Brian X. Chen, writing for the New York Times:

When Apple introduces its new TV box this summer, the remote control will gain a touch pad and also be slightly thicker than the current version, according to an employee briefed on the product, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the device was confidential. The touch pad can be used for scrolling around and there will also be two physical buttons, the person said. The remote’s thicker size is comparable to the remote control for Amazon’s wireless speaker, the Echo, the person added.

And:

Adding a touch pad to the Apple TV remote would bring it in line with Apple’s other accessories. Apple’s wireless mouse, the Magic Mouse, and Apple’s Magic Trackpad both have touch controls.

So says Brian.

Touch Pianist is simple, addictive, and strangely satisfying.

Start at the Touch Pianist web site. To get started, just start hitting your space bar in a regular rhythm. Easy peasy. Beautiful, no?

That first song (Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata) is straight quarter notes in 3/4 time. Tap-tap-tap tap-tap-tap. Every so often, you’ll encounter a dot that is just a little out of phase with the others. It’s telling you to add an extra tap to accommodate an extra note in the sequence. If you know the piece, you’ll hear it when it comes around.

There’s a Touch Pianist app that brings this touch piano playing to your phone or iPad. The web site and the app are free. They make money with in-app purchases of various music packs.

Give it a try. SO much fun.

Nice tip from Jeff Benjamin at iDownLoadBlog:

How to send a text hands-free with Siri on Apple Watch:

Step 1: Invoke Siri using Hey Siri
Step 2: Say something like “Send a message to Sebastien Page, hey man, how’s it going?”
Step 3: When the New Message interface pops up with the Cancel and Send buttons, say “Hey Siri, send.”
Step 4: The message will be sent without having to lift a finger

Jump to the article for more examples and a video showing this in action. Nice tip.

Zachary M. Seward, writing for Quartz:

The latest update to Windows 10, the forthcoming operating system for its phones and personal computers, includes support for the middle finger emoji, according to Emojipedia. That makes Microsoft the first big tech company to allow the profane emoji onto its platform.

The Unicode Consortium, which dictates the official language of emoji, added “reversed hand with middle finger extended” in the middle of last year. But it’s up to companies like Apple, Google, Twitter, and others to actually allow their users to type and view each emoji.

I like it. Still not enough to make me switch, though.

Mark Gurman, writing for 9to5mac, put together this gem-filled article, all about Apple’s new Creating Bands for Apple Watch web page. The page is filled with links to specs and guidelines for 3rd party watch band creators. The drawings are beautiful, especially the blueprints in this doc.

By far my favorite part of Mark’s article is the video below, which shows you how to disassemble the special loops that come with Apple’s leather Apple Watch strap. These loops are perfectly suited for many 3rd part watch straps.

The only tool you will need is a pentalobe screwdriver, which comes in a variety of computer toolkits. Here’s a pretty inexpensive model that should do the trick.

Another Apple Watch review. As per the review we highlighted yesterday, Jason Cipriani from Fortune loves his watch but found this as his major negative:

Although the watch’s apps are an amazing added feature they were far from perfect; third-party applications were unpredictably slow and I was often forced to wait for them (or Glances) to load during my first week with the product. Sometimes an app would launch in seconds ready for use, while other times I was left waiting upwards of a minute. Apple’s own native applications (such as Mail, Stocks, or Weather) always launched almost instantly.

As I said yesterday, a big part of this is the 3rd party app developer learning curve. Apps will get better, faster, more responsive as developers learn the tricks of the trade.

Also interesting:

The first few alerts pushed to my watch left me a bit perplexed. My iPhone screen was no longer lighting up as each message arrived, nor was there any sort of audible alert coming from my phone. It wasn’t until I unlocked my screen that notifications begin to pop up and I realized that instead of the iPhone and Apple Watch competing for your attention, alerts are only sent to the device you’re using at the time.

Makes sense.

So far, most reviews I’ve read come to the same conclusion: There are shortcomings (e.g., slow 3rd party apps), but the Apple Watch is beautifully designed and fun to use, makes the iPhone better.

CBC News:

To mark Star Wars Day, as May the 4th has come to be known, the carillon bells inside the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill rang out the Imperial March music for Star Wars, among other space-related tunes.

It was part of a 15-minute carillon concert with a space theme that began at noon.

The concert included the Star Wars theme by John Williams, arranged by Janet Dundore; Princess Leia’s Theme, arranged by Janet Dundore and Andrea McCrady; and The Imperial March, arranged by Andrea McCrady.

There’s nerdy and there’s cool. Rarely do the two intersect but this is definitely Nerd Cool.

When an app isn’t responding or working correctly, it might use more of the processor (CPU) than it should, even when the app doesn’t seem to be doing anything. As the CPU gets busier, it uses more energy, which reduces the length of time that your Mac can run on battery power. It also generates heat, which can cause the fans in your Mac to spin faster. 

I’ve used this from time to time to see if an app was dragging the system down.

I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, but obviously the people at Amazon are. They are selling everything from toys to dog outfits in the Star Wars theme.

As you design your Apple Watch app, understand the foundations on which Apple Watch itself was designed:

Some great information posted on Apple’s developer Web site.

