A steeper-than-expected drop in quarterly profit rattled some Amazon.com investors, but Wall Street analysts remained largely bullish about the company’s aggressive spending plans.

This remains one of the most amazing trends in the tech industry. No matter what happens to Amazon, analysts stay bullish. Any other company would be trying to explain that everything is okay, but Amazon gets a free pass every quarter.

Not sure how Gruber got ahold of this footage. A real coup.

Another sign of the times. Sadly, Kirk McElhearn has just turned in his last Ask the iTunes Guy column for Macworld. Another sign that the publishing market is shrinking, the indie publishing market more than most. Feh.

Side note: Kirk is a great writer with deep Apple knowledge and is looking for work. If you’ve got a gig, give him a shout.

Jordan Smith:

A few days ago my wife expressed an interest in learning how to code. ‘Really..? Sure!’, I said. ‘You should check out an app called Swift Playgrounds’.

And:

I hadn’t tried the app myself, but Apple made a big deal of introducing it last year, and I had heard positive things – so it seemed like a good suggestion.

It didn’t take long to get the app installed, and as Joelle (my wife) started the first lesson, my curiosity turned to fascination. Yes, the app was fun, exciting, and engaging, but that wasn’t it. Despite a few rough edges, Swift Playgrounds made coding seem approachable, perhaps even ordinary. As if by magic, coding had become something that everyone can do.

Read on. What follows is a detailed post mortem and analysis of Joelle’s experience and Jordan’s take on what worked and what might be improved.

Interested in songwriting? Check out the Chasing Sound review of an app called Tab Bank. Tab Bank uses plain text and Chord Pro formatting to make it easy to lay out lyrics, chords, and tabs.

This looks great.

Neil Cybart:

All of the pieces are coming together for Apple to sell glasses. Using fashion and luxury lessons learned from selling Apple Watch, Apple will enter the glasses industry and in the process launch its first product category designed specifically for the augmented reality (AR) era. While ARKit has taken the world by storm, the development platform is already making it clear that new form factors are needed to take full advantage of AR. It is no longer a question of if, but when, Apple will use AR to rethink glasses.

And:

It cannot be overstated how clearer vision is one of the most value-add items a product can provide to its user. There aren’t too many gadgets or devices that would be selected over a smartphone in terms of its importance in our lives. However, corrective lenses would certainly be at the top of the list for many people.

And:

Glasses also provide a different kind of utility than clearer vision. A growing number of people are wearing glasses despite having perfect vision. Glasses are increasingly becoming accessories for the face, a fashion item complimenting a particular outfit, haircut, or even social occasion.

That last bit is critical to the logic chain here. Apple knows how to make good looking accessories, they understand the value of design and know how to marry that design with the practicality of mass production and the necessity of the highest technology.

Apple glasses, combined with AirPods (or some combination of both) will be an interesting and, perhaps, market changing force.

Thoughtful writing from Neil Cybart, well worth your time.

Bloomberg:

Twitter Inc. failed to attract more monthly users in the second quarter, spooking investors looking for evidence that the company is on a sustainable long-term growth path. The shares tumbled the most in nine months, even as quarterly revenue topped analysts’ projections.

A long-term turnaround depends on Twitter expanding its audience. That number stands at 328 million monthly active users.

Twitter has 328 million users. That’s a huge audience, by most standards. If you are an investor, the desire for growth is understandable.

But if you are a Twitter user, does growth matter? Does revenue matter?

As long as Twitter makes enough money to keep paying their bills without completely bastardizing the user experience, neither should matter. The question is, how will Twitter management react to pressure from these spooked investors. Will advertising creep upwards? Will the basic mechanics change in a quest to make Twitter pay?

I hope not. Personally, I’m a fan of the existing model.

Apple has finalized terms with Events DC, the official convention and sports authority for the District of Columbia, to lease a portion of the Carnegie Library at at Mount Vernon Square, described as a newly transformed convention and entertainment district in downtown Washington D.C.

That is going to be a beautiful store.

Wired:

The iPod died slowly, then all at once. After nearly 16 years on the market, more than 400 million units sold, and one Cupertino company launched into the stratosphere on its back, Apple quietly pulled the iPod Nano and Shuffle out of its virtual stores today. The iPod Touch still lives on: In fact, Apple now offers the Touch with 32 gigs of storage starting at $199. But that’s not a real iPod; it’s an iPhone-lite. Today officially marks the end of Apple’s era of standalone music players.

