Spotify is adding the ability to download playlists, albums, and podcasts on Apple Watch to play offline, the company announced Friday. Users will be able to stream audio in 96kbps, add and delete Spotify content on their phones, and sync with the Watch.
“Being able to download music and podcasts complements the existing feature of being able to stream your favorites from the watch, and now you don’t even have to take your phone with you,” the company said in its news release.
Spotify added the ability to stream music using an Apple Watch in November; until that point, the Apple Watch only worked as a remote for Spotify music playing on an iPhone or other Spotify Connect-compatible device. Spotify first launched its Apple Watch app in 2018.
The offline feature will be available starting Friday on Apple Watch Series 3 or later running WatchOS 6.0 or later, with WatchOS 7.1 and up recommended. A Spotify Premium subscription is also required. Spotify Premium memberships range from $9.99 per month for a single account, up to $15.99 per month for a family plan. There’s also a $4.99-per-month student account option available.
Another streaming music service, Deezer, beat Spotify to the punch, adding the ability to download music from its Apple Watch app earlier this week.
Also this week, Spotify said it was launching a new feature to allow Google’s Wear devices to download music and listen offline, without needing an accompanying phone. It hasn’t been released yet, but it’s in the works, the company’s product lead for wearables said during Google’s developer keynote on Tuesday.
Remember the Google Chromecast Audio? It was a little dongle that made any speakers smart – just plug it in, and it would add wi-fi to the party, letting you stream online music through your phone, tablet or computer to your speakers.
Now Belkin has launched a similar device but with Apple AirPlay 2 wireless tech onboard. That means you can stream music from an Apple device to your old speakers that don’t have wireless streaming built-in.
The Belkin Soundform Connect plugs into your speakers using an optical or 3.5mm connection. Then you simply tap the AirPlay icon on your Apple device and your track will start playing from your speaker as if by magic.
AirPlay 2 is adept at multi-room audio, too. So plug Soundform Connect devices into speakers in different rooms and you can fill your house with sweet music. Use Apple’s HomeKit, and you can assign different speakers to different rooms, and create scenes and automations using the Home app.
You can also control playback using Siri voice control, so you can ask what’s playing in each room, adjust the volume, play, pause and more.
To use it, you’ll need an iPhone running iOS 11.4 or later, an iPad with iPadOS 11.4 or later, a Mac running macOS Catalina or later, or an Apple TV running tvOS 11.4 or later.
The Soundform Connect is small enough to fit in a pocket, so you can easily take it with you wherever you go. And it won’t break the bank, with a price tag of £89 ($99).
MORE:
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Cambridge’s Award-winning recipe has been refined to include app support and extra sonic clarity and detail
For
Extra ounce of dynamic expression
Great clarity for the level
Slick app support
Against
No noise-cancelling
When Cambridge Audio announced a new model in its inaugural and two-time What Hi-Fi? Award-winning Melomania line-up, we heaved a collective sigh of relief. The Melomania 1 Plus (or Melomania 1+) promise the same look and feel of their decorated older sibling, the original Melomania 1, but with additional app support, customisable EQ settings and the British audio firm’s innovative High-Performance Audio Mode.
There’s a new colourway, too – gone is the ‘stone’ grey hue we lovingly dubbed ‘NHS Grey’. Here, the upgrades are hard to spot to the naked eye, but then again, beauty is usually in the detail. The pricing hasn’t changed, with the Melomania 1 Plus launching at the now-traditional £120 ($140, AU$185).
So how good do they sound, and are they worth upgrading to?
Build and comfort
(Image credit: Cambridge Audio)
The fresh white finish of our Melomania 1 Plus charging case sample (also available in black) is a matte affair and a solid upgrade on its predecessor. It feels cool, tactile, more pebble-like and means that fingerprint smudges no longer collect on the perfectly sized case.
Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 Plus tech specs
(Image credit: Cambridge Audio)
Bluetooth version 5.0
Finishes x2
Battery life Up to 45 hours (low power)
Dimensions 2.7 x 1.5cm
Weight 5.6g (each)
The five-strong row of LEDs to indicate battery life remains, just below the snappy flip-top lid. The ‘L’ and ‘R’ on each earpiece, underneath the tiny LED light on each, are now written in electric blue lettering. You now get a USB-C fast charging port, too.
Although multiple ear tips were promised to ensure a secure fit, what Cambridge has done is double up on its standard small, medium and large offerings, so you now get two sets of each rather than one.
There are also two sets of medium and large ‘memory foam’ options, but curiously no small option. The memory foam tips are only supplied in black, too – the regular tips are white – which spoils the ice-white aesthetic somewhat.
The bullet-shaped buds are practically identical in build to the Melomania 1 – each weighs the same 4.6g, boasts IPX5 certification against rain and sweat, houses a 5.8mm graphene-enhanced driver and boasts Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity with aptX and AAC codec support.
Features
(Image credit: Cambridge Audio)
The Melomania 1 Plus boast up to nine hours of battery life on a single charge plus four extra charges from the case, which adds up to an impressive 45 hours of total playtime when in Low Power mode. In the default High-Performance mode, you’ll get seven hours from a charge or 35 hours in total courtesy of four more blasts from the case, which is still highly competitive.
Pairing is easy using the handy quick start guide. Only one earpiece needs to be paired on your device; the second bud (labelled ‘Handset’) will simply request a connection to it – and that only needs to be done once. During our tests, the connection between both units and our device remains secure and snag-free.
Possibly the biggest upgrade with this new iteration is support for the free Melomania app, which is now considerably more stable than it used to be. With it comes the ability to customise the EQ settings yourself or pick from six presets, check the battery level of each earbud, locate misplaced earbuds on a map, and receive firmware updates.
Touch controls here involve pressing the circular button on each bud and we find these intuitive and useful. Holding down the right one increases volume, while holding down the left lowers it – simple and effective. A single press of either earpiece starts or pauses playback, two skips forward a track (right earbud) or back a song (left earbud), and three presses of the right bud calls up Siri on our iPhone – although note that they can also access the Google Assistant.
These controls are so reliable that we rarely dig out our smartphone when testing them in transit. That should be a given, but it hasn’t always been our experience when testing competing buds at this price.
Cambridge has advised wearers to position the earpieces so that the recessed circle within the circular top surface of the driver housing is at its lowest point so that the MEMS mic in each bud can perform to its fullest. We do so and are able to enjoy clear voice calls.
The good news is that with low power mode deployed, you’ll get a performance that is on a par with the originals.
Sound
(Image credit: Cambridge Audio)
Switching back to High-Performance Audio and with all EQ levels unaltered, we’re treated to an impactful and expansive presentation of Kate Bush’s And Dream Of Sheep (a Tidal Master file). The keys feel three-dimensional in our left ear as Bush’s vocal soars through the frequencies centrally, backed by samples of seagulls, pared-back guitar picking, wind instruments and spoken word. When the brooding storm builds, the Melomania 1 Plus deliver it dutifully and with remarkable clarity for this level. This is a small but definite improvement on their older sibling for layering and detail.
Instruments such as the slinking bass, Wurlitzer and saxophone at the outset of Beck’s Debra are organised with precision and given an extra few yards of space within the mix, too. The low-level, call-to-action vocal before the verse is often lost in muddier bass registers of lesser headphones, but not here. Beck’s distinctive voice is emotive and held masterfully in check even as the intensity builds. Through the mids and treble, we’re aware of the step-up in terms of clarity and refinement over the original Melos.
Through heavier tracks such as Eminem’s Stan, the teeming rain sounds natural at the window as Stan’s scrawl cuts through with clarity, underpinned by an accurate and regimented bassline. There are marginal gains to be had over the originals in terms of the dynamic build too. The leading edges of notes are marginally cleaner in the updated set of in-ears, as demonstrated by the initial synth strings in Dr Dre’s Forget About Dre.
