Now that the long-rumored Beats deal has been confirmed by Apple, folks are wondering what's to become of the Beats Music service. Although it just launched in January, it has already built up a [small] loyal following of subscribers.
The good news is, it sounds like Apple is going to allow Beats to operate as a separate company, which will include its streaming music service. And according to reports, it has no plans to pull the Android and Windows Phone clients...
TechCrunch has spotted an interesting change under the popular Top Charts section in the App Store. The popular section now displays only half as much ranked apps as before.
Whereas previously you were able to scroll through the top 300 apps listed across Paid, Free and Top Grossing categories on the iPhone (or Top 1,500 on the iPad), Top Charts now shows only 150 results.
It's a small but interesting change that shows Apple is still figuring out how to best surface noteworthy and trending apps among the more than million items it now carries in the App Store....
After weeks of rumors and speculation, Apple confirmed that it has reached an agreement to acquire Beats Electronics this afternoon. The deal is worth $3 billion, split into a $2.6 billion payout and $400 million that will vest over time.
In the press release, Tim Cook said that 'music is such an important part of all of our lives and holds a special place within our hearts at Apple.' And he shared a similar sentiment in a memo he just emailed to the company's employees...
Hot on the heels of officially announcing the major $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics LCC., and ahead of its SVP Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi's joint appearance at the Code Conference tonight, Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre's four months old music service has just sweetened the deal.
The startup has dropped the price of Beats Music yearly subscription free to $99.99, down from $119.88.
Additionally, the previous 7-day free trial of Beats Music has now been extended in a “no strings attached” move to fourteen days to all users...
In less than a week, Apple will be taking the stage at its WWDC keynote event to talk about OS X, iOS 8 and its new health-tracking 'Healthbook' app. Unsurprisingly, Samsung tried to beat them to the punch today by announcing its own healthcare initiative.
They're calling it 'SAMI,' short for Samsung Architecture Multimodal Interactions, and it's a cloud-based platform capable of reading and storing data from various sensors. It's compatible with Samsung's S-Health products, and completely open to developers...
Sticking to its accelerated releases schedule for operating system upgrades which now calls for one major OS X release each year, Apple's software teams have now began work on what would become the fourth major update to OS X Mavericks.
Simultaneously, its main group continues work on OS X 10.10, which will be previewed at next Monday's WWDC alongside iOS 8 and other "exciting" goodies.
The first OS X Mavericks 10.9.4 beta (build 13E9) has now been seeded to Apple's registered Mac developers. The work-in-progress software should become available to the general public through the company's OS X Beta Seed Program...
Google has issued a brand new Chrome iOS browser version, bringing out several nice-to-haves and refinements to its popular Safari alternative for the iPhone and iPad.
In addition to the usual stability improvements and bug fixes, the new Chrome build 35.0.1916.38, available free in the App Store, improves upon its handling of right-to-left input method for Arabic and Hebrew in Omnibox, which in Google's parlance stands for the browses combined search and address box.
More importantly, the app will now display your exact search term in Omnibox instead of the long search query URL, just like Apple’s Safari. And upon landing on Google's redesigned mobile search results page, the browser now makes it easy to refine your search queries and view more results...
Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty released an interesting chart highlighting the need for an Apple-branded on-demand music streaming product. Currently, the company only sells individual songs or whole albums on iTunes.
The analyst worryingly writes in a note to clients issued Wednesday that iTunes sales are down 24 percent year-on-year. Moreover, Apple's 800 million iTunes users are spending an average of $3.29 on iTunes.
For the sake of clarity, the figure represents combined per-user purchases of music, movies, iOS and Mac apps and more. That being said, Apple is clearly taking a heat due to its refusal to introduce a subscription music service because iTunes users seem to spending more on apps and less on music nowadays...
Apple has just released a new version of iTunes. This is a third update to the company's desktop jukebox application in less than two weeks.
iTunes 11.2.2 is now available through your Mac's Software Update, offering several stability improvements and fixing a bug related to the software's handling of podcasts.
The update is recommended for all iTunes users and should be now available for Mac and Windows via the Mac App Store's Updates tab or as a standalone download via Apple's website...
Eligible students, their parents, as well as employees of K-12 schools, have long been able to purchase Macs at educational discounts. As of today, educational pricing extends to iPads, including the latest iPad Air and the iPad mini with Retina display.
As available through the Apple Store for Education, the entry-level Wi-Fi-only iPad Air with sixteen gigabytes of storage has been marked down to $469.
That's a $30 savings over its normal retailing price of $499. As for the Retina iPad mini, you're looking at a modest $20 discount for the entry-level model...
Role-playing games (RPG) are tremendously popular in the App Store and even though I generally dislike wasting my time playing demanding and too complex titles on a tiny smartphone screen, I'll be taking this one for a spin.
Yes, developer Mika Mobile has finally released its long-expected spiritual successor to 2011's hit mobile RPG Battleheart. After nearly two years of development, the iPhone/iPad game is now available in exchange for $4.99.
The re-imagined Legacy takes the gameplay from the original into bold new directions. The game takes place in the exquisitely rendered 3D fantasy world and has you battling hordes of enemies as a powerful wizard, a notorious rogue or some of the other available heroes like a noble knight or a savage barbarian, each with its own set of skills and items.
You'll encounter quirky characters while discovering the stories of a troubled realm along the way, all without having to spend hours just managing your heroes. Sounds tempting? Read on for the full reveal...
Google's self-driving autonomous cars have been conceived in Google X, a semi-secret research facility run by CEO Larry Page and dedicated to making skunkworks projects that could lead to major technological leaps in the years ahead, moonshots of sorts if you will. After years of development, the Internet giant has now revealed its design for self-driving car prototypes and they look damn cute.
Google's Sergey Brin took to Code Conference last night to formally announce his company's vehicle that has no steering wheel, pedals or gear shift. The design isn't finalized yet because Google is essentially building its own car here from scratch rather than retrofit existing Toyota and Lexus designs, like the previous prototypes...