Who has time to watch the entire thing? Here’s a good summary:
Apple
How To Force Restart Frozen iPhone X
How To Force Restart Frozen iPhone X:
Press and quickly release the Volume up button then press and quickly release the Volume down button. To complete, press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears on the screen.
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For some reason Apple decided to hide this information after changing how the phone works.
Spotify, Apple Battle Songwriter Royalties
The drama heated up in January 2018, when the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board decided to boost the royalty rate that Spotify, Apple Music, and similar streamers must pay songwriters and publishers. Flash forward to last week, when Spotify, Google, Pandora, and Amazon revealed they were each planning to appeal that ruling. The National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) blasted the move, claiming that Spotify and Amazon had chosen to “sue songwriters.”
Perhaps fueled by this incendiary wording—which a NMPA spokesperson tells Pitchfork is “shorthand for the technical legal process of them appealing”—backlash against the streaming services quickly spread among songwriters and industry figures. This week, Spotify responded to the criticism with a blog post noting the complexity of the situation.
Apple is not taking part in the appeals. As such, the NMPA and other industry figures were quick to praise Apple as pro-artist. That said, if the appeals succeed, Apple could conceivably have its cake and eat it too, enjoying the benefit of lower rates without the ire of coming out in favor of them. Apple’s vast phone business and huge cash reserves also mean it’s more insulated from higher costs of doing business than Spotify would be.
It’s a mess.
Samsung Galaxy S10 Face Unlock is Not Reliable
There are a number of reports that say—surprise!—a 2D image sensor can be fooled by a 2D image. The Verge was able to unlock the device with a video, and YouTube channel Unbox Therapy was able to unlock the S10 just by playing one of its public channel videos in view of the camera. The worst example is probably from AndroidWorld.it, which was able to unlock the Galaxy S10 by waving a still photo around in front of the device.
The Galaxy S10 can also reportedly have trouble telling different people apart. Security Researcher Jane Wong was able to unlock her brother’s phone with her face.
Not surprised.
Apple Rumored to Release AR headset glasses
Rumors that Apple is preparing to release its own AR headset have been around since 2017 when Bloomberg predicted that it could release a headset as early as 2019. A further report from CNET last year claimed that the headset could be released in 2020 and would offer a combination of both AR and VR.
Apple’s AR headset won’t be the first to rely on an external phone for its processing power. LG released a similar (albeit VR) headset alongside its G5 flagship back in 2016, while more recently, North’s Focals smart glasses (which the company produced after acquiring the technology portfolio behind Intel’s canceled Vaunt glasses) paired to a connected phone via Bluetooth. Just last month, chipmaker Qualcomm announced a dedicated platform to help manufacturers produce their own phone-connected AR or VR headsets.
I think it’s a dumb idea to work on AR headsets. We should get them into Car windshields first, etc. Humans should be last on the list.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Active Review 2019
The Active’s design is fairly generic. It comes in nicer colors than the black variant I reviewed, but all of them share the same understated style that almost looks like something Pebble would have made. It’s not flashy, but it works. The 20mm bands are easy to replace, as well.
But Samsung took something very important away from the Galaxy Watch Active: it lacks the rotating bezel that has proven to be an intuitive, natural, and fun control mechanism on the company’s other smartwatches. The Tizen Wearable OS 4.0 software is designed to put the display’s circular shape to good use, but navigating the Galaxy Watch Active can feel more finicky without the rotating bezel and its satisfying clicks.
For one, the watch’s software doesn’t really take into account this significant change in how you interact with it. The user experience is largely identical to that of the Galaxy Watch, and it’s clearly meant to work best with a rotating bezel that can quickly scroll through menus.
Translation: not as good as Apple.
Sony Officially Kills PS Vita
But despite its niche appeal, the Vita ultimately failed to live up to Sony’s expectations, says Stefan Langford.
“It certainly comes as no surprise that the PS Vita has finally ended production, ultimately sounding the death knell of Sony’s mobile gaming ambitions,” says Mr Spendelow.
While the PS Vita has been consigned to history, Sony is believed to be readying a new games console.Last year, company president and chief executive Kenichiro Yoshida told the Financial Times that it was “necessary” for Sony to work on next-generation hardware. He declined to say whether this machine would carry the name PlayStation 5.
