Apple will stop accepting iTunes LP submissions this month

Back in 2009, iTunes 9 offered a way for artists and labels to pack in extra album material like art, videos and bonus tracks. Earlier on Tuesday morning, Metro found a leaked Apple document that spelled doom for the bundled extras. The Verge later confirmed that Apple would, indeed, stop taking new iTunes LP submissions as of this month.

The Verge reports that while there will be no more submissions accepted, existing ones that you’ve bought will still work as always. Any iTunes LPs that are currently in the iTunes Store will similarly continue to be available. As noted by The Verge, these have never been a huge part of Apple’s music strategy, so it makes sense that they’d phase it out sooner or later.

Source: The Verge

FDA greenlights 23andMe’s direct-to-consumer cancer risk test

Cancer screening isn’t all that accessible — you typically need an obvious genetic background that suggests you’re at risk, which doesn’t help if you slip between those cracks. You shouldn’t have to run that gauntlet for much longer. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a 23andMe direct-to-consumer test that details the risks of breast, ovarian and prostate cancer based on BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic mutations. Once the report is available, you wouldn’t have to worry about qualifying for a screening — you could send in a saliva sample and find out on your own terms.

23andMe had previously offered genetic health risk tests, but suspended them in order to get FDA approval. The agency had greenlit disease and deficiency-related health risk tests in 2017, and had streamlined its approval process later that same year.

The company is quick to warn that this test doesn’t rule out cancer, and won’t diagnose you if you already have it. You’ll want to turn to health care providers if you’re going to take any action, 23andMe said. And the cancer it’s looking for isn’t very common. There’s a 2 percent risk of it for Askhenazi Jewish women, but less than 0.1 percent for everyone else. It’s the first approved test of its kind, however, and it hints at a future where those who aren’t willing to wait for formal screenings (or are denied access) can take action early enough to potentially prevent cancer.

Source: FDA

Indie brawler ‘Way of the Passive Fist’ is out now on Steam and PS4

If you love stylish, ’90s-style 2D side-scrolling brawlers like Golden Axe or Aztez, you’ll dig the debut release from Household Games, a new studio made up of DrinkBox Studios, Queasy Games and Silicon Knights members. Way of the Passive Fist is available now on PlayStation 4 and Mac/PC/Linux via Steam for $15. It will also go live on Xbox One at midnight, March 7th.

The single-player beat ’em up focuses on a pretty unique fighting style. Instead of spamming the attack buttons, you need to time your parries, deflections, dashes and dodges to pile up a combo meter, which will let you unleash massive offensive melee attacks when you face the huge bosses at the end of each level. There’s also a ton of accessibility features for those who need to customize their gameplay style due to preference or a disability. You can fully remap the controls to play with one hand, for example, and modify the visuals for specific visual impairments or flashing light sensitivity.

“We genuinely aimed to give players a different arcade brawler experience and the team has delivered on that promise,” said Household Games founder Jason Canam in a statement. “Players will quickly learn that timing is everything in Way of the Passive Fist and how satisfying the perfectly timed defensive fighting gameplay can be. It’s been a long time coming, it’s well worth the wait.”

Source: Household Games/Twitter

Intel is funding the future of large-scale VR environments

If you’ve donned a VR headset and immersed yourself in a proper virtual reality ‘experience,’ you might have seen chills, thrills, and…not too many people at once. Today, Intel released a demo showcasing a software solution to the crowd problem the company created with The Glimpse Group. The demo part of the Intel Arena Project, as it’s named, situates the viewer in the middle of a big basketball stadium with 2,500 fans in the seats, most of which are individually rendered. Functionally it’s a proof-of-concept to show such a population can be rendered in a VR experience, but the collaboration is also publicly releasing the software and process documentation to help creators build their own large-scale virtual reality scenes.

