I love Tim Hortons. When I think of Canada, Timmies is one of the first things that come to mind. I drink my coffee from a Tim Hortons cup every morning. Burger King? What?

Turns out, it’s a tax thing. By merging with Tim Hortons, Burger King becomes, in effect, a Canadian citizen:

The proposed deal would be structured as a so-called tax inversion transaction to move Burger King’s domicile out of the United States, and could come as soon as in the next few days, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

Feh.

Many thanks to our friends at The Blueprint for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. The Blueprint is an online retail site for the next wave of connected devices and wearables. Check out the Blueprint today to discover beautifully designed products like Drop — the iPad connected kitchen scale. Drop is a smart scale that makes perfect baking easy with interactive recipes, smart substitutions, recipe rescaling, and more. Say goodbye to #BakingFail forever. With Drop, you’re on your way to creating one perfectly yummy masterpiece after another.

Pre-order Drop today for 20% off retail.

Quartz:

No one is talking about selling kittens and puppies at the meat counter, but for the group of bunny-loving pet owners protesting near the Whole Foods in Union Square, they might as well be. Fifty or so women and men of all ages carry signs, pass out flyers and pamphlets, and try to spread their message to passing Manhattanites. “Boycott Whole Foods,” they say, “because they’re killing rabbits.”

This may seem like a trivial fight involving a disproportionate amount of vitriol, but at its core it’s a debate that sheds light on the sometimes arbitrary categories we construct to make sense of the world.

I always find it fascinating what foods, meat in particular, we will and won’t eat and how dependent on our cultural constructs those decisions are. Personally, I love rabbit meat and when I was a kid in Nova Scotia, it was a staple of our diet. My Mom’s Rabbit Stew was spectacular.

Calgary Herald:

For Calgary’s husband-and-wife thespians Chris Ippolito and Karen MacKenzie, the Emmy-winning Christmas commercial for Apple is a gift that keeps on giving.

First, there was the fact that Ippolito and MacKenzie booked the high-profile, Edmonton-shot gig to begin with. It also gave 23 of their family members, including two-year-old daughter Clara-Anne, a chance to create some new yuletide memories after both clans were cast alongside them. It became an international sensation on TV and online, garnering millions of viewers. Then came the news last Sunday that the emotional ad, titled Misunderstood, had won a Creative Arts Emmy Award in Los Angeles.

I knew Apple had shot the ad in Canada but hadn’t realized it was such a “family affair”.

Apple:

Apple has determined that a very small percentage of iPhone 5 devices may suddenly experience shorter battery life or need to be charged more frequently. The affected iPhone 5 devices were sold between September 2012 and January 2013 and fall within a limited serial number range.

If your iPhone 5 is experiencing these symptoms and meets the eligibility requirements noted below, Apple will replace your iPhone 5 battery, free of charge.

I checked mine. It “passed”. How about your iPhone 5?

Macworld:

…as more and more schools are using iPads and laptops as part of the curriculum, teachers want students to be able to hear lessons and work on projects without disturbing each other. Still, it’s telling that headphones are in, and binder paper is largely out.

But after volunteering in my kids’ classrooms over the past three years, I can tell you that when it comes to children, not all headphones are created equal. The best headphones for adults are rarely the best models for kids, for a number of reasons

Not having kids, this is something I’ve never given any thought to. Good to see an article about this focused on the needs of little ones.

You have to respect the amount that went into this by Harry Roberts.

It’s amazing how much better the story looks when wrapping the text using a circle instead of just a square block.

I figured I’d post another perspective, this one from Tyler Hayes at Fast Company. He, um, didn’t like it so much.

Knight thought for a bit, then asked when the Chernobyl nuclear-plant disaster occurred. He had long ago lost the habit of marking time in months or years; this was just a news event he happened to remember. The nuclear meltdown took place in 1986, the same year, Knight said, he went to live in the woods. He was 20 years old at the time, not long out of high school. He was now 47, a middle-aged man.

I doubt he is the last hermit roaming the woods of America.

This graph shows the challenge that faces Android developers; over 18,000 distinct devices can immediately use their app, making optimization a real challenge. Compared to last year, fragmentation has risen by around 60%, with 11,868 devices seen last year compared to 18,796 this year. Compared to our first report, in 2012, device fragmentation has more than quadrupled – with our first report showing that there were ‘only’ 3,997 distinct Android devices. Another way of looking at how fragmentation affects developers is to see what % of the market is occupied by the top 10 devices – as developers generally only own a few devices to test on. Last year having the 10 most popular devices in the market would represent 21% of the devices out there, this year that number has fallen to 15% – making testing on a few devices less representative.

