Software : Updated: Apple Music: release date, price and features |
- Updated: Apple Music: release date, price and features
- iOS Tips: Material Design: How to use Google's apps on iPhone and iPad
- How to uninstall Mac apps (and their settings too)
- Windows 10 goes freemium with paid apps
- Mac Tips: How to manage Safari notifications on Mac
| Updated: Apple Music: release date, price and features Posted:  Apple music streaming serviceUpdate: According to USA Today, in its first month Apple managed to coax 11 million subscribers to sign up for its free three-month trial. Update #2: Apple Music has arrived! Check out our first impressions in our hands-on review of Apple Music, the the new streaming kid on the block. Once you've checked that out you can bag yourself a free three month trial of the service, but you'll need to download iOS 8.4 on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch to access it, or update iTunes. If you're unsure how to get Apple Music on your devices, read our handy how-to guide! Original article follows... Apple Music, the name of Apple's long-awaited replacement for Beats Audio and iTunes Radio, is official. And while it may sound like a copycat, Apple's controversial approach will sing a different tune from Spotify and other music streaming services. Announced at WWDC 2015, the service looks to integrate on-demand music streaming, a 24/7 radio station called Beats1 and a social network that will help fans connect with artists "on the deepest level, building relationships that last a lifetime." Some of these features will be free. Some of them won't. A lot of it will look like Spotify and Rdio, but Apple has a few tricks up its sleeve to separate itself from the pack. For one thing, the Cupertino company's bold new venture into streaming isn't all about songs – it's about community and uniting music fans the world over.
Services like Beats1 will have a revolving set of DJs based in London, Los Angeles and New York that keep new music, interviews and news running around the clock. Meanwhile, a new integrated social network called Connect will try to erase our memories of Apple's misguided Ping service. Cut to the chase But for every move Apple's made to shake, shake, shake up the industry, it's been met with consternation and apprehension, most notably from megastar Taylor Swift. But before we go too far down the MP4 rabbit hole, let's talk about how big of a hole Apple Music will leave in your wallet every month.
Pricing and release dateThere's good news and bad news. The bad news is that Apple doesn't believe in giving away a free meal. Apple's service has a price tag: $9.99/£9.99 (about AU$13) per month or $14.99/£14.99 (around AU$20) for families of up to six individuals. The good news is exactly what you'll get for that asking price. By subscribing to the service, you'll be able to play and locally save any number of tunes from iTunes's 25-million song catalog without any stipulations. That's 5 million more songs than Spotify has which, for fans of the indie genre, makes all the difference in the world. Plus, for fans of Tidal, you'll also be able to access "high-quality curated playlists" and get "expert music recommendations," if that's more your speed. Apple will offer a free version of the service, too, to everyone with an Apple ID, but all it includes are the ability to listen to the new global radio station and use Apple's social media service. Comparatively, Spotify and Rdio offer unlimited streaming with ads to its members without a monthly fee, though many similar features, like saving local music, are set behind a paywall. Apple Music's free version is intentionally limited, clearly, to see users jump into Apple's paid ecosystem. The silver lining is that the monthly service is lessened by a three-month free trial offer that Apple is extending to new users. Apple Music will be released on June 30 alongside Apple iOS 8.4, with PC and Macs to receive a new version of iTunes around the same time, and an Android version will be made available in the fall.
Music curationWhen Apple started hiring ex-music journalists shortly after the purchase of Beats, we knew something was up. What they were doing, apparently, was putting together a comprehensive way to sort and recommend music, using not only the algorithms from the now-defunct Beats service but human curation to present "great music people want to hear." In theory, this will look a lot like Tidal's curated playlists, jam-packed full of information on artists, studios and producers, combined with Pandora's ability to match you with the most popular songs in your preferred genre. Realistically, Apple Music has the advantage here by having your entire iTunes library at its fingertips that it can use as a reference point for the bands and artists you listen to the most. Beats 1 global radioWhen Apple said it was going to revolutionize the way we listened to music with a new radio station, it was hard not to laugh. Beats1 will be a 24/7 music station, like SiriusXM here in the US, and hosted by renowned DJs like Zane Lowe, Blame Ebro and Julie Adenuga from Los Angeles, New York and London. It will be the first in its class that will offer news, interviews and new music from artists around the clock.