Glimpse Group elaborated on the demo during an Unreal design event promoting the engine’s new Datasmith feature, which was used in the Intel Arena Project. The demo itself is a bit of an ad showcasing the Intel hardware that was used to make the demonstration (the (i9 chipset and Optame memory drives), which makes sense given the chipmaker’s sponsorship of the project. But the white paper Glimpse Group will release concurrently with the demo and software could help creators make large-scale environments in their VR projects.

Deals: 2015 iMac and 2017 MacBook Air Sales at eBay, HomeKit Switches at Home Depot, and More

Top-rated eBay shop ElectronicsValley today has the 27-inch 5K iMac from October 2015 for $1,299.99, down from $2,299.99. This model has a 3.3 GHz Intel Core i5 6th Generation processor, 8GB of RAM, 2TB of hard drive storage, and was the first of Apple’s iMacs to come with the updated Magic Mouse 2 back in 2015. ElectronicsValley describes the iMac as “New,” and its customers have left a largely positive feedback percentage of 99.1 percent on its store.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

ElectronicsValley often has multiple New-condition Apple products on sale, currently including sales on last year’s MacBook Air refresh:

• 13-inch MacBook Air, 2017, 1.8 GHz, 8GB RAM, 128GB HD – $861.59, down from $999.00
• 13-inch MacBook Air, 2017, 1.8 GHz, 8GB RAM, 256GB HD – $1,062.59, down from $1,199.00

Also today, The Home Depot is offering select Leviton dimmers and switches for up to 30 percent off, including a few HomeKit-compatible switches. The company has a 2-pack of the Leviton 15 Amp Decora Smart Switch for $62.96, down from $89.94. The switch can connect to Apple’s Home iOS app and allow users to control lights on their iPhones and iPads or with Siri. There are a few other switches available, all with limited stock and with sale prices that will expire by the end of the day.

A few other deals worth mentioning today include savings on Speck’s Presidio Power case for the iPhone 7, priced at $30.00 for a limited time, down from $99.95. Amazon and Best Buy also continue to offer notable savings on BeatsX, with both retailers pricing the headphones at $89.99, down from $149.99, in select colors.

For those who are interested but haven’t yet taken advantage of ongoing deals from DirecTV Now and Sonos, be sure to head to our full Deals Roundup for more information on each sale. The limited time offers for a free 32GB Apple TV 4K with DirecTV Now and bundle of two Sonos One speakers have been around since November 2017 and January 2018, respectively, and are expected to expire sometime in the spring.

Related Roundup: Apple Deals
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Quick Takes: iTunes LP Submissions Ending, Free Apple Music With Select New Vehicles, and More

In addition to our standalone articles covering the latest Apple news and rumors at MacRumors, this Quick Takes column provides a bite-sized recap of other headlines about Apple and its competitors on weekdays.

Tuesday, March 6

Apple confirms it will stop accepting new iTunes LP album submissions at the end of March: Apple says existing LP albums will not be removed and will remain available to download via iTunes on Mac or PC.

Commentary: iTunes LPs, introduced in 2009, are interactive albums with multimedia such as lyrics, liner notes, artist and band photos, performance videos, and more. A lot of this content can now be found in Apple Music, so it’s no surprise that Apple is beginning to phase out this long-forgotten feature.

Get up to six months of free Apple Music with the purchase of a new Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, or Ram: The offer is available between May 1, 2018 and April 30, 2019. CarPlay is a standard feature in all of those vehicle brands, while some models include built-in BeatsAudio speakers.

Commentary: The six-month offer only applies to first-time Apple Music subscribers. If you’ve already taken advantage of Apple Music’s standard three-month trial period, you’ll only receive an additional three months of complimentary service. Volkswagen is also offering a similar deal in Europe.

Microsoft begins accepting pre-orders of new Surface Pro with LTE Advanced: The new Surface Pro gains cellular connectivity, with support for 20 LTE bands, but it’s otherwise the same as the previous generation. The tablet-notebook hybrid starts at $1,149, but only a higher-end $1,449 model is available currently.

