Entertainment Weekly:

Thanks to the way music licensing contracts were written at the time, the show lost its rights to use the original versions of the songs it had so deeply woven into its fabric, and was forced to replace them with generic knockoffs while it was still in broadcast syndication. Later, when it moved to cable and home video it did so with the same soundalikes.

On Oct. 28, Shout! Factory will release the first complete series-spanning WKRP DVD set, with its original soundtrack gloriously restored.

As pointed out in the comments, about 98% of the original music will be included. Some of you may never have even heard about this show but for many of us, we loved and enjoyed a wonderful ensemble cast that created what I believe is the single greatest punchline in the history of television – “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

This reeks of worry and fear.

New York Times:

Longsword enthusiasts are resurrecting ancient sword technique as a modern, organized sport, with timed bouts and complex rules.

This isn’t LARP but a whole different aspect. I’d love to see one of these tournaments on TV or in person.

Audits are important in all aspects of your work from time to time. Susan Robertson gives you some tips on conducting a full audit of your CSS code.

Slash’s new album “World On Fire” dropped last night and so far I’m impressed. I had it pre-ordered, so I was ready for it.

Arlington County is one of the largest counties in Virginia in terms of population. In a nice win for Apple, the school board announced that every single student in the county will be receiving a brand new MacBook Air. The rollout will start this year, with laptops provided to all 9th graders.

As it turns out, 9th grade is when the Computer Science track starts in Arlington, a good year to make sure that every student has equal access to the technology required to learn programming. The current curriculum is based on older Windows machines.

Nick Pierno is a longtime Android user. What would make him even consider switching?

It just kinda bums me out how mediocre all my photos and videos are. Not to mention all the missed opportunities from slow autofocus, bad low light sensing, etc. I know, I know.. woe is me. But if I can, I’d like to look back on the next 5 years with a bit more fidelity.

I’ve also been stricken with a bit of a bum rap this past year. I have an illness that has kept me stuck at home and in beds/bathrooms/waiting rooms/etc. a lot more than usual. This results in increased phone use, and of course, battery drain. Well… turns out the Nexus 5, despite being a truly outstanding phone, isn’t a champion of endurance.

There’s a lot more to this piece. Interesting to see how an Android user views the iPhone. One thing that is quite clear is that the move to a larger screen has opened up the potential audience for Apple.

On the resolution difference between the Galaxy Note 4 (515 ppi) and the iPhone 6 Plus (401 ppi):

I haven’t overlooked the fact that the Note packs a crazy high res 5.7 screen into roughly the same form factor though. And if Apple doesn’t think I can see the difference between 401 and 515 ppi, then I guess they’ll never make a higher res screen than this and I’ll never have to upgrade!

Realistically the iPhone isn’t the winner on displays. The point is they offer bigger ones. And since I’m sure they’re still plenty pleasant to behold, they’re another reason I’m opening myself up to seeing other OS’s.

An interesting point. Is the Note 4 display better than the iPhone 6 Plus display because it has a higher pixel density? Are other factors at play? Pixel luminance? Pixel persistence/state change timing? Contrast? From Apple’s web site:

The size of the new, higher-resolution Retina HD displays on iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus may be the first thing you notice. But what you experience is so much more. With innovations that deliver higher contrast, dual‑domain pixels for more accurate color at wider viewing angles, and an improved polarizer, these are the thinnest, most advanced Multi‑Touch displays we’ve ever made.

Not sure that higher resolution is the final arbiter of screen quality.

UPDATE: Looks like the earlier math from one of our reader comments was wrong. Moving on.

On the camera and video:

As I mentioned before, this is a major reason I want to settle into a different device, regardless of OS. It’s not crystal clear who the king of cam is (certainly there are phones with an even greater emphasis on camera.. but not without sacrifices), but when Apple claims they changed mobile photography I can hardly argue.

The iPhone camera is consistently outstanding. And with features like time lapse, video stabilization, and 240 fps video done the Apple way, I’m sure these new devices will set another bar for convenient media-making.

There’s still more, but in a nutshell, this is a reasoned analysis from someone who spends a lot of time with his Android phone. To me, the bottom lines here are overall design and security. Response to design is very personal, but until Android solves their significant malware problem, I’m not letting my personal info anywhere near it.

Retro Report:

How did cars become “computers on wheels,” so automated that some are about to start driving themselves? The story begins forty-five years ago with a quest to make cars safer and the battle over the air bag.

The piece starts off talking about the fight to get air bags into cars but ends with some chilling thoughts on “cars of the future” and how they will collect, collate and disseminate data.

