Apple Releases iTunes 12.5.1 With Revamped Apple Music Design

Apple today released a new version of iTunes, iTunes 12.5.1, which is available for OS X El Capitan and macOS Sierra users. iTunes 12.5.1 introduces a new Apple Music design, bringing Apple Music on the desktop in line with Apple Music on mobile devices just ahead of the release of iOS 10.

The update also brings macOS Sierra-specific features including support for Siri, allowing users to ask Siri to play songs on machines running macOS Sierra, and it includes support for Picture-in-Picture, another new Sierra feature.

iTunes 12.5.1 can be downloaded immediately from the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store.

Now with an all-new Apple Music design which brings greater clarity and simplicity to every aspect of the experience.

This update includes support for iOS 10. It also adds enhancements designed for macOS Sierra including:

– Siri. Play music from your Library and Apple Music using your voice. Just ask Siri.
– Picture-in-Picture. Watch videos as you multitask and use different apps. Your video floats above your desktop in any corner of the screen.

While iOS 10 is being introduced today with an all new Apple Music experience that focuses on a cleaner look and easier to use interface, macOS Sierra will not be released until next Tuesday, September 20.

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Apple Releases tvOS 10 With New Siri Features, Improved Search, Dark Mode and More

Apple today released tvOS 10, the latest operating system designed for the fourth-generation Apple TV, bringing a range of improvements that make it easier to locate and watch content on Apple’s set-top box.

tvOS 10 can be downloaded over the air through the Settings app on the fourth-generation Apple TV by going to System –> Software Update. Those who have automatic software updates turned on will be upgraded to tvOS 10 automatically.

In tvOS 10, Apple has brought improved search, expanded Siri capabilities, a new dark mode, a Continuity option for using the iPhone for text input, automatic download of universal apps, and more.

With tvOS 10, Siri is able to search for movies by topic, bringing up content around a theme like “high school comedies from the 80s” or “movies about dinosaurs,” and a new Live Tune-In feature lets Siri go directly to a live channel in a supported app.

A Single Sign-On feature for pay TV apps that lets users sign in once with their cable credentials to access all live cable content included in a cable subscription was supposed to be included in tvOS 10, but it appears Single Sign-On was not included in the first version of the operating system and will be coming at a later date.

Third-party apps can do more in tvOS 10 with developer APIs for recording and live broadcasting, accessing iCloud Photo Library photos, using HomeKit, and developing games with more complicated controls that necessitate a game controller.

iOS 10 features like the Apple Music overhaul and the new Photos “Memories” feature have been ported to tvOS, allowing users to access the new Apple Music interface and view favorite Photos memories.

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For additional details on what’s included in the tvOS 10 operating system update, make sure to check out our full tvOS 10 roundup.

Related Roundups: Apple TV, tvOS 10
Buyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Neutral)
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Android Pay in the UK: Everything you need to know

Want to pay for stuff in the UK using Android Pay? Great! Here’s what you need to know.

Android Pay is Google’s mobile payments service, and it’s now live in the UK. Much like Apple Pay, this means that if you have a supported handset and your bank allows it, you can securely pay for things in the real world without fumbling around for cards or cash.

Where can I use Android Pay in the UK?

Because the underlying technology is so similar, Android Pay should work anywhere contactless credit and debit cards are supported. That includes many of the big supermarkets and coffee shop chains, and the London Underground.

Is Android Pay the same as Samsung Pay?

No. Samsung Pay is Samsung’s own payment service which uses slightly different technology, allowing it to work regardless of whether a contactless terminal is present. When Samsung Pay launches in the UK, Samsung phone owners with supported handsets will be able to use this, or Android Pay, to make payments on their phones.

Which phones are supported?

You’ll need a phone running at least Android 4.4 KitKat with NFC support (near-field communication — that’s the hardware that lets your phone securely transmit data to payment terminals). Most high-end Android phones sold in the past couple of years support NFC, as do many mid-range handsets. If you’re not sure, try looking for NFC in Settings > Wireless and networks, or searching for it in the Settings app.

You don’t need a fingerprint scanner to authenticate — you can use a pattern or PIN lock instead — but using Android Pay will be quicker and easier if your phone has one.

Which UK banks support Android Pay?

At the time of writing the following UK banks support Android Pay:

• Bank of Scotland
• First Direct
• Halifax
• HSBC
• Lloyds Bank
• M&S Bank
• MBNA
• Nationwide Building Society
• Santander
• Natwest
• Royal Bank of Scotland
• Ulster Bank

More banks are likely to be added in the coming months, just as more banks have been joining Apple Pay since that service launched.

Notably absent from the list are Barclays and TSB. Barclays is currently pushing its own mobile payments app for Android, and the bank says it has “no plans” to join Android Pay at this time. So Barclays customers might be left out in the cold if they don’t want to use their bank’s first-party app. TSB has told customers to expect a Q4 2016 launch.

