Apple Music gaining new TV & Movies section

Apple Music appears to be at the heart of the Cupertino company’s strategy for original television shows, with a new section headlined “TV & Movies” being added to desktop iTunes and the Music app on iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, as revealed in the promotional trailer for ”Planet of the Apps”.

As you know, Apple is making a deeper push into producing its own stable of original TV shows, with an unscripted reality TV show called “Planet of the Apps” and a spinoff series based on James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke” scheduled to air this spring on Apple Music, the company's subscription music service.

Watch the first trailer for Apple’s upcoming reality show about apps and their makers

Eddy Cue, Apple's Senior Vice President in charge of Internet software, services and major content deals, was joined onstage during last night's Code Media conference by Propagate CEO Ben Silverman, who took the opportunity to play the first official trailer and share a few previously unknown tidbits regarding “Planet of the Apps”.

For those not in the know, “Planet of the Apps” is the Cupertino company's Apple Music-exclusive show about apps and their makers. The iPhone maker has finished filming the show three days ago.

Apple’s Carpool Karaoke spinoff is coming in April, watch the second clip now

Apple wants original content and its SVP Eddy Cue is in charge of making that happen. Cue sat down last night for an interview with Peter Kafka of Recode, discussing a range of topics at the publication's Code Media conference.

Ben Winston, one of the producers of Apple's upcoming Carpool Karaoke spinoff, appeared onstage as a surprise guest and played a new promotional clip for the show—just 24 hours after Apple released the first Carpool Karaoke trailer on YouTube.

Amazon launches VoIP and video conferencing service Chime

Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of Amazon, today announced it's launched Chime, a new Voice over IP (VoIP) and video conferencing platform for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows and Android.

Aimed at business users, Chime allows you to host or join virtual meetings, take advantage of content and screen sharing across platforms and more.

Amazon promises noise-cancelling wideband audio and crystal clear high-definition video with the new service. Chime for iPhone is available at no charge from App Store. The Mac client can be downloaded directly from Amazon.

The best weather apps for iPad

Legend has it that weather apps are about as old as the App Store itself. Their popularity has always sprung from the simple fact that some people like their weather forecast to be scientific and precise to a T. Some like it punchy and condensed, while again others might just want it to be a visual treat. On iPad, it's much more than a matter of taste though, because whatever Apple's rationale, an in-house application for weather is still notably absent.

As a result of this choice, a number of third-party apps have become household names as weather surrogates on Apple's tablet. Even in 2018, some of the old-timers remain too cogent to overlook, but newer arrivals are starting to give the traditional go-to apps a run for their money. Thusly on merits of capabilities and originality, here are some of the best weather apps for iPad you can choose from today.

DigiTimes: iPhone 8 will sport glass chassis, 4.7″ iPhone 7s to continue using aluminum body

Apple is widely expected to release three new iPhones this year: the largely iterative 4.7-inch iPhone 7s and 5.5-inch iPhone 7s Plus upgrades and an all-new premium handset model with a wraparound OLED display measuring 5.8 inches diagonally (with an active display area between 5.1 and 5.2 inches).

According to Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes on Tuesday, only the flagship iPhone 8 model will feature a brand new industrial design with an all-glass chassis while the 4.7-inch phone should continue using an aluminum-alloy chassis like prior iPhones.

Beats 1 Radio goes live in Singapore

Apple's global 24/7 Internet radio station, Beats 1 Radio, has gone live in Singapore on Tuesday. As first reported by Mashable, the online radio station has arrived to Singapore almost two years after Apple's streaming music service first launched in the country. Beats 1 Radio debuted in 100+ countries. The online show does not require an Apple Music subscription to listen to and is being aired live from Los Angeles, New York and London, with an anchor DJ producing the show in each city.

Trading and real-time player battles coming soon to Pokémon GO

Two key features missing from the initial Pokémon GO release—trading and real-time player battles—are coming soon to Pokémon GO by way of a future update, developer Niantic Labs told WayPoint in a recent interview. Niantic CEO John Hanke said that the team is working on bringing additional features and more depth to the augmented reality game, including the long-awaited Pokémon trading and player vs. player battles in real time.

Photo Tools is an all-in-one customization tweak for the Photos app

Photos App Icon iOS

It feels like the Photos app continues to become more cluttered with features that everyday users really don’t even use in every major iteration of iOS. At least for me, I find myself really only ever using the Albums view in the Photos app to get to my most important stuff. I don’t ever really utilize the People or Places albums, nor do I ever use the Memories or Shared tabs.

For anyone who feels like they're in a similar boat and miss the simplicity of the Photos app as a simple album-based Photo Library viewer, a new free jailbreak tweak called Photo Tools by Justin Petkovic might be able to give you exactly what you’re looking for.

This tweak prevents Spotify radio stations from playing songs you’ve Liked in the past

Anyone who uses Spotify to listen to their favorite music might be able to benefit from a new free jailbreak tweak called SpotStationNoLikedSongsPlz by HiDaN, as it helps to diversify what you hear on a regular basis from Spotify-based radio stations.

It’s intended to work in tandem with the free Spotify Music app by preventing the radio stations in the app from queuing songs that you’ve already liked in the past.

ColorMeBaddge can be used to colorize your Home screen’s notification badges

On any stock installation of iOS, every one of your notification badges are going to be red and contain white-colored text that usually indicates the number of missed notifications in the app. To me, that seems a little boring, and a developer named midey seems to agree, as he’s just released a new free jailbreak tweak called ColorMeBaddge.

With this tweak, you can colorize all of your Home screen’s notification badges in pretty much any way you choose, but the best feature is being able to automatically colorize your notification badges based on the dominant color of the application icon in question.

Let’s Talk iOS 174: We talked this rumor to death

Still months away from the launch of the iPhone 8, Cody and Sebastien talk the latest rumors to death, from a new stacked logic board design, to larger battery, to the rumored $1,000+ price tag, to wireless charging, to OLED display, to what's included in the box. And when you start putting all these pieces together, it kind of makes sense. Listen along as the guys describe what could very well be the iPhone X.

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