing for TidBITS:

Among the tidbits Apple revealed to its developer audience at the recently completed Worldwide Developers Conference was a new file system for the whole range of its products. Dubbed “APFS” (an acronym that Apple doesn’t completely spell out even in its developer documentation), the file system is meant to replace HFS+, the file system that in turn replaced 1985’s HFS (Hierarchical File System) in 1998. (HFS+ has received numerous updates since 1998, so don’t get the impression that it’s completely obsolete.) A developer preview of APFS is baked into the forthcoming macOS Sierra and Apple says APFS will become the default file system in all of its operating systems — macOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS — by late 2017.

Nice high level walkthrough of a major unifying change coming to your favorite operating system.

As to the acronym APFS, the sense I get from an informal Twitter poll is that APFS stands for Apple File System. And, as Kirk McElhearn points out here, Apple uses the acronym APFS and the name Apple File System consistently, as if the acronym came from APple File System and not Apple Pxxx File System.

Jonny Evans digs into the process of using Siri on your Sierra-installed Mac, including preferences and lots and lots of examples.

A short, but nice overview from MacRumors on tvOS 10. I’m really looking forward to this OS release.

It’s a crazy day.

As for what data is being collected, Apple says that differential privacy will initially be limited to four specific use cases: New words that users add to their local dictionaries, emojis typed by the user (so that Apple can suggest emoji replacements), deep links used inside apps (provided they are marked for public indexing) and lookup hints within notes.

I’m completely fine with this. Apple is trying to walk a very thin line between not accessing user data and getting information to make its device and services more effective for users. As long as we know what’s going on, everything is good.

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.

We are a team of ex-Apple engineers and designers and are experts in machine learning, computer vision, pattern recognition, photogrammetry, and biometrics. We combine these technologies with iOS and tvOS to provide innovative solutions for clients and enterprises.

We also teach developers how to build apps through the longest-standing and most comprehensive iOS training in the world.

Join our 5-day intensive iOS bootcamp. Our next available dates are:

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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.