In our review of the five-star Panasonic RZ-S500W, we said that in direct comparison, the Cambridge product suffered marginally for detail. That balance is now redressed with the Melomania 1 Plus. Whether you prefer the Panasonic proposition over the Melomanias will likely come down to the former’s noise-cancelling or teardrop design, neither of which feature in the Cambridges. But for an engaging, detailed, expansive listen, the Melomania 1 Plus are very much back in the running for best at this level.
Verdict
Cambridge’s compact, fuss-free and affordable design was a hit with us the first time around in 2019. The addition of a slicker paint-job, app support for EQ customisation and the step-up in sonic detail and refinement – without the anticipated price hike – only makes us want to heap extra praise upon the new Melomania 1 Plus.
While the original Melomania 1 can now be had for a significant discount, we’d still point you towards this updated model. There’s no noise-cancelling onboard, but those who don’t need shouldn’t hesitate to add these latest Melomanias to their shortlist.
Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency feature in iOS 14.5 doesn’t seem to be a difficult concept to grasp; initial estimates suggest as many as 96 percent of US users are leaping at the chance to tell their apps, “No, you can’t track me across the internet.” Now, Apple is taking a victory lap with a full ad campaign, too, one that turns the feature into a selling point for the iPhone and furthers the attempt to pitch itself as the only tech company you can trust. And, if you ask me, its new ad spot “Tracked” is just about perfect.
Just give it a watch above. Who wouldn’t want to Thanos-snap ad trackers into dust? It’s no wonder Google is thinking long and hard about following Apple’s lead with an anti-tracking feature of its own.
Critics claim these moves will make the internet more expensive and potentially harm small businesses, and they are updating their apps to warn you about that — as well as the idea that ads might be less relevant if you opt out. But that’s a tough sell compared to the privacy fears that exist these days, and it’s hard to argue with Apple’s idea that users should get to choose for themselves. The company also launched privacy “nutrition labels” late last year.
Apple tells The Verge that its own ad platform and apps don’t track users and that the App Tracking Transparency prompt applies to its own apps as well.
MagSafe PopSockets are finally here, after the famous phone handle company announced they would be coming in January. The PopGrip for MagSafe sells for $30, which is two to three times more expensive than the adhesive versions, but the bigger question that people have been asking since the announcement is whether they’ll be as trustworthy. I decided it was time to find out.
The PopGrip for MagSafe is a retractable grip for your phone (as the name implies) that can also work as a stand for watching video or a hands-free video call. PopSockets has made versions of the PopGrip for years now (and if you’ve got a collection of fun design tops, this will still work with those), but they’ve traditionally used an adhesive to attach to your device. The MagSafe version uses Apple’s system of magnets that it introduced on the iPhone 12 models and is compatible with everything from the iPhone 12 Mini to the gargantuan iPhone 12 Pro Max.
There have also been some attempts by third parties to make MagSafe mounts that you can stick to your iPhone, then stick a PopSocket to, but the PopGrip for MagSafe is an integrated, first-party version.
PopGrip for MagSafe
$30
Prices taken at time of publishing.
PopSocket’s phone handle / stand, which now attaches using the magnets built into the iPhone 12 series of phones.
$30
at PopSockets
PopSockets makes it clear on the box that this shouldn’t be used with bare iPhones, and it’s easy to see why: the iPhone’s glass back doesn’t provide a lot of grip. But sometimes the question with accessories isn’t “what do the directions say” but “can I get away with using it like this?”
Goodbye!
Looks like the answer is no! Listen to PopSockets, and do not use this thing with a bare phone. If you put it on and shake it around a few times you may get lucky and think that it’s fine, but I promise it will come off very easily at some point. Probably while you’re on some sort of perilous precipice.
Pictured: a terrible idea.
That did make me wonder, though, what would happen if I had a plastic case that wasn’t MagSafe compatible. Would the magnets still reach through, and would the plastic be less slippery than the iPhone’s glass? I can’t answer the second question, because the answer to the first one is absolutely not. It basically just falls off, even with a reasonably thin MagSafe-less case.
Okay, well let’s give the PopSocket the best-case scenario: how well will it stick to Apple’s silicone MagSafe case, which has both magnets and a reasonably grippy texture?
I’d call that a pass!
As you can see, it’s not coming off — at least not until you want to pop it of to, say, wirelessly charge, in which case it’s actually very easy to remove. But maybe it’s just the specific way I was shaking it that let it perform so well. I will admit that I haven’t historically been a heavy PopSocket user, but I’ve been told that people put a lot of faith in the PopSocket adhesive. So that made me wonder what was the silliest thing I could do to really put the MagSafe case / PopGrip connection to the test.
And obviously the answer was karate.
Unlike my form after years of not practicing, my phone is still intact.
Make no mistake, if you want to dislodge the PopSocket from the phone, you can. If I’m holding the phone at a perfect parallel angle to the floor and shaking with all my might, it will eventually come off, but that doesn’t seem like a terribly realistic scenario and it’s been rock-solid in all my other tests.
It’s also worth noting that I wasn’t able to test the MagSafe PopSocket with other case materials, like Apple’s leather or clear plastic cases, so it’s hard to say if it would do as well. But it does seem that, with at least one of Apple’s cases, the MagSafe PopSocket can hang with the adhesive version. And if you use your phone with a non-MagSafe case, or no case at all? Well, you may have to stick with the sticky PopSockets, or buy a MagSafe case if you really want that sweet magnetic removability.
Apple’s software engineering head Craig Federighi had a tricky task in the Epic v. Apple trial: explaining why the Mac’s security wasn’t good enough for the iPhone.
Mac computers have an official Apple App Store, but they also allow downloading software from the internet or a third-party store. Apple has never opened up iOS this way, but it’s long touted the privacy and security of both platforms. Then Epic Games sued Apple to force its hand, saying that if an open model is good enough for macOS, Apple’s claims about iOS ring hollow. On the stand yesterday, Federighi tried to resolve this problem by portraying iPhones and Macs as dramatically different devices — and in the process, threw macOS under the bus.
Federighi outlined three main differences between iOS and macOS. The first is scale. Far more people use iPhones than Macs, and the more users a platform gets, the more enticing that audience becomes to malware developers. Federighi argued iOS users are also much more casual about downloading software, giving attackers better odds of luring them into a download. “iOS users are just accustomed to getting apps all the time,” he said, citing Apple’s old catchphrase: “There’s an app for that.”
The second difference is data sensitivity. “iPhones are very attractive targets. They are very personal devices that are with you all the time. They have some of your most personal information — of course your contacts, your photos, but also other things,” he said. Mobile devices put a camera, microphone, and GPS tracker in your pocket. “All of these things make access or control of these devices potentially incredibly valuable to an attacker.”
That may undersell private interactions with Macs; Epic’s counsel Yonatan Even noted that many telemedicine calls and other virtual interactions happen on desktop. Still, it’s fair to say phones have become many people’s all-purpose digital lockboxes.
The third difference is more conceptual. Federighi basically says iOS users need to be more protected because the Mac is a specialist tool for people who know how to navigate the complexities of a powerful system, while the iPhone and iPad are — literally — for babies.
As Federighi put it:
The Mac from the beginning has been part of a generation of systems where the expectation is you can get software from wherever — you can hand it to your friend on a floppy disk and run it, that’s part of the expectation. But Mac users also expect a degree of flexibility that is useful to what they do. Some of them are software developers, some of them are pros running their unique tools, and having that power is part of it.
I think of it is as if the Mac is a car — that you can take it off-road if you want, you can drive wherever you want. And that comes with as a driver, you gotta be trained, there’s a certain level of responsibility in doing that, but that’s what you wanted to buy. You wanted to buy a car. With iOS, we were able to create something where children — heck, even infants — can operate an iOS device, and be safe in doing so. So it’s a really different product.
