Tech Industry

According to internal Google documents that 9to5Google has obtained, huge updates to the Chromecast platform — in almost every respect — are just around the corner. The long-rumored 2nd generation Chromecast hardware is set to debut at Google’s event later this month with several brand new features, including “Chromecast Audio,” Spotify support (finally!), a brand new Chromecast companion app, and more. Here’s a roundup of everything we’ve learned so far…
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While Apple’s new Move to iOS app appeared to be the company’s first ever Android app, Phandroid did some digging around in the code to discover that it in fact appears to be just a rebadged third-party app called Copy My Data.

If we take a look under the hood of Apple’s Move to iOS app, we see the […] android:name is still set to android:name=”com.mediamushroom.copymydata”. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The two applications share a vast majority of code and functionality. In fact, all of the com.mediamushroom.copymydata strings were left inside Apple’s rebranded version. Essentially, the only differences between the two apps are Apple’s artwork being added, the inclusion of Apple’s licensing agreements, and Media Mushroom’s UI elements being removed. That’s really it.

Apple thus appears to have simply licensed an existing app, rather than creating its first Android app – meaning that the Apple Music app expected to makes its way across to Android sometime this fall may be the first Apple-coded app on the rival smartphone platform … 
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Having previously challenged Apple’s iPads and Apple TVs with rivals called Fire and Fire TV, Amazon today debuted a series of new Fire tablets and Fire TV media streamers at remarkably aggressive price points. Led by the new $49.99 7″ Fire tablet, the Fire tablets aim to dramatically undercut iPads on price, while the $99.99 4K Fire TV and its siblings were designed to leapfrog new and old Apple TVs with specific features…
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Update: Now at over 30,000 1-star reviews:

Yo Tim, what's the customer sat on the Move to iOS app http://t.co/aFeOtup4f1 pic.twitter.com/ebytmXG1nt

— Benjamin Mayo (@bzamayo) September 27, 2015

Apple launched its ‘Move to iOS’ Android app yesterday as part of the iOS 9 launch, which streamlines the process of migrating data and apps from an Android phone to an iPhone. Just hours after launch however, Android users are not taking well to Apple’s first Android app (if you discount Beats Music, which existed before Apple acquired them). The app has accrued over 2700 1-star ratings in the few hours it has been available, with a less-than-spectacular 1.9 star average rating.

Very few of the commenters seemed to have actually used the app to migrate data to an iPhone and are instead using the reviews section to vent their frustration at Apple in general. The reviews are dominated by Android users complaining about iPhone battery life, overpriced Apple Watches, ‘iSheep’ and more …

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Update: LiquidSkin are currently selling a great screen protector for only $0.50 for both iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. Add these to your cart and use the following promo codes:

• iPhone 6s LiquidSkin Screen Protector — use code YTETINAX at checkout
• iPhone 6s Plus LiquidSkin Screen Protector — use code TQLPTKZZ at checkout

The 3D-Touch pressure sensitive features in the new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus is invisible to the eye but  — at some level — its based off sensors in the screen that detect levels of pressure. This led some people to worry if plastic screen protectors and glass screen covers would impact the sensors, perhaps even prevent 3D Touch from working completely.

However, it turns out this is not the case. 3DTechtronics asked Apple SVP Phil Schiller about this issue in an email. Schiller responded and says it’s not a problem: “screen overlays that follow our guidelines will continue to work with 3D Touch”.

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Apple has now activated the new iCloud Storage tiers, as announced last week at Apple’s September event. The new tiers do not bump the free tier — it remains at 5 GB. However, for $0.99 per month you now get 50 GB of storage, up from 20 GB. The 200 GB plan is now cheaper at $2.99 and the 1 TB plan is now half the price at $9.99 per month.

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AT&T today has revealed a slight change to how it is handling throttling users grandfathered into unlimited data plans. Up until today, AT&T has throttled unlimited data users when they hit 5GB of usage and are in a congested area. As a reader has pointed out to us this evening, however, the carrier has updated its website with a new policy for throttling those on an unlimited data plans…

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Apple has started a new big project in its web services division, according to The Information. The report claims Apple has decided to rewrite its cloud services to all fall under one single technology stack using open-source technologies. This will combine Apple’s services like iCloud, Siri, iTunes and more into a unified backend platform.

Apple has seemingly settled on Mesos, the backend infrastructure for Siri, as the core of its new platform which will take years to finish. Apple publicly revealed it had moved Siri to a Mesos stack earlier in the year.

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One of my absolute favorite Bluetooth speakers got a huge update today. The UE Boom 2 is an upgraded version of the iconic portable Bluetooth speaker from Logitech’s Ultimate Ears division. Originally released in 2013, the Boom set a new standard for Portable Bluetooth speakers with its “cupholder friendly” and colorful design, great acoustics, and iOS/Android apps.