Commentary: While the Surface Pro isn’t part of Apple’s ecosystem, the tablet has received favorable reviews from The Verge and CNET, and some customers may prefer its versatility over the cellular-enabled iPad Pro.

House near Apple Park smashes Sunnyvale real estate record: A two-bedroom, one-bathroom house in Sunnyvale, near Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, recently sold for $2 million in cash. At $2,358 per square foot, it’s reportedly the highest price per square foot for a home in Sunnyvale ever.

Commentary: Sunnyvale is situated in the heart of Silicon Valley, where companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook are headquartered. With these tech giants often offering six-figure salaries, it’s no surprise that real estate prices continue to rise in the area. The previous record was $2,175 per square foot, according to the MLS.

For more Apple news and rumors coverage, visit our Front Page, Mac Blog, and iOS Blog. Also visit our forums to join in the discussion.

Tag: Quick Takes
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Huawei Band 2 Pro Activity Tracker Review

Wearables are in a weird spot these days. Smartwatches haven’t really been a hit with the masses, resulting in manufacturers slowing down development of new ones. But fitness trackers on the other hand have been steadily moving forward. It makes sense when you think about it. Fitness trackers give the user functionality that they wouldn’t otherwise have, where smartwatches are an extension of the smartphone’s functions.

Now that we’re past our thought of the day, we can introduce an interesting new activity tracker – from a company who’s not really known for fitness devices, Huawei.

The Band 2 Pro is actually its second gen wristband tracker, so it’s more refined and more competitive with established devices. Huawei has our attention with its quality smartphones, now lets see if it deliver the same excellence in a fitness tracker.

Design

Most of us have an image of what a Huawei wearable looks like. The Huawei Watch has been one of the best Android Wear smartwatch offerings for the past few years. But fitness wristbands have a different priority, and with the Band 2 Pro, Huawei completely devotes it to that cause rather than one that balances fitness and smartwatch functions.

So unlike the comparable Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro, which sports a sizable OLED screen and touch controls, the Band 2 Pro keeps things simple with a slim, monochrome display and single-button control. It’s clear that you won’t be doing smartwatch-like actions here, like responding to texts or emails on this device. The Band 2 Pro is strictly designed to be a fitness tracker, and to do those particular functions as well as possible.

And this is easily seen when you put the wristband on. It’s slim, lightweight, and curves perfectly around the wrist. Being a smartwatch user, I particularly appreciated the relative thinness of the electronics compartment. This is a wristband that you should come to forget you’re wearing.

Not having a everything-but-the-kitchen-sink kind of focus also means cost is kept down. You can find the Band 2 Pro south of $70 in the right places. But Huawei handles the construction well in spite of that. The electronics casing is a mix of hard plastic, metallic side rails, and glass on top – all sealed tightly to meet the device’s robust 5 ATM water/dust-proof rating.

The band portion is practical and comfortable rubber. The locking mechanism is the simple prong-through-slot sort. That isn’t the most secure method, but Huawei thoughtfully made it a two-prong clasp, for redundancy. We can attest that even after rigorous use, we never felt like the band would come undone.

Functionality

If you haven’t used this kind of activity tracker before, the primary purpose of it is to record fitness data of your workouts and feed you that information in a meaningful way. On the Band 2 Pro, you simply select a specific workout type from a set of options, began your workout, and then end the program when you’re done. The wristband stores the data, and when communication with a mobile device is present, it will send the data over for analysis.

So this means that you need to pair the wristband with a smartphone or such in order to really use it. You also need to install Huawei’s accompanying apps, as they’re the system’s console.

When tracking is initiated for a workout, the watch will actively display progress.

