Harpers:

From the jury selection process that took place over three days in June for the trial of Martin Shkreli, an investor and hedge fund founder who is facing eight counts of securities and wire fraud. In 2015, when Shkreli was CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, the company raised the price of its drug Daraprim by 5,000 percent. In 2016, Shkreli was widely criticized for defending the 400 percent increase in the price of EpiPen, an emergency allergy injection sold by Mylan. More than two hundred potential jurors were excused from the trial. Judge Kiyo Matsumoto presided. Benjamin Brafman is a lawyer representing Shkreli.

I guarantee this will be the funniest thing you read about Martin Shkreli all year. Thanks to my friend John Welch for the link.

The Street:

Apple Stores turn out to be very good neighbors, and have become the new mall anchor store, a role once held by department stores, because they draw lots of foot traffic, which also benefits the smaller stores.

The presence of an Apple Store in a mall also increases the value of a mall and allows mall owners to raise square-footage rates for other tenants.

While it’s not all sunshine and lollipops for fellow tenants, an Apple store in a mall at least gives those retailers a fighting chance to capture some of the dollars those customers are bringing to the mall. I’d be curious to know if, like the prime spots near Apple during Macworld Expos, whether mall owners charge more for stores the closer they are to Apple.

BoingBoing:

Helen Keller became deaf, blind and mute at the age of 19 months old due to an illness. Later in life, she remarkably learned to speak.

Absolutely amazing. We all know about Helen Keller but these are the first videos I’ve seen of her and her method of communication. Seeing her speak is even more remarkable.

Mental Floss:

In essentially a one-woman play, Karen Black portrays a character hoping to impress her anthropologist boyfriend by gifting him with an African “Zuni fetish doll,” a fearsome-looking warrior cast in wood and grasping a spear. Alone in her apartment, Black finds that the doll is more spirited than your typical toy. As he hacks and slashes at her feet and hides behind furniture, it’s not quite clear whether Black will conquer her tiny terror, go mad, or both.

I saw this as a kid and, to this day, the thought of that little doll still creeps me out. Literally, the scariest thing I’ve ever seen on TV.

Rene Ritchie, iMore:

Apple hasn’t even announced Face ID, the rumored facial identity scanner that would join or replace Touch ID, the fingerprint identity scanner, on the next generation of iPhones 8, but already we’re seeing a great deal of concern and even fear over how it will and won’t work.

And:

One of the biggest areas of fear, uncertainty, and doubt surrounding a potential Face ID facial identity scanner is that it will make it easier to law enforcement and government agencies to gain access to our devices.

Rene digs into the concern itself (someone could grab my phone and point it at my face to unlock it) and explores the validity of that worry.

A solid read, all the way through. Rene is a smart cookie.

Personally, I see Face ID and Touch ID as roughly equivalent in terms of someone using me to break into my phone. Add to that, Apple has not yet announced such a product. I’d prefer to save my worry for something a bit more tangible.

Motherboard:

During its initial printing run, International Data Group printed just 7,500 copies of DOS for Dummies.

And:

By 1993, the series had sold 1.3 million copies on its own. Now there are 1,950 individual books in the series, covering a whole lot of things that have nothing to do with computing, and the books have sold upwards of 300 million titles.

And:

Recently, I bought a book—quaint, I know—and I’m probably the only person to have purchased this book or anything like it in more than 20 years.

It’s a reference book, the kind that you can still pick up at Barnes and Noble today. But it’s best described as what you’d get if you combined a phone book, a Matthew Lesko free money guide, and the internet.

That book is really the crux of the article. A fascinating look back at a time before Google, when the Internet was but a toddler.

Wall Street Journal:

Apple Inc. (AAPL) has set a budget of roughly $1 billion to procure and produce original content over the next year, according to people familiar with the matter–a sign of how serious the iPhone maker is about making a splash in Hollywood.

Combined with the company’s marketing clout and global reach, that immediately makes Apple a considerable competitor in a crowded market where new media players and traditional media companies are vying to acquire original shows. The figure is about half what Time Warner Inc.’s HBO spent on content last year and on par with estimates of what Amazon.com spent in 2013, the year after it announced its move into original programming.

And:

Programming costs can range from more than $2 million an episode for a comedy to more than $5 million for a drama. An episode of some high-end shows such as “Game of Thrones” can cost more than $10 million to produce.

The back-to-back success of the original shows “House of Cards” and “Orange Is the New Black” is credited with building Netflix’s business. At the time they were released the company’s annual budget for original and acquired programming was about $2 billion; this year it is expected to spend more than $6 billion.

Personally, I would not judge Apple’s chances here based on shows like Planet of the Apps and Carpool Karaoke. That would be like judging a developer on the apps they write as they learn how to program.

