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Month: June 2017

The iPhone Turns 10

iPhone
Jason Tate

The iPhone turned 10 today. John Gruber over at Daring Fireball has a good piece:

There is no way to overstate it. The iPhone was the inflection point where “personal computing” truly became personal. Apple had amazing product introductions before the iPhone, and it’s had a few good ones after. But the iPhone was the only product introduction I’ve ever experienced that felt impossible. Apple couldn’t have shrunk Mac OS X — a Unix-based workstation OS — to a point where it could run on a cell phone. Scrolling couldn’t be that smooth and fluid. Touchscreen response couldn’t be so responsive. Apple couldn’t possibly have gotten a major carrier to cede them control over every aspect of the device, both hardware and software. I can recall sitting the hall at Moscone West, watching the keynote unfold, 90 percent excited as hell, 10 percent concerned that I was losing my goddamn mind. Literally mind-blowing.

Hayley Williams Talks with The Fader

Jason Tate

The Fader has a pretty interesting interview with Hayley Williams of Paramore:

She tells me that after we spoke, she had a panic attack in her car. She apologizes profusely for how this encounter has played out, and tells me that she felt triggered when I asked about the fallout from the lawsuit with her former bandmate. She says that legal reasons make it difficult for her to know what she can and cannot say, and that it both bores her and stresses her out that every recent story about the band has focused on band drama and not on the songs. Fair enough. I keep digging, though, and eventually she admits it was more than that, but that she is having a hard time explaining, or figuring out for herself, what it is.

I offer to let her sleep on it, telling her I was now likely to write about this strange episode, and that it might be good if she provided a more fully realized account from her own perspective. This idea, to my surprise, seems to immediately pique her interest. She quickly agrees and we hug, then go bowling at a little neon spot that doesn’t seem to have changed the decor since the 1980s.

The entire thing is worth reading.

Tumblr’s Unclear Future

Jason Tate

Brian Feldman, writing at New York Magazine:

The future of Tumblr is still an open question. The site is enormously popular among the coveted youth crowd — that’s partly why then-CEO Marissa Mayer paid $1 billion for the property in 2013 — but despite a user base near the size of Instagram’s, Tumblr never quite figured out how to make money at the level Facebook has led managers and shareholders to expect.

I haven’t read a Tumblr blog regularly since Property of Zack closed down. I haven’t even logged into my account in quite a while now. What’s the main Tumblr use case these days?

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Review: Pet Symmetry – Vision

Becky Kovach

The best albums are the ones that challenge you the most and, for the past month, Pet Symmetry’s Vision has truly been a challenge for me.

It’s not that I didn’t like it, or that it needed to grow on me. It’s that there’s quite a bit to unpack, despite the fact that the album is only 11 songs and 30 minutes long. I’ve started and re-started this review more times than I care to admit, because each listen through left me with more to say than I knew what to do with.

Though it’s a quick listen, Vision never once feels short or stunted, or like there might be something missing. On the contrary, Pet Symmetry’s songs feel complete in what is often an unusually brief amount of time.

Read More “Pet Symmetry – Vision”

MarsEdit 4 Beta

Jason Tate

Daniel Jalkut has announced the beta for MarsEdit 4:

It’s been over 7 years since MarsEdit 3 was released. Typically I would like to maintain a schedule of releasing major upgrades every two to three years. This time, a variety of unexpected challenges led to a longer and longer delay.

The good news? MarsEdit 4 is finally shaping up. I plan to release the update later this year.

I’ve used MarsEdit for quite a while and I used to use it to publish to my original Chorus.fm Tumblr blog. Once I moved to WordPress for Chorus, I’d made so many minor tweaks to the system and my workflow that it didn’t quite do all I needed to anymore. However, this update looks like it’ll be adding in a bunch of features that may let me use it again for posting. That’d be exciting.

Adele’s Note to Fans Confirms She May Not Tour Again

Jason Tate

Adele has confirmed in a letter to fans that she may be taking a break from touring:

Touring is a peculiar thing, it doesn’t suit me particularly well. I’m a real homebody and I get so much joy in the small things. Plus I’m dramatic and have a terrible history of touring. Until now that is! I’ve done 119 shows and these last 4 will take me up to 123, it has been hard out an absolute thrill and pleasure to have done. I only ever did this tour for you and to hopefully have an impact on you the way that some of my favourite artist have had on me live. And I wanted my final shows to be in London because I don’t know if I’ll ever tour again and so I want my last time to be at home.

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The All-American Rejects Tease New Single; Talk New Album

All American Rejects
Jason Tate

The All-American Rejects are teasing a new single called “Sweat.” Lead singer Tyson Ritter sat down with Billboard to talk about the band’s upcoming album and what’s next for the band:

That’s all about to change. A pair of new songs — “Sweat” and “Close Your Eyes” — are due July 7, with their fifth full-length looming in the fall. We hopped on the phone with Ritter to get all the details: the benefits of pressing pause and ignoring outside pressures on your art, learning to love writing again, and returning to the project you’ve been wielding since adolescence.

And:

It’s not going to be the same Rejects record because it never is, if you’ve listened to one of our records. This time, to me, the visual offering is so important. The last five years of learning my craft as an actor and really developing that side of being a visual artist in that way has made me realize how important that really is — to put the eyes to the ears. This is going to be more of a visual experience. This record is going to be about your eyes and the headphones.

Read More “The All-American Rejects Tease New Single; Talk New Album”

The Dickies Verbally Abuses Crowd Member at Warped Tour

Warped Tour
Jason Tate

The band The Dickies were assholes at Warped Tour on their last day of the tour. They posted a pretty ridiculous statement on Facebook about the entire thing and at this point I’m just exhausted by how prevalent this nonsense is.

Safer Scenes’ take is right on:

If you don’t want misogynist rants on stage at your event, make a policy for performers, and have sound crew and security enforce it. Another good way to keep misogynist rants off your stages: don’t book artists that have attacked women fans, don’t book misogynist bands.

Read More “The Dickies Verbally Abuses Crowd Member at Warped Tour”

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