Some very interesting numbers from OpenSignal.

John Martellaro recently published his review of Amazon’s new phone and seems to like it. I haven’t even seen one of these in person, so I don’t have much to add either way.

Samsung did the ALS ice bucket challenge today with its phone, pitting it against the competition. Stay classy Samsung.

Vox:

Each year, you probably get a fat new yellow pages phone book delivered to your doorstep. It’s possible you also get the white pages either as a separate volume or combined as one book.

And if you’re like 70 percent of Americans, you probably don’t even open the phone book before the next year’s batch arrives.

For many of us, these are a giant PITA and just one more unwanted thing we need to deal with. Mine go straight into the recycling bin.

ZDNet:

If 6.4 million MacBook Airs sounds unimpressive for a full year’s sales, put it in perspective: Gartner estimates that only 22 million premium ultramobiles were sold in all of 2013. That gives Apple nearly 30 percent of this fast-growing market, which Gartner forecasts to grow by roughly 50 percent this year and more than 70 percent in 2015.

It’s also a profitable segment, with average selling prices of $1000 or more.

I plan on buying a MacBook Air once it gets the Retina display.

The Apple TV is showing up as ‘Unavailable for pickup’ at Apple Stores across the U.S., with multiple NY Apple Stores we called saying that in-store stocks had been exhausted by demand created by the promotion offering $25 iTunes credit with every purchase, along with that generated by the upcoming London iTunes festival as well as the recent Lollapalooza livestream.

iTunes Festival is incredible in so many ways for Apple and its customers. It looks like they may have underestimated demand this year though.

What a great story. Not a bad player to choose for your favorite either.

Jim and Dan talk about Balmer’s final departure from Microsoft, Apple commercials, Pokemon coming to the iPad (and the iPad gaming ecosystem), Dan tries to stump Jim’s music knowlege, and more.

It’s really interesting that eBay and PayPal fit so well together, yet investors feel PayPal would do better without the eBay baggage.

China Daily:

China should end smartphone subsidies to overseas vendors and give more support to local brands, industry insiders said on Tuesday, as telecom carriers pledged to cut operating expenses and Apple Inc gets ready to debut its next-generation iPhone.

Xiang Ligang, a telecom researcher in Beijing, said cutting carriers’ subsidies to foreign-made handsets will not only reduce carriers’ operating expense but also leave local players with more market demand.

The perception is that buyers of high end phones are price insensitive and will buy the phones even without the subsidies.

China Mobile Ltd, the nation’s largest telecom carrier by subscribers, said it plans to cut about 5 billion yuan in subsidies this year as a part of its 20 billion yuan operating expense reduction campaign. The company paid smartphone makers more than 26 billion yuan in subsidies in 2013.

“Giving subsidies to high-end phones made by Samsung and Apple does not make any sense because buyers in this category are not price-sensitive,” Xiang said. “In other words, they will buy a 5,000 yuan smartphone even if there is no discount.”

That last point may well be true for buyers at the top of the market, but it will certainly have an effect on mid and low end buyers. This amounts to a foreign goods tariff.

The new Tesla S electronics update will communicate with your iPhone (there’s no Android support), sending you notifications and allowing you to use your iPhone to start your car. The question has been asked before about the security of remote start systems like this. No car is theft proof. And the convenience seems high enough to be worth the potential risk.

AdWeek:

When Showtime invited Dan Cassaro to join a design “contest” he felt amounted to milking professionals for free work, he let the network—and the world—know how he felt about it.

After sending an email response slathered in sarcasm (“I know that boxing matches in Las Vegas are extremely low-budget affairs”), Cassaro then posted the exchange to Twitter.

Good for him! Far too many places want people to work for “exposure”. As soon as I can use exposure to pay my rent and buy food, I’ll work for it.

Outside:

What follows are a series of surprising and shocking conversations in which the three talk about the rewarding and challenging sides of their jobs, from teaching a newborn orca how to eat to disposing of dead animals and witnessing dolphin mothers kill their calves.

