In the first episode of “Behind the App”, a special series of Inquisitive, we take a look at the beginnings of iOS app development, by focusing on the introduction of the iPhone and the App Store.

Congrats to my friend, Myke Hurley, on his new show.

This pretty much marked the end of The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Over a series of late October days, camera operators working on an episode of ABC’s “Modern Family” set aside their typical high-definition videocameras and picked up iPhones. The command “Action!” was followed by a tap of that familiar red button on the device’s small video screen.

The result, which will be shown next Wednesday, Feb. 25, is an episode shot almost exclusively on mobile devices, an approximation of the way that many actual modern American families (of a certain class) communicate today.

This is truly amazing. Not just that it’s being shot with iPhones, many filmmakers are doing that, but that such a popular show has that much confidence in the quality and capabilities of an iPhone.

“I think somebody is kind of trying to cough up a hairball here,” Akerson said in a telephone interview. “If I were an Apple shareholder, I wouldn’t be very happy. I would be highly suspect of the long-term prospect of getting into a low-margin, heavy-manufacturing” business.

Recognizing that this is merely a rumor, I have two thoughts here: First, Apple is aware of all of this. Second, it’s Apple—they were probably warned against making a phone too, but they did it. Apple is going to enter markets it believes it can dominate in some fashion—markets that need changing and where they can break the status quo.

Good rundown of apps and audio interfaces for iOS devices from Charlie Sorrel. I’ve used most of these at one time or another over the last few years.

A scathing critique of Michael Bromwich, the lawyer overseeing Apple after it lost an iBooks antitrust lawsuit, alleges that he has unfairly billed the company some $2.65 million for investigative practices that have gone well beyond the initial intent of his role.

This is just awful.

Macworld:

DiskWarrior does one thing, and does it well: it optimizes and repairs disk directories, which contain the information that tells your Mac where files are stored on the disks attached to it. If directories become corrupted, you can lose files. While your data may still be on a disk, the Mac is no longer capable of finding it. DiskWarrior works both as preventive medicine—to fix errors before they become serious—and to correct more serious errors and help recover files when things get really bad.

I am no longer a professional Mac Consultant but, when I was, DiskWarrior was an indispensable tool. I still highly recommend it.

EngageCustomer.com:

France, Germany and Spain all favour Apple devices when opening emails. 47% of emails in France are opened on an Apple device, 46% in Germany and 47% in Spain. Italy, in contrast, saw a decrease of 44% year-on-year in the use of iPhones to read emails. Yet Apple products remain the most used in Italy overall with 50% of emails opened on an Apple device, including a 15% increase in the use of iPad.

Even more remarkably:

Email open rates on Android devices dropped 30% year-on-year while total opens on iPads and iPhones increased by 18% and 5% respectively.

[Hat tip to Stu Mark]

Wall Street Journal:

Apple is gearing up for a strong start. People familiar with the matter said the company is asking suppliers in Asia to make five million to six million Apple Watches in the first quarter.

First quarter translates to this April through the end of June. If these numbers are correct, supply shouldn’t be an issue unless Apple sells many, many boatloads of Apple Watch.

ABI Research estimates that Apple will sell 11.8 million Apple Watches in 2015, accounting for nearly half of all wearable devices, including fitness trackers and non-Android smartwatches.

“People have left the door open for Apple. The others haven’t done a great job here yet,” said Nick Spencer, an analyst at ABI Research.

Amen to that last bit. None of the current crop knocks me out design-wise. Add to that the simple fact that no other watch will have access to the Apple Watch APIs and iOS ecosystem. No other watch will be able to play in this space.

When Apple Inc. started developing its smartwatch, executives envisioned a state-of-the-art health-monitoring device that could measure blood pressure, heart activity and stress levels, among other things, according to people familiar with the matter.

But none of those technologies made it into the much-anticipated Apple Watch, due in April. Some didn’t work reliably. Others proved too complex. And still others could have prompted unwanted regulatory oversight, these people said.

We are about to enter into the same universe of planned obsolescence as the iPhone. Unlike a traditional watch, the Apple Watch will have a shelf life. Just like the iPhone, the hardware will age as miniaturization makes its way into new areas and new components/sensors become available. The hardware will become less performant as the OS itself matures, evolves, takes advantage of new hardware.

At the same time, the healthcare industry will evolve to embrace the brave new world of wearable sensors. The logjam here (at least in the US) is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). HIPAA is there to protect privacy, prevent fraud. HIPAA is necessary, but is a wall that sits between your watch/phone and your doctor.

