HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Apple / AirPods Lite Are you tired of coughing up $250 or $170 after losing a pair of AirPods? Well, this news should serve you well. According to Haitong International Tech Research analyst Jeff Pu, Apple is reportedly dropping a new affordable wireless earbuds model called the Apple AirPods Lite. Spotted on HypeBeast, the AirPods Lite will cost under $129 and help Apple compete with other lower price point earbud models currently in the market. The AirPods Lite’s specs are still unknown. Still, according to HypeBeast, Apple’s rumored latest accessory should offer premium sound quality without most of the advanced features of AirPods Pro and entry-level AirPods from Apple. No word on an actual release date for the AirPods Lite, but they should be arrivin...
Few people have at-home karaoke machines anymore, but if you want to plan a singalong without embarrassing yourself at a bar, Apple Music has you covered: the streaming service has just introduced Apple Music Sing, a new feature with real-time lyrics and adjustable vocals to customize your singing experience. The feature comes with a duet view for multiple singers, and even separates a song’s main lyrics and background vocals so users and their friends can get their lines straight. It may sound complicated, but it’s actually a pretty straightforward progression from features like Spotify’s Genius Lyrics insert on many of its songs. Before you begin your own karaoke session, scroll onward to read our guide on how exactly Apple Music Sing works. What Is Apple Music Sing? Anyone can sing alon...
Hardware wallet provider Ledger, known for its cold-storage devices, announced its seventh crypto wallet in collaboration with the creator of the original iPod. Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iconic iPod Classic model, has partnered with Ledger to help the company design its latest wallet device known as Ledger Stax. The company broke the news on Dec. 6 at Ledger’s bi-annual Web3 developer event, Ledger Op3n, in Paris. Ledger’s upcoming new hardware wallet is a credit card-size device that features a large E Ink display, capacitive touch, Bluetooth support, wireless charging and more. For the first time in Ledger’s product line, Stax contains a curved E Ink display which can be used to show the holder’s name or other wallet information, just like a book spine. The device is a...
What happens when Apple CEO Tim Cook strolls into a Diplo concert in Las Vegas Apparently Cook takes control. The tech titan was recently spotted in Las Vegas for the opening night of Adele’s highly publicized residency, where he eventually made his way over to XS Nightclub at the Wynn to join the Grammy-nominated DJ and producer. Believe it or not, it’s not the first time the two have hung out. If the below TikTok video posted by Diplo is any indication, he made a “deal” which ultimately resulted in Cook joining him and taking control of the stage’s cryo blasts. For Diplo’s part of the deal, a photo of him was to be made as the default wallpaper of every iPhone. This obviously isn’t happening, but it’s a funny nod seeing two very different worlds...
Apple Music and Apple TV+ subscribers are about to see slightly bigger numbers on their bills, because Apple has today hiked the prices of both subscription services. 9to5mac reports that the prices of both Music and TV+ will raise about $1-$3 monthly. Individual Apple Music plans will now be $10.99 a month instead of $9.99, or $109 a year instead of $99. For family plans, you’ll see your total increase from $14.99 to $16.99. Apple TV+ subscribers will now pay $6.99 a month instead of $4.99, or $69 annually instead of $49.99. This is the first time Apple has raised their subscription prices in the US. According to an Apple spokesperson, you can blame increased licensing costs for the jump, but the silver lining is that artists and songwriters will earn a tiny bit more per stream....
Technology heavyweight Apple has clarified its App Store rules around nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and cryptocurrency exchanges marking the first time its codified specific rules for NFTs. The new rules confirm how NFT purchases will be taxed and what they can and can’t be used for, while also clarifying rules around when a crypto exchange app can be listed. The Oct. 24 update to its App Store guidelines saw language added that allows fo in-app purchases of NFTs, but bars any NFTs acquired elsewhere to be used for anything other than viewing. It also allows applications to use in-app purchases to “sell and sell services” related to NFTs such as “minting, listing, and transferring.” However, the tech company is seemingly double-downing on its NFT “Apple tax” — which lumps in-...
Bono took “full responsibility” for the controversial release strategy behind U2’s 2014 LP, Songs of Innocence, that installed the album on every Apple device for free, in his upcoming memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. In an excerpt shared via The Guardian, Bono detailed a meeting with CEO Tim Cook, U2 manager Guy Oseary, and other Apple executives where the frontman previewed the new album and proposed the tech giant “pay us for it, and then you give it away free, as a gift to people… like when Netflix buys the movie and gives it away to subscribers.” The plan was subsequently pushed forward despite Cook raising legitimate concerns like “we’re not a subscription organisation” and “this is just to people who like U2?” “I take full responsibility,” the singer reflected in response to ...
Apple’s technology continues to get more advanced with every new iPhone, but one new feature may not have worked out all its kinks. The brand new iPhone 14 and Apple Watch come with a car crash detection feature that alerts first responders and one’s emergency contacts if they get in an accident, but as The Wall Street Journal reports, some phones have sounded the alarm after detecting the speeds and drops of a harmless rollercoaster. Apple uses sensor data to determine if a crash occurred, but the experiences of folks who have (inadvertently) used the new feature suggest that any sudden drop could trigger the emergency call. One woman with a brand new iPhone 14 Pro attended Kings Island amusement park near Cincinnati this September, and after riding the Mystic Timbers rollercoaster —...
While highly regarded even at the time of its writing, Marc Andreessen’s 2011 landmark essay, “Why Software Is Eating the World,” has proven even more prophetic than it seemed at the time. At the dawn of a decade when software would prove invaluable to nearly every aspect of modern life, Andreessen argued that every company was now ostensibly a software company, whether the company liked it or not. Tailoring his argument to many of the companies that were market leaders at the time, his ideas eventually also applied to companies that either hadn’t fully defined their markets or didn’t even yet exist but would go on to generate billions in market share: Uber, Lyft, TikTok/ByteDance, Robinhood and Coinbase, among several others. If you were going to be a unicorn in the 21st century, software...