Today’s Apple TV update brings support for podcasts via a new first-party application.
It’s very much what you would expect. There’s a storefront, just like other platforms, and you can search for new shows to subscribe to very easily. There’s full support for both audio and video podcasts, and the audio keeps playing even if you leave the app, so you can bounce back to that amazing screensaver without the audio stopping.
Donald Trump, the billionaire and leading Republican candidate for President of the United States, says he wants Apple, the biggest technology company in the world by market valuation, to make its computers and other products in America. It made for a good sound bite, but it betrayed a deep ignorance of how the tech economy actually works and the role of American workers in it.
Nicholas Deleon at Motherboard:
“I’ve [refurbished] four iPod Classics and six iPod Minis,” one iPod reseller, Tired8281, told me recently via Reddit private message. “They all sold, and I made a nice profit on all but one.” These refurbished iPods, he explained, are all outfitted with brand new batteries and, depending on the model, either a CompactFlash card or an SD card. Both solutions replace the mechanical hard drives that were originally present on the portable media player, increasing both battery life and the device’s responsiveness since there’s no moving parts to slow things down.
My wife and I recently bought a Sonos PLAY:1 to put in our kitchen, replacing a Bluetooth speaker that’s been acting up.
If you aren’t super familiar with Sonos, in a nutshell, the company sells a range of Wi-Fi equipped smart speakers that can be used individually or together.
Instead of relying on a Bluetooth connection or AirPlay, Sonos built their own app, which can be used from any smartphone or computer to stream music from the device over Wi-Fi. While the bigger speakers have a line-in port, the PLAY:1 we bought doesn’t have one, so I’m not able to route audio to it except via the Sonos app.
Holy install numbers, Batman!
iOS overtook Windows last year, as expected. pic.twitter.com/5LgnZsxWaL
— Horace Dediu (@asymco) January 12, 2016
With the new Apple TV tvOS 9.2 beta, Apple has added a whole host of new features to the tvOS platform. This includes support for pairing Bluetooth keyboards, Folders organization for apps on the home screen, a new App Switcher UI and a native Apple Podcasts app.
There are also some enhancements to Siri and other improvements. Apple has added support for two new Siri languages: US Spanish and French Canadian.
Big iOS news today. Apple is previewing iOS 9.3 on its website. The update will bring some interesting goodies, such as a F.lux-like “Night Shift” feature:
Many studies have shown that exposure to bright blue light in the evening can affect your circadian rhythms and make it harder to fall asleep. Night Shift uses your iOS device’s clock and geolocation to determine when it’s sunset in your location. Then it automatically shifts the colors in your display to the warmer end of the spectrum, making it easier on your eyes. In the morning, it returns the display to its regular settings. Pleasant dreams.
If the rumors are true — and for the sake of this article, let’s roll with that — Apple will be releasing a new 4-inch iPhone sometime this spring.
Dubbed the iPhone 6C, this rumored device is said to have:
It’s fun to talk about rumors, and I think this one has two big categories of things to think about: the phone itself, and where it would land in Apple’s product line.
Graham Spencer at MacStories, in his nice look back at the Mac App Store:
Just how often do you open the Mac App Store?
The Mac App Store had such promise. The App Store is a huge deal, and there was excitement that it could breathe new life into the Mac ecosystem, but it hasn’t turned out that way. Many major developers have pulled out, and Apple’s had some pretty major issues on their end as well.
Marco Arment, on an outlier in Apple’s product line:
Despite the low-resolution screen, slow hard drives, very little RAM, and CPUs that were middling even in 2012, it’s an open secret among Apple employees that the “101” still sells surprisingly well — to a nearly tragic degree, given its age and mediocrity.
Geeks like me often wonder why anyone would still buy such an outdated machine. I’ve heard from many people who buy it (or who’ve been unsuccessful in talking others out of it), and it’s surprisingly compelling, especially for volume-buying, price-conscious customers such as schools and big businesses.
The Apple TV is TV at our house, and as such, we see its screensaver a good bit. On the old Apple TV, I had it pulling from a photo album of family photos, but when I installed our new one, I opted to use Apple’s “Aerial” screensaver instead.
If you haven’t seen it, Aerial has a collection of downright stunning flyovers from numerous cities and landscapes from around the world.
Most of the options have both day and night scenes, and the Apple TV plays whichever is appropriate based on the time of day.
Evidence that Apple wants to combine payments and iMessage is piling up. And it looks like the tech giant doesn’t plan to stop there.
A patent filing published earlier this month (Dec. 2015) indicates that Apple is not only looking at allowing people to send money over its text messaging service, but other services built into the iOS platform, including phone calls, email, and calendar invites.