Great two part series from Ars Technica. Here’s part one. Here’s part two.

Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note:

Weeks ago, Walt Mossberg, arguably the most influential, most respected for his integrity (not the same thing) tech columnist announced his retirement at a young 70. Today, I salute his exemplary career, and remember the “good old days” of traditional newspapers. And I also wonder what led to his decision.

And:

Mossberg rose to the pinnacle of his profession through a deft mix of technical competence and keen understanding of business issues. His unintimidated scrutiny of tech titans and thoughtful analyses of budding entrepreneurs and their toys won him the respect (some say fear) of the technocracy…but the tech ‘players’ were never his audience. Mossberg was driven by his advocacy for the common computer user.

And:

“Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it isn’t your fault.”

That last really sums it up well. Terrific read. Miss you, Walt.

ExpressVPN blog:

> We received notification from Apple today, July 29, 2017, at roughly 04:00 GMT, that the ExpressVPN iOS app was removed from the China App Store. Our preliminary research indicates that all major VPN apps for iOS have been removed. > > Users in China accessing a different territory’s App Store (i.e. they have indicated their billing address to be outside of China) are not impacted; they can download the iOS app and continue to receive updates as before.

And:

> We’re disappointed in this development, as it represents the most drastic measure the Chinese government has taken to block the use of VPNs to date, and we are troubled to see Apple aiding China’s censorship efforts. ExpressVPN strongly condemns these measures, which threaten free speech and civil liberties.

Apple’s notice to VPN developers in the China App Store says, in part:

We are writing to notify you that your application will be removed from the China App Store because it includes content that is illegal in China.

For those searching for the best cheap VPNs for streaming, the best cheap vpn reddit can be a goldmine of information. Contributors often share their experiences with affordable VPN services that effectively unlock content without overspending. The reddit thread on the best cheap VPNs offers good speed, reliability, and support for various streaming platforms.

From ex-Google Senior VP Vic Gundotra’s Facebook post:

The end of the DSLR for most people has already arrived. I left my professional camera at home and took these shots at dinner with my iPhone 7 using computational photography (portrait mode as Apple calls it). Hard not to call these results (in a restaurant, taken on a mobile phone with no flash) stunning. Great job Apple.

And:

Here is the problem: It’s Android. Android is an open source (mostly) operating system that has to be neutral to all parties. This sounds good until you get into the details. Ever wonder why a Samsung phone has a confused and bewildering array of photo options? Should I use the Samsung Camera? Or the Android Camera? Samsung gallery or Google Photos?

It’s because when Samsung innovates with the underlying hardware (like a better camera) they have to convince Google to allow that innovation to be surfaced to other applications via the appropriate API. That can take YEARS.

And:

Also the greatest innovation isn’t even happening at the hardware level – it’s happening at the computational photography level. (Google was crushing this 5 years ago – they had had “auto awesome” that used AI techniques to automatically remove wrinkles, whiten teeth, add vignetting, etc… but recently Google has fallen back).

Apple doesn’t have all these constraints. They innovate in the underlying hardware, and just simply update the software with their latest innovations (like portrait mode) and ship it.

And:

Bottom line: If you truly care about great photography, you own an iPhone. If you don’t mind being a few years behind, buy an Android.

Music Business Worldwide:

Pandora’s run in Australasia has come to an end.

The digital radio company, which launched in Australia and New Zealand in 2012, is officially closing down its app and website in the territories on Monday (July 31).

Approximately 5m registered customers in the region will be locked out of their accounts, having received a message from Pandora which tells them: “We’re honored to have connected so many listeners with the music they love these past few years. Thank you for your loyalty and the opportunity to serve you.”

The cost-cutting move will undoubtedly have a detrimental effect on Pandora’s global active monthly listener count, which was last officially pegged at 76.7m in Q1.

Pandora is shifting all their resources to focus on the US market.

PRNewswire:

With sales per square foot viewed as a major component of retail success, according to industry data provided by eMarkter, the #1 retailer in sales per square foot is Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), which did a staggering $5,546 per square foot. Having launched the first iPhone 10 years ago, it’s speculated that this next milestone iteration of the iconic product could produce Apple’s strongest sales to date.

To paraphrase The Talking Heads, “Same as it ever was.” Apple has been the leader in this metric almost since the first store opened and it hasn’t even been close for years. Remarkable numbers.

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.