Beats Music Gets In-App Subscriptions, Beefs Up Free Streaming Options

Beats Music, the streaming radio solution spun out from the makers of Beats audio hardware products, has decided to bite the bullet and give Apple its 30 percent cut on subscription sign-ups. The streaming music provider originally side-stepped Apple’s in-app ecommerce options in favor of carrier billing arranged outside the app to pay for its full service, but now users can sign up much more easily in the app itself.

The free service included in Beats Music called ‘The Sentence,’ which randomly shuffles music, is much-improved too, with thousands of new songs available in the mix. Monthly subscriptions, which include to on-demand playback of any of the music in the Beats catalog, can now be unlocked via a $9.99 in-app purchase.

Beats allowing the in-app subscription option means that the service likely wasn’t happy with the volume of subscribers it was getting through the old methods. An in-app option is definitely far more convenient for the average user, but it comes with a significant cost to Beats, who have to pay up around $3 to Apple on each new user they sign up for the privilege of using the App Store as the means of distribution. Still, if it leads to a significant increase in the volume of new sign up, it’s probably worth it.

Other new features include a new section that allows artists to push their own music and merchandise, and improved social and offline playback features.

Nike Says The FuelBand Isn’t Dead, New Color Options Coming

Nike was said to be shutting down its FuelBand department on the heels of layoffs on Friday, signalling a significant exit of the wearable fitness device market by one of the more prominent companies involved in the space. That’s not quite true, however, according to information provided to Re/code by the company.

There were indeed some layoffs, Nike confirmed, but it also said it’s still committed to the Nike+ FuelBand SE, plans new color options for the gadget and should support it and continue to sell it for the foreseeable future.

Nike plans to continue with its original plan of adding to the Silver and Rose Gold ‘Metaluxe’ edition Nike+ FuelBand SE models with the addition of colorways. It doesn’t mention anything regarding hardware beyond the current generation FuelBand models, however, which could indicate that its commitment to its wearable devices extends only as far as this particular gadget.

There has been some speculation that Nike plans to shift focus to software in the future, and possibly support the hardware efforts of others, including Apple. Apple is rumored to be working on an iWatch with health-tracking features, and its CEO Tim Cook sits on Nike’s board of directors.

Moto X successor to have more customizable options (Rumor)

Anthony Muzonzini 2014-04-14T22:25:32Z6 hours ago

Anthony Muzonzini

Currently living out in the East Coast. When not on the AndroidPIT grind you can usually find me turning up or play footie.

Speculation has been rife that Motorola is working on the successor to the Moto X with the Moto X+1. We remain in the dark about the actual specs of the device right now but one of the customizable options of the phone may be a leather finish and a wooden finish. The wooden finish was one of the options available to those who ordered the Moto X Phone from last year. 

 

The wood options from the first iteration of the Moto X / © Motorola/AndroidPIT

According to a post by @evleaks on twitter, there could be more color finishing coming to the device this year though. The phone itself still remains a bit of a mystery so we are hoping to hear something official from Motorola pretty soon. Evleaks said that the custom colours are going to be split into different categories with them being cool, neutral , warm, leather and wood. The color options that will be available under cool include navy, turquoise, olive, royal blue and dark teal. Options available under neutral will be slate, purple, smoke, black and chalk. Warm will have colors like red, orange, lemon, violet, crimson, raspberry and cabernet.

Under the wood option, the colors will be teak, bamboo, rosewood and ebony and under the leather lineup, the colors will be black, red, grey and blue. Just like the Moto X, the Moto X+1 will be highly customizable and will also include Moto Maker.

It is not yet clear how the phone will be launched exactly since Google sold off Motorola Mobility to Lenovo but this definitely should be a phone to look out for since the Moto X was well received by critics.

What do you think of the customizable Moto X phone? Please leave your comments below and we will get back to you soon.

Source: Ubergizmo

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YouTube Options Now Costs $1.99/Month, Use These Instead 2014

YouTube Options Now Costs $1.99/Month, Use These Instead 2014

Chrome/Firefox: YouTube is filled with all types of annoyances, and the YouTube Options extension was our favorite way to repair these for a long while. But now YouTube Choices costs $1.ninety nine a month. If that is outdoors your value range, YouTube Center does nearly every part YouTube Choices can do.

YouTube Options was too packed with features to do a side-by-side comparison, but YouTube Center has everything that's really important. You can customize the look, get rid of most elements in the interface, hide comments, disable auto play, change the resolution, and plenty more. You need to install the extension into Chrome manually or use a script extension like Greasemonkey, but otherwise it works pretty much the same.

If that's all a little too much for you, the Magic Actions extension is a bit simpler, but includes most of the popular features of YouTube Options (alongside an obnoxious install screen that asks you to install the developers other extensions). Once you get past the sketchy install screen screen, Magic Actions includes settings like automatic HD, ad blocking, cinema modes, and more.

In the event you're just making an attempt to eliminate some annoyances like annotations, or customise small parts of the UI, Magic Actions does the trick.

Posted by: http://gosspot.com/

Writted by: totor

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Chromecast and its competitors: what are your options?

When Chromecast burst onto the scene in July last year, making TVs smart for just $35, it was something of a surprise hit. The diminutive device from Google plugs into any free HDMI port and allows you to stream content using your smartphone, tablet, or laptop as a remote control. You can get a closer look in our Chromecast review.

Now that it has gone international, launching in 11 countries, we thought we’d take a look at how Chromecast measures up to the competition and what might be next in this space.