Key to Apple’s success will be setting aside enough cash (which they appear more than willing to do) and ability to bring on board the right mix of people, people with experience and craft. With the hire of Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, and the addition of Matt Cherniss to oversee development, Apple has the start of a significant original programming effort.

Deadline:

In one of their first major moves since joining Apple as heads of worldwide video programming, Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht have brought in Matt Cherniss to oversee development.

As a reminder, Van Amburg and Erlicht were hired away from Sony, where they shepherded hits like The Crown, Breaking Bad, and The Black List through production.

Cherniss, a respected veteran network development executive, had been in demand since he recently stepped down as president and general manager of WGN America and Tribune Studios.

Cherniss will be a lieutenant to Amburg and Erlicht. Apple is building a formidable team here. Now all they need is money.

Fast Company:

The task of maintaining the individuality and values that propelled its initial success became more challenging when ComiXology integrated itself into a conglomerate the size of Amazon in 2014. Three years on, Steinberger—who continues as ComiXology CEO and also helms the digital comics business on Amazon’s Kindle ebook platform—has not only expanded upon the two companies’ common corporate values, but is creatively incorporating assets from Amazon to hone ComiXology’s business.

I remember when this buyout happened and many predicted doom and gloom for ComiXology. Good to hear they’ve been able to survive and even thrive under Amazon.

Ars Technica:

Hundreds of Internet-connected locks became inoperable last week after a faulty software update caused them to experience a fatal system error, manufacturer LockState said.

The incident is the latest reminder that the so-called Internet of Things—in which locks, thermostats, and other everyday appliances are embedded with small Internet-connected computers—often provide as many annoyances as they do conveniences. Over the past week, the Colorado-based company’s Twitter feed has been gorged with comments from customers who were suddenly unable to lock or unlock their doors normally. Complicating the matter: the affected LockState model—the RemoteLock 6i—is included in an Airbnb partnership called Host Assist. That left many hosts unable to remotely control their locks.

As convenient as these kinds of things are (and their convenience may be minimal), stories like this make it crystal clear why I personally will never own or install these kinds of IoT devices.

iMore:

Sometimes your Mac isn’t running properly, so you need to reset the NVRAM and PRAM. Sometimes you need to boot in Recovery Mode in order to reinstall an OS or recover your hard drive via the internet. Whatever your needs, you can boot your Mac in a variety of modes in order to complete a task before startup; all you need to do is press some keys down and wait for the chime (unless you have a later MacBook Pro, in which case I’m sorry).

Here are all the keyboard shortcuts you can use when starting up your Mac!

I had a kernel panic situation a couple of weeks ago and was glad I had a cheat sheet of these lying around.

Mac Observer:

ARKit, Apple’s answer to augmented reality (AR) on iOS, has become tremendously popular already. Folks have posted quite a few ARKit demos on YouTube since Apple’s announcement of of the software development kit at WWDC 2017.

We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what developers are going to create with ARKit but even some of what we already can see is amazing.

CNBC:

Google is paying Apple billions of dollars to remain the default search engine on iPhones and iPads, Bernstein said in a note to investors on Monday.

The firm believes that Google will pay Apple about $3 billion this year, up from $1 billion just three years ago, and that Google’s licensing fees make up a large bulk of Apple’s services business.

It stands to reason that, if they are paying billions, they are making billions more.

This is a fascinating story about how Winamp squandered its opportunity to be the dominant force in the music universe.

Great read, all the way through, but this bit amazed me:

Amazingly, given all the time elapsed, AOL still makes a decent amount of money on the site and on the program—while the company has declined to release official figures, former employees who worked on Winamp estimate its current revenue at around $6 million annually.

Wait, what? I find that astonishing.

This piece originally ran on June 24, 2012 (and Winamp finally called it quits in November 2013).

Ah, that explains it. Still, a great read.

This is as of today. It’s all about smuggling. Pretty interesting.

CNBC:

Apple and Aetna held a series of secret discussions last week to bring Apple’s health and fitness-tracking smartwatch to millions more people connected to Aetna, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The insurer, which covers 23 million, offers an Apple Watch to its 50,000 employees as part of its corporate wellness program. Now, Aetna is negotiating with Apple on a plan to offer a free or discounted Apple Watch, Apple’s wearable device, as a perk to its members.

Seems to me a brilliant move. For Apple, a discounted Apple Watch brings potential new customers to the ecosystem. For Aetna, it’s possible they’re doing this just to make money on Apple Watch sales, but more likely, they’ve run the numbers, see a cost saving with insured folks having an Apple Watch.

Fascinating story that Dave Hamilton dug up about the origins of multitouch.

