tech
Not Your Father's Apple
Ian Rogers announced the details of Apple Music's launch on his blog today:
Please make a note to upgrade to iOS 8.4 at 8am PT Tuesday, June 30th and listen to the first Beats 1 broadcast at 9am PT.
A few hours later, Eddy Cue took to Twitter to answer some questions
tech
Is iOS 9 beta 2 Ready to be Your Daily Driver?
As with most article titles that end in the question mark, the answer is NOOOOOOOOO.
While the Mac OS X El Capitan beta is humming along very nicely on my Mac, my iPhone is not faring as well with the newest beta. Beta 1 suffered from massive power consumption issues. My phone would last about
tech
T-Mobile Continues to be Nuts
T-Mobile announced that they are removing the already industry-leading 6 month wait between phone upgrades and are now letting users upgrade whenever they want. The fine print is that you're limited to 3 phones per year, but that's still pretty insane.
I have taken advantage of T-Mobile'
Links
Thinking About the Next Big Social Network
The next great social platform can’t be yet another centralized system. It has to be more distributed and more open even than App.net. It has to focus on writing and bloggers and embrace what is good about the web. Ello doesn’t do any of these things.
- via Manton Reece
I love Manton,
music
Apple Changes Course on Paying Artists During Free Trial
Apple has decided to change course and pay labels for the rights to stream their music during a 90-day free trial. The moves come after Taylor Swift penned an open letter to the hardware giant, writing that she found the company's insistence "disappointing" and "shocking."
- via The Hollywood
opinion
Reintroducing Myself to Android
I bought myself a Moto E to use as my reference Android device. It’s a pretty solid phone for the sub-$100 price point. It’s also running a near-stock version of Android Lollipop, and will get updates in a fairly timely manner when Android M rolls out this fall.
I sometimes badmouth
tech
What's Innovative From Apple Lately?
The above video has been circulating and has roused the “Apple doesn’t innovate anymore” trope. When we get past the fact that people have been making this assertion for over a decade, I have to wonder what people are asking for.
So what company is innovating these days? Google, of course! Let’s look
tech
Apple as the Anti-Google
With Apple planting their flag firmly in the ground of user privacy and security, I’m more willing to give their service a shot. Proactive looks almost exactly like what I’ve dreamed of… and it’s only the start of what could become a life-changing set of technologies. I want in.
- Richard Anderson
music
It’s Simple: Buy Your Music If You Want to Own It
I’m going to make a wild prediction: the iTunes Music Store, with its gobs and gobs of DRM-free M4A files isn’t going to go away on Monday, or any time for the foreseeable future.
- Richard Anderson for Sanspoint.
Rich makes a good argument why we needn’t be worried about “the return
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USB-C is the Future
And earlier today Intel helped deliver the first blow, announcing that Thunderbolt 3 would adopt the USB-C connector after previous iterations used Mini DisplayPort. Thunderbolt 3 stands on USB 3.1’s shoulders to deliver speeds of up to 40Gbps, letting you run two 4K displays at 60Hz through just one port. It’s
Android
Thoughts on Android M
[embed height="315" width="560"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KLyOb7gDm8[/embed]
Last year I ditched my iPhone right after Google I/O and went all in on Android. I have no such feeling this year. Part of me knows that the grass may seem greener, but that’s just
feature
Art vs. Tools
Google I/O is the week of the year where I like Google the most. It's where Google shows off some of their new tech and spells out what they believe. As far as tech goes, this was a less-than-thrilling event. There were very minor updates all around with a few
tech
Fire Sale
Amazon is offering their Fire Phone for a pretty deep discount right now. Obviously the phone as not lit the world on…fire…like Amazon hoped it would and they’re clearing out inventory. This raises 2 questions for many of us:
One, should you buy this as a cheap high end Android phone and
Links
Photos, Photos Everywhere
Google is releasing “Photos” for Android
We’ve been hearing for a very long time - virtually ever since Vic Gundotra left Google+, with more rumors springing up recently - that Photos would be splitting off from Google’s social/sign-in platform. We’ve heard vague rumblings, and even seen some baby steps toward this split,
tech
Microsoft Releases Hyperlapse for Windows Phone and Android
Microsoft released Hyperlapse yesterday and it looks pretty fun.
You can get it for Windows Phone or Android today. There is no word on whether an iOS version is coming as well. In the meantime, you can try Instagram Hyperlapse on the iPhone.
tech
The Best Cheap Phone You Can Buy
I own an iPhone 6 plus, which is not a cheap phone by any means, but I love the fact that anyone can get a pretty good smartphone experience for a much more reasonable price. There's quite the dichotomy between the tech conversations we have here and what regular people have. We may
tech
CurrentC is Blowing It Before It's Even Started
Apple Pay Is Creaming Walmart in the Mobile Payment Wars - Time
Others argue MCX has failed to show why the average person would want to use CurrentC over Apple Pay, Google Wallet, or other mobile payment competitors. “They’re still caught up on interchange, still about circumventing the card networks, and at the end of
tech
Fitbit Files for $100 million IPO
Fitbit filed for an IPO yesterday and they have some pretty impressive numbers to show off. Their 2014 revenue of $745 million was 3x their 2013 and 10x their 2012 revenues, which is very strong growth. And now just 2 months into 2015, their revenue is already at $336 million. Not only are they bringing