Federighi expanded on the metaphor a little later, when Apple’s counsel asked if macOS was “safe.”
Safe if operated correctly, much like that car. If you know how to operate a car, and you obey the rules of the road and are very cautious, yes. If you’re not — I’ve had a couple of family members who’ve gotten some malware on their Mac. But ultimately, I think the Mac can be operated safely.
I find the mental image of slowly, cautiously “driving” a Mac around the internet hilarious, because cars are deadly two-ton metal boxes that crush obstacles at superhuman speeds, while my MacBook starts losing keys if I type on it too hard.
If you pair these comments with some earlier statements about macOS, though, it’s a bit less funny. Federighi was bluntly critical of macOS security, saying Apple saw “a level of malware on the Mac that we don’t find acceptable.” If you used the Mac’s security model on the iPhone, “with all those devices, all that value, it would get run over to a degree dramatically worse than is already happening on the Mac,” Federighi said. “iOS has established a dramatically higher bar for customer protection. The Mac is not meeting that bar today.” It’s a distinctly negative evaluation of open computing systems, implying onlya relatively small platform could afford that openness without disaster.
Federighi took a far broader view of security than Epic’s own expert witness James Mickens. Mickens testified earlier that iOS wasn’t meaningfully more secure than Android, but he analyzed mostly technical threats to the platforms. Federighi focused on scams, phishing, and other apps that target human psychology instead of computer code — many of which pose serious dangers.
Sometimes, though, the protectiveness felt patronizing. When Federighi explained Apple’s restrictions on cloud gaming, he focused partly on tangible security issues, like how to grant device permissions for different titles on a single gaming app. But he slipped seamlessly into discussing how the concept would be simply too confusing — that iPhone and iPad owners would be befuddled by the notion of launching a separate game catalog. Apple wants iOS devices to feel trustworthy, but at times like that, it seems more like Apple just doesn’t trust its own users.
(Pocket-lint) – The last Apple TV 4K launched in 2017. At the time it coincided with the start of the movement to embrace the growing trend of 4K content from the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime.
In 2021 watching TV hasn’t changed that much, but we are doing a lot more of it. Subscription services have boomed, we’ve now got more choice – including Apple’s own TV+ service – and therefore even more content to watch.
But does the 2021 Apple TV 4K set-top box embrace current viewing habits enough to be worth the upgrade – or even a purchase in the first place – especially given the crowded marketplace dominated by a host of other, cheaper options from Amazon, Roku, Google and the likes?
Everything feels the same
Puck-style box design, measures 98 x 98 x 35mm
Supports: 4K HDR, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos
32GB / 64GB storage variants available
Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, AirPlay
The design of the Apple TV box itself hasn’t changed at all for the 2021 model. It’s a squarish box that’s certainly larger than the competition. It features just three inputs on the back: Ethernet, HDMI, and power.
Pocket-lint
You’ll still need a shelf or a wall-mount to put it on, and if you were hoping for a miniaturised stick to put straight into a spare HDMI socket on your telly then, well, you’re out of luck.
As has always been the case there are no buttons on the box itself, so everything is controlled via the included remote. Or you can use your iPhone, iPad, or voice control via Siri.
The Apple TV 4K’s interface hasn’t changed either, so the focus is about giving you access to all the relevant streaming services – as long as they have a supporting app.
The continued push into a central place to discover more content from supporting streaming services, rather than silo-ing everything in their respective apps, does help you discover content that’s available. However, it’s hard at times to differentiate whether that content is going to cost you above and beyond your current subscriptions. And it’s still missing Netflix within those content recommendations – which is a glaring omission.
As with the 2017 model, you get 4K resolution, high dynamic range (HDR), including Dolby Atmos object-based audio and Dolby Vision HDR support – which is great stuff if your TV and/or AV setup supports it (Apple’s AirPods Pro or AirPods Max still don’t with the Apple TV but do for the iPhone and iPad, for example).
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The ability to connect game controllers (sold separately) via Bluetooth 5.0 means you can grab one of those spare Xbox or PlayStation controllers to jump in too.
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Apple hasn’t increased the storage options for the 2021 model either. It still comes in 32GB and 64GB capacities, but that’s not really an issue as everything is streamed these days anyway.
New, new, new
High Frame Rate (HFR) support up to 60fps
Apple A12 Bionic processor
Updated Siri remote
HDMI 2.1 port
There are some changes of course. Internally the 4K TV box now comes with a much faster processor – the one previously found in the iPhone XS – and that helps on the gaming side of things via Apple Arcade.
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Why only the iPhone XS processor and not the iPhone 12 processor or the iPad Pro’s M1? It’s likely to come down to cost and need. After all, this isn’t a Mac mini nor a fully-fledged games console. Most Apple Arcade games are designed to work nicely on the provided processor – we didn’t have any trouble running NBA2K21 or other games, but the loading times could be improved.
The new box also gets better connectivity. There’s Wi-Fi 6 (ax), allowing it to better connect to your Wi-Fi in dual-band (2.4GHz/5GHz) for those high bandwidth streams you’ll be planning. There’s also HDMI 2.1 support to enable a new High Frame Rate mode that allows you to play content up to 60 frames per second (supported by the iPhone 12 Pro, for example) and any future benefits that will come from that port over time.
Apple has also added support for Thread. This fairly new smart home connectivity technology is backed by Apple, Amazon, and Google. Again, you might not find a use for it out of the box on day one, but it’s likely to become much more important in our smart home futures, so having some level of future-proofing is welcomed.
There’s a new colour-balancing mode that’s not exclusive to this model, which uses your iPhone to help ensure the Apple TV is optimised for the best colour balance in your room. It’s clever, but for us made very little difference.
A new, much needed remote
Remote measures: 136 x 35 x 9.25mm
Although you can buy the new remote on its own – which is a way to easily ‘upgrade’ the older box – the new one included in the this box is the biggest and most visible change for the 2021 Apple TV 4K. It’s one feature that removes a lot of the pain barriers (first-world problems, we know) to using the Apple set-top box on a daily basis.
The new remote is considerably bigger than its predecessor, doesn’t sport a design you’ll get the wrong way up, nor a Siri button that you’ll accidentally press by mistake all of the time.
The Menu button has been ditched, there’s a new mute button, and Apple has thankfully shifted the Siri button to the side to emulate other remotes and match the same experience found on the iPhone, iPad, and even Apple Watch.
Swiping is still available, but it’s now via a circular physical touch button d-pad with a dedicated scroll option for scrubbing through shows – reminiscent of using an iPod from days gone by. That said, you can ignore that and still swipe left to right too – which can cause some muddled responses.
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There’s even a new ‘power’ button that can not only turn off your Apple TV 4K, but also your TV and AV kit. Handy.
What is a surprising omission, however, especially given the recent launch of AirTags, is that the remote doesn’t have a finding option to help you find it down the back of the sofa when lost. No Find My Support, no ‘play a sound’ option. It’s another glaring own goal.
The ecosystem shines through, but you have to pay for it
Third-party app support, including Disney+, Amazon Prime, Netflix, more
Apple TV+, Apple Fitness+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade
Support for catch-up services (including BBC iPlayer)
Against the competition the Apple TV 4K does deliver, but it can also be seen as very expensive for what you get – it’s almost four times as much as the Roku Streaming Stick+, for example. That’s a big premium to pay for just watching movies and getting access to the Apple TV store – something which you might already have if you’ve got the right TV.
Pocket-lint
Where Apple is hoping to convince you though is that the benefits to be found in being part of the Apple ecosystem. Getting started is incredibly easy thanks to a simple setup process using your iPhone. Apple Fitness+ users benefit with connectivity to the Apple Watch, and Apple Arcade subscribers get a wealth of games to play too – but that’s a lot of extra cash for features that not everyone might want or have the need to use.
