Adobe Lightroom arrives in the Mac App Store

The pro-focused photo editing tool Lightroom is now available on the Mac App Store, marking the first major Adobe app to be available through the revamped version of the platform. The title joins the more lightweight Photoshop Elements, but is the sole pro app currently available through the venue. 

Unlike Element’s flat $70 a month upfront charge, Lightroom adopts the company’s shift in recent years toward a subscription-based model, running users $10 a month for continued access. Apple’s clearly excited about the arrival, with Lightroom currently featured atop the App Store home page.

The company’s been making a push for developers to make their wares available through its channels at it pushed toward a more content-focused approach. Of course, the desktop store has been a harder push than its mobile version, given that macOS pre-dated its walled garden by decades in one form or other. Among other methods, Project Catalyst is making it much easier for developers to create apps across platforms.

Lightroom joins other recent big name Mac App Store additions including Microsoft’s Office 365, which utilizes a similar subscription-based approach to monetization.

from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2RmWq3c

Apple expands authorized repairs to ~1,000 Best Buy stores

Since 2001, Apple has staked its claim across the world with its own first-party brick and mortar locations. But the U.S. is a big country, and the 270 or so stores can only cover so much ground. In the past three years, the company says it has expanded repair coverage to three times as many locations in this massive country of ours, courtesy of third-party partnerships.

That list now includes almost 1,000 Best Buys, which now offer Apple certified repairs courtesy of 7,600 “newly Apple-certified technicians” capable of offering up same day repairs on iPhones and other products.

“At Apple, we’re dedicated to providing the best customer service in the world,” Apple Care VP Tara Bunch said in a release tied to this morning’s news. “If a customer ever needs to repair their products, we want them to feel confident those repairs are done safely and correctly. We’re always looking at how we can reliably expand our network of trained technicians and we’re excited to partner with every Best Buy store so it’s even easier for our customers to find an authorized repair location near them.”

It’s a deal that makes sense for both parties. For Apple, it means covering customers in locations like Yuma, Sioux City and Bismarck. This brings its total third-party authorized service locations up to 1,800 in the U.S.

For Best Buy, the deal means a partnership and blessing from another key electronics giant, with Apple joining the likes of Samsung, which currently has authorized Galaxy repairs from the big box store. More info on Apple repair services here.

from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2WNEdSm

China to lose top spot to U.S. in 2019 gaming market

China is losing its global lead in games. By the end of 2019, the U.S. will replace China as the world’s largest gaming market with an estimated revenue of $36.9 billion, says a new report from research firm Newzoo.

This will mark the first time since 2015 that the U.S. will top the global gaming market, thanks to healthy domestic growth in consoles. Globally, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo and other console games are on track to rise 13.4% in revenue this year. Driving the growth is the continued shift toward the games-as-a-service model, Newzoo points out, on top of a solid installed base across the current console generation and spending from new model releases.

China, on the other hand, suffered from a nine-month freeze on game licenses last year that significantly shrank the stream of new titles. Though applications have resumed, industry experts warn of a slower and stricter approval process that will continue to put the squeeze on new titles. Time limits imposed on underage players will also hurt earnings in the sector.

As a result of China’s slowdown, Asia-Pacific is no longer the fastest-growing region. Taking the crown is Latin America, which is enjoying a 10.4% compound annual growth.

Despite China’s licensing blackout, Tencent remained as the largest publicly-listed gaming firm in 2018, pocketing $19.73 billion in revenue. Growth slowed to 9% compared to 51% from 2016 to 2017 at Tencent’s gaming division, but the Shenzhen-based company is back on track with new blockbuster Game for Peace (和平精英), a regulator-friendly version of PlayerUnknown’s Battleground, ready to monetize.

Trailing behind Tencent in the global ranking is Sony, Microsoft, Apple and Activision Blizzard.

Other key trends of the year:

Rise of instant games: Mini games played inside WeChat without installing another app are becoming mainstream in China. These games, which tend to have strong social elements and easy to play, have attracted followers including Douyin (TikTok’s Chinese version) to create with their own offerings.

Facebook’s Instant Games have also come a long way since opening to outside developers in 2018. The platform now sees more than 30 billion game sessions played across over 7,000 titles. WeChat doesn’t use the same metrics but for some context, the Chinese company boasted 400 million monthly players on mini games as of January.

Mobile momentum carries on: Mobile games will continue to outpace growth on PC and console in the coming years. As expected, emerging markets that are mobile-first and mobile-only will drive most of the boom in mobile gaming, which is on course to account for almost half (49%) of the entire sector by 2022. Part of the growth is driven by improved hardware and internet infrastructure, as well as a growing number of cross-platform titles.

