Spotify will soon let you mute artists you don’t want to listen to.
It is currently testing a “don’t play this artist” feature in the latest version of its iOS app. Using it will prevent the artist’s tracks from playing altogether — even if they feature in a playlist, chart list, or on a radio station you listen to.
Telegram’s efforts to protect user privacy have seen its secure messaging service banned in Russia, where Apple has been ordered to remove the app from its App Store within 30 days. But it seems the impact of those demands is being felt worldwide.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has revealed that Apple hasn’t approved a Telegram update in any country since Russian authorities started piling the pressure on.
A new WhatsApp bug allows blocked contacts to continue sending messages, view online status, and see profile pictures. The problem appears to be on the server side, but WhatsApp is yet to confirm a fix or even acknowledge its existence.
Twitter’s clampdown on social media abuse has begun with a new policy that restricts abusive tweeters.
Those who violate the rules will have their tweets hidden from those who don’t follow them — but the restriction won’t last long.
Google has added two awesome new features to Gmail that every email client should provide: the option to block contacts you don’t want to hear from, and the ability to instantly unsubscribe from mailing lists you no longer with to be a part of.
Multiple tricks for gaining quick access to settings toggles on the iPhone’s Home screen have been making the news lately, and many rejoiced that such a thing could be accomplished without needing to jailbreak.
In the iOS 5.1 beta, it’s been discovered that Apple has blocked access to these settings shortcuts. How lame!
I’ve noticed an alarming trend over the five days since Steve Jobs introduced the Mac App Store at Wednesday’s Mac-focused media event. On all sides, the internet is being overrun by otherwise savvy tech pundits who have decided that Apple’s efforts to provide an easy-to-use, accessible, and intuitive marketplace for Mac software is irrelevant at best and, though you didn’t hear it from me, evil, too.
The most alarmist such pieces I have encountered thus far are Ryan Block’s “Will the Mac App Store have enough to sell?” from GDGT, and Matt Buchanan’s “Big Brother Apple and the Death of the Program.” The former, as you might imagine, argues that desktop software is dead, while the latter, predictably, foretells a grim future in which you won’t be able to read these words, and the keyboard I’m typing this post on write now will instead devote itself to composing Jobs-praising hymns.
I don’t often give myself over to Fisking, but I think it only makes sense to deconstruct these pieces by responding to specific arguments within. I am, necessarily, only excerpting from each piece, so I encourage you read them in their entirety — the full context is as ridiculous as the smaller slices. Up first, Ryan Block tells us why your notebook doesn’t have any software on it.
