The Next Web:

Android is available in two different flavors. There’s the Google-endorsed Android, which is used by companies that agree to the terms and conditions of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA). Essentially, OHA members include the Google services that are baked into Android, and agree to limitations on how they can customize the software on their devices.

The other side is the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), a far-freer version that lets device makers tinker with all manner of elements of the software. Often that means ripping out Google services, and customizing the handset to run other software and services. Google apps are still accessible, but are not central to the experience as they are in OHA Android devices.

Amazon’s Kindles run AOSP, replacing Google’s services with their own. The AOSP market is growing quickly.

Even though developing markets will likely be the main focus for AOSP device makers, more sophisticated ones like Xiaomi are opening non-Google Android to a new tier of more-affluent customers.

Google’s response? Android One, a low end OS with interface and Google services baked in, but tweakable to accommodate the needs and skins of the low end OEMs.

After a short hiatus this summer, The Loop Magazine returns today with a double issue. I want to apologize to all the subscribers of the magazine for the unscheduled break in publishing, but we’ve put together a great issue for its return. To make up for the missing issues, I’ll publish another large issue shortly, giving you lots of great stories to read.

We have nine stories in this issue, including “State of Mind,” written by software developer, James Thomson. In his piece, James talks about how he feels when surrounded by some of the brightest developers in the world when he attends conferences. This is a free story that anyone can read by just downloading The Loop Magazine app.

Kirk McElhearn talks about the Zen practice of shikantaza, or “just sitting.” Matt Gemmell takes us into the world of fan fiction where people write works of fiction, long and short, set in the established universes of novels, TV shows, cartoons, movies, video games, and more.

Billy Sangster takes us through the feelings of getting back up on stage with his band and Rian van der Merwe explores the deeply spiritual experience of coffee. With so many devices to choose from to use on a plane, Darren Murph explores “The Unintended Death of the In-Flight Magazine.”

Arsenal FC is one of the most popular football clubs in the world—Stan Sulkowski helps run a site dedicated to the club and talks about his experience. Chris Domico’s body attacks itself, putting him in pain and hell without much warning. He talks about his struggles dealing with disease.

Finally, Mark Crump takes us through his guitar setup to play music on an iPad. He’s been playing guitar for 30 years, so he has some experience in getting the best sound from his instrument.

I really hope you enjoy the latest issue of The Loop Magazine. You can download the app free on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.

Jim

The Daily Dot:

The government is planning to issue a proposal that could ban people on flights from either sending or receiving voice calls on their mobile devices—using those devices for non-voice activities, such as playing online games or tweeting about the crying baby in the back row, would likely still be allowed.

To answer the question posed in the headline: Hell yes.

Flying is already a horrible process. Let’s not make it worse by being forced to listen to one side of a conversation for hours on end while trapped in an uncomfortable seat inside a metal tube.

Jalopnik:

You never really get a good night’s sleep in jail. In the middle of my second night inside, I woke up on the uncomfortable plastic mat in my cell, my neck and back aching. I looked down at my orange jail scrubs and up at the buzzing fluorescent light and thought, “I am here because I drove too fast in a Camaro ZL1.”

Three days in jail for speeding? Yikes. That’s harsh. I’ve driven my motorcycle on some of the Shenandoah Valley roads the writer describes and I know I was speeding for at least some of the time (OK…most of the time). I guess I got lucky but warning issued – don’t speed in Virginia.

IN1 is a multi-tool utility case for your iPhone 5/5s. Like a built-in swiss army knife for your phone. Choose from 8 colors. Get yours for $44.95, ships in 24 – 48 hrs.

Dreams is the latest ad in the “You’re more powerful than you think” series. The song in the ad is When I Grow Up by Jennifer O’Connor.

As is now the norm, all the apps featured in the ad are highlighted on Apple’s web site.

Peter Sims on Steve Jobs and collaboration:

As the three-year anniversary of Steve Jobs’ passing approaches in October, complete lessons from his life and legacy are still far from written or understood. Walter Isaacson’s biography Steve Jobs, published soon after Jobs’ death in 2011, provided a formidable starting point, yet we still have a great deal to learn and understand about what made Jobs such a unique innovator and leader.