As both sides evolve, more and more of the sensors that currently sit in your doctor’s office will make their way into your pocket and your wrist. Ultimately, this means that each successive generation of Apple Watch will render previous generations obsolete. And that fact is yet another of the many factors that distinguishes the Apple Watch from traditional timepieces.

Racked:

It’s pure arrogance for Silicon Valley to imagine that it can make wearables cool by hiring a few fashion people, putting the product on a runway, or throwing money at “collaborations” with brands. This is a new game they’re trying to play, one with different rules. The rollout of the Apple Watch would look much different if it were orchestrated by a brand like Chanel. Instead of being released at $350, it would hit stores with a price tag in the thousands. Consumers would clamor to get their hands on one, only to be stymied by limited runs, which would further stoke desire. Only after a few years of artificial scarcity would it enjoy wider release.

I have the fashion sense of a hobo so I have no idea if this piece is an accurate portrayal or not but it is an interesting take on the subject.

Screens is a beautiful, yet powerful VNC client for iOS and Mac that lets you connect back to your computer from the comfort of your living room, the corner coffee shop or anywhere in the world.

Until the end of the month, we’re happy to offer 20% off Screens for Mac to the readers of The Loop. Simply use this link to save!

Jim’s Note: I’ve used Screens for Mac and iOS since they were first released. I love them both.

You might know most of these, but chances are you don’t know all of them. I didn’t.

My favorite:

Most people probably type a number or a symbol by tapping the 123 button, tapping the number or symbol you want to type, and then tapping 123 again to go back to the letter keyboard. But there’s a much faster way. Instead, touch the 123 key and hold your finger down on the screen. Without lifting your finger, move it to the symbol or number you want to type and then lift it from the screen.

This trick also works for the Shift key — touch your finger to the Shift key, move it to a letter, and you’ll quickly get the appropriate capital letter.

Nice!

Dan Thorp-Lancaster, writing for iMore:

Good news for people wanting to use Apple’s productivity software: starting tonight, anyone, with or without a Mac or iOS device, will be able to create an Apple ID and sign in to the iCloud beta website to start using Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for free.

When users visit beta.icloud.com, they will be presented with a banner at the top of the page prompting them to create an Apple ID. Afterwards, in addition to gaining access to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, the free accounts will also grant 1GB of free cloud storage to users.

Great idea. This brings people outside the ecosystem into the fold, adds them to the Apple ID rolls, expands the base of iWork users.

Jean-Louis Gassée, writing for Monday Note:

Yes, Apple has plenty of money, but the century-old auto industry doesn’t seem like a good way to make more of it. Ford, the healthiest US car company, made $835M in net income last quarter, less than 4% of their $34B in sales. Compare that number to Apple’s record-breaking $18B profit. Tesla, Apple’s supposed rival in the fantasy blogs, pulled in a little less than $1B last quarter, and it lost about 10% of that. There isn’t an inkling of an explanation for why and how a superior product designed and built by Apple would bring superior returns.

And:

Apple’s life today is relatively simple. It sells small devices that are easily transported back to the point of sale for service if needed. No brake lines to flush, no heavy and expensive batteries and cooling systems, no overseeing the installation and maintenance of home and public chargers. And consider the trouble Tesla faces with entrenched auto dealers who oppose Tesla selling cars directly in some states. Apple doesn’t need these headaches.

Fair points, both. An Apple based on small, portable products is a winning formula. Manufacturing heavy, durable goods would certainly be a lengthy stride outside the ecosystem.

This long form New Yorker piece explores, side-by-side with Sir Jony, the past present and future of Apple. There’s plenty to process. Like this:

At Jobs’s memorial, which was held on the lawn at Infinite Loop, Ive said, “Steve used to say to me—and he used to say this a lot—‘Hey, Jony, here’s a dopey idea.’ And sometimes they were: really dopey. Sometimes they were truly dreadful. But sometimes they took the air from the room, and they left us both completely silent. Bold, crazy, magnificent ideas. Or quiet, simple ones which, in their subtlety, their detail, they were utterly profound.” Ive said to me, “I couldn’t be more mindful of him. How could I not, given our personal relationship, and given that I’m still designing in the same place, at the same table, where I spent the last fifteen years with him sat next to me?”

And:

If Jobs and Ive had a father-son dynamic, Ive and Cook seem like respectful cousins.