Quartz:

It now costs 1.6 cents to produce each US one cent coin due to the high price of zinc, which makes up 97% of each coin, according to the Wall Street Journal. President Obama has proposed phasing out pennies and nickels (5-cent pieces) on numerous occasions, including in the 2015 budget, but Congress has yet to bite.

It’s one of those things we all know but inertia seems to keep America from getting rid of this useless coin.

Ars Technica:

The space shuttle Enterprise has been ensconced aboard the USS Intrepid for just over two years. It sits in a silent warehouse, dramatically lit so it appears to be cruising in a dark vacuum. Tourists can wander around or under it at the exhibit; they can even walk up some stairs and get nose-to-nose with the Enterprise, staring down its long axis through a thick layer of glass.

While the whole thing evokes space exploration, the Enterprise has never actually made it out of Earth’s atmosphere.

I saw the Enterprise at The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution years ago and, even though I’m not a Star Trek geek, I was sad a ship named “Enterprise” never made it into space.

Two out of three brand companies that measure brand value put Apple in the No. 1 position.

Text can be beautiful, simple, wild, engaging, exciting and a wide number of other things. It can stir emotion and helps users understand your message. Type can be a wide number of things but one thing is common – it must be readable.

I hate going to a Web site and struggling to read the text. Sometimes trying to be cute just makes the site unreadable.

Billboard:

With lead single “The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)” set to be featured in a massive media campaign from Apple, valued at $100 million by multiple sources, U2 has already scored arguably the biggest launch in music history. And it’s one that’s already fraught with a little controversy, from angry retailers to Grammy and SoundScan guidelines.

Oseary (U2’s manager) rang Billboard on Sept. 11 to address the many questions about the launch, and what’s next (another album?) from this landmark deal with Apple.

For a band that many (not me) consider to be irrelevant to today’s music, this campaign is a concerted effort to market and reinvent what was once called “The World’s Greatest Band”.

Apple:

If you would like U2’s Songs of Innocence removed from your iTunes music library and iTunes purchases, you can choose to have it removed. Once the album has been removed from your account, it will no longer be available for you to redownload as a previous purchase. If you later decide you want the album, you will need to get it again. The album is free to everyone until October 13, 2014 and will be available for purchase after that date.

Here you go.

This is a story I wrote for Fortune about Apple’s iTunes Festival London. There are some interesting tidbits in here that haven’t been published before.

From the Microsoft press release:

Available across multiple platforms, “Minecraft” is one of the most popular video games in history, with more than 100 million downloads, on PC alone, by players since its launch in 2009. “Minecraft” is one of the top PC games of all time, the most popular online game on Xbox, and the top paid app for iOS and Android in the US. The “Minecraft” community is among the most active and passionate in the industry, with more than 2 billion hours played on Xbox 360 alone in the past two years. Minecraft fans are loyal, with nearly 90 percent of paid customers on the PC having signed in within the past 12 months.

Apple® today announced a record number of first day pre-orders of iPhone® 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the biggest advancements in iPhone history, with over four million in the first 24 hours. Demand for the new iPhones exceeds the initial pre-order supply and while a significant amount will be delivered to customers beginning on Friday and throughout September, many iPhone pre-orders are scheduled to be delivered in October. Additional supply of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be available to walk-in customers on Friday, September 19 at 8:00 a.m. local time at Apple retail stores.

I’d say the iPhone 6 is off to a good start.

New York Times blogger Brian X. Chen asked Tim Cook about the Apple Watch and battery life. Tim’s reply:

“I don’t think we skipped over it. I addressed it in the presentation myself. We think that based on our experience of wearing these that the usage of them will be really significant throughout the day. So we think you’ll want to charge them every night, similar to what a lot of people do with their phone.”

As I said in last week’s piece on the Apple Watch:

Charging is done via induction and requires a special cable. If life between charges is long enough (say, at least 24 hours), that shouldn’t be an issue. No doubt, someone will create a brick capable of charging both your phone and watch about the size of existing iPhone/iPad charging bricks. Keep one in your backpack or your pocket and you’ll always have a charging solution.

Charging at night seems about right. I don’t think it is reasonable to have the same expectation for Apple Watch battery life as I do for my wristwatch. This is a new type of device, more functionally aligned with my phone than with my simple watch.

Charging my Watch at night is no different to me than charging my computer or my iPhone. There is the added strain on the power grid that this brings, but that’s a different story altogether.

