Guitarists are always looking for great tones. AMPLIFi is a Bluetooth speaker and guitar amp in one. Now, with AMPLIFi Remote for Apple Watch, you can pick your favorite guitar sound right from your wrist. And when it’s time to tune up, you’ll see which note you’re playing and whether it’s sharp, flat, or in tune.

I can’t wait to try this out.

This is a big step forward, though the battery can currently produce only 2v (lithium ion batteries typically produce about 4v).

[Stanford Chemistry professor Hongjie Dai] believes overcoming this problem is not impossible. “Improving the cathode material could eventually increase the voltage and energy density,” he said.

This is promising. This battery tech is malleable, meaning a better fit for non-rectangular devices, yielding longer life and lighter batteries.

Aluminium!

Apple Insider lays out the details on this Financial Times post [Paywall].

The Financial Times said that the developers are “handpicked” by Apple, and under surveillance by security guards while they work. To prevent photos of the labs from emerging, participants are asked to cover up the cameras on their iPhones. Each person is required to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Developing for the Apple Watch without an actual watch to test on is a challenge. There are a limited number of watches in the wild, certainly not enough to seed all the developers with projects in the works. Visiting the lab is the next best thing if you want to get your app in the store for opening day.

Tim Cook, in a memo to employees:

I know that many of you have been looking forward to choosing an Apple Watch for yourselves, and we want to make it easy for you. Starting Friday, in countries where the watch is available for pre-order, a special Employee Purchase Plan will offer a 50% discount on any Apple Watch or Apple Watch Sport for your personal use.

As we introduce the watch in more countries, the special pricing for employees will be offered in those countries as well. Discounts will begin at pre-order and last for 90 days after availability. AppleWeb has more details, so I invite you to check it out.

This strikes me as a top notch idea. Spread the love, spread the word. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple Store employees are wearing the Apple Watch on Friday.

The entire collection is available for preorder now. Choose carefully, Padawan.

Will you start with A New Hope? Buy them all at once? Or resurrect your “Han shot first” Super 8 copy instead?

Let the trailer watching begin!

Good letter. Much better than the drivel Ballmer wrote.

Perfect for webcasting, podcasting, gaming and music production, the AG03 and AG06 hybrid mixing consoles/USB interfaces have unique features that make your computer-based audio tasks easier and better. The AG Series offers high-resolution (24-bit/192kHz) audio recording and playback, iOS compatibility and battery operation.

The intuitive “TO PC” switch allows users to route selected inputs back to a desktop or iOS device. The “Dry CH 1-2” allows computer or iOS recording of inputs 1 and 2, while the “INPUT MIX” switch routes all inputs to the computer or iOS device via USB for music production applications. The “LOOPBACK” switch routes all inputs to the stereo USB output along with the USB input from the computer — perfect for podcasters.

Gamers will appreciate the headset/mic interface and direct hardware control of game and voice level, perfect for adding professional audio to videos or TwitchTV broadcasts.

The AG series “1-TOUCH” effects utilize programmable digital signal processing like Reverb, Compression, EQ and even Amp Simulation, adding the final professional stroke to your music productions.

This could be a handy document to bookmark.

Not so funny now, is it Samsung.

This is pretty damn funny.

A thoughtful piece by independent developer Allen Pike on the best way to move the mountain that is Apple. Consider this quote from Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines:

If your App is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps.

So what’s an indie developer to do? What’s the best way to affect change? An interesting read.

[via iOS Dev Weekly]

Follow the link, read the text (it’s a quote from Becoming Steve Jobs), then think about the moxy it took for a 22 year old to stand in front of the world of grownups and tell them about the future.

Apple added four Apple Watch guided tour videos to its web site: Welcome to Apple Watch, Messages, Faces, and Digital Touch.

Disabled placeholders for future videos include Phone Calls, Siri, Maps, Music, Apple Pay, Activity, and Workout. [Via iHeartApple2]

According to the Apple Store front page, Apple Watch pre-orders start on April 10th (this Friday) at 12:01 a.m. PDT. Which really means late Thursday night, just after midnight California time.

Reuters:

Apple is not able to launch its new smartwatch in Switzerland until at least the end of this year because of an intellectual property rights issue, Swiss broadcaster RTS reported on its website.

The U.S. tech giant cannot use the image of an apple nor the word “apple” to launch its watch within Switzerland, the home of luxury watches, because of a patent from 1985, RTS reported, citing a document from the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property.

The document, reprinted on the RTS website, was published by trade magazine Business Montres & Joaillerie, RTS said.

The patent is set to finish on Dec. 5 of this year. It currently belongs to William Longe, who owns watch brand Leonard that first filed the patent.

Given the short shelf life of this trademark, I imagine it wouldn’t take much money to make this go away.

Update: As pointed out in the comments, this is a trademark issue, not a patent issue. If you are interested in the details and happen to speak French, here’s a link to the original article which has the legal document embedded within.

This is a lovely bit of analysis on Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney and their respective approaches to soccer. My favorite bit (on Messi):

One freezing night this January, I was sitting in the Camp Nou with a Barcelona official, watching Barca-Atletico Madrid in the Spanish Cup. When the game kicked off, the official said, “Watch Messi.”

It was a puzzling sight. The little man was wandering around, apparently ignoring the ball. The official explained: “In the first few minutes he just walks across the field. He is looking at each opponent, where the guy positions himself, and how their defense fits together. Only after doing that does he start to play.”

Remarkably, even unbelievably, Messi has never scored in the first two minutes of a match. And that’s why. He’s thinking, plotting, planning.

