Linked List: July 4, 2015

Saturday, 4 July 2015

Cabel Sasser’s 2015 Fourth of July Fireworks Roundup ★

Cabel’s annual compendium of weird fireworks, celebrating everything great about this holiday.

Posting New Songs to Connect Is Hard ★

Dave Wiskus:

Uploading a song in the Music app is clunky. In order to get the song to post, it has to be available in My Music. Which means that I need to import the track to iTunes on my Mac, convince it to sync with my iPhone (a process that took about 12 hours and restoring my phone from a backup), and then go searching for it in a list that doesn’t immediately present with a search field.

Apple’s goal should be to make it as easy — and low-friction — to post new stuff to Connect as it is to post a picture to Instagram. Why not let artists pick songs from iCloud Drive, for example? Having to sync via iTunes on your Mac to post from your iPhone is so 2008.

The Supply-Side Blues ★

Allen Pike, on indie development as art:

This issue arises with all forms of art. Even when parents see their children excel creatively, they’re of course proud, but often become wary. Your tuba playing sure is nice kid, but how about you keep your grades up so you can get a real job one day? Sure, it’s kind of awful to discourage a kid from their wild dream of being a professional tubist, but you know what? They’re gonna have a bad time. The cliché knows best: artists starve.