It its favor, it is the one mainstream streaming service in Japan that has a free-tier option for users. That goes some way to explaining why it has taken so long for the Swedish company to secure deals with record labels, but it could be a factor that helps its service gain some momentum in the country among users who are not used to paying for digital music consumption.

I wonder how this free tier on Spotify will affect Apple Music. Overall, Spotify has a solid reputation in the streaming business, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out in terms of subscriptions.

The South Korean firm has said the Note 7 phones that were sold starting on the official Sept. 1 launch date use a different battery than the recalled devices. But a string of reports by users in China, the world’s top smartphone market, that their Note 7s caught fire have dogged Samsung in a country where they have already fallen out of the top five in terms of market share.

It’s like Samsung is doing everything it can to screw up this recall. What they should do is recall all of the devices and replace them—that’s the only way to restore consumer confidence.

A Delta flight from Detroit to Amsterdam diverted on Sunday when a Samsung tablet onboard overheated and started smoking.

The flight diverted to Manchester, where authorities investigated the smoke and found a Samsung tablet lodged in between two seats.

All passengers should be checked for these hazardous devices before boarding a plane.

There’s a story going around about Apple storing metadata associated with the iMessage service and, when obligated by a court order, turning that data over to law enforcement. The details of the story are accurate, as far as I know, but it conflates two very different things in order to create a sensational headline, which is unfortunate for people who want and need to be informed about important issues involving privacy.

Very good explanation from Rene.

Samsung, maker of the troubled Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, has another problem on its hands.

U.S. regulators on Wednesday warned owners of certain top-loading Samsung washing machines of “safety issues” following reports that some have exploded.

If you own a Samsung product, you should keep it in a bomb shelter.

Apple® and Deloitte today announced a partnership to help companies quickly and easily transform the way they work by maximizing the power, ease-of-use and security the iOS platform brings to the workplace through iPhone® and iPad®. As part of the joint effort, Deloitte is creating a first-of-its-kind Apple practice with over 5,000 strategic advisors who are solely focused on helping businesses change the way they work across their entire enterprise, from customer-facing functions such as retail, field services and recruiting, to R&D, inventory management and back-office systems.

Apple and Deloitte will also collaborate on the development of a new service offering from Deloitte Consulting called EnterpriseNext, designed to help clients fully take advantage of the iOS ecosystem of hardware, software and services in the workplace. The new offering will help customers discover the highest impact possibilities within their industries and quickly develop custom solutions through rapid prototyping.

My main music production Mac is always at least one full OS version behind. I know some engineers in the industry that lock down there Macs for years without updating.

A couple of weeks ago, Apple Music added a new feature call My Favorites Mix to the For You section of the music service. This uses an algorithm to add songs to a weekly updated playlist, which is based on the music you play and love and other music Apple believes you will like. My list has been great, but you can help yourself and fine-tune it to be even better.

Have fun.

[Via Coudal]

“The company plans to end all internal hardware development and will outsource that function to partners,” CEO John Chen said in a statement. “This allows us to reduce capital requirements and enhance return on invested capital.”

It’s been a rough decade for BlackBerry.

That’s according to the results of a new study published today that aimed to assess public opinion on the subject. The survey commissioned by Kelley Blue Book showed that out of 2,264 U.S. residents polled, 64 percent said they need to be in control of their own vehicle and 62 percent said they enjoy driving.

Count me in the group that loves to drive. I’ve always loved to get out on the highway, play some music and feel the freedom. Not everyone is like me. In fact, the roads would be a lot safer if some drivers were never allowed to touch the wheel of a car. It’s going to take a while before the public comes around to fully autonomous vehicles.

The company put up a little doodle.

A huge coalition of recording labels has sued the world’s leading YouTube ripping site. The IFPI, RIAA, and BPI in the UK say they are taking legal action against YouTube-MP3 to protect the rights of artists and labels. The site has a reported 60 million monthly visitors and is said to be “raking in millions” in advertising revenues.

So what is Plex Cloud? For the first time, you get a full-featured1 Plex Media Server in the… er… cloud.

Oh my, this looks really good.

This is the most bizarre situation I’ve come across in a long time. A reporter at The Verge working for Apple at the same time and neither seemed to know. I agree with Gruber–something doesn’t add up here.

Passengers on board an IndiGo flight smelled smoke coming from the baggage bin and alerted cabin crew who saw sparks and smoke coming from a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 phone, the airline, owned by InterGlobe Aviation, said in an emailed statement.

This one is supposedly a Note 2, but the exact model wasn’t confirmed. The airlines should make all Samsung users fly on the same, unmanned plane for the safety of the rest of us.

Customer complaints that replacement batteries for Samsung Electronics Co.’s Galaxy Note 7 have been overheating and quickly losing battery power threaten to complicate the South Korean technology giant’s unprecedented recall of its premium smartphone.

From the frying pan to the fire. Or maybe that’s the other way around in this case.

One of the cool visual effects of the iPhone 7 Plus’ new camera is called Depth Effect—it was released as part of the new iOS 10.1 beta yesterday, so I downloaded it and gave it a try. […]

This is a very interesting, and frustrating problem. It’s only going to get to worse as more games like this come to market.

Yahoo (YHOO, Tech30) confirmed on Thursday data “associated with at least 500 million user accounts” have been stolen in what may be one of the largest cybersecurity breaches ever.

The company said it believes a “state-sponsored actor” was behind the data breach, meaning an individual acting on behalf of a government. The breach is said to have occurred in late 2014.

Ugh.

It’s like these were built just for me.

While working in their garage in 1977, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak asked Rob Janoff, who had studied design, to create a logo for their first Apple products. When Janoff went to Jobs with final sketches, everything went very smoothly, and the bitten apple has been the symbol of the brand ever since.

Great stuff.

As Pandora prepares to overhaul its entire music streaming service, users are going to have to wait a bit longer until the full on-demand subscription product is ready. The online radio service is preparing to shift into a full-fledged music streaming platform, and will do so with an improved free tier alongside an updated version of its $5-a-month Pandora One offering, and the $10-a-month on-demand product.

Pandora has the best algorithmic radio of any service—it’s just great songs, one after the other. Adding on-demand music downloads is going to make them an even stronger competitor. I’m already a paying customer of Pandora and will upgrade to the new service as soon as it’s ready.

These are instantly recognizable.

Via Khoi]

This is a fantastic article from Bobby Owsinski on the proper method to miking a guitar amp.

“We can confirm that McLaren is not in discussion with Apple in respect of any potential investment.”

Interesting rumor.

An ongoing list put together at AppAdvice.

“Apple is committed to running on 100 percent renewable energy, and we’re happy to stand beside other companies that are working toward the same effort,” said Jackson. “We’re excited to share the industry-leading work we’ve been doing to drive renewable energy into the manufacturing supply chain, and look forward to partnering with RE100 to advocate for clean-energy policies around the world.”

Apple has made some incredible strides in the environment over the past decade.

This is absolutely fascinating.