In studying Jobs closely over the past several years, I’ve become convinced that the common narratives we’ve heard neglect a central aspect of Jobs’ of genius and success. And, it’s something that we can all learn from, which is this: Steve Jobs was a superb collaborator with the people who he respected and trusted.

Fascinating article.

When Dell and Blackberry scoffed at the Apple/IBM alliance announced a few weeks ago, it struck a chord for John Gruber, reminding him of something from long ago. He finally figured out what it was.

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

Great read, less so for the quote, which was a good one, but for Gruber’s prescient take on something that wouldn’t be announced for more than 6 months.

Monday Note:

When Apple announced its 64-bit A7 processor, I dismissed the speculation that this could lead to a switch away from Intel chips for the Macintosh line for a homegrown “desktop-class” chip. I might have been wrong.

I don’t know enough about this end of the industry but it’s hard to argue with Gassee’s line of “Secondly, the Mac line is suspended, literally, by the late delivery of Intel’s Broadwell x86 processors.” The “end of MacIntel” is certainly a possibility to be on the look out for.

Engadget:

Hitchbot, the yellow glove- and Wellies-wearing robot, has started bumming rides across Canada, and by the looks of it, its hosts are having a blast ferrying it to its next drop-off point.

The machine with a perpetual LED smile began its journey in Halifax, and it’ll travel 4,000 miles until it reaches Victoria, British Columbia. People who pick up Hitchbot are pointed to a website where they can find instructions on how to handle it and where to drop it off. On the way, Hitchbot chats with its host, thanks to its speech recognition capability, or chatters away on its own in case its tablet-and-Arduino brain can’t parse what its companion’s saying. It also takes pictures every 30 minutes or so to send back to headquarters and upload to its social media accounts.

What a wonderfully odd experiment. I’m definitely following @hitchBOT on Twitter.

The New York Times:

A vaguely defined ecosystem seems to exist within the community, with subspecies divided by costume type: The Disney, Pixar and “Sesame Street” characters gravitate toward one another, and the superheroes hang out with other superheroes.

The cartoons, superheroes and other assorted characters are a bizarre, fascinating yet annoying as hell part of what Times Square has become.

FiveThirtyEight:

I analyzed the data to find out exactly what Ross, who died in 1995, painted for more than a decade on TV. The top-line results are to be expected — wouldn’t you know, he did paint a bunch of mountains, trees and lakes! — but then I put some numbers to Ross’s classic figures of speech. He didn’t paint oaks or spruces, he painted “happy trees.” He favored “almighty mountains” to peaks. Once he’d painted one tree, he didn’t paint another — he painted a “friend.”

I can’t paint a straight line with a ruler but watching Ross was absolutely mesmerizing. This analysis is interesting from a numbers point of view but it doesn’t capture or explain the wonderful presentation style Ross had.

The movie Boyhood was filmed using the same cast over 12 years, so you literally see the protagonist growing up before your eyes. A great concept, said to be a great movie, can’t wait to see it.

In a scene celebrating Mason Jr.’s 15th birthday, he receives a mix CD from his father, Mason Sr., played by Ethan Hawke. Called The Black Album, it’s a compilation of the best of John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s solo work, post-Beatles.

The CD comes with a set of liner notes in the form of a letter, cribbed from liner notes Ethan Hawke originally wrote for his daughter. Here’s the beginning of the letter.

I wanted to give you something for your birthday that money couldn’t buy, something that only a father could give a son, like a family heirloom. This is the best I could do. Apologies in advance.

I present to you: THE BEATLES’ BLACK ALBUM.

The only work I’ve ever been a part of that I feel any sense of pride for involves something born in a spirit of collaboration — not my idea or his or her idea, but some unforeseeable magic that happens in creativity when energies collide.

