iTunes tip: see Apple Music songs in your library that are no longer available for streaming

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 18, 2016

The biggest problem with subscription services like Apple Music, Spotify and others is the unnerving fact that labels make songs available for streaming on a time-limited basis. As a result, some of the tracks you add to Apple Music playlists may no longer be available for streaming, leaving you with no other choice but to purchase them on the iTunes Store.

Starting with iTunes 12.4, there's a new iCloud status of 'No Longer Available' which you can use to create a dynamically updated playlist containing the songs that you added to your Apple Music library that are no longer available for streaming, here's how.

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Mekorama review—guide a tiny robot through mechanical dioramas

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 18, 2016

As promised, Odd Bot Out developer Martin Magni released his eagerly anticipated 3D puzzler for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, Mekorama. Featuring M.C. Escher-style 3D architecture, Mekorama is this year’s Monument Valley.

In this addictive and remarkably well-executed game, you're tasked with guiding a charming robot as he embarks on a journey through more than fifty mechanical dioramas.

As a great bonus, Mekorama comes with a full-blown level editor that lets anyone build their own dioramas and share them online via built-in QR code scanning, no additional downloads required whatsoever.

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New Mac extension simplifies opening and switching Terminal to the current folder

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 5, 2018

A new OS X extension from Hasbrang Productions, the prominent jailbreak community development team, makes it easy to open and switch a new Terminal window to the current working directory, right from the Finder's contextual menu.

Available at no charge on the Mac App Store, the aptly named TermHere installs itself as a Finder file extension, readily accessible from the right-click menu. It works as advertised and is pretty convenient, more so if you use Terminal frequently.

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Apple working to form ‘strategic partnerships’ with Indian carriers ahead of 4G expansion

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 18, 2016

Shortly after his pre-dawn spiritual experience at the Shree Siddhivinayak Temple at Prabhadevi in Mumbai, Apple CEO Tim Cook met the country's top wireless carriers in an effort to strike a "strategic partnership” ahead of a wide-scale LTE expansion in the country.

India, home to population of 1.25 billion people, is about to witness the advent of high-speed fourth-generation wireless networks, a move that Apple sees as the opportunity to expand the market for iPhones, as reported today by The Economic Times of India.

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Tim Cook kicks off India tour with a pre-dawn visit to Mumbai’s Siddhivinayak Temple

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 18, 2016

As expected, Apple CEO Tim Cook is visiting India today following his trip to China Monday, which came hot on the heels of the $1 billion investment in Didi Chuxing, China's Uber.

According to The Indian Express, Cook kicked off his much-anticipated India trip with a pre-dawn visit to the Shree Siddhivinayak Temple at Prabhadevi in Mumbai, along with the newly promoted Apple India head, Sanjay Kaul.

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Apple engineers visited a user to figure out why iTunes deleted his music

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 19, 2019

Following James Pinkstone's viral blog post about a nasty glitch in iTunes causing the application to inadvertently delete music from some personal libraries, Apple flew two engineers from across the country to visit him at his house in order to try to figure out why Apple Music and iTunes Match would wipe out 122 gigabytes of his personal music collection. In a follow-up post, Pinkstone explained that the engineers, named Tom and Ezra, spent the day at his house in an attempt to research the issue.

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Apple is ‘looking’ into reports of iOS 9.3.2 bricking some 9.7-inch iPad Pros

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 18, 2016

Following multiple complaints that the iOS 9.3.2 software update, which released two days ago, has bricked some 9.7-inch iPad Pro models with ‘Error 56’, Apple today acknowledged that it's aware of these reports and is “looking” into them.

Although Apple's statement to iMore does not make it clear whether the company has pinpointed what might be causing this issue, the company did advise those unable to restore their device through iTunes to contact its support team.

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Kairos lets you schedule text messages to be sent later [jailbreak]

Anthony Bouchard ∙ May 18, 2016

Text message scheduling is a useful feature that I'm surprised Apple hasn't already built into iOS' Messages app as a stock feature. After all, sometimes you want to wish someone a Happy Birthday or wish them a great holiday and you may remember before the fact, but you forget when the time actually comes.

Kairos is a new jailbreak tweak that streamlines scheduling out text messages in iOS, and we'll show you how it works in this review.

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How to stop your iPhone from counting your steps and tracking fitness activity

Sébastien Page ∙ May 18, 2016

Newer iPhones come with a chip called a motion coprocessor which gathers data from the accelerometers, gyroscopes and compasses of the device to precisely measure motion and fitness data such as body motion, step count, stairs climbed, and more. Most people, including yours truly, do appreciate the data collected as it's particularly helpful if you want to use your iPhone as a step counter and pedometer, for instance. Others are creeped out by this feature.

If you belong to the latter group of people, then I will show you a quick and easy way to stop your iPhone from tracking your steps and other fitness activity.

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Manually checking for Java updates for your Mac or PC

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated July 19, 2018

Java, just like Adobe Flash, is often a major security flaw waiting to happen for both Mac and PC owners.

Although Apple takes security very seriously and just about forces Mac users with Java to check for Java updates automatically, it's still never a bad idea to check on your own from time to time.

Since we recently showed you how to check for Flash updates manually, it only made sense to follow up with a similar guide for Java, which is also a commonly-used web plugin.

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to see if you have the latest version of Java installed on your computer or not.

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