Spotify’s Family Plan now covers six people for $15 a month
While Spotify has offered Family Plans for some time now, rival music streaming services, particularly those from Apple and Google, have it beat in terms of price. Today, the company has addressed that issue, allowing up to six family members (or friends) to grab a Premium subscription for $15/£15/€15 a month. Previously, linking just five accounts would cost double the price it does today.
With Apple Music gaining in popularity, Spotify is doing all it can to maintain its lead over the competition. Earlier this month, Apple confirmed that students in seven countries can now enjoy a 50 percent discount on their membership if they can prove they’re studying at an eligible college or university. Spotify doesn’t need to play catch-up there: it implemented student discounts more than two years ago.
As Spotify, Apple and Google now offer users roughly the same music catalog — bar the odd exclusive — price is one area where they can get one over their rivals. However, the major players have not yet shown a willingness to drop prices below what other platforms have set.
If you’ve already signed up to Spotify’s Family Plan or manage the account on everyone’s behalf, you’ll be charged the new $15/£15 rate the next time the company takes your payment.
Source: Spotify
I salvaged my shattered iPhone with a ‘Band-Aid’ screen cover
After a BBQ last Sunday (there may have been alcohol), I dropped my phone. Multiple times. And I wasn’t lucky. Although my iPhone 6 Plus has suffered tiny hairline cracks in two of the corners, this time the drops were critical hits resulting in a spiderweb of substantial cracks, the majority of them around the bottom right corner — you know, where your thumb always is. Typing on it meant risking a tiny shard or two cutting into my thumb, and even when I avoided that, those cracks still irritated my fingertips. Touch functions were also impaired. Google Maps was not cooperating. While the brunt of the damage was in the lower corner, the drop had also crippled my front-facing camera. Perhaps the camera leaves the screen structurally weaker there, or was this the universe’s way of saying I’d taken one too many self-portraits?
And yet the next day was Monday, a work day. The Apple Store was fully booked. I needed a miracle. Or at least a cheap short-term solution. I turned to Pitamo’s smartphone bansouko (“Band-Aid”), a cut-it-yourself three-layer screen for broken smartphones. It promises to contain any more shards of doom, stop the cracks from getting worse, and keep your phone useable — all for under 10 bucks. What could go wrong?
I heard about the smartphone “band-aid” from my colleagues at Engadget Japan. None of them had tried it out — possibly because they were sober enough to not drop their (caseless) iPhone multiple times. I went to one of Tokyo’s many giant electronics stores to make a purchase.
I picked it up and grimaced. “Cut to size,” it said at the bottom of the packaging. I was going to be dependent on my cutting and tracing skills for this to work even remotely well. There’s a laborious nine-minute, Japanese-language tutorial on how to apply it, but the pictures included with the cover explain everything, even if you have no kanji-reading skills. You trace the outline of your phone (and because you cut it yourself, you can use it on any smartphone model). Then you cut out your phone-shaped sticker. Carefully. The guide then suggests you use a toothbrush to gently remove any excess phone screen shards. Except my thumb had done that for me already.
Then there’s the heady (actually low-stakes) tension of attaching your screen cover: no bubbles, get the sides aligned just right, and make sure nothing gets trapped underneath. In case you’ve never used one before, welcome to the wonderful world of smartphone screen covers. These little sheets of curvy plastic have the inexplicable superpower to trap air, hair and dust no matter how hard you try not to. (The Apple Store offers this service for free for a reason: You’ll screw it up on your own.)
The base layer of this particular cover is made of a softer material that keeps what’s left of your screen in place and intact. It also has a bit of flexibility to it and feels like it’s tightly bound to my phone. The topmost layer has a low-reflective satiny finish which the maker says should resist fingerprints more easily — though that’s really the least of my problems.
When it finally went on, it felt good. Peeling a “fresh” cover off an out-of-box smartphone is the primary reason most tech writers get out of the bed in the morning. This may be the reverse of that, but it feels just as satisfying. However, the struggle wasn’t over yet. I then had to grab a craft knife and cut away and areas that needed access to the outer elements: the home button, speaker and front-facing camera. The scrape of a craft knife on my iPhone made me queasy — especially on the home button — but I pushed through. Still, the glass-based damage to the front camera (coupled with multiple layers of plastic) means I’m going to have to learn how to take selfies with the iPhone’s main camera.
Is my screen perfect again? God, no. Look at it! But the smartphone cover is helping. I can safely run my fingertips over the screen; it’s at least useable again. My iPhone will live another day to play games, get me places on Maps, and help me rant on Facebook. Fortunately, I had paid extra for Apple Care, and so I’ll be taking my phone in later next week to get it replaced. This “Band-Aid” cover is very much a short-term solution, but by that criteria, it works.