Verdict
There is no denying that the 2021 Apple TV 4K delivers what it sets out to do: packaging streaming services and Apple services all in the one place. It’s the extras like Apple Arcade and Apple Fitness+ that make this a nicely rounded package that will cater for the TV viewer as well as the casual gamer and fitness fan.
Despite this, we can’t help feeling that there are better and cheaper ways to get streaming content like Disney+, Netflix, or even Apple TV+ on your television from the likes of Roku and others.
The Apple TV has always come at a premium, but the 2021 model doesn’t move things on enough to justify either an upgrade or a recommendation over the competition – unless you really believe you’ll be able to maximise on all the additional Apple services and features it offers. And if you’re a current Apple TV 4K owner then you can simply buy the updated Siri remote on its own.
If you’re looking for an inclusive package that has potential to grow over the coming years and possibly adapt to how you use your TV or enjoy content in the home, then that’s one angle. The trouble for many with the 2021 box is that you’ll have to take the hit and pay for all that potential up front – whether it’s ever fully realised or not.
Also consider
Pocket-lint
Roku Streaming Stick+
Roku is s big name in streaming, offering access to all the major services in a slim device that supports the latest 4K HDR formats. A simple remote makes it easy to control, while its asking price undercuts the majority of the competition.
Read our review
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Pocket-lint
Amazon Fire Stick 4K
Amazon’s media streamers keep getting smaller and more affordable, with features like Alexa voice control via the remote making it a no-brainer for many. Although it leans towards Amazon’s content, it does also cover all services – including Netflix – and supports 4K HDR formats and Dolby Atmos object-based audio too.
You can now download Deezer playlists to your Apple Watch. That means you can leave your iPhone 12 at home while you go for a run without missing out on your favourite tunes.
The new feature comes as part of an update to the Apple Watch app. It lets you download all playlist content to your timepiece – that includes your favourite tracks playlists, editorial playlists, and any personal playlists you have created.
To get your Deezer playlists onto your Apple Watch, you’ll have to use your mobile network or the same wi-fi network as your phone or tablet.
If your phone is nearby, your mobile network will automatically handle the download and transfer the data to your watch via Bluetooth or wi-fi. If it isn’t, or it’s in airplane mode or turned off, your Apple Watch can handle the download itself providing it’s connected to wi-fi, or it has a mobile connection of its own.
According to Deezer, you can store “several gigabytes” of tracks on your Apple Watch, though that will depend on which Apple Watch model you have and how much space it has free.
To use the new feature, you’ll need an Apple Watch Series 3 (or newer) running at least Watch OS6.
The update gives the app a new look and feel. Plus it lets Deezer Free customers listen to tracks, albums, and playlists in shuffle mode and access their Queue list, all from their Apple Watch.
This is a shot across the bow of arch-rival Spotify, which currently doesn’t let you download playlists to the Apple Watch. Earlier this month, Deezer added support for Apple’s Siri voice assistant to the HomePod and HomePod Mini smart speakers.
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Apple announced a variety of new and updated features for people with disabilities today. Beginning May 20th, customers can use the new SignTime sign language interpreter service to contact AppleCare and retail customer care through their web browsers. Software updates later this year to iOS, watchOS, and iPadOS will bring improved options for Assistive Touch, VoiceOver, hearing aid support, and background sounds.
We believe everyone should have the tools they need to change the world. Accessibility is a fundamental right, and we’re always pushing the boundaries of innovation so that everyone can learn, create and connect in new ways. #GAAD https://t.co/oZwQNG7p5x
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) May 19, 2021
The new SignTime service is launching first in the US, UK, and France, and offers remote interpreter access for American Sign Language, British Sign Language, and French Sign Language. People can also use the service in Apple stores to get interpretation without booking it in advance, potentially preventing the hassle of wrangling an interpreter on short notice.
People with limb differences will be able to use Assistive Touch on watchOS, which should enable them to use Apple Watch without touching the screen. (Apple did not verify which Watches this will work for.) Apple says the Apple Watch can detect muscle movement and tendon activity through its built-in sensors, allowing users to control a cursor on the watch screen, answer calls, access notifications, and more by making various movements and gestures. (You can see it in action in the video on this page.)
iPadOS will support third-party eye-tracking devices, allowing people with low mobility to move a cursor with their gaze and perform actions by holding eye contact, rather than tapping the screen.
VoiceOver, Apple’s built-in screen reader, will be updated to include more details in images. According to Apple, it will allow people to navigate images with text and data tables by rows and columns, and describe people and objects in images. People will also be able to add image descriptions with Markup.
Apple plans to upgrade the Made for iPhone hearing devices program, too, with support for bidirectional hearing aids. Users will also be able to upload their hearing test results to Headphone Accommodations to more easily customize how the feature amplifies sounds and adjusts different frequencies.
Image: Apple
For neurodiverse people (or anyone who likes white noise), Apple is introducing Background Sounds that can be incorporated with other audio and system sounds. They include “balanced, bright, or dark noise, as well as ocean, rain, or stream sounds” that can be set to play continuously and mask distracting or overwhelming noises.
Other features Apple is planning for later in the year include the ability to use mouth sounds like clicks or pops instead of using physical buttons, the customization of display and text size settings in individual apps, and new Memoji options with cochlear implants, oxygen tubes, and soft helmets.
Companies large and small always have room for improvement when it comes to making their products accessible, but Apple has generally been a leader in the space. These updates hopefully signal a continued commitment to designing with disabled people in mind.
(Pocket-lint) – A lot has happened in the world since the launch of the iPad Pro 12.9-inch in 2020, yet the need for us to work on the go is still an key factor for many people.
Apple’s 2021 iPad Pro looks to up the ante once again, bringing a new processor, a new screen, 5G connectivity, as well as improvements to the camera and elsewhere.
So, is this the year that the Apple iPad Pro will finally – yes finally – let you ditch the laptop altogether? We’ve been using the iPad Pro 2021 with M1 processor to find out.
Design gets heavier
Same design as 2020 model
Finishes: Silver or Space Grey
Dimensions: 281 x 215 x 6.4mm
Weight: 682g (Wi-Fi), 685g (5G)
Having launched previously with a much squarer design, which has since been adopted by the iPhone, the iPad Pro keeps an almost identical design to its previous offering.
For 2021 the 12.9-inch model is ever so slightly thicker than previous versions, thanks to new Mini LED screen technology, but it will still fit your previous cases (albeit snugly), including the Apple Magic Keyboard that launched in 2020.
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That extra thickness also means it’s a bit heavier, with around 40g extra. While that’s not hugely noticeable over the previous version, it does mean that the Pro is getting heavier and heavier – which is something to bear in mind.
To put it in perspective, though, the 2021 Pro is actually the same weight as the original iPad from way back in 2010. And while no one will begrudge that this iPad is considerably more powerful, it’s interesting that all that tech, and batteries to power it, means that the days of a thin-and-light iPad have come to an end – well, certainly at the top-end of this market.
Why’s that important? Because it is no longer a slip-in-your-bag-and-not-notice-it device any more. Add in the Magic Keyboard – which is another 710g – and you’ve got a device that’s 1.395kg. That’s roughly the same as the company’s M1 13-inch MacBook Pro or many other Windows-based laptops – indeed it’s actually not too difficult to find sub-1kg laptops.
Display gets brighter
12.9-inch ‘Liquid Retina XDR’ Mini LED display
2732 x 2048 resolution (264ppi)
1600-nit peak brightness
120Hz refresh rate
The 2021 iPad Pro gets an updated display technology – called Mini LED – which makes it considerably brighter than older models. It’s a relatively new panel technology that’s only just making its way into the latest TVs.
What is Mini LED? The display technology explained
In the case of this 12.9-inch model that means over 10,000 LEDs are positioned behind the screen to create, at times, a much brighter display that is also more nuanced to what is happening on the screen.