Despite the often difficult nature of the work, Horton, Payne, and Dodge were dedicated to caring for the animals. “Animal care is the one thing that SeaWorld can be proud of,” Horton says. “We were the unsung heroes.”

Here are Horton, Payne, and Dodge in their own words.

There are good and bad aspects to the capture and study of these animals in these kinds of parks. I fall on the side of not doing it but I understand some of the reasons for having these animals in captivity. Regardless of your opinion, this is an interesting story from the point of view of those with the animals every day.

Ballmer’s letter to Satya Nadella:

As I approach the six month mark of my retirement and your appointment as CEO, I have been reflecting on my life, my ongoing ownership of Microsoft stock, and my involvement with the company. I have reached some conclusions and wanted to share them with you. I know August is the key month during which the company starts to prepare the proxy statement for the next shareholders’ meeting, and so these thoughts are probably timely for that too.

First, Microsoft has been my life’s work and I am proud of that and excited by what I see in front of the company and this leadership team. There are challenges ahead but the opportunities are even larger. No company in the world has the mix of software skills, cloud skills, and hardware skills we have assembled. We draw talent as well as any company in the world. We have the profitability to invest in long-term opportunities and still deliver superior shorter term performance. You’re off to a bold and exciting start.

Microsoft will need to be bold and make big bets to succeed in this new environment. Writing great software is a tremendous accomplishment and selling software has been a fabulous business. In the mobile-first, cloud-first world, software development is a key skill, but success requires moving to monetization through enterprise subscriptions, hardware gross margins, and advertising revenues. Making that change while also managing the existing software business well requires a boldness and fearlessness that I believe the management team has. Our board must also support and encourage that fearlessness for shareholders to get the best performance from Microsoft. You must drive that.

I had not spent any time really contemplating my post-Microsoft life until my last day with the company. In the six months since leaving, I have become very busy. I see a combination of the Clippers, civic contribution, teaching and study taking a lot of time. I have confidence in our approach of mobile-first, cloud-first, and in our primary innovation emphasis on platforms and productivity and the building of capability in devices and services as core business drivers. I hold more Microsoft shares than anyone other than index funds and love the mix of profits, investments and dividends returned in our stock. I expect to continue holding that position for the foreseeable future.

Given my confidence and the multitude of new commitments I am taking on now, I think it would be impractical for me to continue to serve on the board, and it is best for me to move off. The fall will be hectic between teaching a new class and the start of the NBA season so my departure from the board is effective immediately.

I bleed Microsoft — have for 34 years and I always will. I continue to love discussing the company’s future. I love trying new products and sending feedback. I love reading about what is going on at the company. Count on me to keep ideas and inputs flowing. The company will move to higher heights. I will be proud, and I will benefit through my share ownership. I promise to support and encourage boldness by management in my role as a shareholder in any way I can.

Satya Nadella’s reply to SteveB:

First, thank you for all of your support during my transition this year and for the past 34 years. It’s been a great privilege to have worked with you and learned from you. Under your leadership, we created an incredible foundation that we continue to build on — and Microsoft will thrive in the mobile-first, cloud-first world.

While your insights and leadership will be greatly missed as part of the board, I understand and support your decision.

As you embark on your new journey, I am sure that you will bring the same boldness, passion and impact to your new endeavors that you brought to Microsoft, and we wish you incredible success. I also look forward to partnering with you as a shareholder.

On behalf of all of Microsoft and the Board of Directors, thank you.

Sometimes design is more about recognizing the true nature of a need and not as much about aesthetics.

In 2005, Facebook launched a way for people to upload photos onto the network. Of course, it wasn’t the only photo-hosting service at the time. Flickr was the golden standard, and comparing the two feature-by-feature was like evaluating a BMW against a Hyundai. On Facebook, you could only upload low-res photos. They showed up small and grainy and on a page cluttered with links and text instead of on a simple, sparse black background that let the photo shine. There were no handy navigation tools like a preview strip or a thumbnail of the next photo in the set. There were no keyboard shortcuts either, and the loading performance wasn’t great.

Within a year and a half, however, Facebook was the most popular sharing service in the world.

Why?

Because on Facebook, you could do something that no other service let you do: tag your friends. Which meant you could upload a photo and say it was of you and your bestie Mike, and not only would Mike be notified of the photo, all your friends would see it in their News Feeds and on your profile.

Terrific read.