This is just full of awesome. More great work from Donovan at CSS Animation.

The dates are now confirmed. I’ll be attending AltConf too.

Andy Hertzfeld:

I suspect that Steve Jobs would not be thrilled with Becoming Steve Jobs, a new business biography by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli. While it’s a worthwhile book filled with previously unheard stories and insightful industry analysis, Steve would have disliked it because of the persistent negative spin it applies to the first half of his career.

That’s why it’s puzzling to see Apple throw their considerable weight behind it.

Interesting comments from Hertzfeld, a guy who was there in the beginning. While he acknowledges his own biases, he does bring up some interesting questions about the descriptions of the early part of the book, the lack of interviews of the people involved in those early days and why Apple threw considerable weight behind this book.

He does say the book is interesting and still worth a read. Like most biographies, it takes several versions and editions to get a complete picture of the subject and even then, you are looking through a foggy window to do so.

The Defiant Tour Documentary is a never before examination of the finances of a touring band and what it takes to go on the road.

We’ve all seen big bands show up to gigs in their limos, but what does it take for an indie band to tour the U.S.? LoNero wants to show you with this new documentary. I’m supporting this one.

Om Malik:

What blew me away was the exceptional attention to detail. The way you can slide the bands on and off from the watch is smooth and slick. And you don’t need any special tools: A tiny bit of pressure does the job, and the sliding has the smoothness of silk.

It’s interesting that some of Om’s thoughts completely contradict Mike Rundle’s thoughts, which we posted earlier today. This truly is a personal product.

Apogee’s MetaRecorder is the first two-channel audio recording app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch to offer intuitive multi-take recording, tagging and file organization for any field recording scenario.

Nice.

Under the tagline, “The epicenter of change”:

Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. June 8-12, San Francisco.

Apple’s renowned developer community will come together at WWDC to learn about the future of iOS and OS X.

WWDC features more than 100 technical sessions, over 1,000 Apple engineers, hands-on labs, and the Apple Design Awards.

Developers can apply for tickets to attend WWDC and millions worldwide will be able to watch sessions streamed live.

WWDC Scholarships are available to students and members of participating STEM organizations around the world.

As to tickets:

The opportunity to buy tickets to WWDC 2015 will be offered by random selection. Register by Friday, April 17, 10:00 a.m. PDT for your chance to attend. We will let you know your status by Monday, April 20, 5:00 p.m. PDT.

May the RNG gods be with you (good luck in the ticket lottery).

Traditional watch expert Rani McSpeddon spent a week with a prerelease Apple Watch. Follow this link and watch his video take or follow this link for a more detailed written review.

Mike Rundle tried on an Apple Watch and came away with three disappointments:

• The Apple Watch is smaller than he expected
• He didn’t like the leather band
• He thought the screen was not as bright/responsive as he had hoped

I think Mike is a smart guy, has deep Apple cred, and lays out his complaints with great logic.

That said, I would read his piece, but I would not let these points stop you from checking out Apple Watch for yourself. That’d be like letting IMDB make all your movie watching decisions. Read his review, keep those points in mind, then make an appointment to check the Apple Watch out for yourself.

SpaceX is taking another kick at the can, launching a multi-stage rocket into orbit, with the intent, after separation, of landing the first stage on a drone platform in the Atlantic Ocean.

If SpaceX can succeed here, this effort will change the nature of space travel. A reusable rocket will cut the cost of a launch from $200 million to about $50 million.

This is both delicious and a little creepy. Siri talk/sings your favorites (or at least 3 of someone’s favorites, with promises of more to come).

[Via iHeartApple2]

If you are brand new to HTML and web development and want an easy introduction, this free eBook is worth a look. It is well written, uses lots of pictures, and the price is right. Did I mention that it is free?

I can’t comment on the book’s technical accuracy, so keep an eye on the comments. If there are major flaws here, I suspect our readers will suss them out.

Apple put together this pretty detailed product support page for the new MacBook USB-C port and the associated adapters.

Note that the MacBook is referred to as MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2015).

From IBM’s press release:

IBM today announced its Health Cloud and Watson cognitive computing capabilities will support health data entered by customers in iOS apps using Apple’s ResearchKit and HealthKit frameworks. The move, which complements IBM’s new Watson Health business unit, will arm medical researchers with a secure, open data storage solution, as well as access to IBM’s most sophisticated data analytics capabilities.

And:

Apple’s HealthKit enables developers to create consumer health apps designed to give users a more comprehensive way to manage their health and fitness, and ResearchKit is an open source software framework that gives medical researchers the tools to accelerate medical studies. HealthKit can be used to create apps that monitor health behaviors and help encourage users to adhere to their treatment plan. Participants who opt-in to apps using ResearchKit can also contribute their health information to medical research/science/medicine.