There isn’t a touchscreen on the Band 2 Pro, and control is only through a single, capactive button on the bottom of the display. This would be painful if the device had smartwatch-like functionality, but it doesn’t. All you’re going to do on this wristband is scroll through options and start/stop programs. Sure, scrolling through a menu is better accomplished by swiping up and down, but it’s not the end of the world here. Though, we will say that it’s annoying that we can only scroll in one direction with the single button. If you overshoot an option, you have to cycle through the whole list to get back to it.

Huawei used P-OLED tech to power the screen. So since the display utilizes a black background and only the text draws power, you can expect the thing to go the distance in regard to battery life. It should achieve three weeks under “normal” usage from a full charge. The only downside here is that the P-OLED visibility is a little weak outdoors, and a struggle to see in direct sunlight (and there’s no way to adjust the brightness). We would’ve liked Huawei to implement an adaptive brightness setting, being that this is a device you’ll likely be using outside quite a bit.

Packing is simple: Charging cable, charging interface bit, manual, and wristband.

To charge, the two pins on the charging bit line up with the points on the wristband. It clasps on and then you plug in the microUSB jack.

What you see on the wristband is pretty simple. The Home screen is a layout of basic information, like the battery level, Bluetooth connection status, date, and time. You also see your pedometer count for the day (it resets daily). We didn’t see a way to change the layout or the pedometer info for a different stat.

A concern we had was a limited set of exercises to choose from. You’re given four: Outdoor Run, Outdoor Cycle, Swim, and Indoor Run. We would’ve liked Huawei to account for a few other popular aerobic exercises (i.e. elliptical, cross-fit, punching bag, etc.). However, nothing’s stopping you from using “Indoor Run” for say an elliptical workout. You’ll still get some relevant stats, like heart rate and steps. But then you’ll also get some wasted data, like pace and average speed, that could’ve been something useful if the program was actually tuned for that exercise. You also wouldn’t get an accurate calories burnt count.

The sensors at work.

In addition to the heart rate sensor, another praiseworthy feature in the Band 2 Pro considering its price is a standalone GPS. This means it has its own GPS unit built-in and doesn’t need to piggy back off the phone. This also means that if you’re doing an outdoor workout, you don’t necessarily need to have your phone on you to capture movement and distance data. Having a GPS also allows for more accurate speed recording.

The other options on the wristband are a module to check other pedometer-related stats of the day (distance covered, calories burnt, amount of inactive time, etc.), conduct a BPM measurement, and one that runs you through a focused breathing session.

Software

Huawei Wear app.

There are two apps that go along with the use of the Band 2 Pro: the Huawei Wear and Huawei Health apps. The latter is the one you’ll be using regularly to access your fitness stats. Huawei’s Wear app is just for managing the wearable device itself, similar to Android Wear, where you’re given a few settings/controls.

For instance, the wristband can function as an alarm – you can set that here. There are also toggles for Do Not Disturb, a couple gestures (tilt to wake or rotate wrist to scroll), and left or right hand wearing preferences. But there are three important settings here that you’ll probably want to enable, as they are fantastic:

• TruSleep: The wristband detects when you go to sleep and captures your sleeping patterns
• Automatically Measure Heart Rate: As implied, lets heart rate sensor monitor you all day so you can know the average and how it fluctuates throughout each day.
• Activity Reminder: A reminder to get up and do something each hour it detects you being inactive – perfect for cubicle life.

So being that Huawei isn’t really known for fitness-related devices, I expected the health software to be pretty basic. But it was a pleasant surprise that it’s quite the contrary. You get an impressive amount of information for each event.

Home screen of Huawei Health app

Pedometer tracking breakdown

Outdoor tracking (with GPS enabled) can show you the route and distance you did.

The layout is intuitive, starting with the daily pedometer readings at the very top and scroll-able sections (or cards) for the measurements in question. Tapping on a card takes you to into overview stats of that subject, which then you can dig into for more detailed information.