How do I get started?

Simply install the Android Pay app from Google Play and follow the instructions. If you already have a credit or debit card associated with your Google account, and your bank supports it, you’ll be up and running in a few minutes.

Is there a limit to Android Pay in the UK?

For payments of £30 or less, you can pay with your phone by unlocking it and holding it over the payment terminal, just as you would a contactless credit card. For payments over £30 — assuming they’re supported by your bank and the merchant — you’ll need to authenticate using your fingerprint, PIN or pattern.

Is Android Pay secure to use?

Android Pay — and other phone-based payment methods — is arguably more secure than using a card alone, since your card details are never sent to the merchant. Instead a secure token, generated by Google in the cloud, is sent over NFC and used to authenticate your transaction.

Whether any electronic payment can ever be 100 percent secure is debatable, but there’s nothing inherently more risky about using your phone to pay, assuming you take sensible security precautions to protect it from theft and misuse.

Are you using Android Pay in the UK? How are you finding the service so far? Shout out in the comments and let us know!

Samsung to limit recalled Note 7s to 60% battery in Korea as report blames ‘production error’

OTA will mitigate the risk of explosions by limiting battery charge. Meanwhile a preliminary report to Korean regulators blames production error which “placed pressure on plates” in battery cells.

While Samsung won’t be remotely disabling recalled Galaxy Note 7s anytime soon, it seems the company has a plan to mitigate the risk of further battery explosions — at least in its home market of Korea.

The Associated Press reports that Samsung will issue a software update to recalled Korean Note 7s still in use to stop them charging past 60% capacity. According to the report, Samsung took out a front-page ad in the Seoul Shinmun newspaper to inform customers.

We don’t yet know if or when Note 7s outside of Korea will get the battery-limiting update.

The over-the-air update will begin at 2 a.m. KST on September 20 for any recalled Note 7 handsets still in the wild; there’s no suggestion that the OTA will affect safe replacement units. We’ve reached out to Samsung for details on whether recalled Notes in other regions will get a similar OTA.

While limiting battery charge levels may reduce the likelihood of further fires or explosions in unsafe Note 7s, it’s unclear what the side effects of actually applying the OTA will be. Android 6.0 phones like the Note 7 must recompile (or “optimize”) installed apps after most software updates — a CPU-intensive process which produces a fair amount of heat. Introducing extra heat to a possibly defective battery could cause its own problems.

Meanwhile Bloomberg has news of a previously unpublished preliminary report to Korean regulators on the cause of the Note 7’s battery issues. The report to the Korea Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS) body draws some early conclusions, but says more time is needed to pinpoint exactly what’s going on.

Initial conclusions indicate an error in production that placed pressure on plates contained within battery cells. That in turn brought negative and positive poles into contact, triggering excessive heat. Samsung however stressed that it needed to carry out a more thorough analysis to determine “the exact cause” of battery damage.

Samsung has publicly stated that a “battery cell issue” was responsible for incidents of fires and explosions — of which 70 have now been reported in the U.S. alone — however this is the first we’re hearing on the specific fault. Bloomberg echoes earlier reports that Samsung SDI, the group’s energy and battery company, was responsible for making most of the affected cells.

Update: Reuters now reports that Chinese firm ATL will become the main battery supplier for the Note 7 from now on.

Samsung will soon launch an online tool to let Note 7 owners check if their handset is affected, based on their phone’s unique IMEI number. The firm’s advice remains that if your Note 7 is affected, you should switch it off and return it under the recall program.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7

• Galaxy Note 7 recall: Everything you need to know
• Samsung Galaxy Note 7 review
• The latest Galaxy Note 7 news!
• Here are all four Note 7 colors
• Complete Galaxy Note 7 specs
• Join the Note 7 discussion in the forums!

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What makes a phone battery explode?

We’re all a little curious about why a battery might explode, so let’s talk about it.

Exploding battery talk is something you can’t escape right now, thanks to a problem with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. It’s good discussion to have: the more people talk about it, the less likely it is for a child to get hurt from a battery failure. As much as we hate to see a product we like experience safety issues, we hate seeing people get hurt far more.

But the Note 7 isn’t the first phone to ever go through battery problems, and it won’t be the last. There will always be isolated incidents of batteries failing as long as we use phones with lithium-ion cells, and the Note 7 isn’t the first phone whose battery needed a widespread recall because something is wrong under the hood — as long-time Nokia fans know too well. It happens. It’s never a good thing, but it’s a thing. Let’s talk about why it can happen.

How your phone battery works

The first thing we need to understand is how exactly the lithium-ion battery in your phone works. The name gives us a hint — electricity is carried from one electrode to another using charged lithium ions.

