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.

For some, it’s a staple of the American morning: a comforting routine, a good deal. Anything that costs more than $1 is needlessly expensive, a waste of money — the coffee from a deli, diner or doughnut cart is all you need to start the day. For others, the $1 cup is suspiciously cheap. Maybe it tastes bad, or its production does harm to the land and is unfair to laborers. If you have to pay more, then that is probably a reflection of a drink’s true cost.

I just want a plain cup of black coffee.

Although a launch date is still unclear, when it debuts the new Spotify Apple Watch companion app will finally give Spotify listeners a comparable experience on Apple Watch as Apple Music subscribers have had over the past few years.

This is huge for Spotify users.

To celebrate the Golden State Warriors’ NBA-best regular season record—and star Kevin Durant’s return to the team just in time for the 2017 NBA Playoffs—artist, teacher and sports fan Robert Generette III shares an exclusive illustration of Durant coming to life on iPad Pro.

Wow, this is so impressive.

John Warren Geils Jr., better known as J. Geils, the guitarist of the the J. Geils Band, was found dead in his home in Groton, Massachusetts Tuesday. He was 71. Rolling Stone has confirmed Geils’ death. According to Groton Police, “a preliminary investigation indicates that Geils died of natural causes.”

R.I.P.

Apple updated TestFlight today and outlined the changes on its developer web site.

Welcome to Grid Garden, where you write CSS code to grow your carrot garden! Water only the areas that have carrots by using the grid-column-start property.

Have fun learning.

Drawing on your phone or computer can be slow and difficult—so we created AutoDraw, a new web-based tool that pairs machine learning with drawings created by talented artists to help you draw.

That’s pretty cool.

Apple has filed a complaint in a Swiss court over the use of the slogan “Tick Different” in a Swatch marketing campaign, arguing that the watchmaker is unfairly referencing the Californian company’s successful 1990s “Think Different” ad campaign for its own gain.

Seems pretty obvious to me.

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.

In 2012, Twitter fought the New York District Attorney so protect tweets sent by an Occupy Wall Street protester, and in 2014 it sued the U.S. government so that it could share these kinds of user information requests more publicly. Then in 2015, Twitter successfully protected the identity of two anonymous users who were being sued for defamation.

And the company also gets into legal fights where it doesn’t even have a stake. In early 2016, Twitter signed an amicus brief alongside Google in support of PubPeer, a website that allows people to comment anonymously on scholarly articles. PubPeer was being sued by a professor who received unflattering anonymous comments about his work.

Twitter does deserve kudos for this.