Games in the cloud are here: It was a distant dream just a few years ago — being able to play some of the most demanding titles regardless of what hardware one owns. But the technology is closer than ever to coming true with faster internet speed and the imminent rollout of 5G networks. A few giants have already showcased their cloud gaming services over the last few months, with the likes of Google’s Stadia, Microsoft’s xCloud, and Tencent’s Start slated to test the market.

from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2WSsXo2

Apple Watch’s own built-in apps can be deleted in watchOS 6

Good news for Apple Watch owners who don’t want to clutter up their Watch with unused apps. With the release of the new watchOS 6 operating system later this year, Apple will allow Apple Watch device owners to remove many more of the built-in, first-party apps from their smartwatch — including previously unremovable apps like Alarm, Timer, Stopwatch, Remote, Camera Remote, Radio, and others, as well as health apps like ECG, Breathe, Noise, and Cycle Tracking.

Currently, Apple Watch owners can easily remove the third-party apps they install from the App Store. They can either press and hold on the app to make it wiggle, then tap the “X” that appears to delete it, or they can go into the Apple Watch app settings and toggle off the switch that says “Show on Apple Watch.”

Additionally, users can opt to remove many of the built-in apps from their iPhone, which also then removes its Apple Watch counterpart.

But the dedicated Watch apps (like Timer or Radio, e.g.) couldn’t be removed from the Watch because they had no iOS counterpart to uninstall.

That will change with the launch of watchOS 6 due out later this fall.

This week, Apple gave these previously unremovable apps their own App Store listings. (See chart below).

App release dates — image courtesy of Sensor Tower

This means these apps are also now deletable, as the user can opt to reinstall them from the App Store if they change their mind later on. To delete these apps, the Watch owner can press and hold then hit the “X” to remove them, as they could with third-party apps before.

Not all of the built-in iOS and watchOS can be removed, however. Some, like Heart Rate and Messages, will remain.

The move to make more of the default Watch apps deletable will likely go over well with Apple Watch owners, as it did when Apple made some of its built-in iOS apps removable several years ago with the release of iOS 10. (Remember how great it was to delete Stocks?)

After all, not everyone wants to use the full set of default apps that come with Apple Watch.

Some people don’t get into the whole self-care vibe, like what’s offered by the Apple Watch Breathe app, for example. Meanwhile, only women will have use for the newly launched Apple Watch Cycle Tracking app.

This change to the apps follows news from Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) earlier month, where the company announced how watchOS 6 will bring an on-device App Store to the Apple Watch for the first time. This will allow the Watch apps to act more independently from their iOS counterparts. They no longer have to be bundled with the iPhone/iPad app. In fact, developers don’t even have to create an iOS version, if there’s no need.

 

 

from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2x3TIq8

This $99 AirPower knockoff is available for order now

There are a number of key differences between Apple’s AirPower and lookalike knockoff, AirUnleashed. The most pertinent one, however, is that one of the two is actually available for purchase.

Apple gave up the AirPower ghost back in March, after having gone silent on the product for some time, citing an inability to “achieve [its] high standards.” The company released little additional information, but most reports came down to engineering problems with densely packed charging coils that could ultimately have caused the product to overheat.

Plenty of companies were no doubt planning their own off-brand take on the product, but Apple’s decision to pull out of the category ahead of launch has opened an AirPower-sized hole in the wireless charging mat market. And there are plenty of products waiting in the wings to fill it.

AirUnleashed is pretty shameless in its approach, right down to a minimalist white box that takes more than a few cues from the Cupertino design department. That’s doubly the case with the pad itself, which retains the same pill-shaped form factor, albeit with an off-white (cream? ivory?) coloring.

There are also two plus symbols flanking a small concave circle. The product’s designers designated three distinct spots for the three Apple products (iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods). Rather than the numerous overlapping charging coils AirPower was said to have, this one sports three, with different wattages for the different devices (7.5, 2 and 5, respectively).

You can use these interchangeably to some degree, but for all sorts of reasons, it’s best to use the allotted wattage for the device category intended. Because the device uses the Qi standard, however, it’s compatible with a pretty broad array of wireless devices.

Both the iPhone and AirPods 2 started charging as soon as I placed them on the pad. The Apple Watch was a no go. I reached out to the company about that one — turns out it required updating to the last version of watchOS, which did seem to fix the issue. The fact that the pad just sports the three coils means you’ve got the position the devices correctly, and even after the OS update, I still had trouble getting the watch in the right spot.

At $99, it’s $50 cheaper than the rumored AirPower price. Weirdly, that doesn’t factor in the price of a wall charger, which is going to set you back another $14 if you decide to go with AirUnleashed’s version. Though given the fact that you’re already dealing with an Apple knockoff, I do’t see why you would.

A cursory look at Amazon finds a number of other AirPower-esque charging pads at a fraction of the price, and all appear to use a similar three-coil solution. I can’t vouch for those, but after a few hours, at least, AirUnleashed seems to be working reasonably well.

from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2WKzJHm

An open letter to Google and Apple: Stop hindering Iranian entrepreneurs

Mike Davis Contributor

Mike Davis is an American-Iranian serial entrepreneur in industries as wide ranging as IT consulting, residential contracting, diaper delivery, student loans and a new long-horizon private equity firm.