What impressed us was the extra and useful information that you come across along the way, like how much of your BPM’s correspond to certain activity categories (even just within a workout too), training ranking (so you can have a comparison as you progress), VO2Max metric (assessment of how fit you are by measuring oxygen consumption during exercise), recovery time indicator (predicts when your body is fully recovered for the next workout, so you don’t over do it), and the ability to set up a personal running training plan (where the device analyzes your level and coaches you through the progression).

BPM capture breakdown.

Multitude of measurements you can see after a run

Sleep measurements over a night are commendably detailed.

The sleep analysis is also really impressive. You’ll be given a sleep quality ranking and how much sleep you got on a daily basis, but also a really detailed breakdown of the sleep session, like how much of it was light sleep, deep sleep, REM sleep. You’ll also be given ranking for qualities like deep sleep continuity, breathing, and regularity of time up. Recognizing that users may not know what to make of the information, Huawei generously partnered with Harvard Medical School’s The Center for Dynamical Biomarkers to provide robust information of what the stats all mean and if they’re good or bad.

Final Thoughts

The Huawei Band 2 Pro is a good buy and definitely a recommendation by us. You’re getting a lot for your money on the things that count in an activity tracker wristband. It’s durably put together, slim and comfortable, and its capture and conveyance of fitness data is spot on. Huawei went above and beyond in several ways (i.e. built-in GPS and considerate analysis information) when considering the price tag of the Band 2 Pro. Sure, touchscreen controls would’ve been nice, but it’s an appropriate compromise all things considered.

Huawei Band 2 Pro Official Page

Dell’s latest Inspiron notebook packs in AMD’s Ryzen APU with Vega graphics

Nvidia and AMD continue to duke it out in the GPU wars. While things are a bit theoretical in the desktop thanks to cryptocurrency miners buying up all available inventory, the impact is becoming very real in mobile computing. Nvidia has had success with pushing its faster GPUs into thinner chassis, and AMD is making its own mark there as well. Now, Dell is quietly expanding its own line with one of AMD’s most recent mobile efforts.

Specifically, we’re talking about the mashup of AMD’s Ryzen CPU and its Radeon Vega graphics chips. AMD has four such chips available, ranging in power from the lower-end Ryzen 3 2200U and 2300U quad-core and single-threaded options, up to the highest-end Ryzen 5 2500U and Ryzen 7 2700U versions with four cores and eight threads. Dell’s first offering using these chips is its Inspiron 17 5000, which offer a choice between the Ryzen 3 2200U and the Ryzen 5 2500U.

So, what does that mean in terms of actual performance? When equipped in one of the first machines to ship with the Ryzen 5 2500U, the HP Envy x360 15, the AMD chip provides slightly less CPU performance than the Intel eighth-generation Core i5-8250U processor in Geekbench 4 and Cinebench R15. In graphics performance, the Ryzen 5 2500U benefitted significantly from its Vega 8 GPU, significantly outperforming integrated Intel UHD 620 graphics and coming in below the Acer Swift 3 equipped with the discrete Nvidia MX150 GPU.

That means that the Dell Inspiron 17 will provide a good platform for entry-level gaming, able to run some older titles at 1080p as long as you turn down the graphics detail and to run less-demanding recent titles like eSports and the like. At the same time, the notebook should provide better performance in creative apps like image and video editing than you’ll get with machines that rely solely on Intel’s integrated GPU.

Pricing on the Inspiron 17 5000 starts at $680 for an AMD Ryzen 3 2200U with Radeon Vega3 graphics, 8GB of DDR4-2400MHz RAM, and a 1TB 5400 RPM SATA hard disk drive (HDD). That runs all the way up to $1,040 for an AMD Ryzen 5 2500U with Radeon Vega8 graphics, 16GB of DDR4-2400MHz RAM, and a 2TB 5400 RPM SATA HDD. You’ll also get a 17-inch Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 or 130PPI) display, a tray-loading DVD reader/writer, and a slew of ports including two USB-A 3.1 ports, one USB-A 2.0 port, and a full-size HDMI connection.