Apple pulls update for iPad Pro after bricking reports
Apple’s pulled the latest iOS update (9.3.2) for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, following reports that this version of the software was bricking some devices. To make matters worse, the affected tablets can’t be restored through iTunes, even though owners are being prompted to try that computer-based method. It’s unclear what caused the issue, but Apple says it’s already working on a fix.
A spokesperson for the company provided us the following statement:
“We’re working on a fix for an issue impacting a small number of iPad units that are receiving an error when trying to update the software. We’ll issue an update as quickly as possible.”
This isn’t the first time Apple has had something like this happen. Back in March, it had to release an updated build of iOS 9.3, after an earlier version kept people with older iPhones and iPads from installing the update correctly. Thankfully Apple typically only takes a day or two to push out a fix, so we expect that to be the case here as well. Still, as 9to5Mac points out, it’s unclear whether the next update will bring those bricked iPad Pros back to life. We’ll find out soon enough.
Via: Ars Technica
Source: 9to5Mac
OS X update could use iPhone’s Touch ID to unlock Macs
As we approach Apple’s annual WWDC event that starts June 13th, the rumors about upcoming iOS and OS X features are sure to ramp up. This week, MacRumors is reporting that the company is working on a way for you to unlock a Mac using your iPhone’s Touch ID feature. The security measure is said to bypass a typed log-in using Bluetooth when the phone is “in close proximity” to a computer running OS X. As MacRumors notes, there’s a similar feature on the Apple Watch that allows an unlocked iPhone to provide access to the wearable without the need to enter a second password.
If this Touch ID to unlock a Mac functionality sounds familiar, the third party Knock app for iOS and Apple Watch unlocks a nearby computer with those devices rather than having to key in a password. Back in March, Recode reported that Apple Pay was on its way to the browser for making purchases on the web. This new report suggests that the Touch ID interaction with Macs will be used to confirm those transactions as well. As is the case with any rumor, it pays to be a bit skeptical. However, we won’t have to wait long to see if this news is indeed true.
In terms of other rumors for OS X 10.12, reports indicate that Siri could finally make its debut on the desktop. This week, rumblings surfaced about the design of the dock icon, but we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see if that virtual assistant or Touch ID unlocking will be a part of this fall’s software update.
Source: MacRumors
Chromebooks beat Mac sales in early 2016
According to research firm IDC, more Google Chromebooks were sold in the first quarter of 2016 than all of Apple’s Mac line. The milestone marked the first time Google’s Chrome OS moved more units than OS X in the United States.
Although IDC doesn’t usually separate Chrome OS or Chromebooks from the PC category, the group did confirm the numbers to The Verge, saying “Chrome OS overtook Mac OS in the US in terms of shipments for the first time in 1Q16.” The firm noted that Macs sold about 1.76 million units in the first quarter of 2016, meaning Chromebooks sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million units or more. Overall, however, PC shipments are on the decline.
IDC also pointed out a large reason for the Chromebook’s success: the low-cost devices have been a hit with K–12 schools in the United States, even though the company is still looking to break into consumer and business markets. But, in that regard, Google may have tipped its hand at this week’s I/O developers conference, where it showed off plans to make Chrome OS compatible with over a million Android apps already in the Google Play Store.
For all the latest news and updates from Google I/O 2016, follow along here.
Apple Sent Two Engineers to Customer’s House to Figure Out Music Deletion Bug
A couple weeks ago Vellum’s James Pinkstone wrote on his blog that Apple Music and iTunes Match deleted 122 GB of his personal music collection. The post kicked off a wave of speculation about whether Apple Music intentionally deletes users’ music. Apple eventually confirmed that the deletion was a glitch and that a fix was incoming. Today, Pinkstone wrote a blog post detailing how two Apple engineers named Tom and Ezra visited his home to try to recreate the problem.
Before they arrived, Pinkstone said that Apple told him a couple of things: Amber, the Apple Support Representative who told him the music deletion glitch was a “feature” functioning as intended, was mistaken and the company was convinced the issue wasn’t user error.
The engineers spent the day at Pinkstone’s house researching the issue, telling Pinkstone to use Apple Music, iTunes and his personal library as he would in the past. The next day, Tom returned to collect the data logs and cleared any evidence of him being on the laptop. Apple’s engineers weren’t able to recreate the problem, though Pinkstone notes that they did think the issue was a glitch that needed to be combatted. Yesterday’s iTunes 12.4 update includes safeguards to protect users from the music deletion bug.
Through an external drive connected to my laptop, we were now using a specialized version of iTunes in the hopes that the deletion would again occur; an idea that we knew may not pan out, since I’d had Apple Music for eight months before that first mass deletion. If something did go wrong, though, this version of iTunes would document what happened in more detail than the consumer version could.
Pinkstone’s Apple engineer visit is a good example of how far the Cupertino company will go to try to correct bugs in its products. MacRumors has heard several reports of Apple sending out engineers to the homes of users experiencing unique problems in an attempt to research them for fixes. The entire visit can be read about on Pinkstone’s blog.