IBM will de-identify and store health data in a secure, scalable cloud system that enables researchers to access and share data in an open ecosystem environment, as well as have access to IBM’s data-mining and predictive analytics capabilities. Health and fitness app developers and medical researchers will be able to draw on data at a scale that until now has never been available. For apps using HealthKit and ResearchKit, IBM will provide a delivery platform through Health Cloud to easily store, aggregate and model data, combining it with other data sources and types to enrich research findings and identify the next frontiers of medical discovery.

This is a perfect partnership. Apple puts products in people’s hands to help gather the health data, then IBM steps in with analytics via Watson.

Interesting use of the word de-identify. I’ve not heard that word before, but from context I assume that means IBM will strip out all identifying information from the health data. That’s a tough thing to do. There are the obvious things like name and ID, but sometimes the health data itself can be used to identify someone. The combination of traits can act like biometric markers, in a manner similar to fingerprints. Data miners long ago figured out how to reverse engineer a specific set of browser habits into a specific identity, all without an IP address.

Not a complaint or worry, just an observation.

I don’t see how you can go wrong here.

Apple:

Ad-injection software is advertising-supported software that can come from third-party download sites. Software that you download from such sites may have been customized to install both the software you want and the ad-injection software. If your Mac has ad-injection software installed, you might see pop-up windows, ads, and graphics while surfing the web, even if “Block pop-up windows” is selected in Safari preferences. Ad-injection software might also change your homepage and preferred search engine.

Use these instructions to uninstall or remove ad-injection software—sometimes called adware.

These are step by step instructions from Apple on how to remove this garbage. It’s a little involved and fidgety but worth it if you or someone you know has this issue. I also use the donationware software, AdwareMedic, periodically to ensure I remain adware free.

Looking for a special gift for that mega Apple enthusiast in your life? How about the newest edition of an absolutely stunning coffee table book that features lush, beautiful photographs of Apple devices? ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation is Iconic uses vivid color and detail to document Apple’s journey in design, form and function—and looks back at over 35 years of Apple innovation. Four years in the making, the author captured over 150,000 photos of nearly every product Apple has made, including rare prototypes and even packaging. With a foreword from Steve Wozniak and The Loop’s own Jim Dalrymple and hundreds of amazing quotes from other Apple pundits—ICONIC is the ultimate coffee table book for every Apple fan, and the perfect gift for any Apple owner who ever wanted to explore and discover the true roots of their favorite iMac, iPod, iPad, or iPhone. With free global shipping, see the different editions and use the coupon code THELOOP on checkout for 10% discount.

Jim’s Note: In addition to writing the foreword for this book, I also own two and love them!

I was having lunch with a friend the other day and we were comparing phones. I have an iPhone 6, he an iPhone 6 Plus. We both agonized over the buying decision, worried about things like extra size vs pocket convenience. Bottom line, we went in opposite directions. I’m now rethinking that decision, considering moving to the iPhone 6 Plus.

My friend passed along the linked article, a blog post from Marco Arment detailing his thoughts on making that same move. If you are wrestling with this issue, either considering a move from one to the other or considering which upgrade path to take from a smaller phone or an Android device, Marco’s post is well worth the read.

As to me, I’m going to make the move. Just waiting for my wife to get sick of her iPhone 5 so we can play the trading game. New iPhone 6 Plus for me, my slightly used iPhone 6 for her.

Back in 2013, a company called Personal Audio LLC filed lawsuits against three large podcasting companies: How Stuff Works, TogiEntertainment, Inc., and ACE Broadcasting. They also are said to have sent letters to smaller individual podcasters, like Marc Maron, producer of WTF.

Today should be a happy day for the podcasting industry, as a major ruling dealt a setback to Personal Audio’s ability to demand fees from podcasters.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation had petitioned for a review of the patent in question after raising more than $76,000 from the public via a crowd-funding campaign to cover its legal costs.

It said that Personal Audio should never have been given ownership rights to a way to create an updateable electronic table of contents.

The US Patent Office has now invalidated critical parts of related intellectual property rights it had previously granted to Personal Audio in 2012.

Here’s a link to the EFF press release.

And here’s Marc Maron’s tweeted response to the news.

[Hat tip to Rob Richman]

Pop the band off your Apple Watch and you’ll see a diagnostic port.

Here’s an excellent picture of the covered port, in a tweet posted by John Gruber.

There was some speculation that this port would be removed from the retail version of the Apple Watch, but clearly it’s still there.

There is also some speculation that Apple will open the port to accessory makers at some point. One thought that immediately came to mind when I read that was a battery band. Imagine a watch band that was all battery, giving you several days worth of power without the need for a recharge. That is pure speculation on my part, but you are welcome to repeat it as fact if you like.

Rene Ritchie, writing for iMore, takes you on a tour through the Force Click preferences. If you are even thinking about ordering a new MacBook, this is worth a look. If nothing else, it is sure to whet your appetite.

Apple’s newly introduced MacBook includes a Force Touch trackpad which not only detects a click, but can tell how much force you put into that click.