You can order an Inspiron 17 5000 today and it should arrive around the middle of March 2018. If you’re looking for a notebook with solid processor performance and improved graphics performance, than Dell’s use of AMD’s latest round in the GPU wars offers up a solid option.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Intel’s Radeon-backed ‘Hades Canyon’ mini PC runs games at 1080p, Ultra graphics
• Intel promises its new CPUs will match Nvidia’s potent GTX 1060, thanks to AMD
• Lenovo’s updated ThinkPads include T480s with Nvidia MX150, affordable X-Series
• Intel’s chip-packing Radeon graphics slips a brief tease just before CES 2018
• Acer’s new laptops include a liquid-cooled 2-in-1, $250 fanless Chromebook

Intel’s Radeon-backed ‘Hades Canyon’ mini PC runs games at 1080p, Ultra graphics

Korean site Playwares recently published a review with benchmarks from Intel’s upcoming $999 “Hades Canyon” miniature PC. The review is no longer online, but that didn’t stop sleuths from grabbing everything they could before the article went offline, including the NUC’s hardware breakdown and gaming performance. The big deal is that the device sports a new “module” cramming together Intel’s processor with discrete AMD graphics into one chip.

For starters, here are the module’s specifications: 

Module: 

Core i7-8809G 

CPU architecture: 

Kaby Lake-G (14nm) 

Cores: 

4 

Threads: 

8 

Base speed: 

3.10GHz 

Max speed: 

4.20GHz 

L3 Cache: 

8MB 

Power use: 

100 watts (total package) 

Integrated graphics: 

Intel HD Graphics 630 

Base speed: 

350MHz 

Boost speed: 

1.10GHz 

Discrete graphics: 

AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH Graphics
(RX Vega 24) 

Compute units: 

24 

Cores: 

1,536 stream processors 

Base speed: 

1,063MHz 

Max speed: 

1,190MHz 

FP32 Performance (max): 

3.7 TFLOPS 

Discrete GPU dedicated memory: 

4GB HBM2 

Memory bandwidth: 

204.8GB/s 

Memory bus: 

1024-bit 

Memory clock: 

1.6Gb/s 

According to the benchmarks, AMD’s discrete GPU provides almost the same performance (3.7 TFLOPS) as Nvidia’s current GeForce GTX 1060 card (4.0 TFLOPS), only it’s part of a complete module with direct access to the CPU and dedicated memory. 

But how well does Hades Canyon perform as a gaming “machine” despite its small form factor size? Take a look at the numbers in frames-per-second (the higher the better): 

 Game

Default
Average 

Overclocked
Average 

Rise of the Tomb Raider
1080P / Ultra / DX12 

45.36 

50.5 

Total War: Warhammer
1080P / Ultra / DX12 

27.3 

30.1 

The Division
1080P / Ultra / DX12 

41.5 

46.8 

For Honor
Ultra 

47.44 (1080P)
33.26 (1440P) 

52.46 (1080P)
36.57 (1440P) 

Assassin’s Creed Origins
1080P / Ultra 

34 

40 

Rainbow Six Siege
1080P / Ultra 

85.1 

94.7 

Metro 2033 Redux
Very High 

53.81 (1080P)
32.78 (1440P) 

57.59 (1080P)
36.62 (1440P) 

Overwatch
1080P / Epic 

65.15 

81.41 

Battlegrounds
1080P / Custom 

65.15 

69.53 

Tekken 7
Ultra 

60.75 (1080P)
51.13 (1440P) 

60.97 (1080P)
57.31 (1440P) 

Here we weeded out the synthetic tests – benchmarking games after disabling hardware and/or software to generate higher numbers – and a few minimum frame count entries. AMD’s discrete GPU appears to run just fine at 1,920 x 1080 with Ultra graphics settings, but gamers may want to consider cranking down the visual level a notch to squeeze out better 1080p performance.  

