This weekend I used some Google Play credits to grab a quick game for my phone. Immediately, I had an email from Google letting me know a game was purchased in my account with my credits. It’s not that weird, except that I had made some purchases in iTunes recently, and it took TWO DAYS to get a confirmation email!
I woke up this morning to Twitter in a frenzy courtesy of Apple’s Servers! Apparently iTunes Connect is refusing logins, the iBooks store is not responding, and I cannot download Temple run Oz! Help!! If you did like myself and ran to Apple’s forums looking for App Store answers, you were in a room full of people also searching.
This week Apple released the ‘best of 2013’ list, which had what they called ‘the best’ apps in different categories. But the list also had the top paid and free iPhone and iPad games and apps, and the results are not surprising, but tell us much about the trends in the gaming audience on mobile devices. I won’t repeat the entire list, you can check it out here. At the risk of spoiling my own point, can you guess what the Top 10 Grossing (i.e. the 10 apps that made the most money) apps for 2013 on iPhone and iPad…
Along with a rather anemic product announcement keynote, Tim Cook reiterated the upcoming release of iOS 7, and with it iTunes Radio. While some have called Apple ‘late to market’ with iTunes Radio, I would say they are launching at the perfect time. Some of the reasons include the established user base of iTunes, and profit struggles of streaming services. Here are ten reasons to get excited for iTunes Radio: iTunes Integration: If I am listening to something in iTunes and want to go to Slacker, I have to stop, exit, flip pages and launch. With iTunes Radio you just…
While Apple is really good at upgrading operating systems on older devices, eventually they ‘sunset’ devices based on capabilities. This typically means you can no longer get an app that has been upgraded to require a newer OS version, but now Apple is allowing users who are looking for apps with an older OS to download the ‘last compatible version’. There seem to be limits on devices and apps, and some potential issues about non-working older versions – and nothing has been made official by Apple. But for now it works, and it is awesome.
Electronic Arts (EA) launched the Origin content delivery service called Origin in 2011 to combat Steam in the exploding digital game delivery market. The big concern apparently wasn’t about games themselves as much as the highly profitable in-game DLC purchases. EA could deal with paying a chunk to market the main game – after all they’d been doing that with GameStop for ages. What they wouldn’t do was sacrifice any of the DLC profits – and that has proven to be a very strategic decision, only not related to Origin. In the most recent earnings call, Electronic Arts announced that…
The other day I came home to find that our router was blown. For some that might not be a big deal, but for me it was no small issue since it meant no television, no phone service, and no internet connection; I was in my car and on the way to buy a new router within minutes. The new router cost me an unexpected $200, but I was up and running in no time. Once I had everything working again, I discovered an added benefit — our WiFi network no longer faded and dropped the signal the way it…
At the WWDC keynote, Apple announced the revamped music player app for iOS 7 and along with it iTunes Radio. While you can check out the press release for the full details, suffice to say that this is more of an ‘internet radio’ like Pandora than an ‘on demand’ service such as Spotify. Obviously there is more to it than that, and there is still a great deal for us to learn. But for now let’s take a look at how everything works, and I will predict some winners and losers!
If you are like me, and you have been dumping music into iTunes for over a decade across multiple computers and mobile devices, chances are you have imported the same music more than once. And perhaps you did it once from CD and another time from a backup after altering MP3 tags (I used to love having song numbers preceding the title). However it happened, chances are that you have duplicate music spread out in your iTunes library. In theory iTunes has a ‘Show Duplicate Items’ menu selection under the View menu. I say ‘in theory’ because what gets labelled…
Apple WWDC Developer Conference is THE media event of the spring for Apple fanboys and girls everywhere. It is usually the place we get our first look at the next versions of iOS and OS X but, more than that, it is the event that reveals Apple’s overall direction for their products. At times there are also some hardware announcements. And, while this is more geared to developers, the fact that the Apple Store online is currently down indicates that there will be some new hardware revealed. We have been careful not to speculate and quote rumors but serious…
So a few weeks ago, my daughter Maggie got all hot and heavy into Dr. Who. (I think for her it boils down to “David Tennant is hot!”, but for a nerd Dad, any excuse to get into something like Dr. Who is a good one!) Because not all the old episodes are available on NetFlix streaming, Maggie asked if she could purchase a season or two from iTunes. So in lieu of an allowance that week, yes, she got to purchase a season of Dr. Who. The problem, though, was that as soon as I purchased them, I had to download…
