Month: July 2015

Apple Music, Beats 1 & store services experience downtime during VMA nominee announcements

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 21, 2015

In what's become a norm for the company these days, another outage has hit a number of cloud-based services as users around the world report issues accessing Apple's content stores: the App Store, the Mac App Store and the iTunes Store.

We're also tracking issues with Apple Music and Beats 1.

Indeed, I'm currently struggling to stream my Apple Music songs and Beats 1 radio.

UPDATE 1: Apple has now acknowledged the outage on the iCloud status page. “Users are experiencing a problem with the services listed above,” reads the notice. “We are investigating and will update the status as more information becomes available.”

UPDATE 2: The iCloud dashboard says all services have been restored after three and a half hours of downtime.

Google Play Books gains revamped Read Now, notes and highlights syncing, new font and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 21, 2015

Google on Tuesday issued an update to its Play Books application in the App Store, adding a few new features and enhancements designed to elevate your reading experience on the iPhone and iPad.

The new Google Play Books 2.5 for iOS now features a revamped Read Now view, a new default font, the ability to sync notes and highlights to Google Drive and more.

Apple Watch hitting Apple Online Store in New Zealand, Russia and Turkey on July 31

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 21, 2015

Apple on Tuesday announced a fourth wave of Apple Watch expansion as the device is scheduled to launch in New Zealand, Russia and Turkey on Friday, July 31. The wrist-worn gizmo will be available in these countries from 7:01am local time via the Apple Online Store.

Customers in Turkey will also have the option of picking up their watch in one of Apple's brick-and-mortar stores at the Zorlu Center and Akasya Shopping Center in Istanbul, as first noted by MacRumors.

Let’s Talk iOS 091: Box Pusher HD

Jeff Benjamin ∙ July 21, 2015

Episode 91: A detailed discussion about the just-released iPod touch, including its place in Apple's lineup. New iPhone 6S rumors surface along with new Apple Watch rumors.

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Apple adds high profile auto executive to electric car team

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

It was uncovered on Monday that Apple recently hired high profile auto executive Doug Betts, reigniting rumors that the company is building an electric car. As noted by The Wall Street Journal, Betts' LinkedIn profile says that he joined the Cupertino firm's "Operations" team this month.

It's not clear what he will be working on at Apple, but it's hard to imagine it's anything but a car. Betts was Head of Quality at the Chrysler Group, now Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, for 7 years before leaving in 2014 to "pursue other interests." Prior to that he worked at both Toyota and Nissan.

Snapchat is locking out users who use Snapchat-oriented jailbreak tweaks

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

If you're a fan of Snapchat and you like to use Snapchat-oriented jailbreak tweaks like Phantom, then take note. It appears that Snapchat is beginning to crack down on users who use jailbreak tweaks with its app.

Phantom—one of the most popular jailbreak tweaks for Snapchat—allows you to do things like spoof locations, save media, set custom notifications sounds, and much more. But apparently, Snapchat isn't too keen on jailbreak users having such perks, and have begun locking out users of these tweaks.

MTV’s VMA nominees will be announced tomorrow exclusively on Beats 1

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 20, 2015

Lots of ink was used in the run-up to Apple Music introduction regarding exclusive music deals that Apple has managed to negotiate with its favorite artists. And in addition to album exclusives, Apple's Beats 1 global radio is hosted by celebrity DJs and has already aired a few exclusive interviews.

And now, the 24/7 live-streaming radio station has partnered with Viacom-owned MTV to exclusively reveal nominees for the upcoming Video Music Awards (VMA), a move which suggests Apple's desire to position Beats 1 as the de facto source of both new music and industry events.

Instagram bringing place, people and hashtag search to the web

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 20, 2015

Following an update last month that added expanded search options to its mobile app, Facebook-owned Instagram has now started rolling out place search and other search-related enhancements for its web version, the company announced Monday.

The new search features are currently rolling out to a subset of Instagram's installed base before going live for everyone so they may not be available to you just yet.

Redesigned NFL Game Pass service coming to Apple TV with on-demand broadcasting

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 17, 2016

For the first time ever, the National Football League (NFL) will offer its Game Pass service to U.S. users on the Apple TV with on-demand broadcasting of games, according to an update on the Game Pass micro-site Monday.

Regular season, playoff and Super Bowl game broadcasts won't be available as live streams but rather after they air on television. In addition, the organization will retire its existing Game Rewind service on July 31. Available to iOS, Android and Windows users in the United States, Game Rewind provides access to on-demand games after they air on television.

Spotify delivers ‘Discover Weekly’ personalized playlists and deep Nike+ Running integration

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 14, 2018

Following Apple Music introduction, Spotify has doubled down on music discovery and third-party integration, the two areas where it hopes to outsmart competition, with Monday's announcement of a Discover Weekly feature and deep integration with the Nike+ Running mobile app.

Unlike Apple's human-curated playlists for various activity types, Spotify's Discover Weekly playlists are entirely driven by algorithms and personalized to each user's listening habits, as per Re/code on Monday.

TaiG 2.4.3 elevated from beta status to jailbreak iOS 8.4

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated June 7, 2024

The TaiG team has officially released version 2.4.3 of its iOS 8.4 jailbreak tool for Windows. The update piggybacks off the beta version of the 2.4.3 release that was ushered in last week.

Version 2.4.3 brings jailbreak optimization to the fore, and should theoretically result in a more stable and straightforward jailbreak experienced for its users. If you've yet to jailbreak, then we recommend using TaiG 2.4.3. You can find the full download in this post.

Samsung takes on Apple’s iPad Air 2 with ultra-slim Galaxy Tab S2

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 14, 2018

Samsung on Monday announced a next-generation Galaxy tablet to take on Apple's iPad Air 2. The Galaxy Tab S2, driven by Android 5.0 Lollipop, is even thinner than Apple's device: it measures an impressive 5.6mm thin and includes Samsung's exceptionally bright and vivid Super AMOLED display in 7.9 and eight-inch flavors.

Regardless of the screen size, the new Tab S matches the resolution of full-size iPads at 2,048-by-1,536 pixels though last year's Tab S came outfitted with a sharper 2,560-by-1,600 pixel resolution displays.