Electricity meets chemistry meets metallurgy — that’s what makes a battery possible.

Lithium-ion batteries store, transfer and release energy because of natural chemical reactions. The battery has two electrodes — an anode and a cathode. The cathode is connected to the positive (+) connection on the battery and holds positively charged ions, and the anode is connected to the negative (-) connection and holds (you guessed it) negatively charged ions.

Between the two electrodes is what’s called an electrolyte. The electrolyte in a lithium battery is (usually) an organic solvent paste that has a very large number of metallic salts (in most cases, that metal is lithium) as part of its makeup. This makes it electrically conductive — electricity can pass through it. The anode and the cathode are in the electrolyte and separated by a physical barrier so they can’t touch.

When you discharge the battery (when you’re using your phone and not charging it) the cathode pushes its positively charged ions away and the negatively charged anode attracts them. Electricity flows out from the anode, through your device, then back to the cathode. Yes, electricity travels through a loop and isn’t “used up” by the thing being powered. When you charge your phone, the reverse happens and ions travel from the cathode through the electrolyte to the anode.

Lithium is the perfect element for rechargeable batteries: It’s lightweight, easy to recharge and holds a charge for a long time.

When these ions come in contact with the charged atoms in an electrode, an electrochemical reaction called oxidation-reduction (redox) frees the charged electrons to travel out through the battery contacts, which are connected to the electrodes. This continues to charge the lithium ions in the electrolyte until there aren’t enough left that can hold a positive charge that’s strong enough to move through the electrolyte paste, and your battery will no longer charge.

Lithium is the lightest metal — number three on the periodic table. It’s also very excitable, making it easy to create a powerful chemical reaction. This makes it a near-perfect metal to use in a portable rechargeable battery. It’s lightweight, easy to recharge and continues to hold a charge for a long time.

What can make a battery explode?

For starters, let’s define what explode means in this case. The electrolyte paste inside a lithium-ion battery is extremely volatile. It can (and will) react violently to other metals, and has a very low (180-degrees Celsius) melting point. Inside a sealed battery casing, the pressure generated can build up until the casing is ruptured, then rapidly escape. The pressure carries out extremely hot electrolyte fluids which can cause other things to catch fire. Some lithium batteries are vented with an escape hole so they won’t rupture under pressure. When the battery casing ruptures and superheated liquid filled with melted metals is expelled under pressure, it causes an explosion.

There are two easy ways to make a lithium battery explode — heat, and physical damage. Let’s look at both.

Overheating and overcharging

This is the most common reason a battery fails. Something goes wrong in the charging circuit and the input power continues to drive the chemical reaction. One place in the battery will eventually get too hot and, since it is still being charged, it can’t cool down, causing what’s known as thermal runaway.

In this case, the hot portion starts to generate its own heat, which makes other areas in the electrolyte overheat, and they cause more spots in the battery to overheat. The heat expands the electrolyte and creates steam, building pressure until the battery casing splits and forces out all the pressure and some very hot, very sticky (and very flammable once exposed to the air) gooey liquid.

A thermal runaway can happen fast enough that you don’t even feel the heat before the battery fails.

When such a rupture happens, it can cause physical damage to the things that are close to it — when holding a phone, circuit boards and glass or plastic. These materials can also catch fire from the heat, which in turn makes the escaped electrolyte ignite and act like napalm — fire that sticks to things until it burns through them or burns itself out.

The thermal runaway process can happen very quickly, and things can go from “normal” to catastrophic failure inside the battery before the heat is even transferred through your phone to your hands. Thankfully, the hundreds of millions of lithium batteries produced every year have an extremely low (almost statistically insignificant) failure rate due to thermal runaway, partially because of safety measures (subscription required) like non-flammable additives to the electrolyte and coatings.

When your phone tells you that it’s too hot and won’t charge or run at full speed, it needs to cool down so thermal runaway doesn’t happen. Listen to the little pop-up and let it cool.

Mechanical damage

Lithium batteries are designed to be lightweight, deliver high output, and be easy to charge. This means that the outside shell and the barrier(s) separating the electrodes are very thin and light, with most of the weight coming from the parts that can actually power your phone.

Because the partitions and case are thin, they’re fairly easy to puncture or tear. If the structure of the battery itself is damaged in a way that makes the electrodes touch, a short circuit will happen. The instant electrical discharge is explosive, which can (and will) heat the electrolyte and create pressure to push it out through any ruptures in the battery case. It’s hot, it’s flammable and it’s in contact with a spark. That’s a recipe for disaster.

It’s hot, it’s flammable and it’s in contact with a spark. That’s a recipe for disaster.

A thin casing is also a safety precaution, though it sounds crazy. Thinner metal is easier to rupture, so less pressure can generate inside a sealed case — essentially creating a vent hole. Pushing out flammable hot liquid under pressure isn’t a good thing. Letting more pressure build until it ruptures a thicker case is worse.