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The enhanced technology is instantly noticeable. The screen is physically brighter for starters, and has the ability to increase that brightness further depending on what is required. Previously the peak brightness was 600 nits, now that can go up to 1600 nits for those high dynamic range (HDR) moments.
While the average user will benefit from watching high-resolution content from their favourite streaming service – even the end credits of a movie look stunning – creatives will certainly enjoy the ability to see all that extra detail in their images or video, especially if they are working within the realms of HDR or Dolby Vision.
Combine that with the Pro’s usual array of screen tech – such as P3 wide colour gamut, ProMotion (120Hz refresh rate), and True Tone – and you won’t find much to complain about when it comes to the screen.
What is Apple’s True Tone display?
Front-facing camera gets more intelligent
Improved front-facing camera: 12-megapixel, 122-degree field of view
New ‘Center Stage’ technology (for subject tracking)
If you’re like us, you’ll have spent a lot of time in 2020 on video calls talking to colleagues, friends, and family. So for 2021, the iPad Pro celebrates video calling by adding a new front-facing TrueDepth Camera.
It’s unique to the iPad (at launch anyway – we suspect that will change in the future) and for the most part you won’t notice that it’s ultra-wide. That’s because of a new feature Apple has introduced specifically for the iPad Pro: Center Stage.
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No doubt inspired by devices like the Facebook Portal and Amazon Echo Show 10, the idea is that the front-facing camera can now follow you as you move about so you’re always “centre stage”.
By cropping into the captured image to deliver the same image crop iPad users are used to, nothing physically moves within the iPad itself. Instead Applehas opted to emulate that movement by digitally cropping in on the image as it follows you.
The feature, which works just as well in Apple FaceTime as it does in Zoom and other video calling apps, can be fun, but it can become jarring.
Anything with a head and shoulders is automatically picked up and the frame will resize to fit them in. Add more people and the feature zooms out to make sure everyone is in the frame. That’s fantastic for a family catch-ups with the kids trying to jostle around the iPad Pro screen, or for ensuring you’re fully in the shot.
The 122-degree viewpoint is wide enough to catch most of you, wide enough to track you around the room, and wide enough to still move if you’ve stepped some distance from the camera (we got to around 5 metres away).
Where things get tricky is if you move around when using it and the iPad Pro is stationary on the desk. Not because it doesn’t follow you, but because of the fluidity to the follow. You move and the camera slowly moves with you.
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The resulting affect is as if Apple has applied a Ken Burns effect to dramatise your video call. Or, as we found when being fairly close to the camera, it looks a bit like being on a boat and bobbing up and down with the tide. It can, at times, be very nauseating.
Best tablet 2021: Top tablets to buy today
By Britta O’Boyle
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However, go hands-free and the technology helps stabilise your movement – making it a much better experience as the tracking is kept to a minimum and less pronounced.
It’s probably why business calls from our desk garnered plenty of complaints, but family calls resulted in much more positive feedback with the grandparents in awe of the technology in action, and a chance to see everyone for the first time without us having to stand miles away from the screen.
Performance: Everything is faster
Apple M1 processor, 8GB/16GB RAM
Options for 128GB to 2TB storage
Apple Pencil support (2nd Gen)
LiDAR sensor on back
Thunderbolt / USB4
With every iteration the iPad Pro gets a faster processor, normally on par with the iPhone. This year, rather than trying to keep pace with the iPhone, the iPad keeps pace with the Mac.
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Because now you’ll find Apple’s new M1 processor instead of an upgraded iPhone processor powering the pro tablet. Yes, the same chip that powers the MacBook Air or iMac or MacBook Pro now powers the 2021 iPad Pro. We’ll let that sink in for a moment.
According to Apple that results in a 50 per cent boost in performance without compromising the battery – so you’ll still get around 10 hours per charge. Although, just like a Mac, the battery life widely varies in performance depending on what you do and how bright that screen is.
Also just like a Mac, there are now RAM options for the first time on the iPad Pro, all the way up to 16GB – although that option is restricted to the 1TB or 2TB storage options (you guessed it, that means pricey pricey), whereas it’s 8GB RAM for the 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB storage capacities (and more reasonable price points).
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The M1 processing power means the iPad Pro whizzes along with any various tasks that you’ll throw at it, just in the same way we find apps on the M1 MacBook Pro perform.
Whether that’s photo editing in Adobe Lightroom, drawing in Procreate, or designing in Affinity Designer, we had no problem loading, importing, editing, or saving large files on any of the ‘pro’ apps we use.
Working with large sound and video files proved little stress to the new 2021 iPad Pro either, while power hungry games like Asphalt 9, Call of Duty, or NBA2K21 loaded almost instantly – and, yes, noticeably faster than on previous iPad Pro models.
And if the M1 isn’t enough to keep that workflow process happy, the iPad Pro 12.9-inch now also comes in a 5G flavour for those who want speedy connectivity on the go. An afternoon hot-spotting via an EE SIM proved just as productive as being on the Wi-Fi in the home office.
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Elsewhere there’s an improved Thunderbolt / USB4 port for transferring files to and from the device even faster – it’s up to 40Gbps, whereas previously it was USB-C and therefore 10Gbps.
You still get the dual camera and LiDAR sensor setup on the back for taking pictures, video, or playing with AR too. It’s the same 12-megapixel main and 10-megapixel wider-angle as on the previous generation.
iPadOS needs to offer more
Software: iPadOS 14.5
Given that the iPad Pro has the same technical power of a MacBook Air but running iPadOS, it can at times feel a little underwhelming in terms of what you can do – especially given the sheer power under the hood.
Apple broke iPadOS away from iOS a number of years ago to be able to offer things like file transfer and track support. But now with the more powerful innards it feels like it needs to do more than just offer a series of app icons on the Home Screen.
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Of course Apple watchers will know that we’re due an announcement for iPadOS 15 at WWDC in June 2021, so we’re hoping that a greater emphasis on multi-tasking, a more useful Home Screen option, and other features will come to the experience later this year. That could be a game-changer.
It’s not that the iPad Pro 2021 isn’t capable – far from it – it’s just at we can feel that there’s something much bigger coming that’s just around the corner to help capitalise on that new found power within.
Verdict
When Steve Jobs first revealed the iPad back in 2010 it was all about casual reading and surfing from the sofa, about access to apps to empower, entertain, and educate us.
More than a decade on and the 2021 iPad Pro still embraces those principles. But for today’s creative types who want more than just basic typing and surfing it’s a more empowering experience – largely thanks to the M1 processor – bringing greater opportunity for both work and play.
For all intents and purposes the 2021 iPad Pro 12.9-inch is like a touchscreen-enabled MacBook Pro with 5G connectivity that runs iPadOS instead of macOS. It’s the closest to a laptop-replacement that Apple has ever taken the iPad.
Yet the iPad Pro is still in transition. It doesn’t completely replace the laptop just yet, because Apple hasn’t quite cracked the software. So if that’s what you’re after then let’s hope iPadOS 15 changes that later in 2021.
Also consider
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iPad Air (2020)
The ‘non-pro’ iPad will be good enough for many. So unless you want the higher storage, ProMotion higher refresh rate, or dual cameras, you’re just as well getting the iPad Air as the iPad Pro 11.
Music streaming service Deezer has revamped its Apple Watch app to let you listen to music without an internet connection, the company has announced. Previously Deezer’s Apple Watch app has only been able to control music playback on a paired iPhone, but now paid subscribers can download songs for offline listening when they’re away from their phones.
Offline listening has previously been available with Apple Music as well as Pandora, but similar functionality is yet to appear in Spotify’s Apple Watch app. Spotify recently added the ability to stream music from Apple Watch without needing a paired iPhone, but the feature still requires a cellular or Wi-Fi connection. Meanwhile, Google just teased that Spotify users will soon be able to download tracks to Wear OS smartwatches, which makes it even more strange that it doesn’t offer a similar feature on Apple’s wearables.