And:

“The job of the designer is to try to imagine what the world is going to be like in five or ten years,” Newson told me. “You’re thinking, What are people going to need?” In 2011, largely thanks to advances in the miniaturization of technology, the answer seemed to be a wearable notification device paired to a phone—making it yet simpler to exchange messages of love, or tardiness. That summer, Google made an eight-pound prototype of a computer worn on the face. To Ive, then unaware of Google’s plans, “the obvious and right place” for such a thing was the wrist. When he later saw Google Glass, Ive said, it was evident to him that the face “was the wrong place.”

A magnificent read.

On February 15, 1965, our national flag was raised for the first time on Parliament Hill. Canada was just two years away from centennial celebrations when the maple leaf flag was made official by Royal Proclamation. In 1996, February 15 was declared National Flag of Canada Day and has been observed every year since.

February 15, 2015, will mark the 50th anniversary of the National Flag of Canada. This special Flag Day is the perfect opportunity to learn more about how our flag was created and what it means to us.

I love my country and I’m very proud of our flag and what it stands for. Thanks to John Kordyback for the link.

The 41-year-old DJ, who joined the station in 2003, is moving to the US to work at Apple.

Something’s up.

CNN:

The crusade to find a home for a sacred electric guitar is reverberating like a thundering encore through the music business as innovator Les Paul’s Black Beauty from the ’50s is going up for auction.

The Gibson-made instrument, called the Holy Grail of Guitars by some, is being sold by Tom Doyle, the late Paul’s longtime friend, engineer, co-inventor and guitar tech.

“This happens to be the first prototype of what we call the Black Beauty. It was sent to Les in 1953, 1954,” Doyle told CNN, holding the instrument with shiny pearly inlays on the guitar neck glinting back overhead lights. “This is the beginning of the proper Les Paul guitar. “

Here’s the auction page.

And here’s a video of Tom Doyle talking about this very special black custom Les Paul.

This well-drawn graphic novel format tells the true story of the Burmese pythons that came to Florida as an accidental invasive species, and started gobbling up all the animals. This is no joke.

From the Wikipedia page:

Burmese pythons (Python bivittatus) are native to Southeast Asia. However, since the end of the 20th century, they have become an established breeding population in South Florida. Although Burmese pythons were sighted in Everglades National Park in the 1980s, they were not officially recognized as a reproducing population until 2000. Since that date, the number of python sightings has exponentially increased with over 300 annual sightings from 2008 to 2010.

Burmese pythons prey on a wide variety of birds, mammals, and crocodilian species occupying the Everglades. Pronounced declines in a number of mammalian species have coincided spatially and temporally with the proliferation of pythons in southern Florida, indicating the already devastating impacts upon native animals. Although the low detectability of pythons makes population estimates difficult, most researchers propose that at least 30,000 and upwards of 300,000 pythons likely occupy southern Florida and that this population will only continue to grow. The importation of Burmese pythons was banned in the United States in January 2012 by the U.S. Department of the Interior. However, the lack of effective control methods for the already established reproducing population necessitates better management of a potentially devastating invasive species.

As their numbers increase and their food supply dwindles, they’ll turn north. Look out Jim and Shawn!

Vanity Fair:

Some say the Laurel Canyon music scene began when Frank Zappa moved to the corner of Lookout Mountain and Laurel Canyon Boulevard in the late 1960s. Former Byrds bassist Chris Hillman recalls writing “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” in Laurel Canyon in 1966 in his house, on a steep winding street with a name he doesn’t remember. The Doors’ lead singer Jim Morrison reportedly wrote “Love Street” while living behind the Laurel Canyon Country Store. Michelle Phillips lived with John Phillips on Lookout Mountain in 1965 during the Mamas and the Papas’ heyday. Books and documentaries have mythologized and romanticized this woodsy canyon nestled behind Sunset Boulevard in the Hollywood Hills. Still, misconceptions continue.