Pour one out for the iPod. I get why they are no longer “needed” in Apple’s lineup but they will always have a soft spot in my gadget-loving heart.

Bored Panda:

American artist Tom Bob is running loose in the streets of New York, and let’s hope nobody catches him.

Using street “furniture” like poles or electrical terminals, Tom creates colorful and whimsical pieces that interact with their surroundings. From turning a sewer into a frying pan, to transforming gas meters into quirky lobsters, Tom Bob is making the city a much happier place for everybody.

This street art is absolutely brilliant.

After removing the iPod nano and Shuffle, Apple has now adjusted the price of the iPod Touch.

While the company is still selling the iOS-powered iPod touch, the smaller, less expensive media players are nowhere to be found.

I suppose it had to happen at some point.

When markets opened on Thursday, Bezos had a net worth of $90.6 billion, putting him $500 million ahead of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Amazon stock opened up 1.6% on Thursday, adding $1.4 billion to Bezos’ net worth.

That’s just an incredible amount of money.

BuzzFeed:

The Tasty One Top makes it easy to cook all your favorite recipes, all on one compact appliance. The One Top was engineered to be the most versatile appliance in your kitchen. Say goodbye to guessing and hello to perfect meals.

The One Top tracks time & temperature in real-time, and lets you know when to flip your pancake, add your veggies, or eat your meal.

I had no idea BuzzFeed was developing and selling hardware and this may be a complete bust but the idea – cooking made easier through technology – is one I can get behind as a beginning cook myself.

Macpaw:

MacPaw just bought the Unarchiver, one of the Top Free apps on the Mac App Store. The Unarchiver is an overwhelmingly popular piece of software for dealing with a common problem — different archive formats on Mac.

MacPaw developers hope to not only maintain but improve The Unarchiver. We plan a major facelift and a couple of new features. The app is going to get prettier and we’ll keep it updated for the upcoming macOS. Naturally, it will always stay free for all users.

Not sexy news but for us old timers who remember the days of Stuffit Expander and the like, this is kind of interesting. The Unarchiver is my app of choice for the job and I’m glad to hear it will continue to exist.

You know that thing where you open a canister of peanuts and a spring loaded snake pops out, scaring the heck out of you?

Take a look at the second picture in the linked story. I will never ever open a Pringles can again without first shaking it.

Creepy.

Jonny Evans, writing for Computerworld, digs through iOS 11 for all the new shiny. A good list.

Though there is a lot of great stuff to choose from, my two favorites are ARKit (which I write about a lot) and Siri Translate.

If you have the iOS 11 beta installed, give Siri Translate a try. For example, tell Siri:

Translate where is the nearest train station into Italian

Siri will present the translated text, and then speak the translated text in Italian. There’s a play button, so you can play the translation over and over again. Gives you a chance to work on your pronunciation or to play with audio for a native speaker. I do a lot of traveling, and this is like magic to me.

There are still a few glitches, but this is incredibly strong work for a new feature, let alone a beta.

Apple Insider takes you on a tour of the new document scanner, a new Notes feature that ships in iOS 11.

One thing that struck me is the connection to ARKit, the ability to recognize objects. ARKit is such a huge innovation. It’s impact will be felt far and wide.

This Vulture interview is just filled with anecdotes and personal observations. Very interesting. A few examples that struck me:

I remember the Prodigy bulletin board and being fascinated to see there was a Nine Inch Nails room. The promise of that kind of interaction with fans was exciting. The consequences of how that interaction has evolved have not been.

And:

David Bowie was a fucking alien, you know? As it happens, he was a fucking alien. I was lucky enough to be friends with him and he was even cooler than I’d thought. But demystification is a real problem. There’ve been people whose music I can’t like anymore because I’ve seen them bitching on Twitter about a waiter like a fucking asshole.

And:

The economics of music aren’t what they should be, and the culture isn’t giving the arts its fair due, but humans are always going to respond to emotion and storytelling. I believe that as much as I ever did. More, even.