A recent report from The New York Times says that we can expect Elton John, Drake and Pharrell to host their own shows, with Pharrell calling "dibs" on the first Apple Music debut of an upcoming song. The report also revealed that the first guest on Zane Lowe's show will be renowned rapper Eminem. Apple Connect social networkPing, Apple's first attempt at connecting fans with artists via Facebook-like social media, was a complete failure. It launched in 2010 and was shuttered by the end of 2012 after limited engagement, and what seemed like artist apathy. Apple Connect, we hope, will be different. Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue took the audience through a live demo of the service that promises to integrate the on-demand streaming from services like Rdio and Spotify with social media services like the revamped Myspace. In Cue's demo, he showed a behind-the-scenes video of Bastille composing music for their new album, as well as Alabama Shakes's lead singer and guitarist Brittany Howard in the recording studio. It's content that will drive Connect. Without it, Apple should consider pulling the curtain early and saving the world a small headache down the road. Controversy about paying artistsApple Music's three-month free trial was its ace-up-its-sleeve. To promise every iTunes account holder three months of unlimited streaming sounded too good to be true. It turns out it was. Just not for the content creators. After its WWDC 2015 unveiling, Apple announced that it wouldn't pay artists a cent for music streamed during a user's three-month trial, and then it would switch to a 70/30 payment system then-after. As you can well imagine, this didn't sit well with artists - particularly, Taylor Swift. "We don't ask you for free iPhones. Please don't ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation," Swift wrote on her Tumblr blog. Talk about "bad blood." Indie artists and megastars alike asked Apple to pay up or ship out, and Apple being Apple, decided to do the latter. Apple refused to negotiate with indie artists, giving them an ultimatum to either stream their catalog for free for the first three months or remove their music from the storefront. It took a threat from Taylor to withhold her latest album "1989" before Apple caved in to demands. Apple has since back-pedaled on its original stance and will now pay out artists during users' free trials, and in return have the exclusive streaming rights to Swift's set of tracks.
Page 2 - Leading up to WWDC 2015What follows is our take of the service before Apple's World Wide Developer Conference... Following months of reports, Apple is expected to unveil its own on-demand music streaming service at its annual developer conference. While the tech giant has yet to detail its intentions in full, sources paint a fairly clear picture of a paid subscription model in the vein of Spotify and the fresh-faced Tidal. There are also talks of Apple overclocking its current iTunes Radio platform with technology from its acquisition of Beats Electronics. Has Apple finally lined up its successor to iTunes, or will this be too little, too late? It's too soon to make the call, but we've managed to collect as much information as possible in the days leading up to Apple's big developer conference. What is Apple's new music service?Apple's new service will allow users to stream unlimited music for a monthly fee, according to a recent report by The New York Times. This service may well be a revamped version of iTunes Radio, its current horse in the race against online radio services such as Pandora.
The streaming service is projected to borrow heavily from Beats Music, following the acquisition of the Beats Electronics brand by Apple last year for a cool $3 billion (about £1.9 billion/AU$3.9 billion). This would likely result in an emphasis on expert-crafted playlists, and using both music downloaded by the user as well as music curation algorithms to create custom, personalized soundtracks. Integrations with social networks such as Facebook or Twitter could also be expected. There have also been talks of upgrading the iTunes Radio to feature virtual DJs to create a living radio atmosphere and prepare specialized music rotations, with artists such as Pharrell and Drake rumored to take part in the lineup. How will I get it, and how much will I have to pay?The app's launch is expected to play out as an update to iTunes and the iOS Music app featured on iPhones, iPads, and iPods, so says USA Today. This method ensures all up-to-date iOS and iTunes users have access to Apple's new music service, which could turn out to be a huge boon for the company as they play catchup to the long-established Spotify. Considering the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus alone managed to sell over 10 million units the weekend they were released, shattering pre-order records for the company, smartphone users on iOS could become a massive install base once the revamped music service reaches their device. Payment and account information would most likely be tied to a user's Apple Pay and Apple ID information, as well as be part of the Music app currently pre-installed on all iOS products. This means Apple could get first dibs on a ton a potential customers new to streaming, as well as simplify the onboarding and payment process for established fans of on-demand music.
The most recent report, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal, has an Apple musc subscription costing $10 per month, a rate similar to the rest of the competition, excluding Tidal's HiFi offering for $20/£20 a month. There will also likely be free trials available, but curiously enough Apple hasn't offered a "free" tier similar in other online services, suggesting that the new Apple Music will only be available to paying customers. Given the streaming side of the service might be premium-only, it is likely that any advertising content will be reserved for its internet radio service, where the DJ-run channels may still be available to listen to for free. Why now?Apple is no stranger to spotting trends. Remember, iTunes revolutionized purchasing and playing music in the digital space over a decade ago. Music streaming has rapidly become more popular over the traditional model, with music download sales dropping 8% in 2014 while subscription sales climbed nearly 40%, according to market research by the IFPI music market research firm. This isn't Apple's first foray in online music listening, either. iTunes Radio made its debut in 2013 as a response to Pandora and other online music services. As more on-demand services gain traction, offering instant access to millions of songs, it would make sense for Apple to make its next step, especially given that the extensive iTunes library already grants it a head-start in music selection. When is Apple's new service coming out?Apple's upcoming WWDC 2015 conference begins June 8 and runs through June 12, and it's here Apple is expected to make an official announcement. While the service could very well be set to launch as early as that week, there have been reports of license negotiations with major record labels going at a sluggish clip.