Subscribers can download both Deezer playlists as well as their own personalized playlists for offline listening. Naturally, you’ll need enough storage on your Apple Watch to hold the files for offline listening. The streaming service doesn’t explicitly say which models of Apple Watch support the new feature, noting only that it requires the “latest Apple watch software.” Presumably this is referring to watchOS 7, which is available on Apple Watch devices going back to 2017’s Series 3.
The new Apple Watch feature follows Deezer’s upgraded integration with Apple’s HomePod smart speakers released earlier this month. The new functionality lets users control playback with Siri voice controls, and even make Deezer their default music service. Spotify is yet to offer the same option. Then again, with a fraction of Spotify’s market share, Deezer has to work a lot harder to try and catch up.
Nearly a year after Apple announced the iPhone would become your digital car key, Google is doing the same. Android 12 will officially let “select Pixel and Samsung Galaxy phones” natively double as a car key later this year, the company just announced at its Google I/O 2021 developer conference today.
It’s not like Google is exactly late to the party, though, because automakers are taking their sweet time rolling out the technology, too. In fact, Google’s announcement only names a single brand — BMW — which already announced it would work with Samsung earlier this year. And last we checked, BMW has only committed a single car to support the seemingly “best” version of the digital car key technology.
The end goal here is to replace your bulky key fob — which already lets you enter a car without removing it from your pocket — with your phone instead, using new ultra-wideband (UWB) radios to securely tell your car you’re actually standing right in front of it. Apple’s quietly slipped those radios into (almost) all of its new iPhones and its latest Apple Watch Series 6, and presumably today’s announcement means the next Google Pixel will have them as well. (They could also let you locate your car in a crowded parking lot, something Samsung plans to take advantage of.)
But… whether for backwards compatibility’s sake or because they’re pinching pennies, both Google’s and Apple’s technology also supports near-field communication (NFC), which requires you to physically pull your phone out of your pocket and tap it to a car like the 2021 BMW 5 Series. In some ways, that’s actually a step backward from the humble radio key fob.
Now, BMW likely isn’t the only automaker interested in the potential of UWB: Hyundai, at least, is a member of the FiRa Consortium that’s pushing for UWB specifically, and both Hyundai and Kia are members of the UWB Alliance as well.
(Apple, Google, Samsung, LG, BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, and Volkswagen are all on the board of the Car Connectivity Consortium as well, though that group’s promoting both NFC and UWB in its digital car key standard.)
No matter what automakers pick, it seems likely that participation in standards bodies and global Android support will let you use (and share) your digital car key across smartphone brands. Samsung announced as much earlier this year at its Galaxy S21 event. Google says it’ll share more on standards when it launches later this year.
In other Android / automotive news, Google says that cars from BMW and Ford will soon support Bluetooth Fast Pair to pair your Android phone with a single tap. Android Auto itself — the smartphone-based infotainment system that’s been around for six years and directly competes with Apple’s CarPlay — has now made it into 100 million cars, the company says.
Google also promises that going forward, the “vast majority of new vehicles” from GM, Ford, Honda, and other automakers will support Android Auto wirelessly, no need to pull your phone out of your pocket and plug it in. That’s a feature that’s been rolling out rather slowly since its introduction in 2016, partially because it wasn’t native to Android phones until last August, partially because automakers had been holding out on Google-powered infotainment systems, and perhaps because Android Auto has been methodically rolling out across the world instead of launching everywhere simultaneously.
There are new features, but it’s the biggest design update in years
Google is announcing the latest beta for Android 12 today at Google I/O. It has an entirely new design based on a system called “Material You,” featuring big, bubbly buttons, shifting colors, and smoother animations. It is “the biggest design change in Android’s history,” according to Sameer Samat, VP of product management, Android and Google Play.
That might be a bit of hyperbole, especially considering how many design iterations Android has seen over the past decade, but it’s justified. Android 12 exudes confidence in its design, unafraid to make everything much larger and a little more playful. Every big design change can be polarizing, and I expect Android users who prefer information density in their UI may find it a little off-putting. But in just a few days, it has already grown on me.
There are a few other functional features being tossed in beyond what’s already been announced for the developer betas, but they’re fairly minor. The new design is what matters. It looks new, but Android by and large works the same — though, of course, Google can’t help itself and again shuffled around a few system-level features.
I’ve spent a couple of hours demoing all of the new features and the subsequent few days previewing some of the new designs in the beta that’s being released today. Here’s what to expect in Android 12 when it is officially released later this year.
Android 12’s new design includes a lot of color and customizationImage: Google
Material You design and better widgets
Android 12 is one implementation of a new design system Google is debuting called Material You. Cue the jokes about UX versus UI versus… You, I suppose. Unlike the first version of Material Design, this new system is meant to mainly be a set of principles for creating interfaces — one that goes well beyond the original paper metaphor. Google says it will be applied across all of its products, from the web to apps to hardware to Android. Though as before, it’s likely going to take a long time for that to happen.
In any case, the point is that the new elements in Android 12 are Google’s specific implementations of those principles on Pixel phones. Which is to say: other phones might implement those principles differently or maybe even not at all. I can tell you what Google’s version of Android 12 is going to look and act like, but only Samsung can tell you what Samsung’s version will do (and, of course, when it will arrive).
The feature Google will be crowing the most about is that when you change your wallpaper, you’ll have the option to automatically change your system colors as well. Android 12 will pull out both dominant and complementary colors from your wallpaper automatically and apply those colors to buttons and sliders and the like. It’s neat, but I’m not personally a fan of changing button colors that much.
You can customize the system colors to match your wallpaper in Android 12.GIF: Google
The lock screen is also set for some changes: the clock is huge and centered if you have no notifications and slightly smaller but still more prominent if you do. It also picks up an accent color based on the theming system. I especially love the giant clock on the always-on display.
Android’s widget system has developed a well-deserved bad reputation. Many apps don’t bother with them, and many more haven’t updated their widget’s look since they first made one in days of yore. The result is a huge swath of ugly, broken, and inconsistent widgets for the home screen.
New widget designs in Android 12.GIF: Google
Google is hoping to fix all of that with its new widget system. As with everything else in Android 12, the widgets Google has designed for its own apps are big and bubbly, with a playful design that’s not in keeping with how most people might think of Android. One clever feature is that when you move a widget around on your wallpaper, it subtly changes its background color to be closer to the part of the image it’s set upon.
I don’t have especially high hopes that Android developers will rush to adopt this new widget system, so I hope Google has a plan to encourage the most-used apps to get on it. Apple came very late to the home screen widget game on the iPhone, but it’s already surpassed most of the crufty widget abandonware you’ll find from most Android apps.
Bigger buttons and more animation
As you’ve no doubt gathered already from the photos, the most noticeable change in Android 12 is that all of the design elements are big, bubbly, and much more liberal in their use of animation. It certainly makes the entire system more legible and perhaps more accessible, but it also means you’re just going to get fewer buttons and menu items visible on a single screen.
That tradeoff is worth it, I think. Simple things like brightness and volume sliders are just easier to adjust now, for example. As for the animations, so far, I like them. But they definitely involve more visual flourish than before. When you unlock or plug in your phone, waves of shadow and light play across the screen. Apps expand out clearly from their icon’s position, and drawers and other elements slide in and out with fade effects.
More animations mean more resources and potentially more jitter, but Samat says the Android team has optimized how Android displays core elements. The windows and package manager use 22 percent less CPU time, the system server uses 15 percent less of the big (read: more powerful and battery-intensive) core on the processor, and interrupts have been reduced, too.
Android has another reputation: solving for jitter and jank by just throwing ever-more-powerful hardware at the problem: faster chips, higher refresh rate screens, and the like. Hopefully none of that will be necessary to keep these animations smooth on lower-end devices. On my Pixel 5, they’ve been quite good.