Over the years, there have been Luddites like has-been rocker Jon Bon Jovi who claimed Steve Jobs was ‘personally responsible for killing the music business’, but there have been even more people — most of them with data and arguments that make sense — talk about how Jobs and Apple saved and even revolutionized the music business. Regardless of which way your opinion swings, there is one thing that is certain: Steve Jobs and Apple CHANGED the music business forever. And April 28th marked the Apple event that launched the iTunes Music Store. Throughout the second half of the last century,…
As more and more information storage moves into “the cloud” — that is to say, you aren’t necessarily storing all those movies, TV shows, books, and whatever else locally on your system, but pulling them in from the Internet at need instead, using other people’s storage instead of your own hardware — it’s interesting to me watching various companies adapt. Amazon has of course been out in front with their AWS service. But Apple has also done at least a workmanlike job as well, slowly adding services so that now, if you like you can store a bunch of your…
I remember that with the rock band I played with in high school, one of the first songs we learned was the (new at the time) Highway to Hell by AC/DC. The following year AC/DC really exploded with their greatest album – Back In Black, with a load of classic rock songs that most people would recognize. It was a solid record with little ‘filler’, but AC/DC was really a singles rock band in an ‘AOR’ (album oriented rock) time. Why do I mention this? Because AC/DC has been a hold out in terms of getting their stuff digitally on…
Let me be blunt – I agree with those who have been increasingly critical of the state of Apple’s software releases in terms of readiness. iOS 5 was patched almost instantly for some awful bugs, iTunes Match stumbled out of the gate late and feeling like it should have been later, Siri was beta at release but hasn’t made all that many strides, … and then there is Apple Maps. So when the news that iTunes 11 was being delayed into November came out, I was actually relieved. I was glad that they hadn’t forced it to release for the…
Last week I offered a first look and video of the Libratone Zipp. The airplay speaker fuses European aesthetics with Cupertinian technology. The round speaker works fine at home, but it also runs on battery power so you can take it on the go. Libratone, who already offered two different speakers designed for home use has now made a speaker that is ready to, as they put it, “Leave the House”. From Libratone: Share your music anywhere, anytime! Libratone Zipp is an easy-to-use, wireless sound system wrapped in changeable Italian wool. Stream your favourite tunes with PlayDirect™ and AirPlay technology, directly…
Every now and then a product comes along that not only meets your expectations but actually exceeds them. That’s the case so far with the Libratone Zipp AirPlay Wireless Speaker. Sure, it has a cool, unique look. And sure, the fact that you can change the wool covers then, in seconds, have a speaker that looks completely different is very cool. And sure, it has AirPlay. All that is true, but what really makes this speaker stand out is its Play Direct and its awesome sound. Play Direct means you can stream great audio wirelessly even when you don’t have an…
I was too busy with actual work to get to see the Apple iPhone event this year, so when I heard that Ping was ceasing operations on September 30th through an email … I just assumed it was one of those Apple ‘shutdown in 7 days’ things like we got for iWork and MobileMe and so on. Turns out it was a link from Macworld , and cited a bunch of sources noting that if you head to Apple’s Ping site … well, you can’t because you get redirected. But if you click on Ping in iTunes, you get the…
Are you ready to see the end of all the rumors and speculation regarding the newest iPhone? We are, too! Let’s get something straight, although we do our best not to report on rumors, it doesn’t mean we don’t read them. We have, and we’ve gotten more and more excited. Sure it does seem like pretty much everything that needs to be known about the new iPhone has already been leaked, but that doesn’t guarantee the rumors are correct and, even if they are, it doesn’t make us any less excited for the announcements and that One more thing…! And…
With so many apps in the iTunes App Store it has become all but impossible to find the best of the best. To help you find the best apps we are beginning a series of posts highlighting some of the apps we personally use and rely upon. Our process is completely unscientific. We ask the Gear Diary team to list up to three apps in a specific category… something like “Best Apps for… Photography” and then collate the responses. Those that get multiple mentions go toward the top. So what are our favorite iOS photography apps? Camera+: It’s been at…
Both Mike and I use Hulu Plus… a lot. In fact, I find myself watching more and more of my shows through Hulu than through my cable box. Yes, so long as the shows are available through Hulu that is where I am watching them. I especially love the ability to watch pretty much anywhere, on my iPhone, on my iPad or on my TV through my Roku box. Well, as of today there is another option. Yes, Hulu Plus comes to Apple TV today. New subscribers get a week free trial when creating a Hulu Plus account. You can…