AT&T on Monday unveiled its upcoming internet TV streaming service called DirecTV Now. Similar to competing services such as Sling TV and Playstation Vue, the service will be available starting Wednesday November 30th in the US on several platforms, including Apple's iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.
Apple has acquired talent and technology from defunct streaming music startup Omnifone, reports TechCrunch. It's not a full buyout, so you're not going to see the usual "Apple buys smaller companies from time to time" statement, but the outlet says it's hired at least 16 of their employees and purchased select technology.
Just a few short days ago, Twitter announced plans to phase out Vine, a shortform video-sharing service it acquired nearly three years ago.
Vine's discontinuation's prompted its creators Colin Kroll and Rus Yusupov to pursue new projects and yesterday they unveiled a live interactive video app, Hype for iPhone.
Does the world really need another video-streaming service?
Only time will tell. For the time being, Kroll and Yusupov are hoping that Hype's rich feature set will help set the app apart from Twitter-owned Periscope, Facebook Live and similar video broadcasting services.
Apple is considering a price drop for its streaming music service, reports Digital Music News. The outlet cites multiple sources claiming that if implemented, the drop could be as much as 20%, lowering individual plans to $7.99 and the family plan to $12.99.
I'm a big time YouTube user, and even though I have zippy fiber optic internet, it seems like there are still times when YouTube videos get stuck buffering instead of playing when I want to enjoy HD video streaming.
If you can relate, then you should take a few minutes to read this piece, because we'll be talking about some common remedies for the annoying buffering problem.
Invites for a new media event went out yesterday and Apple just confirmed that the keynote will be live-streamed through its website. As you've come to expect from iDownloadBlog, we will be providing remote coverage of the keynote along with details of the announcements. This could be the last event at Infinite Loop’s Town Hall campus.
That's because the massive Campus 2 building AKA “iSpaceship” should open come January 2017, barring any unforeseen delays. The site includes a massive underground auditorium where future corporate and press events will be taking place.
It looks like Netflix offline viewing might finally be coming even though CEO Reed Hastings first said that the feature was “never going to happen”.
As Streaming Observers learned a few days ago, the company has changed its mind and will be reportedly adding offline mode to its mobile application before the end of this year.
Netflix's share prices shot up 20 percent this morning after the company reported better than expected third-quarter earnings.
Have you been keeping your fingers crossed for Spotify for Apple TV? If so, you'll be disappointed to learn that a Spotify tvOS app has been “down prioritized,” with a company executive stating that a release supporting tvOS should not be expected anytime soon. It's unclear why the Swedish startup does not want to support the Apple TV, more so given its rivalry with Apple in the music-streaming space.
Periscope, Twitter's live video-streaming app, has been refreshed in the App Store this morning with a few new features related to in-app camera, sharing and more. For starters, you'll notice improved tap-to-focus while broadcasting live video, plus you can now follow a broadcaster from the viewers list with one tap. There are also improvements to Persicope's VIP Program and more.
Unofficial remixes of songs are launching on both Apple Music and Spotify thanks to a partnership with a company called Dubset Media Holdings. Apple signed a deal with Dubset in March 2016, while Spotify cut a similar deal of its own in May.
Remixes and DJ mix sets, typically distributed through services like YouTube and SoundCloud, should start appearing on Apple Music and Spotify.
Dubset's proprietary scan-and-match technology will ensure that artists get paid fairly for musical remixes, TechCrunch said Friday.
Spotify, the top music streaming service, today launched in Japan, the world's third-largest economy by nominal GDP and home to population of 127 million people. The company announced at a press event in Tokyo that the service is currently available to music lovers in Japan on an invite-only basis before opening to all users. The service launched on mobile, tablet, desktop and PlayStation consoles.
Twitter's new live-streaming Apple TV app arrives just in time for NFL Thursday Night Football. Available at no charge in the tvOS App Store, it lets owners of the fourth-generation Apple TV stream both top Twitter/Vine videos and the 10 NFL games that the micro-blogging services recently acquired the rights to broadcast, plus content from Bloomberg News, Campus Insiders, Cheddar, MLB Advanced Media, NBA, Pac 12 Networks and other premium sources.