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Senin, 29 April 2019

Beats' all-wireless Powerbeats Pro earbuds are available May 10th - Engadget

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You don't have to wait too much longer if you're curious about the Powerbeats Pro. Beats' first truly wireless earbuds will be available in stores on May 10th for $250, with pre-orders starting on May 3rd at 10AM Eastern. You'll have to be content with the black model at first, though -- the ivory, moss and navy versions won't arrive until the summer. Whichever style you get, the functionality is the real draw.

In some ways, these are more advanced, workout-ready versions of the second-generation AirPods. You get the same H1 chip with hands-free "Hey Siri" for Apple devices as well as a battery case to top up your earbuds when not in use. However, the form factor is everything. These are sweat- and water-resistant designs built to stay in your ears when you're at the gym, and they promise better audio quality both compared to the AirPods and to earlier Beats models. The larger size also affords more battery life -- you can expect up to nine hours per charge from the buds themselves, and an extra 15 hours from the case. There's no wireless charging case, but these may be a smarter choice than the AirPods if you live in the Apple ecosystem and value your exercise.

All products recommended by Engadget were selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company, Verizon Media. If you buy something through one of our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

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https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/29/beats-powerbeats-pro-available-may-10th/

2019-04-29 14:48:49Z
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Spotify Tops Estimates With 100 Million Paid Users - Yahoo Finance

Spotify Tops Estimates With 100 Million Paid Users

(Bloomberg) -- Spotify has reached 100 million paid subscribers, a first for any online music service, adding more customers in the latest quarter than analysts expected and boosting confidence the company has lots of room to grow.

Spotify Technology SA took on 4 million customers in the quarter, compared with the 3.3 million forecast by analysts. But its first-quarter loss was 79 cents a share, wider than the 41-cent loss analysts expected. After a brief rise, the stock fell as much as 2 percent to $135.50 in New York trading.

Competition from Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and YouTube has done little to slow Spotify’s growth around the world, and the company has relied on its independence from some of the world’s largest companies to its advantage. It has boosted its customer base through promotional deals with Hulu, Samsung and even Alphabet Inc.’s Google (YouTube’s parent company).

“The music industry market is way bigger than most people realized,” Chief Executive Officer Daniel Ek said on a call with analysts.

The company forecast it would add a further 7 million to 10 million subscribers in the current quarter. While Spotify has amassed its current user base thanks to music, the company has acquired three podcasting companies in the past few months to drive subscriber growth through other mediums.

Spotify spent about $400 million to buy Gimlet Media Inc., Anchor and Parcast, hoping that podcasting will turn the company into the world’s top audio platform and reduce its reliance on music. Record labels collect the majority of its annual sales.

Label Payments

Payments to labels are a big reason the Swedish company is still losing a lot of money. Spotify attributed the first-quarter loss largely to higher costs for stock options and restricted stock units, thanks to its share-price gains. Gross margin was 24.7 percent, above the high end of the company’s guidance range.

Spotify is in the midst of negotiations with the world’s three largest music companies -- Universal, Sony and Warner. Executives have cautioned investors not to expect those deals to reduce its costs, but still sounded enthusiastic about concluding talks. “We’re feeling good about the progress we’re making,” Chief Financial Officer Barry McCarthy said in an interview.

Though Spotify’s premium subscribers topped expectations, monthly active users fell just short at 217 million. Spotify was projected to report about 218.3 million total users and 99.3 million premium subscribers, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg News.

Expansion into new territories, such as India, will sustain growth in free users for years to come, the company said. Spotify has added 2 million customers since expanding to India earlier this year, and McCarthy said Latin America and Asia are growing quickly. Spotify offers a free service with advertisements and limited use, selling a full buffet of on-demand songs and playlists without ads for a fee.

Its growth in recent years has buoyed the entire music industry. Record sales have climbed four years in a row, and surpassed $19 billion in 2018. Shares of the music streaming service have rallied 22 percent so far this year, compared with a 17 percent gain in the S&P 500.

--With assistance from Karen Lin.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lucas Shaw in Los Angeles at lshaw31@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, John J. Edwards III, David Welch

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

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https://finance.yahoo.com/news/spotify-hits-100-million-paid-101530938.html

2019-04-29 14:12:00Z
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Apple accused of anti-competitive practices after removing rival apps - CNBC

Apple chief design officer Jony Ive (L) and Apple CEO Tim Cook inspect the new iPhone XR during an Apple special event at the Steve Jobs Theatre on September 12, 2018 in Cupertino, California.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Apple said on Sunday that it removed several parental control apps from its App Store platform because they put user privacy and security at risk.