This is the best of John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s solo work, post-BEATLES. Basically I’ve put the band back together for you. There’s this thing that happens when you listen to too much of the solo stuff separately — too much Lennon: suddenly there’s a little too much self-involvement in the room; too much Paul and it can become sentimental — let’s face it, borderline goofy; too much George: I mean, we all have our spiritual side but it’s only interesting for about six minutes, ya know? Ringo: He’s funny, irreverent, and cool, but he can’t sing — he had a bunch of hits in the ’70s (even more than Lennon) but you aren’t gonna go home and crank up a Ringo Starr album start to finish, you’re just not gonna do that. When you mix up their work, though, when you put them side by side and let them flow — they elevate each other, and you start to hear it: T H E B E A T L E S.

Just listen to the whole CD, OK?

Great concept, great letter, especially if you are a Beatles fan. If this struck a chord with you, follow the link and read the whole thing.

From Microsoft’s blog post:

As you may have seen, on Friday Microsoft filed legal action against Samsung in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. Today’s legal action is simply to enforce our contract with Samsung.

We don’t take lightly filing a legal action, especially against a company with which we’ve enjoyed a long and productive partnership. Unfortunately, even partners sometimes disagree. After spending months trying to resolve our disagreement, Samsung has made clear in a series of letters and discussions that we have a fundamental disagreement as to the meaning of our contract.

Samsung and Microsoft are both large and sophisticated companies. In 2011, after months of painstaking negotiation, Samsung voluntarily entered into a legally binding contract with Microsoft to cross-license IP – an agreement which has been extremely beneficial for both parties. Samsung had been complying with the contract and paying to use Microsoft’s IP.

So what changed? Since Samsung entered into the agreement, its smartphone sales have quadrupled and it is now the leading worldwide player in the smartphone market. Consider this: when Samsung entered into the agreement in 2011, it shipped 82 million Android smartphones. Just three years later, it shipped 314 million Android smartphones. [Source: IDC, WW Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker – 2014 Q1, Published: May 2014] Samsung predicted it would be successful, but no one imagined their Android smartphone sales would increase this much.

This was from a post by David Howard, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President & Deputy General Counsel. In effect, the second in command of their legal team. Rare to see a public posting like this not come from someone in public relations. Certainly part of Microsoft’s legal strategy.

Is this Samsung simply using Microsoft’s Nokia acquisition to opt out of their cross-licensing pact, one that perhaps has become less financially attractive, given the surprising surge in their Android sales?

Elia Freedman:

Let’s say that together now: the dearth of many viable iOS indie dev businesses is not Apple’s problem.

It’s ours.

Whether we like it or not, the game has changed. Trials are out. They’ve been out for six years now and we have no idea if they are ever coming back. Upgrades are out, too. Again, we have no idea if they will ever come back. Ask yourself, do you really want to sit here and wait another 10 months to find out if we will get trials and upgrades, and then wait another three months after that to see it available? Hell, no. I need to make a living now.

It’s time for us to adapt.

We’ve seen quite a bit of writing regarding this issue over the past week. I’m just a user so I have no idea of the issues involved but it is good to hear from another side of the equation.

The Roosevelts:

It is being reported that Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx has agreed to portray Mike Tyson in an upcoming biopic that is written by Hollywood bad-ass Terence Winter.

There is no way a paring of Terence Winter and the fascinating story of Mike Tyson couldn’t be good so enjoy the following super cut compilation to show how vicious Mike Tyson really was in his prime.

I was a boxing fan during Tyson’s prime and for all of his failings, he was an absolute beast in the boxing ring. The sport is justifiably vilified now but this super cut might help to explain why seemingly rational, mostly non-violent people like myself loved to watch him turn people’s brains off.

Colossal:

To commemorate the centennial of Britain’s involvement in the First World War, ceramic artist Paul Cummins and stage designer Tom Piper conceived of a staggering installation of ceramic poppies planted in the famous dry moat around the Tower of London. Titled “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red,” the final work will consist of 888,246 red ceramic flowers—each representing a British or Colonial military fatality—that flow through grounds around the tower.

Volunteers began placing the poppies several weeks ago and the process will continue through the summer until a final flower is symbolically planted on November 11th.

The poppy flower is very symbolic to me as a Canadian and the proud son of a Canadian Navy veteran. I’d love to be able to see this installation in London.