And:

Just this morning, me and my two older boys were sitting in the hotel restaurant. Their mom has played the new EP for them a couple times. They’re like, “My favorite song is ‘Less Than’.” That’s sweet, but then I’m thinking, Don’t I say ‘fuck’ in that one? Same thing when they were at sound check: What song don’t I say ‘fuck’ in? I’ll tell you another thing I think about: I’m now thrust into adult events — school things with other parents, and just … You’re not really thinking about how lyrics that seemed cool at the time are going to register with parents at your kid’s school 20 years later.

I love the depth of the interview. Nice and long, gives Reznor a chance to ramble, to really express himself.

Wired:

Using a combination of a GPS tracking system and visual recognition, the pair designed the camera drone to follow users wherever they went—like magic, without the need for a remote control.

And:

It seemed like his company was going stratospheric. The previous year, Lily Drone had enchanted Silicon Valley and beyond. In 2016, the Wall Street Journal put it on its list of products “that will change your life.” Balaresque and Bradlow were named in Fortune’s 30 Under 30. Facebook buzzed with excitement, and people eagerly placed $499 preorders, imagining the drone on family trips and skiing adventures.

But:

Just a few months after this presentation, by January 2017, the headlines had changed. “Drone Startup Abruptly Shuts Down.” “Is Lily Robotics the Theranos of the Drone World?” Lily Drones was now “hyped,” “collapsing,” and “failed.” Preorder customers bemoaned their losses on the internet. Those who hadn’t ordered gloated. In early 2017, the company declared bankruptcy and was sued by the San Francisco District Attorney’s office for false advertising.

Fantastic read, a real cautionary tale.

Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June, Cochlear’s Nucleus 7 Sound Processor can now stream sound directly from a compatible iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to the sound processor.

The device also allows those with a surgically embedded implant to control and customize the sound from their iPhone.

This sounds incredible.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Foxconn Technology Group announced at the White House Wednesday its plans to invest $10 billion to build a massive display panel plant in Wisconsin that could employ up to 13,000 workers but would require up to $3 billion in subsidies from state taxpayers.

And:

At 20 million square feet, the factory would be three times the size of the Pentagon, making it one of the largest manufacturing campuses in the nation. It would initially employ 3,000 workers making an average of $53,900 a year.

Interesting. Not a single mention of Apple.

Billboard:

Brantley Gilbert made the most of an opportunity on July 23, debuting a new, 60-second black-and-white Apple Music commercial during a NASCAR race that bore his name this year, the Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Brickyard 400.

The spot will likely appeal to fans of both country and rock, two genres that trail pop and hip-hop in the penetration of streaming services. Shot over two days near Leiper’s Fork, Tenn., the video incorporates images of a wide-open field, motorcycles on a country road, rural neighbors in a small-town diner and an American flag, backed by snippets of Gilbert’s current single, “The Ones That Like Me,” plus Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” Kendrick Lamar’s “Backseat Freestyle” and Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild.” Other acts whose names are visible in Gilbert’s playlist include Johnny Cash, Metallica and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

Apple Music touts a three-month free trial in the spot, after Gilbert delivers a simple hook: “My country. My people. My music. Apple Music.”

The feel of the commercial is spot on. Watch for yourself.

Christina Passariello, WSJ. Magazine:

Apple Park is unlike any other product Ive has worked on. There will be only one campus—in contrast to the ubiquity of Apple’s phones and computers—and it doesn’t fit in a pocket or a hand. Yet Ive applied the same design process he brings to technological devices: prototyping to minimize any issues with the end result and to narrow what he calls the delta between the vision and the reality of a project. Apple Park is also the last major project Ive worked on with Steve Jobs, making it more personal for the man Jobs once called his “spiritual partner.”

So far, so good. But:

With Apple Park, Ive is ensconced as master of the house, which means he has also inherited the burden of proving that Apple’s best days aren’t behind it. Apple hasn’t had a breakthrough product since Jobs died. The iPhone’s sales growth has stalled, and expectations are high that a 10th-anniversary phone will arrive later this year and will be markedly more advanced than previous versions. In other technologies, from digital assistants to driverless vehicles to augmented and virtual reality, Apple seems to lag other tech giants, including Google, Amazon and Tesla. Its new voice-activated speaker, HomePod, unveiled in June, will arrive on the market in December, three years after Amazon’s Echo.