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GarageBand goes to China with new instruments and Live Loops
If you’re looking to bring some new voices to the music you make in GarageBand, Apple’s got you covered. The company has recently added a slew of Chinese instruments including the pipa and erhu to the app. That’s in addition to some 300 loops of music inspired by the region, and a new pair of grid templates for Live Loops — the ultra simple music creation feature Apple introduced earlier this year.
The outfit’s support for China goes even further and adds sharing options for Chinese social networks QQ and YouKu, as well. The free (for most) update is available right now across iOS and OS X. Oh, and Tim Cook will tell you all about it in the video embedded below. Thanks, Dad.
Here’s the incredibly talented @JJ_Lin on the erhu as we jam with the new GarageBand, out today. https://t.co/RHJZuahLHi #shotoniphone
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) May 17, 2016
iTunes update delivers ‘simpler design’ with modest changes
Apple is still trying to figure out how to improve the usability of iTunes. Today, the company released an update that tweaked the interface a bit, adding a sidebar and media selection tool that make navigating through libraries a bit easier. That sidebar menu is the biggest and most useful change, bringing back a UI feature from older versions of the app. From there, you can easily edit playlists, drag and drop songs to build playlists and hide or expand parts of the menu.
There’s also a media selection drop-down up top that allows you to jump from music to movies, TV shows, podcasts and more. That change doesn’t really simplify things, it just hides the category icons that used to be always visible in menu that displays one at a time. It does tell you exactly what items you’re looking at with a glance.
One issue that hasn’t been fixed is where to find Apple Music. There’s no menu item specifically labeled for the service, but instead its pieces are separated in tabs For You, New and Connect in iTunes. While reports indicate that Apple Music’s app is in for a major redesign at WWDC, we’ll have to wait and see if that includes how you use the service on the desktop. We’d surmise that Connect tab won’t be around much longer, though, as the social features don’t appear to be very popular.
Today’s update to version 12.4 also mentions the usual generic bug fixes and performance improvements, but doesn’t specifically list the file-deleting bug users have discovered in iTunes. Apple confirmed the issue late last week and said that it was working on a patch to fix the issue. We’ve reached out to the company for confirmation on whether on not the problem has been resolved and we’ll update this post when/if we hear back.
Via: AppleInsider
Twitter Plans to Stop Counting Links and Photos in 140-Character Limit
Twitter has plans to stop counting photos and links within the 140-character limit allowed for each tweet, reports Bloomberg. Removing photos and links from tweets will allow tweets with media to contain more text.
At the current time, photos take up 24 characters and links take up 23 characters, eliminating 47 available characters when both are included in a tweet. Twitter is reportedly introducing the change to give Twitter users “more flexibility” after exploring methods that would allow users to include more text in tweets.
Twitter has made efforts to give users additional characters to work with in the past, implementing tweet quoting features, using link shorteners, and removing character limits from Direct Messages.
Twitter has included a 140-character limit since it launched in 2006, put in place to mirror limits on SMS messages. Reports in January suggested Twitter was considering eliminating the 140-character limit and allowing tweets to contain up to 10,000 characters as part of a project it called “Beyond 140,” but Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey later said the character limit would not be changed.
Twitter is expected to implement the change in the next two weeks.
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Fitbit’s lead in the wearable world shrinks due to newcomers
Fitbit has ruled the wearable roost for a while, but it’s clear that the activity tracker maker can’t become complacent. IDC has released estimates which show that Fitbit lost a significant amount of market share in the first quarter. While its shipments were up 25.4 percent (to 4.8 million), its share plunged from 32.6 percent a year ago to 24.5 percent at the start of 2016. Simply put, the market is much more crowded than it was a year ago — it has to contend with the Apple Watch, China’s BBK and Lifesense, as well as a slew of smaller brands jumping into the field.
Not that some of the other incumbents can complain too loudly. Xiaomi and Garmin also lost share (they’re down to 22.8 percent and 5 percent respectively), but their shipments surged by more than a third.
As for smartwatches specifically? Apple was still out in front by a hefty margin, with 46 percent of the high-end wearable market. The next closest was Samsung, which fell to 20.9 percent. With 1.5 million shipments, though, Apple had less than a third of Fitbit’s clout — and that number was a sharp drop from the 3.9 million watches it shipped in the last quarter of 2015. Such a dip isn’t surprising (there was no holiday demand to boost sales), but it’s notable that Fitbit’s unit count didn’t fall. It’s clearly easier to justify a relatively inexpensive tracker like the Alta outside of gift-giving season than a smartwatch that costs more than twice as much. Apple’s price cuts weren’t in effect for much of the first quarter, mind you, so it’s too soon to say whether or not you’ll see a repeat performance this spring.
Source: IDC
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