Gannon Burgett does a great job of taking a look at the design choices we see in apps these days. I think Apple users are much more picky over design elements, which is a good thing for the platform.

John Biggs for TechCrunch:

The Intel-branded Ultrabook might quickly sink away from mainstream, but it will have a lasting effect on notebook design.

I think John meant that the MacBook Air will have a lasting effect on notebook design.

I can’t help but feel schadenfreude when I watch the PC industry shamelessly copy Apple then fall on their faces.

TechHive:

The new Kindle Paperwhite is a dramatic update inside and out, one with fully redesigned software and an appealing integrated light that makes the Kindle more usable in any environment.

While I prefer the iPad, Amazon is doing a great job with the Kindle line. The reviews for the Kindle Paperwhite have all been quite complimentary. I’ve recommended various Kindles to any number of people who don’t need the full feature set or functionality of the iPad.

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Apple changed its developer guidelines to prohibit apps from showing apps for purchase, other than your own. I agree with Gruber — I don’t see the problem this solves.

Kevin C. Tofel for GigaOM:

Summary: before iOS 6 1 in 4 people were using Google maps at least once a day. After iOS 6: 1 in 25 using Apple maps and falling.

The data is attributed to a company called Snappli.

I have no doubt that some people are experiencing genuine problems with Maps. I have no doubt that it’s not an optimal solution for people who need, say, public transit maps. But for many of us, Jim and me included, Maps works great and is definitely better than what we had before.

To suggest that it’s useless enough that more than 90 percent of iOS 6 users have stopped using it all together? That goes beyond straining credulity. That’s straight into the realm of absolute bullshit.

Robin Wauters for The Next Web:

Video streaming giant Netflix today announced that it is bringing its “Just for Kids” viewing experience to the two latest versions of the iPad, with support for the original iPad and Android tablets coming ‘later this year’.

Netflix video streaming is very popular with the young people in my house. While they’re old enough that I’m not overly concerned with the content they view, if they were a few years younger, you can bet I’d be using this.

Benj Edwards takes a look at the history of the compact disc, which marks a milestone: It’s the 30th anniversary of the introduction of Sony’s first CD player, aimed squarely at deep-pocketed audiophiles looking for the best sound quality.

The NYT has a story about Fender and its struggles.

Matthew Panzarino for The Next Web:

Recently, at an SFTA event held at Citrix HQ, former Apple CEO John Sculley talked about the origins of the Newton and the ARM processor, which was a joint venture between Apple, Acorn Computers and VLSI. The ARM6 was used as the processor for the first Newton MessagePad, as Apple needed a more power efficient CPU for its portable.

The link to the video is worth checking out. Some interesting historical perspective from John Sculley about Apple’s first foray into handheld computing.

My thanks to Pixelmator for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. Congratulations on your fifth birthday of making the best image editing software on the Mac.

Wired:

While The Who’s “Pinball Wizard” still stands up after four decades of radio play, the designers of the pinball machines that made Tommy so good have become an endangered species.Only one company in the world, Illinois’ Stern Pinball, still designs and produces these electro-mechanical marvels, the lone holdout since industry behemoth Williams Electronics shuttered its pinball division in 1999. It may be a dying art, but the creative minds at Stern are nonetheless continuously creating new machines that can keep their industry moving forward and give them one more replay.

I still prefer pinball machines to video games. There’s something “retro-cool” about the mechanical action of the game play that you can’t get from computerized games.

Got fired from Facebook. Ouch.

There can be no doubt that as the Senior Vice President of iOS Software, Maps falls squarely on Scott Forstall’s shoulders.

I wrote a guest post on TechCrunch about Apple and its Maps app on the iPhone.

I love the one with the heart under the box. I laughed.

AdSense for Feeds was designed to help publishers earn revenue from their content by placing ads on their RSS feeds. Starting October 2, we’ll begin to retire this feature—and on December 3 we’ll close it. Publishers can continue to use FeedBurner URLs powered by Google, so they won’t need to redirect subscribers to different URLs. For more information visit the AdSense Help Center.

Can FeedBurner’s death really be far off?

MapQuest. I kid you not.

Gina Smith for SFGate:

“This is the second time Apple has unleashed a beta product on the public post the death of (late Apple CEO) Steve Jobs,” Londis said. “Apple Siri was the first,” he said, referring to the iPhone’s voice-activated assistant. He pointed out that Apple used to have a rule forbidding release of beta software when Jobs was in charge. “Apple is letting the public vet the software. This is something Jobs never would have done.”

I’m sick and tired of pundits saying “This is something Jobs never would have done.” There’s ever been precisely one person on Earth who knew what Jobs would have done, and he died last October.

Londis is also demonstrably wrong. Apple, under Jobs’ leadership, released any number of public betas. OS X Public Beta is one example. FaceTime for Mac is a more recent example. iWork.com. The list goes on and on.

This is just one example of the “Not on Steve Jobs’ watch” harping that’s been going on for months, and the vast majority of it is total bullshit.

Ina Fried for All Things D:

T-Mobile said on Friday that it has reached a deal to unload its cellular towers for $2.4 billion, a move that will help fund the company’s effort to modernize its network.

The lessee is Crown Castle, a Houston, Texas-based company, which has secured a 10-year deal with T-Mobile with an option to buy. T-Mobile is scrambling to upgrade its service to high-speed LTE following AT&T’s failed acquisition of T-Mobile last year. Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s parent company, plans to use the money to pay debt and fund the network expansion.

Great, now how about an app that doesn’t suck balls.

Shawn Blanc looks at his journey of going paperless and the tools he uses to accomplish it.

iPhone 5 goes on sale in 22 countries today including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

An apology from the CEO.

Mayer’s rule: If a new product can’t be shipped in six months, and if it doesn’t have a realistic shot of reaching 100 million users or generate $100 million toward the company’s top line, then Yahoo will no longer bother.

It’s no secret that I like Mayer and it’s because of things like this. Tell your employees what you want and expect them to meet those expectations.

Robert Andrews for PaidContent.org:

Magazine publisher Future hinted it will upgrade its digital strategy at scale later this year, as it announced impressive sales thanks to Apple’sz [sic] iTunes Newsstand. “Sales of digital editions on Apple devices have passed £5 million ($8 million) in the period since the Apple Newsstand was launched in October 2011,” the company reported in Thursday’s interim trading update.

Good news for Future, which has made a huge transition to digital publishing on the iPad in the past year.