On the processor side, Intel’s refreshed seventh-generation CPU cores (Intel says they’re 8th Gen H-Series) managed a 5268 single-core score in Geekbench, and a 17183 multi-core score. Overclocked, the module saw a single-core score of 5571 and a multi-core score of 18788.

Finally, here are the specifications for the reviewed Hades Canyon NUC: 

Model 

NUC8i7HVK 

Module: 

Core i7-8809G 

Memory: 

2x empty SODIMM slots
Up to 32GB DDR4 @ 2400MHz+ 

Storage: 

1x empty M.2 22×40 slot
1x empty M.2 22×80 slot 

Connectivity: 

Wireless AC
Bluetooth 4.2 

Ports (front): 

1x SDXC card slot
1x HDMI 2.0a
1x USB-C 3.1 Gen2 (10Gbps)
2x USB-A 3.1 Gen1 (5Gbps, one charges)
1x Headphone jack 

Ports (back): 

2x Thunderbolt 3
1x HDMI 2.0a
4x USB-A 3.1 Gen1
2x Mini DisplayPort
2x Gigabit Ethernet
1x SPDIF audio optical jack 

Audio: 

7.1 multi-channel digital audio 

Power supply: 

230 watts 

Dimensions: 

8.70 x 5.59 x 1.53 inches 

 Intel’s NUC8i7HVK, along with the NUC8i7HNK packing the Core i7-8705G module, is expected to arrive this spring. You’ll need to purchase the memory, storage, and operating system separately. 

Editors’ Recommendations

• Intel’s ‘Hades Canyon’ NUC packs gaming hardware into just 1.2 liters
• Intel ‘Hades Canyon’ NUC hands-on review
• Intel’s chip-packing Radeon graphics slips a brief tease just before CES 2018
• Lenovo’s updated ThinkPads include T480s with Nvidia MX150, affordable X-Series
• Intel promises its new CPUs will match Nvidia’s potent GTX 1060, thanks to AMD

MoviePass may not cost much, but your privacy is part of the price

MoviePass has seen ups and downs as of late. The company’s decision to drop its subscription price to $10 a month last year did very well for the company, bringing in new subscribers and revenue to boot, but the company was recently pelted by customers for blocking access to the Jennifer Lawrence spy-thriller Red Sparrow. That seems like a drop in the bucket compared to the company’s latest misstep in which MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe boasted that the company tracks users’ locations before and after the movie showings they attend, Media Play News reports.

Lowe was speaking at a Hollywood event in a keynote titled, “Data is the New Oil: How Will MoviePass Monetize It?” when he began to talk about just how much data MoviePass has on its customers. “We watch how you drive from home to the movies,” Lowe said. “We watch where you go afterwards.”

The CEO says that the company is doing this to help its service provide a full night out the movies. Presumably, data about where customers are coming from or going to after the movies could be used to help offer dinner recommendations or provide customers with ideas for where they might want to go when a film is over. Still, customers haven’t been explicitly told that the company is tracking what they’re doing at that level and may not be thrilled to find out.

Then there is the question of what else the company may be doing with that data. When MoviePass launched, the service cost $50 per month. With the price being as low as it is now, that means the company is likely making its money some other way and providing other parties with data collected on its customers could be part of that. Even if this information is anonymized before its handed to other companies, customers likely won’t be happy.

So far, outside of Lowe’s talk, MoviePass has yet to spill the beans on what exactly it is doing with this data, as it’s likely that nobody at the company expected Lowes’ words to make it outside the room of Hollywood executives he was speaking to. Now that the words are out, the company is likely going to have to address the matter.

Editors’ Recommendations

• How ‘Coco VR’ convinced Pixar to put its pixels (and pride) into virtual reality
• ADT beefs up its security offerings with new hardware and an app
• ‘SOS’ hands-on preview
• Don’t need sports or locals? Philo could be your live TV streamer of choice
• Apple Music vs. Spotify: Which service is the streaming king?