Stephen Hackett posted an interview that he did with me this week. If you want to know the who, what, where and why, go have a read.

Alex Knight:

I have spoken friends of mine who have been long-time Blackberry fans, and they aren’t holding their breath for any miraculous event where the company will suddenly bounce back.

This is a key point. Not even RIM’s loyal followers believe there is a chance in hell the company can recover from its embarrassing missteps over the last few years. Even at its worst times, Apple’s core customers believed in the company.

Mac Rumors:

Target has confirmed its plans to launch “store-within-a-store” concepts for Apple products in 25 of its stores around the United States. The announcement comes alongside a broader effort called “the Shops at Target” that will offer special focuses on certain products.

Seems strange considering everyone is supposedly within 50 miles of an Apple Store, but the more the merrier I guess.

Update: As pointed out in the forums, I misspoke in the post. Only 90% of people are within 50 miles from an Apple Store, not everyone.

John Gruber discussing Google’s search and Google Plus integration and the company’s doublespeak on the issue:

The best case scenario for Google is that Eric Schmidt, in his new role as chairman, has turned into a loose cannon who should just shut the fuck up.

Not much else to be said.

From “thousandfold echo” comes the reason why you turn your phone off at concerts:

Until today I’ve never been to a concert where a cellphone stopped the orchestra in the middle of a piece, but now I can check that awful milestone off the list.

That would be embarrassing enough. But to have the conductor stop the orchestra and chastise you from the stage? Mortifying.

Inside Apple reveals the secret systems, tactics and leadership strategies that allowed Steve Jobs and his company to churn out hit after hit and inspire a cult-like following for its products.Based on numerous interviews, the book offers exclusive new information about how Apple innovates, deals with its suppliers and is handling the transition into the Post Jobs Era.

The book is available for pre-order from Amazon.

Seriously, I love what people can do with CSS3.

Shakie is an expressive motion controlled percussion instrument for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Pellets create sounds and rhythms as you move and shake them. Shakie’s built in pellets include maraca, shakers, tambourine, castanet, bells and spoon.

Looks cool.

“Differentiation is positive, fragmentation is negative,” Schmidt said during an appearance here at the Consumer Electronics Show. “Differentiation means that you have a choice and the people who are making the phones, they’re going to compete on their view of innovation, and they’re going to try and convince you that theirs is better than somebody else.”

I’m a total loss for words.

Federico Viticci:

No one is defending the argument that folks like Samsung copy everything that Apple does. Or that Apple doesn’t copy certain trends sometimes. But the amount of shameless copying and blatant efforts of coming up with unoriginal marketing jargon going on at CES are just too much for me.

I think Federico summed up many people’s CES experience.

The Atlantic:

We broke down the trajectories of 17 tablets from CES 2011. In the final tally, I think you could say one is a qualified success (the Asus Eee Pad Transformer), one did OK (the Motorola XOOM), and several flopped (Dell Streak, RIM Playbook) or made no impact (Coby Kyrus, Cydle M7 Multipad, Naxa NID-7001). Nine never were heard from again.This is why it’s OK to ignore CES. Most of the product announcements (the majority in this case) lead nowhere, and if some product is really important, you’ll hear about it via some other avenue.

Ouch.

Engadget:

In a roundtable with reporters at CES, Sony’s Kaz Hirai responded to a question about recent comments attributed to gaming division head Andrew House by stating that “Andy is absolutely right in that we are not making any announcements at E3.”

Sony has long held to a “10 year life cycle” philosophy for its home game consoles, which would push out the end of the PlayStation 3’s life to around 2016 (it was introduced in Japan late in 2006). Typically there’s overlap – the PSOne existed long into the PlayStation 2’s production run, as the PS2 did for the PS3 – so we can expect Sony to make announcements and product introductions long before then. But just not at this year’s E3, which happens in June.

AllThingsD:

“The key reason we didn’t have the iPhone in the past is we are on different band than globally the market was,” Humm said. “That is something which will change over time. Chipsets are also evolving to be able to allow for more bands.”

T-Mobile USA uses a different part of the GSM spectrum than AT&T and other GSM carriers.

In a separate article, T-Mobile CEO Philipp Humm told AllThingsD that “there is no second AT&T deal around,” though the company did net cash, spectrum and a data-roaming agreement.

Reuters:

The once-dominant corporation founded by Michael Dell has seen a growing crop of tablets and smartphones entice consumers away from PCs. But Dell learned from the hastiness of some of its peers and understands better now how consumers value the “ecosystem” of a tablet as much as the hardware, chief commercial officer Steve Felice said.

Good that Dell finally realized what Apple knew for years — ecosystem counts.

Bloomberg Businessweek:

Apple Inc. said it acquired Anobit Technologies Ltd., an Israeli company that makes a flash-memory drive part for the iPhone and iPad, confirming a press report from last month.

The acquisition has been rumored since December, when Israeli tech news site Calcalist first reported the transaction. This is the first direct confirmation from Apple itself, however. Apple acknowledged the acquisition, but didn’t provide further details.

Anobit’s technology makes flash memory work faster and more reliably. With more of Apple’s product line turning to flash storage and increased pressure from other phone, tablet and now “ultrabook” vendors, Anobit will help Apple maintain a competitive edge.

(via AppleInsider.)

Bare Bones Software is sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed again this week. Thanks for the support!

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Digital Photography Review:

16.2MP, 10FPS (24fps 2.5MP grabs), ISO 204,800, 1/8000th of a second shutter speed, 1080p30 HD video, 51 focus points, $5999.95.

Short version? Drool.

If you’ve ever been irritated at dinner because someone in your group is yapping away on his cell phone, or felt insulted because a person across the table from you keeps checking her texts while you’re trying to engage them in conversation, a new game is probably just what you need.The rules are as follows: The game starts after everyone has ordered. Everybody places their phone in the table face down. The first person to flip over their phone loses the game. Loser of the game pays for the bill.

I would lose this game every time.

Really? This is where Dan Lyons wants to go? That Samsung doesn’t copy Apple? That “Apple fanboys” simply claim that they do as a knee-jerk response to Samsung’s undeniable success in the smartphone market?

It’s not even a fair fight.

MarketWatch:

Kodak claims Apple’s iPhones, iPads, and iPods, and some of HTC’s smartphones and tablets use Kodak patents for transmitting images. Kodak is seeking to prevent further patent infringement from Apple and HTC as well as compensation.

Kodak is on its last leg.

Charvel is proud to announce the return of two classic body shapes, both in sleekly modern Desolation series form. New Desolation DST and DX guitars offer a variety of features and finishes prized by discerning players everywhere, and both deadly models deliver the devastating tone, killer looks and high-performance playability that separate the Desolation series from all others.

I have 16 guitars, but sadly not one of them are a Charvel. I’ve always wanted one of these.