There’s a buzz going around the net about ice cream sandwiches not melting. It started with a woman in Cincinnati who accidentally left a Walmart ice cream sandwich out in the sun for a bit and noticed that it was not behaving the way “real” ice cream behaved.

Was this true? Watch the embedded video, but then read on for the science.

The key to the lack of melting is the guar gum added to the ice cream.

Many online comment threads are full of people decrying the use of preservatives in food, but that’s not really what’s going on here. If you look at the list of ingredients for the ice cream portion of a Walmart brand ice cream sandwich, you’ll notice some differences between that and regular ice cream you scoop out of a container. In these products (and most other ice cream sandwiches on the market) you’ll find guar gum, calcium sulfate, and cellulose gum. These compounds are the main cause of an ice cream sandwich’s startling stability.

Guar gum is a polysaccharide (a molecule made of multiple sugars) extracted from the guar bean. It’s a plain white powder that is obtained by milling the matured beans. If “natural” food is a concern for you, guar gum is about as natural as it gets. It acts as an emulsifier, which means it thickens in water and stabilizes thawing. So, of course, it’s used in many foods.

Go here to read more. Science!

David Smith:

This past week has seen an explosion of writing and discussion about the business of making software for sale on the iOS App Store. Personally I love it when these little bubbles of discussion appear. If you’ve listened to me for any period of time you’ll know that one of the things I really like is being a student of the App Store. These discussions provide the opportunity and motivation for all sorts of anecdotes which help expand my view on where things stand.

This post is a trifecta. There’s a link to the Developing Perspective podcast, where David Smith lays all this out verbally. There’s the post itself (which really clicked for me). And there’s the wealth of related links at the end of the post.

If you are a developer, go to it. Even if you are not a developer, but have even a passing interest in the App Store, this is worth a read. [Via iOS Dev Weekly]

Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. won preliminary approval of a settlement in which it could pay $450 million to resolve claims by U.S. states and consumers that it led a conspiracy to fix prices on electronic books.U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan said today that there’s “probable cause to find that the proposed settlement agreement is within the range of those that may be approved as fair and reasonable.”

I wonder if Amazon is rubbing their hands in glee?

The game begins with 16 triangles of primary colors. You combine them to make regular polygons with more sides. Squares, pentagons, hexagons, etc.

This could be another one of those addictive games.

Charvel guitars are so nice to play.

Apple:

Today we are excited to officially welcome Beats Music and Beats Electronics to the Apple family. Music has always held a special place in our hearts, and we’re thrilled to join forces with a group of people who love it as much as we do. Beats cofounders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre have created beautiful products that have helped millions of people deepen their connection to music. We’re delighted to be working with the team to elevate that experience even further.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this goes.

Priceonomics:

The rarity and temporality of truffles have made them — at €4,400 to €11,000 per pound for Italy’s prized white truffles — the most expensive food in the world. In 2007, a Macau casino owner set a record by paying $330,000 for a 3.3 pound truffle unearthed in Tuscany.

The combination of these two trends — the desire for a convenient, ever-ready supply of an ingredient and a hunger for the traditional, the rare, and “real food” — led to what would seem to be a remarkably successful scam on foodie culture: truffle oil.

While in Italy, I had truffle very sparingly sprinkled over pasta. Sublime.

An unscientific survey, but interesting nonetheless.

One of the sellers that was willing to give me more detailed information was Benjamin Clark from The Decal Guru. They saw a quadrupling of orders for MacBook decals since the airing of Apple’s ad. In terms of unique visitors they saw an increase from a steady 500 per day (prior to the ad) to 4,500 at its highest last week.

If you haven’t seen the ad, here ya go.

There’s plenty here to like, but the ability to send a Word and Excel files as PDFs is a real boon for me, personally.

Nice to see Microsoft so dedicated to the iOS Office suite.

This is a fun little game, a puzzle challenge that requires you to move squares around on your screen using a simple set of rules, getting them to rest on a preset position.

The game is web-based, it’s free, and it runs just find on my iPhone. [Hat tip to Patrick Bisenius]