Apple Music may come with a long list of advantages over rivals like Spotify — such as real radio and a super-affordable family plan — but there’s one thing it’s lagging behind on, and that’s music quality… or so it seems.
The highest bitrate Apple Music will offer is 256 kbps, which is lower than the 320 kbps offered by Spotify, Rdio, Tidal, and Apple’s own Beats Music service.
A post on Apple’s site for its Maps app heavily suggests that it’s hard at work on a feature to rival Google’s Street View, which lets users zoom into maps to explore areas from ground level. The company hasn’t officially announced that that is what it’s doing with those camera vans, but we’re running increasingly low on alternative theories.
During Monday’s introduction of Apple Music at the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple said “over 100 countries” will have access to its music-streaming/social/radio platform when it launches June 30. But it didn’t say which countries those would be.
We’ve done some investigating, and we’re pretty sure we’ve got a good idea of who’s definitely getting their dance on. Check out our map below.
Apple’s two-hours-plus keynote at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) this week was packed with new and exciting information about the future of software for its current major hardware. But we couldn’t help but notice some things that were missing.
Here are some of the ways Apple’s presentation left us hanging this year.
SAN FRANCISCO — The key to crafting great Apple Watch apps can be summed up with a simple mantra: “Make the user happy.”
That’s designer Joe Cieplinski’s approach to all design, really, but the precept is even more important than ever for developers making apps for Apple’s new wearable. Instead of attempting to cram all the features of an iPhone app onto that tiny screen, devs need to focus as much on what they leave out as what they include.
“That’s how you get a successful product,” Cieplinski, who works for Philadelphia-based Bombing Brain Interactive, told Cult of Mac after his AltConf panel here Tuesday. “It’s not just trying to be philosophical.”
Why does the latest iPhone still ship with just 16GB of storage as standard? Why does the new MacBook have only one USB port? Why does Apple make devices thinner and thinner rather than adding bigger batteries?
At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco this week, marketing chief Phil Schiller sat down with The Talk Show to address some of these questions.
If you’ve got an Apple developer account and a Mac, you might want to instal the latest OS X 10.11, better known as El Capitan, onto your machine right now.
Until it’s out of beta, though, you might want to consider installing it on a second partition of your Macintosh, in case things get wonky. It is a beta, after all, and you should never rely on a beta for a mission-critical device.
If you’re un-daunted still, here’s how to install El Capitan safely onto another partition on your Mac to try it out without nuking your current install of Yosemite.
Jonathan Mann is the Song a Day creator who’s (so far) written and recorded 2,350 songs (including this one) for his YouTube channel. He’s an Apple fan, of course, and many of his songs have to do with the Cupertino-based tech company.
Mann set up his Macbook and guitar across the street from the Moscone Center and recorded this latest tune live on the sidewalk, and it’s all about the Monday’s developer keynote.
“Not one but (count ’em) two,” he sings, “women up on the stage. It’s a start, and it’s about time ’cause these white dad jokes they’re starting to fade.”
Check it out.
Selfie sticks are quite possibly the worst thing mankind has ever invented. They’re annoying, long, and narcissistic and you can’t go to a concert, museum, landmark, or pretty much anywhere else in public without running into fifty dudes trying to wrangle their piece of metal into the perfect pic.
Luckily, some brilliant designers have devised a cool solution that lets you get nice photos of yourself, without annoying everyone around you.
Check it out:
Developers are churning out the Apple Watch apps way faster than the first wave of iPhone apps that launched with the App Store. According to new data provided by App Annie to Cult of Mac, the number of Apple Watch apps has double since the device debuted on April 22nd.
Popcorn Time is an open source app for Mac that allows users to stream movies from bit torrent sites that have ripped movies on them.
The tech made a huge splash, but is now sadly defunct, even while its creators still proclaim that the technology is legal.
However, some other folks thought the technology was perfect to help us all with another internet activity that a whole bunch of us still enjoy: porn.
Porn Time, based on the same code as Popcorn Time, is now available for Mac, Windows and Linux, so grab a towel and check it out.
Online auction site eBay has updated its iOS app to include Apple Watch functionality.
Now, sellers and bidders can keep an eye on their transactions wherever they are.