A new and exciting website has recently been launched for web designers and developers.

You likely spend hours every morning browsing through hundreds of posts on your RSS feeds, hoping to stumble across relevant stories. Designer News was built to provide web designers and developers with a single location to discover the latest and most significant stories on the Web.

They search through hundreds of posts on blogs, social media, and news channels, to deliver the most essential stories of the day. The content covers quality news, fresh tools and apps, case studies, code demos, inspiration posts, videos and more.

With frequent updates throughout the day, you’ll always find something interesting and fun to read.

Click here to visit the Designer News website and subscribe to the newsletter for the latest stories of the day.

Luke Wroblewski explores a foundational lesson in interface design. In app layout, out of sight is out of mind. And that’s not a good thing. Great read.

Susie Ochs, Executive Editor for Macworld, gives her take on life with an Apple Watch. In her case, there’s plenty to like, but this is from the Things I hate about it section:

That brings me to my main complaint with the Apple Watch: Its poky performance. Since the lion’s share of the data it presents comes from your iPhone, be prepared for lags. Even scrolling around its face, the refresh rate seems a little laggy compared to what I’m used to (and spoiled with) on the iPhone and iPad. Location-based apps, like Maps and Weather, seem the slowest, as well as using third-party apps that pull data from apps I haven’t used on my iPhone for a while. The lagginess isn’t a deal-breaker, but it is a bummer. The watch is definitely the slowest Apple product I’ve used in years.

Poky performance will definitely get better as developers learn the subtleties of programming for a device that offloads much of its processing to, and gets much of its data from, the iPhone in your pocket.

I’ve spoken to a number of developers whose Apple Watch apps were incredibly slow, until they figured out the various techniques to speed performance and responsiveness. Developers who were lucky enough to get a chance to visit Apple’s Apple Watch lab and test their app on a real device, inevitably came away with some real insights and, more importantly, with a vastly improved app.

The point, early adopters, is this. The Apple Watch experience is going to improve, and pretty quickly. The performance problems pointed out in this review are software issues, not hardware issues. Meaning your Apple Watch will just get better over time, as developers learn the ins and outs of this new frontier.

Matt Gemmell noticed that his local Apple Store did not have any in-store seminars teaching blind or visually impaired people how to use Apple devices. The fix? He wrote this letter:

Hi there,

My name is Matt Gemmell, and I live about a mile from the Edinburgh (Princes St) Apple Store.

I’m a sighted person with an interest in accessibility technology for visually impaired people. I’ve given presentations at many conferences around the world on a variety of topics, including the VoiceOver screen-reader technology built into Macs, iOS devices, and now the Apple Watch.

I notice that you don’t seem to have any in-store seminars on how blind or visually impaired people can use Apple devices. I’m interested in presenting such a seminar, for anyone who wishes to attend, in the Princes St store. I’d create and present the seminar personally. You’d advertise it alongside your usual free workshops, let people sign up, and provide me with a place in the store to use for the presentation.

It would be solely about Apple devices and VoiceOver. I’d do it for free. No mention of any competing or third-party products or technologies, and no sales pitch from me. Just an opportunity for visually impaired people in the local community to learn how they can use these devices to increase their independence and participation.

Is that a possibility? And if so, what arrangements would need to be made?

Best,
-Matt

Where to send it? Turns out, every Apple Store has its own email address. As Matt notes in this tweet, you can pick up the address from any receipt you’ve gotten from that particular store.

I think this is a great idea. And Matt has given you the template in case you want to do this exact same thing (or a variant) yourself.

This is one idea that is definitely worth sharing. Nice job, Matt.

This is simply a fantastic read. Two people talking about fashion, but really talking about the things that make us human.

A few quotes, just to give you a taste. First, on what inspired Brunello to run his company the way he does, giving away 20% of all profits to charity, and paying his workers significantly more than the industry average:

From the teary eyes of my father. When we were living in the countryside, the atmosphere, the ambiance — life was good. We were just farmers, nothing special. Then he went to work in a factory. He was being humiliated and offended, and he was doing a hard job. He would not complain about the hardship or the tiny wages he received, but what he did say was, “What have I done evil to God to be subject to such humiliation?”Basically, what is human dignity made of? If we work together, say, and, even with one look, I make you understand that you are worth nothing and I look down on you, I have killed you. But if I give you regards and respect — out of esteem, responsibility is spawned. Then out of responsibility comes creativity, because every human being has an amount of genius in them. Man needs dignity even more than he needs bread.

And:

In this company, you cannot send emails after 5:30 PM, when the company closes for the evening. The day after, when you turn up for work, what are you like? You are a still person. You are better.I do not want to be liable for intruding into your private life. Saint Benedict said, “You should look after your mind to study every day, then your soul through praise,” which is basically speaking to yourself, praying. “Then work, through work.” But the abbot is the one who basically assigns all the work; he is responsible for you even after your death. I do not want to assign work to you where I feel responsible for ruining or altering your private life.

And:

My daughter refused to buy a pair of trousers for €19. Beautiful trousers. I said, “Why didn’t you buy them?” She said, “How much money do they think the worker actually made or was paid for that?”