We'll just have to see if Apple can get its music service off the ground for a June release. Until then, there's still many questions left unanswered. How will prior iTunes purchases factor in? What regions will it be available in? Will there be an offline mode? With luck, these questions and more will be resolved as we provide updated coverage in the coming week.
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| iOS Tips: Material Design: How to use Google's apps on iPhone and iPad Posted:  Apple and Google may be rivals, but there's no denying how useful Google's apps can be on iPhone and iPad. There's an iOS app for just about every service that Google offers. Gmail, Google Drive, Chrome, Google Calendar, and, of course, search. There are now 50 and counting, so unless you've completely eschewed Google, there's a good chance you have one or more on your iOS device. By now you may have noticed they look and perform differently from other iOS apps. That's because they follow a design scheme unique to Google called Material Design. It looks great and allows Google to ensure its apps and services look similar across all platforms — iOS, Android, and the web. The downside is that many of the little tricks you might be used to when navigating on an iPhone or iPad aren't there, so here's a quick guide that will help you avoid getting lost. Going back is inconsistentLet's start with the bad news. In a lot of cases, the familiar gesture where you swipe to the right to go back one screen doesn't work. It largely depends on which app you're using. With Chrome, the slide-to-go-back feature works, but there's more animation involved. With Inbox you can swipe down to close an email or touch the "X" at the top-left of the screen. With Google Photos, you need to touch the back arrow, which can get problematic on an iPhone 6 Plus.
This probably works this way because it's the most platform-agnostic method possible. For example, on the web you click with the mouse and on Android use the back button. So to keep things equal that means no slide-to-go-back motion for you. Google account details on the leftGoogle's apps are primarily cloud-based — bringing in your Gmail, Google photos, Google Drive files, and more — so signing in with your Google account is essential. Google has added this necessity with some design sense with a sliding bar on the left.
This section also doubles as a main hub for other details from the specific app. It takes you to labels in Gmail, bundles in Inbox, recent files in Google Drive, and for most apps it's where you find the settings. Keep in mind that menu bar is always hiding off to the left, ready to serve you when necessary. One touch to actionAnother key element of Material Design that has made its way into several different Google apps is the Floating Action Button. This puts a button at the bottom-right of the screen that serves as the launching point to any number of actions.
With the Gmail-alternative Inbox, for example, the button can launch a new message or reminder, or email one of your most-contacted colleagues. In Google Docs it will, as you might guess, create a new file. Google continues to roll out this configuration to its suite of apps, so be on the lookout for it. Following its own beatFinally, you'll notice that there's an overall design and organizational structure that is definitely different than typical iOS. Material Design organizes information into card-style pieces and relies on images and sharp visuals to differentiate various pieces of the interface.
Additionally, you'll find that Google has thrown in a few drops of Android in the Google Search app.
The key is to be mindful that when you use a Google app it's going to work differently from those built by Apple and third-party apps that follow closely to iOS guidelines. The downside is that it leads to an inconsistent interface when compared to what else you do with your iPhone, but if you use those Google services on other devices, you'll feel right at home. |
| How to uninstall Mac apps (and their settings too) Posted:  It's amazing when people say that dragging apps into the OS X's Trash folder uninstalls them, because it's not always true. When uninstalling Google Chrome by dragging the app to the Trash, for example, all the browsing history, bookmarks, and so on can remain on the Mac. Simply throwing an application in the trash won't get rid of everything associated with it. Those additional files are your personal settings and preferences, and they are excluded from the application package file so each user account can have their own settings, and to make it easier to flush if something gets corrupted. These sorts of files are put in your /Library/Application Support and /Library/Caches folders. In OS X, we'd suggest simply deleting apps by dragging them to the Trash and then, if you want, deleting personal files associated with them from your own Library folders as an extra step.