Other metals coming in contact with the electrolyte paste can also create a spark that leads to failure. I’ll let you search YouTube yourself to see incredibly silly people puncturing phone batteries to make them explode. The reaction to foreign metal does the same thing as a short, but on a smaller scale.

What about the Note 7?

Image credit reddit user crushader

For starters, nobody but Samsung knows why batteries in some Note 7s have exploded. They sent out a short statement through their U.K, division that doesn’t really make sense. The wording “the anode-to-cathode came into contact” sounds like they are describing a short, but as written it means nothing. I won’t try to interpret something that isn’t clear in a case like this. But I can say what I think as an armchair quarterback who has never seen a Note 7 explode or inspected one that has exploded on his own, a situation where the anode shorts to the cathode does make the most sense.

Because people have reported the Note 7 battery failing without it being plugged in and large portions of the phones we see in pictures are not burned, I’m going to assume that it’s not a thermal runaway situation, even though Health Canada expicitly says the lone failure in Canada was from overheating,

Anyone outside of Samsung can only make an educated guess about what’s happening.

A thermal runaway situation isn’t as “instant” as a direct short, and the excited electrolyte solution would take a longer time to exit a burst battery then continue after an explosion ruptured the case. More than just a portion of the phone would be burned, as well as other objects in the immediate area. A heat explosion also would cause the battery to swell before the flexible casing would rupture, and with no room for expansion, the swollen battery would crack the outer shell of the phone. There are videos on YouTube that show how this happens, and here is a great (albeit old) example of someone circumventing the safety measures to make it happen. Someone would have mentioned the phone swelling up before it blew, I would think.

I also don’t think any foreign objects or manufacturing leftovers are coming in contact with the electrolyte. I know this is a popular theory, but if a batch of batteries (we’re not even sure how big a “batch” is in this case) all have small particles in the electrolyte, we’d be seeing a lot more Note 7s exploding.

A short inside the battery or in the charging circuit combined with an electrolyte that’s been treated with non-flammable additives seems more likely to me. A quick explosion that releases a small amount of pressure and fluid at once could quickly burn itself out if nothing were in contact with the phone. When the phone is in contact with something that is flammable, say the seat of a Jeep, it could cause a fire.

Of course, there could be plenty of other factors that we don’t know about. The manufacturing process used to create a lithium-ion battery for a phone makes them very safe to use. But there is also a lot that could go wrong.

A preliminary report by Samsung to Korean regulators blamed a production error that brought plates within the battery into contact, triggering “excessive heat.” The report noted that more analysis was needed to pinpoint the exact cause.

Initial conclusions indicate an error in production that placed pressure on plates contained within battery cells. That in turn brought negative and positive poles into contact, triggering excessive heat. Samsung however stressed that it needed to carry out a more thorough analysis to determine “the exact cause” of battery damage.

What we do know about the Note 7 and its battery

We have no idea exactly what’s happening with the Note 7 nor does anyone outside of Samsung. But we can make an educated guess based on the little evidence we’re privy to. And in the end, it doesn’t matter. The Note 7 has been determined by Samsung to be faulty and we’re all supposed to stop using them and return them. A replacement without the issue is in production and already on its way to the sales channel. We don’t need to know why it explodes to know that we should get rid of it.

Samsung recommends you power down your Note 7 and stop using it.

Samsung and your carrier (or other retailers like Target or Best Buy) have policies and methods in place that allow you to return your Note 7 without losing any money. Some offer loaner devices you can return when corrected Note 7 phones make their way onto the shelves, while others simply offer an outright refund. Either option is better than risking your hand or your face if the battery does fail.

We’ve compiled everything you need to know in one place, and we’re also happy to answer any questions we can in the comments or on social media.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall: Everything you need to know

Samsung Galaxy Note 7

• Galaxy Note 7 recall: Everything you need to know
• Samsung Galaxy Note 7 review
• The latest Galaxy Note 7 news!
• Here are all four Note 7 colors
• Complete Galaxy Note 7 specs
• Join the Note 7 discussion in the forums!

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T-Mobile
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SteamVR through Google Cardboard is weird and kinda great!

You can play SteamVR games with Google Cardboard, but be careful.

Trying VR is the first and best way to get someone excited about VR, but that raises some interesting challenges. The HTC Vive isn’t exactly what you’d call portable, and carting around the $600 Oculus Rift alongside your very expensive PC still isn’t a great option. If you find yourself without a VR headset, yet still curious about the experience, there’s a DIY project in your future! With Google Cardboard and a couple of apps, you can peer into the world of Oculus and SteamVR to get a decent idea of what makes these things so much fun.

Read more on VR Heads!