I’ve heard a lot of musician jokes in my time, but there are a few new ones in here.

“A music service needs to be more than a bunch of songs and a few playlists,” says Iovine, 64. “I’m trying to help Apple Music be an overall movement in popular culture, everything from unsigned bands to video. We have a lot of plans.” Apple Music’s foray into video programming could be a temporary dalliance, but if Iovine succeeds, the world’s wealthiest company could increase its investment, routinely competing for top projects. “We have the freedom, because it’s Apple, to make one show, three shows, see what works, see what doesn’t work until it feels good,” Iovine says.

He’s right. Apple has the luxury to be very patient while it searches for the exact video strategy that works. They don’t have to fund new TV series just to jump into the mix with everyone else doing the same thing. Even those companies are watching to see what Apple will do.

I recently switched to the gorgeous new iPhone 7 Plus (PRODUCT)RED, but one thing I didn’t do is setup my Apple Watch with the iPhone. It was a simple oversight, but I realized very quickly how much I’ve come to rely on the Apple Watch/iPhone combination in my daily life. […]

The Onion is just brilliant sometimes.

This week TechCrunch’s Editor-In-Chief, Matthew Panzarino, joins me to talk about his many sneakers and the incredible aftermarket for them. We also delve into what it’s like writing, planning articles, and covering Apple in today’s world.

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The company expects to deploy its flying taxis in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, and Dubai by 2020, Chief Product Officer Jeff Holden said at the Uber Elevate Summit in Dallas on Tuesday.

Fuck no!

I was just out for a drive and this song came on Pandora. I absolutely love this song, but I also remembered one of the funniest movies ever made—Cheech and Chong “Up in Smoke”. This is the opening scene of the movie.

Apple today announced plans to launch dozens of new educational sessions next month in all 495 Apple stores ranging in topics from photo and video to music, coding, art and design and more. The hands-on sessions, collectively called “Today at Apple,” will be led by highly-trained team members, and in select cities world-class artists, photographers and musicians, teaching sessions from basics and how-to lessons to professional-level programs.

Sounds like an expanded version of what they used to do at the stores. I like it.

My thanks to Letter Opener for sponsoring The Loop this week.

Letter Opener for macOS

Working together with Windows users shouldn’t be problematic at all. Still, some email messages can not be natively read by the Mac and are packed into Winmail.dat or MSG files that have to be extracted and displayed somehow. Letter Opener for macOS does that with a simple double-click!

Letter Opener for macOS Mail

The plugin to stop the Winmail.dat file flood for good.

If Winmail.dat files are a reoccurring problem, Letter Opener for macOS Mail is the solution. Installed into Mail it opens and displays the files directly inside Apples Mail application, so the user can forget about Winmail.dat files entirely.

A Slovakia-based company unveiled the commercial design for a flying car priced at more than $1 million on Thursday, saying it was ready for pre-orders with first deliveries expected by 2020.

This may surprise some of you, but the flying car concept is not new. The interesting part of the puzzle here will be the regulations that it will have to overcome.

Heartfelt shout-outs to Tim Cook from the Emmys and Oscars stages — how would that sound? Or lest we get too ahead of ourselves, how about a title card that reads “Apple Films” or “An Apple Original Series” in front of your favorite new movie or TV show?

It all has a bit of a ring to it, right?

This is a fascinating read. We all know that Apple is interesting in expanding into video, but they are going to have to do something more than a series featuring Dre or Planet of the Apps if they want to be serious about it.

Yeah, you can now find and play specific songs. And albums. But, Pandora Premium is so much more than music on-demand. With Premium, you can find the music you love, but maybe more importantly, the music you love finds you. Effortlessly. It adapts to you by using all the signals – thumbs, replays, skips and stations adds – you’ve given us over the years to help curate your Pandora stations. You’ll see it from the moment you open Premium for the first time.

When Pandora Premium launched it was only available for people that directly paid the company. Now you can upgrade to premium if you subscribe through iTunes. I’ve been using it since the day it was released and it does a damn good job of knowing my musical tastes and playing songs that I love.

This is so good.

Privacy advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have again outlined how Google is successfully dumping millions of low-cost Chromebooks on U.S. schools, enabling the mass collection and storage of information on children without the consent of their parents or even the understanding of many school administrators.

Come on, Google.

Bose Corp spies on its wireless headphone customers by using an app that tracks the music, podcasts and other audio they listen to, and violates their privacy rights by selling the information without permission, a lawsuit charged.

In order to do this, customers need to download an app from Apple or Google and fill out their information. Technically, he probably had to agree to the terms of service, but still, not a good move by Bose.