This is a long, lovely, lazy Sunday read.

Source: https://kasynoonlinepolska.net/

Cable network Showtime is running a documentary called Elvis Costello: Mystery Dance. If you are at all an Elvis fan, this is worth watching. It’s not a classic documentary, in that it doesn’t tell Costello’s story as much as it assembles a lot of images, interviews, and performance clips, all of them enjoyable.

But there’s a lot of digging deep here, too. There’s a lot of Elvis sharing his feelings about music. There are some magic moments with musicians Costello admires, including some terrific scenes with Paul McCartney, who did some notable writing with Costello, including my absolute favorite, So Like Candy.

Here’s the trailer and the home page for Mystery Dance.

More importantly (at least to me), here’s a video of Elvis Costello performing So Like Candy on Saturday Night Live. This is some powerful songwriting. Listen for the excellent basswork by the sublime, and now sadly gone, T-Bone Wolk. Enjoy.

Techcrunch:

The idea behind Dufl is that frequent travelers waste a lot of time trying to clean and prep their clothes for each trip, especially when those trips are pretty much back-to-back. With Dufl, the user never has to pack a bag or clean their travel clothes ever again.

I’d hate to be such a frequent business traveller I’d need this kind of service but it does sound like a pretty cool idea and an example of a business that wouldn’t have been possible ten, maybe even five years ago.

Mapbox:

The Geotaggers’ World Atlas is my long-term project to discover the world’s most interesting places and the routes that people follow between them. Five years ago I first started retrieving photo locations from the Flickr search API and drawing lines between them to make the first version of the Atlas.

Today I’m able to launch the full Geotaggers’ World Atlas covering every city in the world. Thanks to Flickr’s API, it exposes over 10 years of photo locations, and as a web map it lets you explore not just the largest centers of activity but also their context, anywhere on earth.

As an exercise in coding, this is interesting. As a visualization of data, it’s utterly fascinating. The only downside is the interactive map doesn’t have details like street names so it may be hard to find out what is so fascinating about that particular location but look up your own city on the map and see if you can spot “the most interesting places”.

Remarkably original Samsung marketing effort pointed out by Rene Ritchie at iMore. First watch this:

Then watch Samsung’s newly released commercial:

At first blush, this looks like a parody, but there’s only one proper Jony Ive parody and this ain’t it.

Shameless.

Pictures and videos in this update. The scale of this project is just unreal.

Mathew Ingram:

The idea that someone could monetize Twitter before Twitter itself got around to doing so was what one investor called a “holy shit moment” for the company.

I wonder what would have happened if Twitter embraced the third-parties years ago.

Thanks to HelloTalk for sponsoring The Loop this week. Finally, learning and practicing a new language is easier and more intuitive than ever before. Introducing HelloTalk, the language app where your teachers are native language speakers from around the world. You just pick the language you want to learn—there are over 100 from which to select—and almost instantaneously you’ll be in touch with native speakers of that language … and you’ll start learning and practicing immediately.

HelloTalk isn’t a course you strictly follow; rather, you learn and practice at your pace and in the manner that best meets the way you learn. Practice foreign languages with people around the world. Simultaneously speak and type the language you’re learning. Record your voice before speaking to your HelloTalk friends and compare your recording to standard pronunciations. Change your friends’ audio messages to text for better understanding, and receive help to improve your grammar. Easily translate whenever you don’t understand, and so much more.

With HelloTalk, you’ll discover learning a new language is fun … and fast. Download your copy for iPhone or Android today.

Jim and Dan talk about the Apple’s record second quarter results, the Apple Watch’s issue with tattooed skin, and more.

Sponsored by MetaCDN (Use the code ‘5by5’ for a 10% discount for life) and Macminicolo (Get a full year of hosting for just $100).

The company updated its Apple Watch heart rate support page, noting that tattoos could affect the watch’s ability to read your heart rate.

[Via 9 to 5 Mac]

A new Apple support article covers the steps needed to unpair your watch. Might be handy to bookmark for the future, although it’s easy to find in the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.

Some great thoughts, although using it must of been kind of freaky.

Shares of LinkedIn Corp, operator of the most popular social network for professionals, fell 20 percent in early trading on Friday, wiping out more than $6 billion of market value, after the company slashed its full-year forecast.

LinkedIn reported on Thursday its slowest quarterly revenue growth since it went public four years ago.

The surprisingly weak results followed Twitter Inc’s on Tuesday. Twitter’s stock fell by as much as 24 percent, slicing about $6 billion off its market value.

Social media companies are a bit to volatile for me.

The National Post:

Backed by the Quebec justice system and the provincial police, sheriffs have raided sugar shacks down country roads and seized barrels of maple syrup, using trucks and front-end loaders. The federation’s goal: enforcing a supply management system that controls the sale and proceeds of maple syrup in Quebec.

“They have more power than police,” says Daniel Gaudreau, a syrup producer in Scotstown, Que. “They can come into my house anytime they want.”

Quebec is the Saudi Arabia of maple syrup.

We have written about this issue in the past but this story really brings home the enormous power of the The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers – power that looks, on the surface, out of control.