Why is Apple making a gold watch? — Benedict Evans

Earlier on Twitter I linked to Kevin Rose's article on Techcrunch - The Gold Apple Watch Is Perfect For Douchebags, where he couldn't see the Gold $10,000+  Watch appealing to tech or watch enthusiasts and commented:

Last RT- The  Watch Edition maybe isn’t targeted at technologists or collectors.  wants celebs to be seen wearing it. That’s the icky bit.

— Craig Scrogie (@craigscrogie) March 12, 2015

Benedict Evans makes several interesting points in his post:

So (and this is the question that actually matters) why bother? One could argue that it’s a vanity project, or that Apple’s doing this just because it can, or that a few hundred million dollars still matters at Apple (as indeed it does). But I think it’s more interesting to compare it with Apple retail. Despite its prominence, this is only about 10% of Apple’s revenue. It’s much more important as marketing. And it's great marketing.

btw, I'm not interested (at least for now) in buying any version of the Apple Watch but I'm oddly fascinated by the product and why it appeals to others.

Rebel Heart by Madonna | Album Review | The Line Of Best Fit

Tom Hocknell:

Rebel Heart starts so bloody well it’s basically the EP of her career, although there’s an immediate sticking point. The problem with “Devil Pray” isn’t the sultry tune, which flirts with Arabic chanting in the same way “La Isla Bonita” flirted with flamenco, but the lyrics. If you pretend she’s 18 it’s great, but she wouldn’t be where she was today if she followed half the song’s suggestions: “We can get stoned/And we can sniff glue/And we can do E/And we can drop acid”. Really? Didn’t we get this ‘down with the kids’ thing out of the system with the MDNA album?

Without wanting to detract from her own songwriting, Madonna has recently worked with so many people that it’s almost insulting to those she hasn’t. There are too many lazily dialed in collaborations from people she’s never met, and there’s even a song called “Illuminati”, which perfectly demonstrates why b-sides need to be re-introduced (there are 19 songs here, when there could be 12).

Spot on review. It's such a haphazard album and far too long. I always like to listen to albums in full but with this one I'm going to make a supercut playlist and forget that half of it exists.

Still, miles better than her previous two albums.

Grimes - REALiTi

Claire Boucher:

since this is no longer gonna be on the album, I’m releasing it as a special thank you to everyone in Singapore, KL, Manila, Jakarta, HK, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, Seoul, Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo who came out to the shows! It was an honor to play with a bunch of amazing bands and travel to places I would never otherwise be able to go

This song was never finished. its a demo from ~ the lost album ~, recorded early 2013. i lost the ableton file, so its not mixed or mastered. i tried to doctor the mp3 into a listenable state, but it was poorly recorded in the first place and never meant to be heard by anyone, so its a bit of a mess haha.

Anyone else getting a feeling that Grimes' abandoned album might have been the G.O.A.T.?

Wolf Alice - Giant Peach (2015)

I expect I'll be posting more about this band on here in the coming weeks. Ha Ha Ha Ha HA HA HA.

HA.

Apple Engineer Talks about the New 2015 Macbook - YouTube

Loving Gruber's commentary on this:

It’s great that the new Apple allows engineers talk about things like this publicly.

The Blue Aeroplanes - Broken & Mended (1994)

They're about to return with a new album and, as ever was over the last 30 years, a changed line up of old and new members.

This, if you ignore the very 90s video, remains one of their finest songs. 

I remain confident that history will acknowledge Gerard Langley as one of the great lyricists.