If you're subscribed to Apple Music right now, you would either be paying the regular $9.99 per month, or $14.99 for a family subscription. The cheapest plan available is the $4.99 monthly plan for students, or so we thought. Apparently, Apple has inserted a very interesting annual plan, and it might just fit your budget better.
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Users of the forever-popular game Minecraft will see an update to the game on Bedrock Engine platforms. That includes Windows 10 devices, mobile devices, and of course VR. Users will be able to participate in the Minecraft Marketplace for the first time ever. This means a whole lot of cash is about to change hands - lots and lots. Parents, hide your coin wallets.
Microsoft and Apple may not be the most obvious bedfellows, but that isn't stopping Apple from bringing iTunes to the Windows Store. While the past couple of years has seen Microsoft launch an increasing number of apps on macOS and iOS, Apple is pushing back a little. Announced at BUILD 2017 today, the Cupertino firm's media and iOS management software will be coming to Microsoft's download store.
Apple is preparing a second attempt at rebooting Apple Music, it's reported, with a big push into video joining the subscription-based streaming audio. The update will come roughly two years after Apple Music first launched, and mark a sizable bet on streaming video that will see several big-name celebrities contributing content. Only last year, Apple redesigned Apple Music considerably, in part to bring the company's curated playlists to greater prominence.
iTunes has long offered digital movie rentals, and those digital movie rentals have historically been more or less shackled to the device from which it was rented or, in some cases, required syncing between devices. That changes with iTunes 12.6, an updated version that is bringing a so-called 'rent once, watch anywhere' functionality that removes the limitations. This functionality assumes the user is running the latest versions of iOS and tvOS, however.
Super Mario Run will be released today, December 15th, 2016, at around 1:30 PM Central Time for both iPhone and iPad. This information may turn out to be off by a few minutes, depending on how close to the wire last-minute preparations go - glitches might also happen, but they probably wont. This is for the iOS version of Super Mario Run, and while iPhone and iPad may be first, Android won't be far behind.
With the growing popularity of podcasts and audiobooks these days, it appears that Apple is planning to offer a similar way for users to listen to written news articles. As part of new feature coming to iTunes soon, "Spoken Editions" audio podcasts will offer spoken word versions of written articles from a wide variety of news sources. Much like how Amazon's voice assistant Alexa is capable of reading news headlines and other information via the Echo speaker, being able to listen to the news frees up users to do other things at the same time.
Security forensics company Elcomsoft revealed last week that encrypted iOS backups created in iTunes have been made far less secure with the recent release of iOS 10. While an unintentional flaw, the new password protected backups offer an "alternative password verification mechanism" that allows them to fall victim to brute force hacks much more quickly and easily than with previous iOS versions. Fortunately Apple acknowledged the issue, and says a fix is on the way with "an upcoming security update."
It may not seem like it to many people out there but Apple has now been shilling movies on iTunes for a decade. To celebrate the tenth birthday of iTunes movies, Apple has put together bundles that offer fans ten movies for only ten bucks. There are six different bundles that movie fans and choose from and they can be had in SD or HD for the same $9.99 price tag.
Today Google has released a brand new teamwork app and ecosystem by the name of "Spaces." Users of Google's accounts - signed up with a Gmail account, that is - will be able to take part in Google's new Spaces app. This app has the ability to create rooms or "spaces" on topics. You'll create a space based on a topic then invite users via messaging, email, social network, or "whatever way you like." We can imagine this will be used in ways both intended and beyond what Google intended in short order.
For the last week and a half, there have been a growing number of complaints from Apple Music and iTunes users about locally stored music being deleted in exchange for copies available in the cloud. As James Pinkstone, whose blog post kicked off this controversy, explains, the problem (aside from removing music without explicit permission) is that there is a high chance of mis-matching or mis-identifying songs, resulting in original recordings being deleted and rare, alternate versions of songs being replaced with the widely released copies.
There's no doubt that streaming music is rapidly becoming the standard way people consume digital audio — it hasn't already for many users. Streaming has already surpassed physical music sales in terms of revenue, and it will likely overtake downloads sometime in the future. But the idea of streaming being the only option for paying for music is certainly something many would balk at, which is why Apple made the rare move of shutting down a rumor that iTunes would discontinue music downloads in the next few years.