Tim Cook’s acceptance speech for Newseum 2017 Free Expression Award:

“We know that these freedoms require protection,” Cook said of First Amendment rights. “Not just the forms of speech that entertain us, but the ones that challenge us. The ones that unnerve and even displease us. They’re the ones that need protection the most. It’s no accident that these freedoms are enshrined and protected in the First Amendment. They are the foundation to so many of our rights.”

“This is a responsibility that Apple takes very seriously,” Cook said. “First we defend, we work to defend these freedoms by enabling people around the world to speak up. And second, we do it by speaking up ourselves. Because companies can, and should have values.”

Cheers, Tim.

Apple’s lead in mobile performance–powered by the efficiency of iOS 10 and the computational speed of its custom A10 Fusion Application Processor–beats the newest, leading premium Androids in a wide range of tests from processor and 3D benchmarks to real-world device startup and app launching and multitasking. Not even 6GB of RAM and the extra cores of Qualcomm’s fastest Snapdragon 835 can prop up the laggard, inefficient Android OS.

I played with a Google Pixel at a phone store recently and it was truly awful. Slow and laggy.

I’ve been using Apple’s newest iPad for a couple of weeks now and love it. The more I used it, the more I realized that it wasn’t the features that make this iPad so good, it was Apple’s strategy in releasing it that I was impressed with. […]

On April 18, the Newseum will award Apple CEO Tim Cook the Free Expression Award in the free speech category. Cook has used his spotlight to take a public stand on major societal issues, including racial equality, privacy, protecting the environment, access to education and LGBT rights.

The second annual Free Expression Awards recognize those who exhibit passion for and dedication to free expression. Honorees have taken personal or professional risks in sharing critical information with the public, have been censored or punished by authorities or other groups for their work, or have pushed boundaries in artistic and media expression.

Congrats, Tim.

Thanks to djay Pro for sponsoring The Loop this week.

djay Pro, Algoriddim’s award-winning DJ application, is available for macOS, iOS, and Android. Now it’s also on Windows 10, bridging a native desktop and touch experience across every platform and fulfilling our mission of making everyone a DJ. Anywhere. Any time. Any platform.

Apple Inc is considering teaming up with its supplier Foxconn to bid for Toshiba Corp’s semiconductor business, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported on Friday – the latest twist in the sale of the world’s second-biggest flash memory chipmaker.

Makes perfect sense. Guess who the largest chipmaker is? Samsung.

“NES Classic Edition wasn’t intended to be an ongoing, long-term product. However, due to high demand, we did add extra shipments to our original plans.” The company has no plans to produce more NES Classic systems for North America. This announcement includes the discontinuation of the NES Classic Controller. As for third party accessories, Nintendo said the decision whether or not to continue production of accessories will be up to each individual manufacturer.

I was listening to Apple Music’s Heavy Metal Radio the other day and this song came on. It had been years since I heard it, so I thought I’d share.

Franc is founded by Brandy Mercredi, a veteran apparel designer, lifestyle blogger and mini basics designer at mini mioche. Brandy always felt style trumped fashion and found inspiration in the unique ways people were able to style a single item.

Brandy is a friend of mine, and while I know nothing about fashion, I know she took a big step starting this company and designing these clothes. Good luck Brandy!

Fender Collection 2 for iPhone or iPad comes with classic tweed amp models from the current ’57 Custom Series including the ’57 Custom Twin-Amp, the ’57 Custom Pro-Amp, the ’57 Custom Deluxe and the ’57 Custom Champ, plus a ’57 Bandmaster, a ’53 Bassman and ’65 Super Reverb.

IK Multimedia did a great job with the Fender Collection.

Apple has hired a small team of biomedical engineers to work at a nondescript office in Palo Alto, California, miles from corporate headquarters.

They are part of a super secret initiative, initially envisioned by the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, to develop sensors that can noninvasively and continuously monitor blood sugar levels to better treat diabetes, according to three people familiar with the matter.

With Apple’s move into medical research over the last few years, this wouldn’t surprise me. They are more than just a technology, but this one is a tough nut to crack.

Just under three hours after Burger King unveiled a new advertisement designed to hijack your Google Home to read a long-winded description of its Whopper burger, Google has disabled the functionality. It was fun / horrifying while it lasted!

Just seems like a way to piss people off.

Version 9 introduces over 100 enhancements covering document annotations, Tables of Contents, and export options.

That’s a big update for an already great app.

One of the key signature features of Samsung’s Galaxy S8, its Bixby voice assistant, won’t work out of the box, when the device goes on sale later this month. Other parts of Bixby, including its visual search and reminder abilities, will ship at launch, a Samsung representative told Axios in a statement.

Oops.

The Jackson X Series Rhoads models continue the metal legacy pioneered by the immortal Randy Rhoads. Regal and proud, the RRX24 offers fantastic tone, ultra-fast playability and unbelievable value for 21st century guitarists.

Randy was so great.