This “what have you done for me lately” journalism does a disservice, is incredibly shortsighted. Products like Apple Watch and AirPods aside, spend some time with ARKit to see a true breakthrough at work, a technology that will enable a generation of developers to stand on the shoulder of giants, to build things that would have been impractical, if not impossible before.

But I digress:

Like other Ive designs, Apple Park seems poised to become an icon. In an acknowledgement that the campus will attract interest beyond its employees, there will be a visitor center and a store selling items unique to Apple Park.

And:

Ive joined Apple half a lifetime ago, in his mid-20s, when the company was at the brink of death. One of his early designs, the candy-colored iMac, was rejected by executives. Ive stashed it away until Jobs returned to the company in 1997, after a 12-year hiatus; it became an instant point of connection between the two men and was put into production soon thereafter.

And:

When J.J. Abrams was working on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Ive mentioned that he “would love to see a lightsaber that is rougher, spitting sparks,” Abrams says. The director, who says he and Ive were already fans of each other’s work when they met at a dinner four years ago, applied Ive’s suggestion to character Kylo Ren’s weapon. “His lightsaber was as imperfect and unpredictable as the character,” says Abrams. (The inspiration is mutual: Ive told Abrams that he had the look of the original Stormtroopers in mind when he designed Apple’s earbuds.)

These quotes are just the tip of the iceberg. The article goes on to highlight many features of Apple Park intercut with quotes from Laurene Powell Jobs, Sir Jony, and Tim Cook. This is worth reading, worth the price of a Wall Street Journal subscription, or a trip to your newsstand to pick up a paper copy of the WSJ. Magazine (this is this week’s cover story).

Vitaliy Katsenelson, Market Watch:

> I had this “Aha!” moment recently when I visited a Tesla store and saw its cars’ power train. It looks just like a skateboard — basically a flat slab of metal (which houses the battery), four wheels, and an electric engine the size of a large watermelon. That’s it — the Tesla has only 18 moving parts.

Many Tesla showrooms have that full size power train on display. It really is something to behold, a marvel of efficiency. For those who aspire to own an Apple Car one day, a service like that luxury car detailing can elevate an Apple Car by enhancing its sleek design and high-end features, ensuring it maintains a pristine appearance and premium feel. Sell your car to Car’s Cash For Junk Clunkers at 4520 Brass Way, Dallas, TX 75236 (888) 434-5831 for cash for cars.

> If both Tesla and Apple bypass the dealership model, the GMs of the world will be at an even larger competitive disadvantage. They will have to abandon the dealership model too. Yes, I know, selling cars directly to consumers is not legal in many states, but if the U.S. Constitution could be amended 27 times, the law on car sales (which is an artifact of the Great Depression) can be amended as well. The traditional dealership model is unlikely to survive anyway, as its economics dramatically degrade in the electric-car world. A car, like the one featured on this company, with few moving parts and minimal electronics has few things to break. Consequently, electric cars will need less servicing, throttling the dealerships’ most important profit center. You can find electric cars for sale in san diego at Miramar Car Center.

And:

> Think back to the day when Apple introduced the iPhone. No one suspected that it (and the smartphones that followed) would enable a service like Uber, which is putting cabdrivers worldwide out of business. > > The baby boomer generation romanticizes cars. Most boomers can recite the horsepower and other engine specs of every car they have ever owned. For the tail end of Gen-X (my generation) and Millennials, a car is an interruption between Facebook and Twitter. However, finding the right car can still be a priority. Exploring options at a used car dealer in fort myers can offer convenience.

Obviously, this is conjecture. We do not know if Apple is building a car. But the idea of an Apple Car is fascinating, and this article homes in on some interesting truths if Apple does go down that path with the help of the best dodge dealership near me . Read the whole thing.

A U.S. judge on Monday ordered Apple Inc to pay $506 million for infringing on a patent owned by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s patent licensing arm, more than doubling the damages initially imposed on Apple by a jury.

There is a second lawsuit pending that alleges later Apple devices also infringe on the patent. Apple is appealing.

“I spoke to [Mr. Cook], he’s promised me three big plants—big, big, big,” Mr. Trump said as part of a discussion about business-tax reform and business investment. “I said you know, Tim, unless you start building your plants in this country, I won’t consider my administration an economic success. He called me, and he said they are going forward.”

Apple declined to comment.

I guess Tim won’t be giving Trump any secret information on the next iPhone.