The removed apps, according to Apple, were abusing a kind of technology intended for company-owned work phones called Mobile Device Management (MDM), which can give an app developer access to information including user location, browsing history and what photos and videos have been taken with the camera.

The statement was made in response to a New York Times story that suggested Apple had pulled the apps for anti-competitive reasons.

The response, published on Apple's website, is another example of how the company is walking a tightrope given its control of the App Store and its safety and security priorities along with new accusations from politicians and rivals that Apple uses its power over the software distribution platform to favor its own apps.

Apple said in its statement that it "is incredibly risky—and a clear violation of App Store policies—for a private, consumer-focused app business to install MDM control over a customer's device."

Most of the apps highlighted by the Times report enabled parents to limit the amount of the time they and their children spent on their iPhones and Android devices, and two developers have filed a complaint with the European Union's competition office.

Apple continued: "Contrary to what The New York Times reported over the weekend, this isn't a matter of competition. It's a matter of security."

One of Apple's App Store guidelines says that "Apps should use APIs and frameworks for their intended purposes and indicate that integration in their app description." Using MDM to track and limit phone use isn't the intended purpose of MDM, Apple says.

Apple released software in 2018 called Screen Time that enables users to track which apps they use the most and restrict access to distracting apps. It's installed by default on iPhones. "I think it has become clear to all of us that some of us are spending too much time on our devices," Apple CEO Tim Cook said last summer.

In the weeks after Screen Time was released, 11 of the 17 most-downloaded screen-time and parental control apps were removed and restricted, according to the Times.

Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said earlier this year that the fact that some apps Apple develops competes with developers on the App Store is possibly anticompetitive. Spotify, which competes with Apple Music, has also accused Apple of anticompetitive practices.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/29/apple-removed-parental-control-apps-over-security-and-privacy-concerns.html

2019-04-29 13:17:31Z
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New leak reveals Apple’s final iPhone 11 Max design, and it’s much better than we thought - BGR

We still have almost five months left to wait before Apple unveils the new iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Max, and iPhone 11R, or whatever the company ends up calling its iPhone XR successor. That’s quite a long time — nearly half a smartphone generation — but so many details surrounding the new iPhones have already leaked. Much of what we know can be attributed to TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who remains the top Apple insider in the world. Kuo is plugged into Apple’s supply chain and shares all sorts of early details with his clients. He also shares them with a few Apple blogs, so we all know what to expect long before Apple releases new iPhones each year.

According to Kuo, the iPhone 11 series will feature a huge camera upgrade for both the iPhone 11 and 11 Max, while the iPhone 11R will be bumped up from a single-lens rear camera to a dual-lens cam. He also says Apple’s new iPhones will have new frosted glass backs and a few more subtle design changes. Of course, Kuo isn’t the only one who leaks information about unreleased Apple products, and a new leak supposedly shows us the final designs of Apple’s upcoming iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Max.

Last week, a leaker who goes by @OnLeaks on Twitter shared what he claimed to be Apple’s finalized design for the unreleased iPhone 11. He is known for stealing design files off of servers at Foxconn, which is the company whose factories build smartphones for a number of clients including Apple. @OnLeaks uses these stolen files to have renders drawn up that show upcoming smartphone designs before they launch. There are always a few little design details here and there that are wrong since he doesn’t have actual images of the phones to work with, but the renders are just about always accurate depictions of the phone in question, for the most part.

When it comes to the iPhone 11, his renders show a phone that matches the descriptions we’ve heard from Kuo and other sources. If you haven’t already seen them, you can check them out in our earlier coverage. The iPhone 11 is shaping up to look just like the iPhone X and iPhone XS from the front, but the back is now home to a massive square camera bump with three camera lenses instead of two. @OnLeaks has now had new renders created though, and this time they include the iPhone 11 Max as well as a terrific refinement that makes the new iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Max look much better than we thought.

Look at the iPhone 11 render in the image featured at the top of this page. Check out the camera bump in particular. Eesh. Now, check out these new renders, which were created on behalf of @OnLeaks and posted by some website called Cashkaro:

Image Source: Cashkaro

Notice any difference aside from the color? That’s right, the camera bump is much thinner than earlier leaks had suggested.