Apple is eating everyone’s lunch.
Dash Developer Releases Audio Call with Apple
Bogdan Popescu, Kapeli Developer, behind the Dash App released a statement today regarding his apple dev account suspension.
I was not aware my account was linked to another until Apple contacted me Friday, 2 days after closing my account. I was never notified of any kind of wrongdoing before my account was terminated.
What Apple has done: on Friday they told me they’d reactivate my account if I’d make a blog post admitting some wrongdoing. I told them I can’t do that, because I did nothing wrong. On Saturday they told me that they are fine with me writing the truth about what happened, and that if I did that, my account would be restored. Saturday night I sent a blog post draft to Apple and have since waited for their approval.
Tonight Apple decided to accuse me of manipulating the App Store in public via a spokesperson.
Sounds to me like he is in the wrong here. He is trying to fight it on the technicality that he wasn’t the only one with the access to his other account, but both the accounts are linked to his bank account.
And what Apple was asking from him wasn’t really a big deal at all IMO, so I think he should have taken the deal.
Here is the backup of the audio:
Google Announces Familiar Looking Google Pixel Phone
Google Pixel Phone via Google
With Pixel, we obsessed over every detail, from the industrial design to the user experience. We carefully sculpted the surfaces of the phone, and rounded the edges to make it easy to grip. We used 2.5D Corning® Gorilla® Glass 4 on the front display and back glass to accent the aerospace grade aluminum body.
The glass on the back also features Pixel Imprint, our fingerprint sensor, which is placed on the back of the phone where your finger expects it. You can even swipe it to access your notifications. And no matter what you’re using your phone for, you’ll need a battery that lasts all day and charges fast — up to seven hours in 15 minutes.
Pixel is available for pre-order today starting at $649 in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany and Australia. Pre-orders in India will begin October 13. In the U.S., we’re teaming up exclusively with Verizon to make Pixel available nationwide at all Verizon retail outlets, including Best Buy stores. We’re also offering Pixel unlocked on the Google Store and, for you Project Fi fans out there, you’ll be happy to know that Pixel is the latest device to work on the Fi network.
Sold by Google, Built by HTC, Designed by Apple.
iTunes Apple Music Confusing Tabs Layout
New iTunes has a lot of new problems since they added “apple music”. My biggest issue is that I don’t know which one of the main tabs I should use to search “Apple Music”. I guess there is no difference between the first 6, they all let you search for your music as well as “apple music”. But if you use “iTunes Store” tab it doesn’t let you search “apple music” or give you an explanation why.
If it doesn’t find it in my music it should automatically search “apple music” especially since I’m a subscriber. But instead it offers me a link to search the iTunes store to purchase the music…awesome.
If you do happen to search the store for Drake for example you’ll get to an artist page that will not let you stream the music you’re subscribed to. You have to leave and do another search on any of the other 6 tabs which you can pick randomly I guess. Also, tabs in popups? Wow. Awesome.
If you click play on this page you only get 90 seconds of each song. Why would I wanna buy a song if I’m an apple music subscriber? Oh, to burn a CD I guess…
iCloud Session expired for Apple Music
Every morning when I wanna stream some music:
Thank you Apple for keeping streaming music so secure. I’ll just use Spotify.
iPhone Nap Alarms Mess
When you use Siri to set nap alarms (e.g “Wake me up in 20 min”) you end up with a new alarm for each nap. But when are you going to need an alarm for 9:01PM again? Also, you can only delete alarms one at a time. No thanks.
Apple Music iTunes Design Issue
Please iTunes play the next song on the list thank you.
Apple music borrows a whole lot from spotify which isn’t really bad since Spotify has been around for a while and works well. But if you’re gonna steal then also steal the good parts. Here apple shows us an artist page which has a black background which I can only assume they auto detected from the artist photo.
This is kind of a nice feature, but when you click on the album you get a blinding white page (if you are using the app at night, which I am doing right now).
Clicking on any of the “top songs” from the main artist page only plays that one song and does not continue down the list which doesn’t make any sense. There is no option to auto continue. It’s like turning the record over after every song, which is what people do I guess with those 7″ vinyls. Also, you can’t click on the entire row but have to click on the little play icon. Awesome. thanks.