My favorite audio company is back at it, releasing four new plugins in their latest update. Universal Audio released the KORG SDD-3000 Digital Delay, Dytronics Cyclosonic Panner, ENGL Savage 120 Guitar Amplifier, AMS RMX16 Expanded, and the Sonnox Oxford Dynamic EQ. There are videos on the update page for each plugin, so you can get an idea of what they do.

In 2010, Patrick and John Collison, brothers from rural Ireland, began to debug this process. Their company, Stripe Inc., built software that businesses could plug into websites and apps to instantly connect with credit card and banking systems and receive payments. The product was a hit with Silicon Valley startups. Businesses such as Lyft, Facebook, DoorDash, and thousands that aspired to be like them turned Stripe into the financial backbone of their operations.

This is a great read. They have done exceptionally well in a cut-throat business.

There’s a lot of excitement these days about the new APFS filesystem coming from Apple. I’m certainly excited about it; some of the promised features sound great. However, I’m going to make a bold suggestion: Don’t convert your production startup disk to APFS this Fall. Wait for the new filesystem to get some more mileage before making the switch. HFS+ is still a supported configuration for High Sierra, and sticking with the tried-and-true filesystem may save a lot of headaches and wasted time.

Mike is the founder of Bombich Software, the makers of Carbon Copy Cloner, so he knows a lot about file systems.

At BlackPods, we’ve developed a proprietary coating system specifically for Apple’s AirPods. Our three-phase finishing procedure utilizes the latest in solvent-based painting technology to yield a luxurious finish that exceeds U.S. Military specifications. Every pair of customized AirPods we produce is hand-finished by a team of skilled artisans. Whether you purchase them through us or send yours in, each pair of AirPods is subjected to a rigorous visual and quality inspection.

BlackPods sells their AirPods in two colors: BlackPods Classic (high-gloss black), and BlackPods Stealth (matte black). BlackPods Classic are available for $279, and BlackPods Stealth are available for $299. Both finishes include free domestic shipping. BlackPods also allows its customers to mail in their own AirPods for customization– $99 for high-gloss black and $119 for matte black.

Use promo code THELOOP at checkout for $20 off anything in our store.

There are a few of these videos (food prep done in the style of famous directors), but this one just nailed the concept.

Wired:

EVERY TIME I get in my car and plug in my iPhone, the same exact song plays: “All of Me” by John Legend. But not the John Legend version, which would be much less embarrassing. No, the very first alphabetically sorted song in my Apple Music library is a cover of “All of Me” by the Dartmouth a cappella group The Dartmouth Aires. It’s not that I hate the song, or this version. It’s that I’ve heard the first 15 seconds of the song approximately 438 million times, blaring through my speakers as I open Spotify or Pocket Casts and play something I actually want.

Every iPhone user has a song like this.

And:

I could go on a whole bender here, ranting about how my phone should know what I want to listen to when I get into the car (probably whatever I was listening to five seconds before I got into the car!) and how annoying it is that the phone instead just plays the song in my library in the alphabetical pole position.

And:

Instead, I’ll just tell you about Samir Mezrahi, the former BuzzFeed and the Dodo social media guru, and his new song, “A a a a a Very Good Song.” The song consists only of nine minutes and 58 seconds of glorious silence.

Silence is not the solution here. Silence is a bandaid, masks the problem. Interesting read though.

New York Times:

In the case of the iPad, you might be able to transfer your plan from the old tablet to the new one right in the settings, without having to fuss around with the hardware.

After you have gone through Apple’s sequence of steps for setting up a new iPad out of the box, tap open the Settings app on the home screen. On the Settings screen, choose Cellular Data on the left side and Set Up Cellular Data on the right. If your previous iPad uses a compatible SIM (subscriber identity module), you should see an option to transfer your existing plan over to the new iPad through your wireless carrier’s network. You need to know the user name and password for your account with the carrier to complete the move and activation process.

Tuck this one away for the next time you upgrade your iPad.

Caixin:

Beijing’s 274 subways stations let you pay with nothing more than your smartphone — as long as it’s not an iPhone, which currently doesn’t support the technology.

On Monday, authorities began rolling out citywide promotions for the wireless function, which allows direct payment from 160 smartphone models, including those from Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Xiaomi Inc. and Samsung.

And:

But the service is unavailable for iPhone users because Apple doesn’t currently allow the required near-field communication (NFC) technology on its handsets to connect to third-party payment terminals in China, BMAC said.

And:

An upgrade to Apple’s iOS operating system due this fall will enable the latest iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models to read more third-party NFC devices, according to company information released at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June.

A BMAC employee told Caixin that the state-run company doesn’t know for now whether the iOS upgrade will be compatible with the city’s payment terminals.

Sounds like a marketing opportunity for Apple. Address the problem, then sell iPhones in Beijing with the tagline, “works in all 274 subway stations” or some such.