Apple

Spotify arriving to PlayStation as Sony axes its ill-fated Music Unlimited service

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 14, 2018

Sony has finally pulled the plug on its unsuccessful music-streaming service, Music Unlimited.

Destined to be shut down on March 29, 2015, it'll be succeeded by a new Sony service called PlayStation Music and based entirely on the Spotify service and its backend.

From the get-go, the new service will have full access to over 30 million songs and 1.5 billion playlists on Spotify.

PlayStation Music will be debuting this Spring in 41 markets and be available on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 consoles, as well as on the Xperia smartphones and tablets. Support for other mobile and desktop devices will be added at a later stage.

Read More

Tumblr app adds new alert types, better 1Password integration, likes/follows on Lock screen, more

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 28, 2015

As growth of Yahoo-owned Tumblr continues unabated, new features are being added to the official iOS app on a regular basis.

After picking up support for two-factor authentication last October, the new Tumblr 3.8 for iOS now includes greatly improved integration with the popular 1Password password-management app, as well as with Authy, a handy iPhone software for generating two-factor codes.

Read More

eBay working on bidding app for Apple Watch

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 9, 2018

eBay may be developing an app for the Apple Watch which ties to its existing iPhone and iPad software, as per a job listing AppleInsider highlighted yesterday.

Originally posted to eBay's careers webpage in November, the ad was spotted recently on LinkedIn.

The ad states the bespoke Watch app is being developed by the company's New Technology Group, which employs over 200 engineers in product development in Portland.

An ideal candidate will “design and implement elegant solutions for the Apple Watch that will complement our core iOS eBay app,” reads the ad.

Read More

FCC to hotels: blocking Wi-Fi hotspots is illegal!

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 28, 2015

Many of us have been there. You just checked in to a nice hotel and went right to your room. After taking a shower, you pull out your Mac to connect to a personal Wi-Fi hotspot in the hope of getting some work done. But alas, it won't work. Slowly but surely, a sinking feeling sets in that you're being forced to use the hotel's exorbitantly priced Wi-Fi.

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to put an end to the practice and on Tuesday issued a public enforcement advisory warning hotel chains and other commercial establishments that intentionally blocking or interfering with Wi-Fi hotspots is illegal.

Read More

Opinion: don’t hold your hopes high for next-generation Apple TV this year

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 28, 2015

Between the bigger iPhones, new and faster iPads, Apple Pay, the Watch and latest versions of iOS and OS X, the Apple TV project appears to remain on the back burner for now.

Whether or not the decision is meant to prevent spreading Apple too thin and keep its engineers focused on products that matter over a longer arc of time is anyone's guess.

Now, I'm not pretending that I'm privy to Cupertino's inner workings.

But the fact remains that, for the time being, Apple seems content with simply stuffing the set-top box with new content sources. Yesterday, for example, Apple TV owners saw the addition of Sports Illustrated’s 120 SPORTS network.

Of course, Tim Cook & Co. must do a whole lot more than simply keep adding new channels to the box. Fans, on the other hand, have been keeping their fingers crossed for an Apple TV hardware upgrade sporting a major OS update and new features like DV-R, live TV functionality, an app store to download and play games on it with the use of ‘Made for iPhone’ controllers.

Watchers are now hoping for an Apple TV refresh at WWDC 2015. But if I were you, I wouldn’t hold my hopes high for a major hardware revision to the set-top box in 2015, and here’s why.

Read More

Facebook rolls out new Super Bowl experience

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 16, 2016

Super Bowl XLIX is upon us and Facebook wants to beat out Twitter to the punch and become the epicenter of conversation. Building on the more than 50 million people who joined the conversation on Facebook during last year's Super Bowl, the social networking service today announced a brand new experience at facebook.com/superbowl.

Replacing Twitter as your Super Bowl companion begins with official posts from the NFL/NBC and related stories by teams and individual players. You'll also find live scoring updates, real-time reactions, posts from your friends (with “watching Super Bowl XLIX” in their status updates) and more, all neatly organized in one place.

Read More

Photos for Mac goes from “early 2015” to “available at a later date”

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 27, 2015

Photos for Mac, a missing piece in the iCloud Photo Library puzzle, has just gotten delayed until later this year.

Last summer, Apple took us by surprise saying it would cease development of Aperture and transition users to Photos for Mac, a new app that was supposed to replace iPhoto on OS X Yosemite as well. But Yosemite came and went and native Photos Mac app was nowhere to be seen.

Apple then gave us a vague new shipping date: “early 2015.” However, the updated wording in this support docs now lists the app as being “available at a later date.”

Read More

More than 25 million Apple TVs sold to date, though growth may be slowing

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 27, 2015

Forgetting for a minute that Apple obliterated expectations by announcing a truly fantastic 74.5 million iPhone sales while earning an astounding $18 billion in profit, how did the company's hobby project, the Apple TV, do?

As you may have guessed, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster got that question in during the Q&A section of Apple's conference call with analyst, to which CEO Tim Cook responded by confirming his company has managed to move about 25 million set-top boxes to date.

Read More

15 interesting points from Apple’s Q1 2015 earnings call

Cody Lee ∙ January 27, 2015

Apple announced its financial results for its fiscal first quarter of 2015 this afternoon, and the numbers are staggering. The company sold 75.4 million iPhones and earned $74.6 billion in revenue, smashing both Wall Street expectations and its own records.

We’re just finishing up the conference call, where Tim Cook and other members of the executive team discussed Apple’s performance, and offered up some insights into its future. And as usual, we’ve rounded up the 15 most interesting points for you below.

Read More