One last bit: there’s a new “overscroll” animation — the thing the screen does when you scroll to the end of a page. Now, everything on the screen will sort of stretch a bit when you can’t scroll any further. Maybe an Apple patent expired.
Shuffling system spaces around
It wouldn’t be a new version of Android without Google mucking about with notifications, Google Assistant, or what happens when you press the power button. With Android 12, we’ve hit the trifecta. Luckily, the changes Google has made mostly represent walking back some of the changes it made in Android 11.
The combined Quick Settings / notifications shade remains mostly the same — though the huge buttons mean you’re going to see fewer of them in either collapsed or expanded views. The main difference in notifications is mostly aesthetic. Like everything else, they’re big and bubbly. There’s a big, easy-to-hit down arrow for expanding them, and groups of notifications are put together into one bigger bubble. There’s even a nice little visual flourish when you begin to swipe a notification away: it forms its own roundrect, indicating that it has become a discrete object.
The quick settings and notification shade have gotten a facelift in Android 12.GIF: Google
The thing that will please a lot of Android users is that after just a year, Google has bailed on its idea of creating a whole new power button menu with Google Wallet and smart home controls. Instead, both of those things are just buttons inside the quick settings shade, similar to Samsung’s solution.
Holding down the power button now just brings up Google Assistant. Samat says it was a necessary change because Google Assistant is going to begin to offer more contextually aware features based on whatever screen you’re looking at. I say the diagonal swipe-in from the corner to launch Assistant was terrible, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it seriously reduced how much people used it.
I also have to point out that it’s a case of Google adopting gestures already popular on other phones: the iPhone’s button power brings up Siri, and a Galaxy’s button brings up Bixby.
New privacy features in Android 12.Image: Google
New privacy features for camera, mic, and location
Google is doing a few things with privacy in Android 12, mostly focused on three key sensors it sees as trigger points for people: location, camera, and microphone.
The camera and mic will now flip on a little green dot in the upper-right of the screen, indicating that they’re on. There are also now two optional toggles in Quick Settings for turning them off entirely at a system level.
When an app tries to use one of them, Android will pop up a box asking if you want to turn it back on. If you choose not to, the app thinks it has access to the camera or mic, but all Android gives it is a black nothingness and silence. It’s a mood.
For location, Google is adding another option for what kind of access you can grant an app. Alongside the options to limit access to one time or just when the app is open, there are settings for granting either “approximate” or “precise” locations. Approximate will let the app know your location with less precision, so it theoretically can’t guess your exact address. Google suggests it could be useful for things like weather apps. (Note that any permissions you’ve already granted will be grandfathered in, so you’ll need to dig into settings to switch them to approximate.)
Google is also creating a new “Privacy Dashboard” specifically focused on location, mic, and camera. It presents a pie chart of how many times each has been accessed in the last 24 hours along with a timeline of each time it was used. You can tap in and get to the settings for any app from there.
The Android Private Compute Core
Another new privacy feature is the unfortunately named “Android Private Compute Core.” Unfortunately, because when most people think of a “core,” they assume there’s an actual physical chip involved. Instead, think of the APCC as a sandboxed part of Android 12 for doing AI stuff.
Essentially, a bunch of Android machine learning functions are going to be run inside the APCC. It is walled-off from the rest of the OS, and the functions inside it are specifically not allowed any kind of network access. It literally cannot send or receive data from the cloud, Google says. The only way to communicate with the functions inside it is via specific APIs, which Google emphasizes are “open source” as some kind of talisman of security.
Talisman or no, it’s a good idea. The operations that run inside the APCC include Android’s feature for ambiently identifying playing music. That needs to have the microphone listening on a very regular basis, so it’s the sort of thing you’d want to keep local. The APCC also hands the “smart chips” for auto-reply buttons based on your own language usage.
An easier way to think of it is if there’s an AI function you might think is creepy, Google is running it inside the APCC so its powers are limited. And it’s also a sure sign that Google intends to introduce more AI features into Android in the future.
No news on app tracking — yet
Location, camera, mic, and machine learning are all privacy vectors to lock down, but they’re not the kind of privacy that’s on everybody’s mind right now. The more urgent concern in the last few months is app tracking for ad purposes. Apple has just locked all of that down with its App Tracking Transparency feature. Google itself is still planning on blocking third-party cookies in Chrome and replacing them with anonymizing technology.
What about Android? There have been rumors that Google is considering some kind of system similar to Apple’s, but there won’t be any announcements about it at Google I/O. However, Samat confirmed to me that his team is working on something:
There’s obviously a lot changing in the ecosystem. One thing about Google is it is a platform company. It’s also a company that is deep in the advertising space. So we’re thinking very deeply about how we should evolve the advertising system. You see what we’re doing on Chrome. From our standpoint on Android, we don’t have anything to announce at the moment, but we are taking a position that privacy and advertising don’t need to be directly opposed to each other. That, we don’t believe, is healthy for the overall ecosystem as a company. So we’re thinking about that working with our developer partners and we’ll be sharing more later this year.
The Android TV remote in Android 12.Image: Google
A few other features
Google has already announced a bunch of features in earlier developer betas, most of which are under-the-hood kind of features. There are “improved accessibility features for people with impaired vision, scrolling screenshots, conversation widgets that bring your favorite people to the home screen” and the already-announced improved support for third-party app stores. On top of those, there are a few neat little additions to mention today.
First, Android 12 will (finally) have a built-in remote that will work with Android TV systems like the Chromecast with Google TV or Sony TVs. Google is also promising to work with partners to get car unlocking working via NFC and (if a phone supports it) UWB. It will be available on “select Pixel and Samsung Galaxy phones” later this year, and BMW is on board to support it in future vehicles.
Android 12 will add some new integrations between Android phones and Chromebooks.GIF: Google
For people with Chromebooks, Google is continuing the trend of making them work better with Android phones. Later this year, Chrome OS devices will be able to immediately access new photos in an Android phone’s photo library over Wi-Fi Direct instead of waiting for them to sync up to the Google Photos cloud. Google still doesn’t have anything as good as AirDrop for quickly sending files across multiple kinds of devices, but it’s a good step.
Android already has fast pairing for quickly setting up Bluetooth devices, but it’s not built into the Bluetooth spec. Instead, Google has to work with individual manufacturers to enable it. A new one is coming on board today: Beats, which is owned by Apple. (Huh!) Ford and BMW cars will also support one-tap pairing.
Android Updates
As always, no story about a new version of Android would be complete without pointing out that the only phones guaranteed to get it in a timely manner are Google’s own Pixel phones. However, Google has made some strides in the past few years. Samat says that there has been a year-over-year improvement in the “speed of updates” to the tune of 30 percent.
A few years ago, Google changed the architecture of Android with something called Project Treble. It made the system a little more modular, which, in turn, made it easier for Android manufacturers to apply their custom versions of Android without mucking about in the core of it. That should mean faster updates.
Some companies have improved slightly, including the most important one, Samsung. However, it’s still slow going, especially for older devices. As JR Raphael has pointed out, most companies are not getting updates out in what should be a perfectly reasonable timeframe.
Beyond Treble, there may be some behind-the-scenes pressure happening. More and more companies are committing to providing updates for longer. Google also is working directly with Qualcomm to speed up updates. Since Qualcomm is, for all intents and purposes, the monopoly chip provider for Android phones in the US, that should make a big difference, too.
That’s all heartening, but it’s important to set expectations appropriately. Android will never match iOS in terms of providing timely near-universal updates as soon as a new version of the OS is available. There will always be a gap between the Android release and its availability for non-Pixel phones. That’s just the way the Android ecosystem works.
