The Apple iPhone 5 is among the best smart phones in our Ratings and the best iPhone yet, our completed tests confirm.

I still don’t trust Consumer Reports.

This is just all kinds of wonderful.

Geo-intelligent laptop settings.

Great app.

I’d like to thank Studiometry for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. Much respect.

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Beautiful.

Headphones with built-in amPlug technology that allows you to obtain full-fledged guitar/bass sounds.

What a great idea. Vox has been doing some great digital gear over the last few years.

MG Siegler describing Google’s purchase of Motorola.

Mike Rose:

The issue manifests as one recipient declining an invitation which mistakenly cancels the meeting for everyone, “hijacking” the meeting out from under the original organizer.

Reports are the bug has actually gotten worse with iOS 6.

Heather Kelly for CNN:

Unfortunately for Apple’s soft-spoken chief executive, he has been incessantly compared to his predecessor after every presentation, successes and failures. “To simply put Steve Jobs on some sort of pedestal and say Apple could do no wrong under Steve’s leadership is wrong,” said Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg. Remember Ping, Apple’s failed attempt at a social network centered around music?

Lots of good info about what Tim has done to change Apple’s corporate culture in the past year. On the whole, a balanced thoughtful look at Apple a year after Steve’s passing – unlike the vast majority of articles that have invoked Steve Jobs in the past year.

Then again, we’d expect nothing less from a former Macworld colleague.

Alee Karim at SFWeekly has compiled a list of the ten most unreadable logos from black metal music groups. Black metal isn’t my favorite genre so I admit that I’m not familiar with most of the bands on this list, but there’s no question that some of these are absolute typographical nightmares. Truth be told, most of them look like Rorschach tests to me.

Great information on colors.

I’ve been using Felix lately for my App.net account.

Steven Musil for CNet:

Apple proposed a reciprocal patent agreement to Samsung in the months leading up to their landmark trial, but the two could not arrive at a deal acceptable to both companies.

The deal would have enabled Apple to license from Samsung its 3G/UMTS patents. Samsung disagreed with the terms of the license, suggesting that it was owed a lot more than Apple was willing to pay.

And the beat goes on…

Looking at the demos, numbers 3 and 5 are my favorites.

Wow. Just wow.

In honor of the classic flick, we took a look at one of its biggest stars (literally and figuratively) André Roussimoff — known to the world as André the Giant. The legend himself has been gone for almost twenty years but his name and image are still a major part of pop culture.

In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook (FB) from his Harvard University dorm room, hoping to see what his classmates were up to on campus. The following eight years brought international fame, unimaginable wealth, a hit Hollywood movie, a disastrous initial public offering, a sagging stock price—and one unprecedented achievement. On Sept. 14, the company reached 1 billion active users.

It is amazing.

Founded in 2000, AssistiveWare has established itself as the worldwide leader in innovative assistive technology software for Mac OS X and iOS.

I got a demo of the voices from CEO David Niemeijer in June. I can’t tell you how impressed I was.

Mikey Campbell for AppleInsider:

According to Interbrand, Apple’s brand value increased 129 percent to reach an estimated $76.5 billion, the most growth shown by any of the top 100 companies on the global list. In determining value, the firm measures financial performance of branded products or services, the role of brand in the purchase decision process and the overall strength of the brand.

Coca-Cola was No. 1.

Netbot is a full-featured iPhone App.net client.

On this week’s episode of Amplified, Jim and Dan discuss advertising for mobile devices, Nokia’s financial woes, untold stories about Steve Jobs, growth of the tablet market and the rumored “iPad Junior”, the iPhone 5’s vibrations, AT&T’s coverage and dead zones, Apple Maps, Stevie Ray Vaughan, blues, guitars, and more!Sponsored by Shutterstock (use code DANSENTME10 for 30% off any package), Squarespace (use code DANSENTME10 for 10% off), Shopify (three months free on signup), and CacheFly

George Dvorsky for io9:

Advice for guys who are struggling to deal with their receding hairlines: You might just want to shave it all off. A recent study involving three separate experiments has shown that men who shear the hair off their heads are perceived as being more dominant, taller, and even stronger.

To borrow Jim’s line for a moment, yep.

But the increased perception of masculinity comes at a price: namely, diminished attractiveness.

Bullshit.

The Noun Project has just launched a great redesign and aims to collect every icon, pictogram and symbol from everywhere, even from you.

[Via Coudal]

Very cool.

Dave Grohl took to the Foo Fighters Facebook page Tuesday with a note confirming the band will take a hiatus just a few days after his onstage comments at the Global Citizen Festival in New York led to rumors of a break-up.

One of the last shows they did was at the iPhone 5 launch, and I was there.