Apple is ramping up security on iOS 9 and it’s going to take a little extra memorization on your part.
Anyone with an iPhone or iPad that has Touch ID will be required to update to a new 6 digit PIN when the new operating system is released this fall, according to Apple’s website.
Apple just unveiled the future of OS X with the developer preview of El Capitan, but it’s still trying to squash some bugs in El Yosemite with the fifth beta of OS X 10.10.4.
Apple may have announced iOS 9 at WWDC yesterday, but it hasn’t forgotten about its iOS 8.4 beta. A fourth release is now available to developers ahead of this month’s public rollout.
Steve Jobs hated Android so much he once said Apple would never make an iTunes app for Android because he didn’t want to do anything that would make Android users happy. At yesterday’s WWDC keynote, Tim Cook sang a different tune by announcing Apple Music would be available on Android too. What he didn’t say was everyone with an Android phone is going to have to pay. Even for the free features.
You don’t need us to tell you that knowing how to design for mobile is becoming a must for programmers. So it’s a great time for you to learn, whether you’re new to coding or just need to brush up on your mobile skills. We’ve put together a Mobile First Developer’s Bundle of 10 app programming courses at Cult of Mac Deals to help you do just that. Worth $1,740, you can pay what you want for a limited time.
The best Beats headphones can’t help you if your ears are unable to hear certain subtle sounds. You can crank up the volume, but that only puts your hearing in peril.
The creators of Aumeo want to change the way you listen to music with an audio device that profiles your hearing – testing it with a smartphone app to find the frequency suited for each level – and offers sound-rich audio that lets you take your thumb off the volume button.
A person’s hearing is as unique as their fingerprints, but electronic audio devices provide more of a “one-size-fits-all” range of volume, according to Aumeo co-founder Paul Lee.
By Brandon Shaw
Dear Apple,
I wanted to love Apple Music, I really did. It had all the potential in the world, and with all the hype surrounding the WWDC keynote, I watched with cautious optimism. Ultimately, though, I was disappointed. Here’s why.
Based on the highly acclaimed novel of the same name, The Martian will chronicle astronaut Mark Watney’s incredibly plausible scientific survival on the surface of Mars for four years in a habitat designed for 30 days.
With Matt Damon in the title role, an all-star cast and Ridley Scott in the director’s chair, The Martian is shaping up to be the one film science nerds must see this summer.
The official trailer came out Monday and you’re going to want to see it right now. Too bad you’ll have to wait until the end of November.
Every other year Apple releases an “S” version of the iPhone. Later this year, we’ll see the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. The “S” models generally deliver modest improvements — better cameras, better networking, faster chips. But the basic design remains the same. The “S” suffix means the same, but better.
And so it goes with this Monday’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote. In terms of announcements of import, WWDC 2015’s kickoff was an “S” upgrade. It built on the spectacular announcements of last year, but didn’t break huge new ground.
And that’s OK. “S” upgrades are often underrated.
The Apple Design Award winners are in, and they showcase the cutting edge of game and app design.
At a ceremony Monday at the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple handed out 12 awards to the best apps of the past year. Games scored half of the nods, with some really cool productivity, finance and utility apps also taking honors.
Here are all of this year’s winning apps — and why they won.
Apple Music may be a streaming service, but you won’t always need an Internet connection to enjoy it. Apple has confirmed that you’ll also be able to download songs for offline listening, so you can enjoy albums and playlists when you’re on the road without data.
If you’re an early adopter of Apple Watch as well as a registered Apple developer, you can get the new watchOS 2 on your wrist right now. It takes a bit of effort, including getting into your copy of Xcode, but it seems like that might be worth it for those of us who like to get all the new stuff right away, as well as the folks that are making tomorrow’s apps for today’s it device.
Here’s how you get your Apple Watch beta set up.
If you’re curious about the new changes coming to iOS 9 and you’ve got an Apple Developer account, you can head over and get the latest operating system for Apple’s mobile devices (iPhone and iPad) from the developer website.
You’ll need to register your iPhone or iPad with the Developer website, first, then download the new iOS 9 beta and install it. Here’s the breakdown of getting iOS 9 onto your iPhone or iPad, which is required if you want to try and install watchOS 2 beta for your Apple Watch.