Android 12.Photo composite by Amelia Holowaty Krales and Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
That’s Android 12. It may not be the biggest feature drop in years, but it is easily the biggest visual overhaul in some time. And Android needed it. Over time and over multiple iterations, lots of corners of the OS were getting a little crufty as new ideas piled on top of each other. Android 12 doesn’t completely wipe the slate clean and start over, but it’s a significant and ambitious attempt to make the whole system feel more coherent and consistent.
The beta that’s available this week won’t get there — the version I’m using lacks the theming features, widgets, and plenty more. Those features should get layered in as we approach the official release later this year. Assuming that Google can get this fresh paint into all of the corners, it will make Google’s version of Android a much more enjoyable thing to use.
One of the best third-party camera apps for iOS, Halide, is coming to the iPad, its developer Lux announced today. The iPhone app has a reputation for the amount of control it gives you over your photographs, and this functionality has been carried over to the iPad along with a redesigned interface that’s optimized for larger displays. The app is free to existing Halide owners, while new users can either pay a one-off purchase fee ($40) or go with monthly ($1.99) or yearly ($11.99) subscriptions.
Using iPads to take photographs has a bit of a reputation problem. Not only do Apple’s tablets tend to have fewer and lower-specced rear cameras than its phones, but the act of taking a photograph using a large tablet often looks just plain goofy. At least Lux appears to be aware of one of the most egregious iPad photography sins: taking photos at a concert. The company is teasing a potential future “Concert Mode,” which could automatically disable the camera if it detects it’s being used at a show.
“Concert Mode is disabled for now – as we trust our users to Do The Right Thing,” Lux tells me, “but we’re going to be ruthless about bringing this in a future update if people cannot behave.”
The app’s controls have been reconfigured to work better with a larger display. It’s got a toggle to switch between modes for left- and right-handed users, and key features have their controls arranged around the edges of the screen where they’re within thumbs’ reach. Like the iPhone app, Halide on the iPad allows for manual control of ISO, shutter speed, focus, and supports its recent RAW photography modes.
One of the more interesting features of Halide’s iPad app is a “Pro View” mode, which is a toggle that shrinks the viewfinder into the center of the display. Lux’s argument is that this makes it easier to take in the entire viewfinder, and it has the side benefit of creating extra space around the edges of the display for a bigger histogram, waveform, manual focus, and other controls.
Halide’s launch on the iPad isn’t going to convince anyone that tablets are the best devices for taking photographs. But if you insist on going against the grain, at least there’s a nicer way to do it now.
Apple Music is being upgraded in a big, big way. From June, the music streaming service will support CD-quality and hi-res lossless audio as well as Dolby Atmos-powered Spatial Audio, offering subscribers much higher quality, immersive playback.
Both lossless and Spatial Audio will be available to Apple Music users at no extra cost. Apple describes these two additions as Apple Music’s “biggest advancement ever in sound quality” – which we’d have to agree with. “Excellent news. Well done, Apple!”, we thought upon hearing the news.
But here comes the (rather large) downside.
Apple’s own headphones don’t support lossless audio. None of them. That means even if you’ve spent £549 ($549, AU$899) on a pair of AirPods Max, you can’t listen to Apple Music in the highest quality. Miffed? We don’t blame you.
That’s not the whole story, though, and not the only Apple device not able to take advantage of the new Apple Music features. Let’s take a look at which devices can benefit from hi-res audio, which don’t, and why…
What is Apple Music Lossless?
Essentially, it’s Apple embracing hi-res audio. Apple’s lossless streams use ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) to offer more detail and information in a recording.
Apple offers three tiers of higher resolution audio: CD quality (16-bit/44.1kHz), Apple Music Lossless (24-bit/48kHz), and Hi-Res Lossless (up to 24-bit/192kHz). You can choose your quality through the Settings > Music > Audio Quality section of Apple Music.
As of next month, all of Apple Music’s 75-million-strong music catalogue will be available in CD quality or Apple Music Lossless. At launch, 20 million will be accessible in the highest quality Hi-Res Lossless format, with the whole catalogue following “by the end of 2021”.
Apple Music isn’t the first service to offer lossless streaming, of course. Tidal, Qobuz and Amazon Music HD all offer CD-quality and hi-res listening, while Deezer offers the former. The Spotify HiFi lossless tier is due to offer CD-quality streams later in the year too.
What is Spatial Audio?
Another new addition to Apple Music is Spatial Audio, which is an Apple technology designed to provide “multidimensional sound and clarity”; to deliver surround sound and 3D audio via your headphones.
Spatial Audio was initially launched as part of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, and the newer Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos feature for Apple Music is coming as part of the iOS 14.6 and iPadOS 14.6 updates that are due in June 2021.
Spatial Audio is a slightly different beast to this new Dolby Atmos-powered Spatial Audio for Apple Music in that it also utilises the sensors in Apple’s own headphones to enable head-tracking. Because the implementation for Apple Music of spatial audio is sound-only, there’s no head-tracking involved.
“Thousands” of Apple Music tracks will be available in Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos at launch, with more being added regularly.
Which Apple devices work with Apple Music lossless?
(Image credit: Apple)
The big news is that no model of AirPods will support lossless audio. In the case of the AirPods and AirPods Pro, that’s not exactly surprising, seeing as they’re both completely wireless and Apple only supports the AAC (rather than ALAC) codec over Bluetooth – that’s a step up from MP3, but nowhere near the quality of lossless.
The AirPods Max can be wired to an iPhone, so one might hope that that could be a way to get lossless audio. But actually they only work with analogue audio sources in wired listening mode. Which again means no lossless listening.
Its HomePod range of smart speakers also won’t support lossless – that’s the now discontinued HomePod and still-very-much-current HomePod Mini.
Apple’s iPhones (since the iPhone 7) natively support lossless – but only Apple Music Lossless, and not the highest quality Hi-Res Lossless (which delivers up to 24-bit/192kHz). If you want to listen to Apple Music tracks above 24-bit/48kHz on your iPhone, you’ll need to connect an external DAC and use a wired pair of headphones. Check out our guide for how to listen to hi-res audio on an iPhone.
The same is true of the Apple TV and iPad families, which are listed as supporting Apple Lossless, with no mention of Hi-Res Lossless.
Which Apple devices support Spatial Audio?
(Image credit: Apple)
Apple devices are much better represented when it comes to Spatial Audio through Apple Music. Some – like the AirPods Pro and Max – already support it, after all. And it will come to the standard AirPods 2 in due course.
In fact, it will be available on all AirPods and Beats headphones with an H1 or W1 chip. (That’s the AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, BeatsX, Beats Solo3 Wireless, Beats Studio3, Powerbeats3 Wireless, Beats Flex, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Solo Pro.) But you don’t have to line Apple’s pockets to hear the Dolby Atmos tracks: it will also work on any headphones connected to an iPhone or iPad. You just have to enable it manually.
To do so, head to Settings on your iPhone or iPad and then to Music – once the update has landed next month, a new Dolby Atmos option will be available. This will be set to Automatic by default, which means Dolby Atmos tracks will play correctly when you’re listening via any W1- or H1-enabled pair of Apple or Beats headphones, but not when you’re using third-party headphones. However, if you switch this option to Always On, even non-Apple headphones will play back Dolby Atmos tracks in all their sonic glory.
However, this only applies to Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio tracks on Apple Music, and not Spatial Audio content from other apps like TV. (Remember, Spatial Audio in the TV app is a slightly different beast in that it also utilises the sensors in Apple’s own headphones to enable head-tracking.)
The HomePod and HomePod Mini also support Spatial Audio, so you can fill your room with virtual 3D sound from a single device. As do the iPhone 11 onwards and iPad Pro (but not iPad, iPad Mini or iPad Air).
Playing from an Apple TV 4K into a Dolby Atmos soundbar or system will work too.
MORE:
Check out the best wireless headphones around
3D sound from a soundbar: Best Dolby Atmos soundbars
Try 30 Apple Music tips, tricks and features
Need new music? 10 Apple Music playlists to listen to right now
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