To the executives of Google and Apple:

I am Persian. In 1979, when I was just two years old, revolution upended Iran and permanently altered the country’s foundation. His vocation as an academic made my father a direct target of the new regime, and so — like so many other families — we fled Iran and began again in the United States. That was exactly 40 years ago. Today, I am a father, a husband and an entrepreneur with a deep love of America, but I think often of the country to which I have still been unable to return.

Iran is a land of strong-willed people. It is a land of grit and of hard-earned success. I see that most clearly in its emergent generation of entrepreneurs, birthed from the country’s 30+% unemployment rates. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that Iran’s entrepreneurship sector is skyrocketing; in 2018 alone, the country moved up 13 spots on the Global Entrepreneurship Index. And the goals driving these new businesses are equally as impressive — things like improving women’s education, sustainability, urban waste management, advocacy of the arts. Forbes has said that Iran could become an entrepreneurial powerhouse, “if nothing gets in the way.” Unfortunately, Google and Apple are doing just that.

Two years ago, under the guise of complying with American sanctions against Iran — sanctions that have existed for decades — Apple started removing Iranian apps from its platform. Today, the App Store is completely unavailable to Iranians. Google’s Play Store followed suit. Access to software systems can be (and regularly is) cut off without notice, like Google’s Firebase, a platform for creating push notifications. For young businesses, these programs can be the difference between life and death, function and failure.

Take away my toolbox and ask me to be a carpenter; this is what you ask of them.

As many people much smarter than me have pointed out — like The New York Times’ Thomas Erdbrink and Vindu Goel — the timing of these decisions doesn’t make much sense, and neither does the reasoning behind it. Take DigiKala for example, one of Iran’s biggest e-commerce sites, or Snapp and Delion, Iran’s wildly popular cab-hailing and food delivery apps, respectively. These companies, along with almost every single one of Iranian app creators, transferred to an internal payment system called shaparak in early 2017 in order to comply with U.S. sanctions against online business transactions. But it turned out this was all for naught: less than six months later, Apple removed them all from the App Store.

As a serial entrepreneur myself, I identify with these young app developers. Like me, they have ideas. Like me, they execute. But unlike me, they are profoundly and increasingly disadvantaged by an entrepreneurial environment that restricts them right from the get-go and denies them a viable marketplace. As a result of Google and Apple’s actions, they are required to operate as entrepreneurs without the resources innately necessary for the job. Take away my toolbox and ask me to be a carpenter; this is what you ask of them.

Admittedly, you are not solely to blame. Much of this is a political game being played high above our heads. But your decision has a distinctly human impact. It is a direct threat to the livelihoods of tens of thousands of young people in Iran. As leaders in your industry, you have both the capacity and the responsibility to correct this practice. Your potential for impact here is substantial, and the same is true of Iranian entrepreneurs if they have the right tools — tools that you can and must provide. So what is a credible first step? Let’s start with an open conversation. Let’s sit down at a table together and brainstorm ways to align our interests, American executives and Iranian entrepreneurs alike.

There’s a concept called homophily. It posits that we as humans build networks with those similar to ourselves. It’s the very foundation of our species. Take a minute to remember your roots and I think you’ll see some similarities between Iran’s entrepreneurs and your own founders. What would our world look like today, if Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Steve Jobs never got their shot?

from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2Y2ImyE

Apple launches a Beddit beta program focused on improving its app

Apple is launching a new beta program for Beddit, the sleep tracking company it acquired just over two years ago after selling Beddit products in Apple Stores for years. According to the beta program’s website, users who enroll will get early access to new versions of the Bedit app ahead of the general public. They’ll also be able to offer feedback to Apple by sharing data and completing surveys.

Participants in the beta program will share data about their app usage, app settings, and their sleep results, in addition to diagnostic data. This will require they first sign an informed consent form, given the personal nature of this data.

Apple also says beta participation is entirely voluntary and users can withdraw from the program at any time, at which point the data would no longer be collected. And if the user changes their mind, they could also rejoin the beta in the future as long as the beta program is ongoing.

There are a few other requirements for participation in the beta. Users must be based in the U.S., have a Beddit Sleep Monitor (the $145.95 model 3.5), and be at least 22 and not over 75 years old. They must also agree to receive email communications from Apple about the beta program.

Apple has been invested in sleep tracking since the launch of the “Bedtime” feature in its iOS Clock app introduced in iOS 10, which helps users set up reminders about bedtime and recurring wake-up alarms. It also allows its customers to configure other settings that can contribute to better rest, including the ability to schedule a Do Not Disturb mode, set time limits on app usage, and schedule a Night Shift mode to turn on in the evening to reduce the blue light emitted from the phone — something that can disrupt our natural sleep patterns.

But with the Beddit deal, Apple took a bigger step into sleep tracking by snatching up a connected device maker.

In time, the company could use the data collected from the beta testers to improve the Beddit app. That’s something it may need to focus on, given the app today sports a 2.1-star (out of 5) rating on the App Store and reviews complain about its bad design and missing features.

from Apple – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2XWUMaW