Unlike with Windows computers, a dedicated uninstall app probably isn't necessary. (The reason uninstallers are so essential for our PC-using brethren is that library files can be dumped in the Windows folder and only a cryptic reference in the registry tells you where to find them.) There are, of course, a few badly behaved Mac applications out there, but these are definitely outliers. If you have an app you just can't get rid of, it might be worth using something like AppCleaner, but in general it's unnecessary. Admittedly, AppCleaner is donationware, so you don't have to pay for it, but the office copy sits quite unused so far... |
| Windows 10 goes freemium with paid apps Posted:  There is no such thing as a free lunch. As Microsoft transitions Windows into a service, it is beginning to charge users for more advanced or non-core features of the OS. The first of two missing Windows 10 features that are now available in the Windows Store as a paid app is the DVD Player. Since many notebook users have transitioned away from optical media in favor of thinner form factors with the rise of Ultrabooks, dropping the DVD Player app may not affect that many users. If you must have the Microsoft-made app, you can visit the Windows Store now and pay $14.99 (£9, AU$20). The app, however, is free for anyone upgrading from a Media Center Edition (MCE) of Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 for a limited time, but Microsoft did not specify how long this offer lasts. Windows 10 also dropped the Media Center Edition from PCs. Instead, Microsoft will be building additional living room features into its Xbox One console when the Windows 10 upgrade is available for that device. We've reached out to Microsoft for clarification if IT administrators will either need to find an alternative solution or spend extra money for the DVD Player app for users working on Windows 10 Enterprise mobile workstations with a Blu-Ray or DVD drive, and we'll update this post with a response. If you don't want to pony up the cash to Microsoft, there are other free and paid third-party solutions available. We recommend the excellent free VLC software from VideoLan. Taking a gambleSolitaire has appeared as a free feature since the early 90s with Windows 3.0, but now Microsoft is taking a freemium approach to the card game. It's still available for free and bundled with Windows 10, but you'll be subjected to ads. If you want more, you can subscribe to the classic card game for $1.49 per month, or $9.99 (£6, AU$13) annually. This gets rid of the pesky ads and gives you more card designs, access to daily challenges and perks like more coins. Back to productivityEven though the entertainment features may be missing from Windows 10, Microsoft still includes core productivity apps. Smaller tablets will get access to the new touch-friendly Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for free, while owners of notebooks, desktops and larger tablets will need an Office 365 subscription to use these new apps. Sway is also available for free as a modern alternative to PowerPoint. Included for free with Windows 10 are brand new Outlook Mail, Outlook Calendar, People, Maps and Photo Apps. For entertainment, the new Movies & TV app allows you to play back video files, or purchase or rent movies and TV shows from the Windows Store. The Groove Music app is similar, but applies only to music. Windows as a serviceRather than delivering Windows as packaged software, Microsoft is turning Windows 10 into a service. "We want to have a direct relationship with the customer," Aaron Woodman, Marketing Director at Microsoft, told TechRadar at the time of the Windows 10 release. This includes regularly updating apps and the Windows experience to bring the latest and best experiences to users, as well as keeping PCs safe with malware protection. Upgrades to new versions of Windows is not a significant source of revenue for Microsoft, Woodman said, noting that the company would rather increase user loyalty than charge for the upgrade during the first year. Microsoft relies on its OEM licensing for Windows revenue. The strategy is aimed at reducing the barriers to technology. If that's true, it's unclear why Microsoft would need to charge for the DVD Player or Solitaire.
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| Mac Tips: How to manage Safari notifications on Mac Posted:  Back in Mac OS X Mountain Lion, Apple added a new feature called Safari Web Notifications. This new feature allowed users to subscribe to website updates, then receive push notifications right inside of Notification Center whenever website content updated. This can be a great feature, or, in some cases, an annoying one. In this article, we'll show you how to manage your Safari Web Notifications or even get rid of them entirely. Subscribing to a web notificationTo subscribe to a web notification in Safari, you'll first need to visit a website that allows web notifications. CNN.com is a great example of a site that provides useful notifications to Safari users. When visiting the website, you'll be prompted to subscribe or choose to not be asked again. Clicking subscribe will add your Mac to the subscription list, and you'll begin receiving push notifications on your Mac when website content updates or whenever CNN decides to send out breaking news updates. Viewing and removing web notification subscriptionsIf you wish to view the websites that you're currently subscribed to, or you change your mind about not wanting notifications, then open Safari and open the preferences (press Command + , [comma] for a shortcut), then click on the notifications tab. A list of all the websites that have offered you notifications will be displayed. Here, you can view all of the sites that you're subscribed to and revoke notifications from any of these sites if you wish. You can also click on "Allow" to ensure that a particular site can send you push notifications. Additionally, you can remove any websites from this list by selecting them and clicking "Remove" or remove them all by clicking the "Remove All" button.
Disable web notification subscriptionsIf you no longer wish to be asked to subscribe to notifications when visiting websites, then perform these steps: 1. Open Safari. 2. Navigate to Preferences > Notifications. 3. Click "Remove All." 4. Uncheck the option for "Allow websites to ask for permission to send push notifications." This will remove all current subscriptions, plus keep websites from asking if you'd like to subscribe in the future.
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