[Via Kottke.org]

Aaron Douglas, writing for his blog The Dangling Pointer:

Apple introduced the ability to record the screens of iOS 8 devices with QuickTime Player in Mac OS X Yosemite. You may have already been familiar with the ability to do a screen recording with QuickTime but now those screens includes any of the iOS 8 devices you have connected with a cable.

Follow the instructions. It’s pretty straightforward.

One more thing:

Notice that Apple took the time to replace your device’s status bar with one being carrier-free and fixed at 9:41am.

This is a Steve Jobs homage. Brilliant.

This is a pretty amazing image. No spoilers, just follow the link and see what you might miss if you are too immersed in Trivia Crack.

This multimedia piece from the Washington Post takes you on an immersive journey from sea level, up to Kathmandu, to the airport, then through the arduous climb from base camp to base camp to reach the most storied summit on the planet.

And if you enjoy this experience, consider reading Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer’s epic personal recounting of a harrowing quest for the summit and one of my favorite books of all time.

That all changed back in June when Lanier started playing around with an iPad with the help of her tutor Morgan Tyner.

“The first thing she said was “hi, thank you for releasing my voice”, and there was something about the power of being able to express her voice, her thoughts. It’s really priceless” says Morgan and the next thing Lanier typed out was “Tell my mother I love her.”

According to Leslie “I have never heard her say I love you and later that same day she wrote, tell my dad I love him and that he’s my hero.”

If this doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, nothing will.

My thanks to SnapPower for sponsoring The Loop this week. SnapPower’s Charger — the power outlet cover plate that your home should’ve been built with. A no-hassle, wire-free install that takes just seconds. A flush, 1-amp USB charging port for smartphones, phablets, and tablets. An unbridled sense of joy from never having to hunt for a wall wart ever again. Available now on Kickstarter.

If you are building an app, you are going to want to build an app trailer, a video that tells your app’s story, that quickly convinces a potential user to quit stalling and click the Get/Buy link.

Lots of thoughtful advice here. One piece in particular that clicked for me:

You’ve probably seen YouTube pre-roll ads before. At the bottom-right, there’s a “Skip in 5… 4…” button that acts as gatekeeper until the timer hits zero. For mediocre ads, this wait time is excruciating. Every once in a while, you might run across a commercial that’s so interesting, so weird, so mysterious… you just have to keep watching.

The people who made these commercials knew they were battling the 5-second skip countdown, and you should think the same way. The rule of TV and YouTube ads definitely apply to app trailers: whatever you make, it needs a strong hook within the first 5 to 10 seconds.

Your app trailer is your elevator pitch. You have a limited amount of time to convince your potential user, so focus on quickly laying out the benefits of your app, or else make video so compelling that they’ll keep watching through to the end.

Jillian Steinhauer, writing for HyperAllergic:

You may recall that last month, when actor Leonard Nimoy died, Canadians went into a frenzy “spocking” their $5 bills — aka drawing on the banknotes in order to turn former Canadian prime minister Wilfrid Laurier into Spock. When I was editing our story about the phenomenon, I discovered something curious: you can’t Photoshop money.

Fascinating.

Matt Stopera’s iPhone was stolen in a bar in New York City. What follows is a crazy story that ends up with him tracking his iPhone to somewhere in China, then making the trip out there to meet the new “owner”. Along the way, Matt becomes a bit of a celebrity in China. Fun read.

Plenty of ways to transfer files between computers, but thought this approach was worth knowing about: Dan Moren, writing for Six Colors, walks you through the process of direct file transfer using IP via Thunderbolt cable.

Update: An excellent suggestion from reader James McDaniel:

I’ve never bothered with the whole afp://use.this.ip.address thing. I just turn OFF the wifi on my laptop, then plug in the Thunderbolt cable. The laptop shows up in the Shared section on the left of a Finder window as normal, and the file transfer has no choice but to go through Thunderbolt because it’s the only available connection. After the file transfer is done, I eject the laptop, unplug the cable, then turn wifi back on.

As Dan Moren points out, this approach will kill your internet connection, but good to know the option exists. File that one under, “it just works”.

Back in 1983, before the launch of the original Macintosh, Steve Jobs gave an incredibly prescient speech. In part, he said:

Apple’s strategy is really simple. What we want to do is we want to put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you and learn how to use in 20 minutes … and we really want to do it with a radio link in it so you don’t have to hook up to anything and you’re in communication with all of these larger databases and other computers.

Five years ago today, that dream came true with the launch of the original iPad. Rene Ritchie, writing for iMore, takes a look back at the iPad launch, first impressions, and impact.

Liz Gannes:

A who’s who of leaders from companies such as Yelp, Square, Twitter, Lyft, Airbnb, eBay, PayPal and others signed their names to a petition today urging legislatures to forbid discrimination or denial of services to anyone, saying, “Discrimination is bad for business.” Petition leader Max Levchin, a PayPal co-founder and currently CEO of finance startup Affirm, told Re/code: “I am asking all CEOs to evaluate their relationships and investments in states that do not specifically protect LGBT people from discrimination.”

That’s great and even admirable, except that here on the home front, Silicon Valley has its own very obvious discrimination problems. Gender is a big one. Race is another.

Good read.

After successfully introducing a vending machine that dispensed MacBooks for 24-hour student use, Drexel University in collaboration with the Free Library of Philadelphia is introducing an iPad vending machine. Located in the University’s Dana and David Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships, the kiosk will make a dozen iPads available to local residents and Drexel students.

I love seeing organizations using iPad in unique ways. This is a great program.