posts

Jason Del Ray:

Apple’s on-again, off-again flirtation with building its own money-transfer service appears to be back on.

The company has recently held discussions with payments industry partners about introducing its own Venmo competitor, according to multiple sources familiar with the talks. The service would allow iPhone owners to send money digitally to other iPhone owners, these people said.

I’d love to see this. I currently use Square Cash for stuff like this, but something better-integrated into iOS would be a big win.

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On this week’s Liftoff:

We discuss Cassini’s daring death dives inside Saturn’s rings before the end of its mission, exciting news from our solar system’s ocean moons and hints of a change in planning for future exploration of Mars.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• Blue Apron: A better way to cook. Get three meals free with your first purchase, and free shipping.
• Casper: Because everyone deserves a great night sleep. Get $50 off with the code ‘LIFTOFF’

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Amazon has a new Echo out today, as Dan Moren explains:

In addition to all the usual Alexa features, you can tell the Echo Look to take a photo or a video, and the result will pop up in the Echo Look companion app on your phone, letting you tell whether the outfit you’ve got on works. A depth of field effect—à la the iPhone 7 Plus’s Portrait Mode—blurs the background and brings you and your outfit into the foreground. Short videos let you spin around to see yourself from all angles.

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Apple:

If you suspect the Apple Remote is not working properly, point the remote at iPod Hi-Fi and press the Play/Pause button. The status light on iPod Hi-Fi should blink. If the light does blink, see iPod Hi-Fi: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for a description of the status light messages.

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This morning, Apple announced “Today at Apple,” a new push to roll out a new experience to all 495 Apple stores:

Apple today announced plans to launch dozens of new educational sessions next month in all 495 Apple stores ranging in topics from photo and video to music, coding, art and design and more. The hands-on sessions, collectively called “Today at Apple,” will be led by highly-trained team members, and in select cities world-class artists, photographers and musicians, teaching sessions from basics and how-to lessons to professional-level programs.

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On this week’s Connected:

Casey Liss comes to set Federico straight about Plex in a new segment called Follow-on. Then, Stephen and Federico talk about Apple’s recent environmental push, the changes coming to the iTunes Affiliate Program and AppStories, Federico’s new podcast and website.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• Incapsula: Secure and accelerate your website. Connected listeners get one month free.
• Blue Apron: A better way to cook. Get three meals free with your first purchase, and free shipping.
• TextExpander, from Smile: Multiply your team’s productivity.

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Update: Apple “clarified” its position a few days later.

A few hours ago, Apple emailed members of its iTunes Affiliate program:

Starting on May 1st 2017, commissions for all app and in-app content will be reduced from 7% to 2.5% globally. All other content types (music, movies, books, and TV) will remain at the current 7% commission rate in all markets. We will also continue to pay affiliate commissions on Apple Music memberships so there are many ways to earn commissions with the program.

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Well, this is a thing.

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This new stand is not nearly as adorable as their Apple Watch stand.

I can’t handle how much they had to stretch the shape to fit an iPhone. An iPad’s aspect ratio is much better suited for this…

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Apple has introduced a JavaScript library to play Live Photos on the web:

By including the LivePhotosKit JS script on your page, you can create players by simply adding declarative markup to your HTML. As the page loads, LivePhotosKit JS will determine what player instances are on the page and initialize them. You can use any HTML tag that supports child nodes.

At minimum, each tag requires the following data attribute: data-live-photo. Doing this allows LivePhotosKit JS to find the DOM elements to be initialized as players.

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AppStories is a new podcast by Federico and John over at MacStories. Here’s Ticci writing about the show:

Just like MacStories is our personal chronicle of the world of Apple, AppStories will be an ongoing exploration of the world of apps. Our goal is to provide listeners with a fresh perspective on the App Store and its ramifications with episodes that are easy to follow, well-researched, and respectful of their time.

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In 2013, Apple didn’t simply knock $100 off the price of the iPhone 5 when the 5s was announced. Instead, it replaced it with the plastic, colorful iPhone 5c.

The 5c was pretty much an iPhone 5 with a slightly larger battery and a better FaceTime camera, wrapped in a seamless, colorful plastic case. To date, I think this iPhone feels better in-hand than any other.

Leading up to this, there were many rumors about a cheaper iPhone. The 5c was decidedly not that phone; all it did was take the place of the iPhone 5 in the $100-less-than-it-used-to-be spot in the lineup.

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