Why buy Chromecast?

The strongest case for buying Chromecast is if you have an older TV (not too old as it will need an HDMI port) and it doesn’t have any smart TV features providing access to apps for streaming content, or the ability to stream photos or video from your smartphone.

Here’s a list of the main Chromecast apps. More are being developed all the time and you can find a complete, searchable directory of supported apps by using the Cast Store. You can play content from Google Play stores, so it’s ideal if you’re invested in that already. You’ll also be able to enjoy Netflix, Pandora, and YouTube. Support for Plex was just added, so you can share your own media files, including video, audio, and photos between devices and even access them in the cloud. It’s doubtful that HBO Go and Hulu Plus will be made available outside the US.

You can also use a Chrome extension to send anything on your browser to the big screen, but it doesn’t work perfectly and it doesn’t support Silverlight, which means Amazon Instant Video won’t work properly and neither will Sky Player in the UK. We expect the Chrome browser streaming functionality to improve over time.

The SDK is out there and so the app list will continue to grow. More than 3,000 developers have already signed up. We know that BBC iPlayer is available in the UK, France TV Pluzz and SFR TV in France, and Watchever in Germany, and other services will roll out apps for it in the coming days.

How does it work?

You can plug Chromecast into any available HDMI port. It does require power, but if your TV has a spare USB port you can plug the provided cable in there and draw power through it, otherwise it will need a socket for the power adaptor.

One of the strengths is that it can stream content directly through your Wi-Fi. Even though you select content on your smartphone or tablet, it streams direct to the Chromecast. It requires your smartphone, tablet, or laptop to act as a remote control, there’s no separate remote.

The Chromecast is capable of outputting full HD 1080p video and 5.1 surround sound. The Chrome browser tab casting is limited to 720p.

The current competition

Roku is one of the big names in this space and it already offers a range of fairly cheap set-top boxes. It also just announced a Streaming Stick, which is a similar size to Chromecast. Roku has its own interface and comes with a remote control so you don’t need a smartphone, tablet or laptop to control it, though it does offer an app if you want to do that. It also has a really handy cross-platform search function that you won’t find elsewhere.

Roku currently has a much larger selection of apps with more than 1,200 on offer. If you opt for one of the boxes, like the Roku 3 then you get a remote control that you can plug headphones into, which automatically mutes the TV. Roku has promised that streaming from your browser will be added in the future, but it’s not currently supported. The Streaming Stick is $50 and the Roku 3 box is $100, compared to $35 for the Chromecast.

If you have a lot of iOS devices and you buy content through iTunes then Apple TV is the obvious choice. You can use AirPlay to stream music, photos, or videos from an iPhone or iPad to the big screen via Apple TV. It has an interface and a remote control, but you can control it via your iPhone and iPad as well. It does have a decent choice of apps (less than Roku, more than Chromecast), but unless you are buying into the Apple ecosystem and using iOS devices, it doesn’t do enough to justify the $100 outlay. Unsurprisingly there’s no official support for Android, although there are ways around that.

There are lots of other competitors entering the market. NETGEAR showed off the NeoMediacast HDMI Dongle at CES. It looks similar, and it supports Android 4.2 and up, but it also uses Miracast and Bluetooth 4, and it has a remote unit. This is aimed at service providers and will likely be branded and offered as part of existing cable or satellite subscriber services.

If you’re interested in Miracast and want to be able to mirror your smartphone screen then the Belkin Miracast might be worth considering. It’s pricey at $80, but it works well, as we found out when we compared Chromecast vs Belkin Miracast.

At $50 the PLAiR 2 comes close to matching Chromecast’s value and it offers full access to the Google Play store, but reviews have not been favorable. It looks like the hardware doesn’t deliver and the experience is glitchy compared to the competition.

If you want to mirror your PC or laptop screen then AIRTAME might interest you. The USP for it is the ability to stream your PC screen to multiple TVs, projectors, or monitors. It’s available for pre-order right now at $99.

Buy now, or wait for something better?

This space is definitely about to get a lot more competitive. We’ve heard strong rumors that Amazon will launch a Chromecast competitor and it might just be capable of streaming games from your PC, or possibly from a cloud gaming service.  There has also been a lot of buzz about a new version of Apple TV which will also support gaming and potentially act as a wireless access point. You can bet there will be a few others.

As it stands right now, Roku offers more, and if it can roll out support for browser streaming in time for the launch of the Streaming Stick next month, then it might be a better buy than the Chromecast. On the other hand, we think it won’t be long until Chromecast catches up in terms of apps, and it is cheaper at $35.

It is more expensive in the UK at £30, but the Roku Streaming Stick is going to be £50 in the UK, so Chromecast is still the cheaper option. If you want to spend even less and you’re looking for an alternative in the UK then Sky’s NOW TV box, based on the Roku, is just £10 and you can sideload Plex with a little fiddling. You won’t find anything cheaper, as Sky is subsidizing the cost of the box hoping to tempt you to buy content from them once you have it, but you don’t need to.

If you’re excited about the new Android Wear SDK and planning on getting a new smartwatch then you might be swayed towards the Chromecast after Google mentioned the ability to select a movie on your watch using voice commands and have it play on the big screen via Chromecast. If the remote is strapped to your wrist then surely you can’t lose it.

What do you think? Will you be buying a Chromecast? Do you already have one? What is it lacking? Do you prefer any of the competition, or are you waiting for something better?

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