This past June, as part of his WWDC keynote, Apple VP Craig Federighi introduced HealthKit. Last week, Apple put out this press release, announcing that iOS 8, which includes HealthKit, would officially be available on September 17th. From the release:

The new Health app gathers the information you choose from your various health apps and fitness devices, and provides you with a clear and current overview in one place. HealthKit APIs offer developers the ability for health and fitness apps to communicate with each other. With your permission, each app can use specific information from other apps to provide a more comprehensive way to manage your health and fitness. Users will be able to gather and monitor their own fitness metrics using apps such as MyFitnessPal, RunKeeper and Strava. Healthcare providers can now monitor the data their patients choose to share through apps such as Mayo Clinic or Epic’s MyChart app that will be used by Duke Medicine and Stanford Children’s Health/Stanford Medicine, among others.

Details are now starting to emerge on the Duke and Stanford efforts. From the linked article:

Stanford Children’s Chief Medical Information Officer Christopher Longhurst told Reuters that Stanford and Duke were among the furthest along.

Longhurst said that in the first Stanford trial, young patients with Type 1 diabetes will be sent home with an iPod touch to monitor blood sugar levels between doctor’s visits.

HealthKit makes a critical link between measuring devices, including those used at home by patients, and medical information services relied on by doctors, such as Epic Systems Corp, a partner already announced by Apple.

Medical device makers are taking part in the Stanford and Duke trials.

DexCom Inc (DXCM.O), which makes blood sugar monitoring equipment, is in talks with Apple, Stanford, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about integrating with HealthKit, said company Chief Technical Officer Jorge Valdes.

DexCom’s device measures glucose levels through a tiny sensor inserted under the skin of the abdomen. That data is transmitted every five minutes to a hand-held receiver, which works with a blood glucose meter. The glucose measuring system then sends the information to DexCom’s mobile app, on an iPhone, for instance.

Under the new system, HealthKit can scoop up the data from DexCom, as well as other app and device makers.

Data can be uploaded from HealthKit into Epic’s “MyChart” application, where it can be viewed by clinicians in Epic’s electronic health record.

This is a fun read. In today’s Monday note, Jean-Louis Gassée explores the creation of and reaction to the Apple Watch. Most interesting to me was the discussion of the potential role that Apple’s newly hired designer Marc Newson, a longtime pal of Jony Ive, played in the design of the Apple Watch.

The video embedded below is a few years old and has been making the rounds since word of Newson’s hire by Apple got out. It shows Newson lovingly, even wistfully, paging through his watch design portfolio. If you have not yet seen this, take a few minutes to watch. You’ll get to know a bit more about Marc Newson and, I think, you’ll be struck by how much the Apple Watch inherited from these designs.

Apple’s market cap pushed back over the $600 billion mark. Second place is Exxon Mobil Corp at $412 billion, then Google at $397 billion and Microsoft at $386 billion.

Ordering a new iPhone? Got one to sell or trade in? If so, take a look at the linked article. Apple Insider takes a look at nearly a dozen big-name buyback services and retailers and gives a sense of the going trade-in rate and the trade-in process.

Nice reminiscences from the LA Times. Includes video of Steve Jobs doing the original iPod announcement. [H/T Stu Mark]

New York Times:

JPMorgan Chase’s chief financial officer, Marianne Lake, took the stage at a financial conference on Tuesday under strict orders not to mention her company’s involvement in Apple’s new payment system.

But when Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, at a news conference in California at the same time, finally brought up Apple Pay, one of Ms. Lake’s deputies in New York took a green apple out of her bag and put it on a table on the stage, signaling that Ms. Lake was free to discuss the service.

“So we are very excited about Apple Pay, and Chase customers will be able to participate in that,” Ms. Lake said, noting the appearance of the apple with a nod of her head.

The elaborate measures that Ms. Lake took to keep Apple Pay under wraps until the chosen time underscore the degree of preparation — and investment — that went into a partnership that has the potential to transform one of the banking industry’s most fundamental business lines.

I love these insider stories about how Apple cajoles, forces, convinces and beguiles companies into doing the things Apple wants to do in the ways Apple wants to do it.

Citation: https://cryptonews.com/news/betting-sites-not-on-gamstop-uk.htm

Macworld:

Near Field Communications (NFC)—the technology behind those swipe-free terminals and now Apple Pay—is nothing new. The technology has existed since the late 1990s and appears in many forms, including key fobs, payment cards, and even (on certain phones) Google Wallet. It isn’t necessarily the most widely deployed payment technology, but it certainly isn’t new.

Which begs the question: Why all the hype about Apple Pay? Is it merely the Reality Distortion Field hyping something that’s actually ho-hum? Or is there something deeper here?

Rich Mogull is my go to guy when it comes to Apple security and issues surrounding it. As usual, he writes well and simply about a complicated topic.