In recent months UE has released a much bigger, more expensive MegaBoom and a much smaller, cheaper UE Roll. Both are waterproof and extremely rugged and if you’d had to have guessed, you’d be right in assuming the Boom would get these same features.

And it has. IPX 7 waterproofing means you can not only take it with you into the shower but you can drop the Boom 2 in the pool or bathtub without damage. It is also more powerful with a 100-foot wireless range, 15 hour battery life, and 25% louder and better sound than its predecessor. The UE Boom 2 also now includes a new tap control that allows you to start, pause and skip songs, without needing to have your phone in-hand.

I’ve been using the UE Boom 2 for the past week and I think this speaker is a big deal…
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Alongside Apple’s announcement of the new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, it also released a new official Lightning Dock to sit the phones in. Unlike Apple’s previous version of this dock which was made entirely of plastic, these new docks are aluminum and color-matched to the Space Grey, Silver, Gold and Rose Gold finishes of the new iPhone 6s. YouTuber DetroitBORG has a full walkthrough video of all the new docks in action …

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Hamza Sood has cleverly used asset catalogs with the Xcode 7 GM to confirm the rumors around the iPhone 6s and iPad Pro RAM specifications. It confirms that the iPhone 6s has 2 GB of RAM, up from 1 GB in the iPhone 6, and the iPad Pro has 4 GB RAM, a 100% increase from the 2 GB in the iPad Air 2’s A8X chip.

[tweet https://twitter.com/hamzasood/status/643092816315445248 align=’center’]

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Update: Apple has now informed developers that they can submit iOS 9, El Capitan and watchOS 2 apps to the App Store.

Three days later than the normal schedule, Apple is finally letting developers submit iOS 9 apps for review. Apple usually enables submission for apps built against the new SDK as soon as the Xcode GM is published but for unknown reasons, this milestone was delayed.

Although there hasn’t been an official announcement, developers are now successfully uploading binaries through iTunes Connect and are ‘Waiting For Review’. Apple’s review team will now be working double-speed to get the influx of submissions ready for iOS 9’s launch on Wednesday.

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Preorders for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus start tomorrow 12:01 AM PT with general availability from September 25th, so its time to decide what size, color and storage capacity you will be buying for this iPhone generation. The iPhone 6s features 3D Touch pressure sensitivity, an upgraded 12 megapixel camera, 4K video recording, Live Photos, a faster A9 chip, improved Touch ID and more. Like last year, the difference between the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus is the larger screen (5.5 inch versus 4.7 inch) and the inclusion of optical image stabilization on the larger model.

The iPhone 6s costs $199 for 16 GB, 64 GB for $299 and 128 GB for $399 on contract, with the iPhone 6s Plus $100 more at each level. New for this year is a rose gold option, so that’s another choice to consider alongside silver, space gray and gold. With that in mind, what iPhone are you planning on buying? Let us know with the following polls ….

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Apple Pay in the UK is slowly rounding up all the major banks and getting them onboard. Following the addition of HSBC and First Direct last month, Halifax and Lloyds customers can now use Apple Pay from today. The service is still rolling out so if your cards don’t activate immediately don’t fret. Check again in a few hours.

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As expected, the Apple Store has gone down ahead of Apple’s Hey Siri event later today at 10 AM PST. Although we don’t expect the iPhone, iPad Pro or Apple TV to be available to buy today, the site will return with information about the new products after the presentation is over. There is a chance that Apple’s updates to Apple Watch — new band colors and a new gold Sport watch — may be available immediately.

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9to5Mac has been saying for a while that Apple’s Hey Siri event today will be a product blitz of announcements, with at least three major new products set to be shown off: the new iPhone 6S, the new larger iPad Pro and a revamped Apple TV with a new remote. There’s also likely to be a new iPad mini and some updates for Apple Watch — you can read it all in our roundup.

Some people were confused about why Apple is stuffing so many announcements into one event. Having called a single event “not logical” earlier in the day, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber now agrees with our prior reports: breaking tradition, there won’t be an October event this year.

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5G could even make Google Fiber look slow …

Early tests of Verizon‘s 5G technology show that it can achieve connection speeds 30-50 times faster than 4G/LTE – above the speeds offered by Google Fiber’s gigabit wired broadband. Even better, the company expects to have “some level of commercial deployment” by 2017, some three years earlier than expected, reports CNET.

To put that speed difference into perspective, the movie Guardians of the Galaxy would take around six minutes to download over a good LTE connection – while 5G would have it downloaded to your device in just 15 seconds … 
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