What is undeniably true is that from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s some of the most melodic, atmospheric, and subtly political American popular music was written by residents of, or those associated with, Laurel Canyon—including Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, Chris Hillman, Roger McGuinn, J. D. Souther, Judee Sill, the Mamas and the Papas, Carole King, the Eagles, Richie Furay (in Buffalo Springfield and Poco), and many more. They made music together, played songs for one another with acoustic guitars in all-night jam sessions in each other’s houses. Many of those houses were cottages with stained-glass windows, and fireplaces that warmed the living rooms in the chilly L.A. nights. They took drugs together, formed bands together, broke up those bands, and formed other bands. Many of them slept with each other. The music was mislabeled “soft rock” or “folk rock,” especially in the Northeast, where critics panned it as granola-infused hippie music—too “mellow” and too white. But in truth, it was an amalgam of influences that included blues, rock and roll, jazz, Latin, country and western, psychedelia, bluegrass, and folk. It certainly was a forerunner of today’s “Americana.”

If any of the musicians mentioned above mean anything to you, you’ll wax nostalgic reading through this piece as artists reminisce about their memories of Laurel Canyon.

And if none of these musicians ring a bell, spend a bit of time searching out their names on iTunes. You just may discover a rich vein that resonates for you.

[via NextDraft]

Daisuke Wakabayashi and Mike Ramsey, writing for the Wall Street Journal:

Apple has several hundred employees working secretly toward creating an Apple-branded electric vehicle, according to people familiar with the matter. They said the project, code-named “Titan,” has an initial design of a vehicle that resembles a minivan, one of these people said.

The Apple-branded car has long been rumored, but this article gives this rumor some real teeth. There’s this for example:

Mr. Cook approved the car project almost a year ago and assigned veteran product design Vice President Steve Zadesky to lead the group, the people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Zadesky is a former Ford Motor Co. engineer who helped lead the Apple teams that created the iPod and iPhone.

Mr. Zadesky was given permission to create a 1,000-person team and poach employees from different parts of the company, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Working from a private location a few miles from Apple’s corporate headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., the team is researching different types of robotics, metals and materials consistent with automobile manufacturing, the people said.

And this:

Manufacturing a car is enormously expensive. A single plant usually costs well over $1 billion and requires a massive supply chain to produce the more than 10,000 components. Elon Musk , the chief executive of electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc., said last fall that it is “really hard” to make a car, as the company struggled to ramp up production on its Model S sedan.

The expense is a barrier to entry to many potential competitors, but would be less of a hurdle for Apple, which reported holding $178 billion in cash as of Dec. 27, 2014.

This is certainly getting interesting.

Speaking at the White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection on Friday, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook revealed that the U.S. government plans to begin accepting Apple Pay for a number of transactions, starting with admission to U.S. national parks.

And there you go. Apple Pay is huge.

Billboard:

You didn’t have to look too far to spot the action at Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy gala on Feb. 7. Ground zero was table 108, where Apple CEO Tim Cook, senior vp Internet software and services Eddy Cue, iTunes vp Robert Kondrk and Beats co-founder and title-less Apple executive Jimmy Iovine were seated alongside former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi. After a shout-out from the party’s host (Davis called Cook a “special human”), music execs lined up single file for an audience with the Apple contingent — not to mention selfies and overshares about their first Macs.

Headline hyperbole aside, Apple is definitely making behind the scenes moves with the music industry. It will be very exciting to see what they come up with.

TidBITS:

Ss those of us who have had to rely on our backups in the past know, the act of backing up is only the first small step in the full equation — it’s being able to restore that really matters.

Take a few minutes to identify some critical files and see if you can restore them successfully from your backups. If a bootable backup is part of your backup strategy, make sure you can actually boot from it.

Adam has mentioned this every Friday the 13th and it’s a good thing to remember – all the backups in the world are useless if you can’t restore your data from them.

Six Colors:

I believe Apple is truly a company that is always looking at the big picture, I really do. The iPhone and iPad and Mac all work together, using iTunes and iCloud and even Apple Pay as infrastructure, in a harmonious way. But at the same time, it’s hard not to look at the size of Apple’s iPhone business and wonder how the success of the iPhone affects Apple’s decision-making.

I’ve often made the same point. I don’t think Apple is truly ignoring the the other aspects of their business but the iPhone is definitely the 800 lb gorilla.

Petapixel:

An Italian company called CoeLux has developed a new light source that recreates the look of sunlight through a skylight so well that it can trick both human brains and cameras.

The scientists who invented the light figured out how to use a thin coating of nanoparticles to accurately simulate sunlight through Earth’s atmosphere and the effect known as Rayleigh scattering. It’s not just the color temperature thats the same — the quality of the light feels the same as well.

This is just mindbogglingly cool. I have lived in basement apartments most of my life so I know the practical application of this in living spaces could be profound. I especially like the concept of “earthscrapers”.