Here’s a link to Apple’s official MacBook page, with their take on Force Touch:

With the new MacBook comes a whole new way to experience a trackpad. The Force Touch trackpad is engineered to deliver a responsive, uniform click no matter where you press the surface. And underneath, force sensors detect how much pressure you’re applying and give you new ways to interact with your Mac. You can now use a Force click to enable new capabilities, like quickly looking up the definition of a word or previewing a file just by clicking and continuing to press on the trackpad.

The demos I’ve seen so far have done a fine job of showing off the basics of Force Touch, but there’s so much more to this technology. How about building a simple analog meter, with a super sensitive needle that tracks the Force you are applying to the Force Touch trackpad?

The ForceGuage would be easy to build and really give a sense of how much force you are applying at any given moment. It would also give a sense of how little latency is involved, how quickly the trackpad responds to changes in Force. As a side benefit, it might make for an excellent chunk of sample code for developers who want to add Force Touch to their own projects.

The Force Touch trackpad also includes haptic feedback:

You’ll also experience haptic feedback — a tactile vibration from the trackpad that adds the sense of touch to what you see on the screen.

The meter could include thresholds (moving from the black to the red in the linked video, for example). The trackpad could offer haptic feedback when you press hard enough to pass from one threshold to the next.

I think we’ve barely scratched the surface of what Force Touch can bring. Our existing world is binary: The track pad is clicked or not. The Force Touch trackpad is continuous, with a value based on how hard you press. This is like moving from 2D to 3D, opening up a world of possibility.

It’s not hard to imagine Force Touch coming to a future generation of iOS device. What a unifying moment that would be, bringing all Apple devices together under the Force Touch umbrella.

Monday Note:

As the first wave of Apple Watch reviews shows, waiting for impressions to settle down isn’t part of the Product Review genre. The psychoactive toxicity of Apple product launches that I made fun of two weeks ago is in full display as reviewers climb to the rooftops in a race for income-producing pageviews.

There’s no doubt that “page view journalism” has taken its toll on, at the very least, reviews of Apple’s products.

I love the Rob Lowe ads. I think they are satirical, funny without being truly mean. They capture the spirit of the Mac vs PC ads of a generation ago.

Following a Comcast (CMCSA) complaint, the Better Business Bureau this week recommended that DirecTV (DTV) discontinue its hilarious ad campaign featuring actor Rob Lowe, because the satellite TV company couldn’t substantiate many of the claims made in the commercials.

DirecTV clams in the spots that its service gets 99% signal reliability, up to 1080p HD programming, better picture and sound quality than cable, more sports programming than its rivals and shorter customer service wait times than its cable competitors. It also said it was rated No. 1 in customer satisfaction.

The Better Business Bureau has no real teeth here. But they do have pull. So their opinion does matter. Ultimately, it’d be up to the FTC to force DirecTV’s hand.

As to Rob Lowe, he tweeted this:

Recent events have underlined my belief that for something to be truly original, funny and subversive, there must also be fallout. #Life

You know the drill. You pull out your headphones and you spend five minutes untangling them. Something magical happens when you put a carefully folded pair of headphones in your pocket. And not the good kind of magic.

One product born of this problem is the Cordskinz earbuds wrap. Rather than wrap around a set of folded cords, the Cordskinz are tubes that you slide around the wires between the headphone neck and the yoke (the point where two wires become one).

I’ve been using Cordskinz for a couple of weeks now and they do indeed solve the problem. I rarely spend more than a second or two to get from the pocket bundle to completely unwrapped and ready to go. The secret is the stiffness of the tubes. They tend to keep the headphone wires in position in your pocket. As you reach in your pocket for other things, you don’t tend to slide the headphones to new positions, a prime reason for tangles.

So how do you get the Cordskinz onto your headphones? In a nutshell, you take one of the tubes in the kit, cut it to size (you’ll cut it into two lengths if your earbuds have a mic, one between the mic and your ear, one between the mic and the yoke), then use the provided doohickey (technical term) to slide the tube into place.

It really is ingenious. Watch the video to get a sense of how this works.

Macworld:

Popcorn Time for iOS tries to offer a version of sideloading, but there are far too many pieces of its process to worry about. Further, it’s not likely to be reliably available.

It’s unimaginable that Apple would ever allow something like Popcorn Time in the App Store. It’s also inadvisable by any standard to install software like it through the method the developers provide.

Leaving aside the legality of this app, the process you have to go through in order to install it makes it a non-starter for me.

iMore:

Photo editing app Snapseed gets its first major update since 2013 with version 2.0, adding a number of new editing tools to help you get the most out of your photos.

Snapseed is my favourite iOS editing app and it’s free. The interface has changed significantly but it’s not awful. If you’ve used previous versions, you’ll get the hang of this new UI fairly quickly. If you’ve never used it, you really should. It’s easy to figure out. Every photo I take on my iPhone gets passed through Snapseed.

I spent some time today talking to TechCrunch’s Darrell Etherington about Apple Watch and the 12-inch MacBook.

Samsung talking about Apple releasing the Apple Watch:

“It’s with great delight that Apple has followed us into that market.”

It’s like that company doesn’t know when to shut the hell up.