Rumor has it that this year’s iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Max will be slightly thicker than their predecessors. That’s fine with us, especially if Apple manages to fit bigger batteries inside its new phones. But it looks like a secondary benefit is a slimmer camera bump that is said to be just 1.2mm tall. If accurate, this would be a welcome change from the thicker camera bump on the iPhone X and iPhone XS series phones, and on the earlier iPhone 11 renders we saw. According to @OnLeaks, the iPhone 11’s dimensions are 143.9 x 71.4 x 7.8mm (9mm including rear camera bump), while the iPhone 11 Max dimensions are 157.6 x 77.5 x 8.1mm (9.3mm, including rear camera bump). This year’s iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are both 7.7mm thick.

Additionally, as we noted in our coverage last week, the back of the new iPhone 11 series is now said to be a single piece of glass, including the camera bump. That would be a fantastic design feature and would once again illustrate the fact that the fit and finish on Apple products is always a cut above the competition.

A few more renders of the iPhone 11 Max follow below, and you can see the rest on Cashkaro.

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https://bgr.com/2019/04/29/iphone-11-leaks-2019-iphone-11-max-photos-specs/

2019-04-29 12:17:00Z
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Samsung imagines a wraparound smartphone display - Engadget

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If that whole folding smartphone thing doesn't work out, Samsung has lot of other ideas cooking. It recently received patent approval for a continuous display that covers the front, while folding around the top and part of the rear of the phone, as spotted by Let's Go Digital. That would make for some interesting applications, like letting subjects see how they look before you take a photo or showing live language translations on the rear display.

You could activate which part of the continuous display (front or back) to use by hovering your hand or a stylus S Pen over it. Rather than being stuck with a basic camera, you'd use the superior rear camera for selfies thanks to the rear display. The language translation part is a particularly interesting idea, as it would let each party speak while the other sees the translation -- all without the need to flip the screen around.

Samsung continuous screen patent

Because it folds around the device, there could also be a display on the top that shows notifications, messages and so on. That way, it could function like a glorified pager, letting you see messages without even removing the phone from your pocket. If you wanted to reply, you could simply pull out the phone drag the message from the top to the front display.

Samsung is actually a bit late to this party, as the recently released Vivo NEX Dual Display phone already has a rear screen, although it uses two separate displays, not a continuous one. Vivo has even advanced the posing feature pretty far, introducing a Pose Director that can give your subject pose suggestions from an image library.

However, the translation app is an interesting idea, and a phone like this might look pretty cool thanks to the seamless display that wraps around the top. There's a chance we might see something like this, but don't bet any money on it -- patents often turn out to be duds.

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https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/29/samsung-smartphone-wraparound-display/

2019-04-29 10:18:01Z
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Samsung imagines a wraparound smartphone display - Engadget

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Samsung continuous screen patent

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https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/29/samsung-smartphone-wraparound-display/

2019-04-29 10:07:06Z
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Minggu, 28 April 2019

Apple poached Intel's 5G leader weeks ahead of Qualcomm truce - Engadget

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Intel's decision to bail on 5G modems may have gone hand-in-hand with Apple's truce with Qualcomm, but it's now clear there were hints of a shift weeks earlier. The Telegraph has learned that Apple poached Intel's 5G phone modem leader, Umashankar Thyagarajan, in February. While the departure itself wasn't a complete secret (Thyagarajan's LinkedIn profile confirms the switch), the news outlet claims to have email showing that the ex-director was the project engineer for the XMM 8160 chip at the heart of Intel's plans. He also "played a key role" creating the Intel modems used in the iPhone XS and XR.

Neither Apple nor Intel has commented on the report. It's also not clear exactly what Thyagarajan is doing in his new role (he describes it solely as "Architecture" in his LinkedIn bio), although wireless chipset design is the most likely explanation given his background.

Apple hasn't been shy about its intentions to make its own cellular chipsets. The company has been recruiting relevant talent for a while, and went so far as to expand its presence in San Diego in a move interpreted as an attempt to recruit Qualcomm staff. However, Thyagarajan's hire is a particularly huge coup for Apple -- it shows the company is determined to snap up top-level talent as it starts on cellular hardware, including people from its erstwhile partners.

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https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/28/apple-poached-intel-5g-leader/

2019-04-28 19:58:06Z
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