Apple continues to talk high praise of Apple Music, most recently leaking that the service has 10 million paying subscribers, but it has remained somewhat quiet about its Beats 1 online 24/7 radio station. Beats 1 launched to much fanfare with Zane Lowe leading the effort, and while it seems to be doing decently, it isn’t a sensation in the music business yet. It’s especially timely to talk about Beats 1 now that Apple has retired the iTunes Radio ad-supported stations, leaving Beats 1 as the only way to get free streaming music from Apple. I’m intrigued by the uptake of the station — there’s a poll to find out how often you tune in below the break — as it seems Beats 1 has an awareness issue.

I tend to like the music that is played but I just forget to tune in. I think Beats 1 is good but Apple needs to support it better within iOS and iTunes to make it stickier. Here are some suggestions …

Use the poll above to give your input on Beats 1 usage. Even in the best case, I think it is pretty evident that Beats 1 could use some more features. At a high level, Beats 1 feels like an analog station. What follows are some ideas to make it more modern and approachable plus my thoughts on how Apple could make Beats 1 better in general.

At the top of my list of wants is some kind of push notifications or alerts system for Beats 1 shows. The station is meant to be worldwide and always-on but the only way to know what’s coming up is to check the schedule on the Beats 1 pages. Apple should add a feature to iOS so you can subscribe to hosts or particular shows, alerting you to when those shows goes live. For instance, I want to be alerted every time Zane Lowe goes live. Another example: I really like the chart show where the host recaps the top songs at the moment and gives some commentary. I have no idea when it’s on though and a push notifications feature would help me tune in to listen.

Going further, Apple has this Connect social networking feature where you can already follow artists that you want to learn more about. Beats 1 regularly features some fantastic interviews with musicians. If I explicitly follow them on Apple Music Connect, I want to know if they are on the air. There’s no affordance for that stuff today. Connect may not have set the world on fire as a social network, but at least try to make it better and more integrated with the rest of Apple Music and avoid yet another Ping.

You know the Handoff app shortcut spot on the lock screen? Apple could add a way to permanently set a shortcut app there. This would benefit all iOS users really as you could just put your favorite or most-used software in the slot for quick access, but it would personally help me get to Beats 1 more often. It’s a chore to drill-down from the Home screen into the tabs of the Music app just to start some music in the morning. Putting it on the lock screen makes it eminently more instinctive to start listening. The latest iPhones add 3D Touch shortcuts, but lock screen access would reach all devices. Even as I sit here writing this article, I want some background music playing but I can’t be bothered to navigate to Beats 1 …

Apple is competing against traditional radio and right now Beats 1 is slower. With a home radio, you press the power button and music starts playing. Apple has to get closer to that ease of use for it to be more compelling. It’s a modern electronic digital device — there are even opportunities to be smarter, like only showing my Music app shortcuts when I plug in headphones or connect to Bluetooth speakers. Apple started some of this with iOS 9’s Proactive shortcuts, but it should be expanded to be more explicit and less hit-and-miss.

I have even considered whether Apple should break out Beats 1 into a dedicated app. Right now, it’s stuck beneath a tab inside the Music app but thinking about it, it doesn’t really fit in. It’s free form radio with few user controls. The other Apple Music ‘Radio Stations’ are really dressed-up playlists, as you can skip tracks and thumbs up songs you like. If Beats 1 was a separate app, I honestly think I would use it more. I would at least remember that it exists.

I’m generally resistant to Home screen stock app creep but in this case, it seems justified. Maybe it would be an optional download from the App Store or a default app that you can uninstall. It would contain the live streaming service as well as UI to access information about the schedule and past broadcasts for replay. I think when Apple inevitably expands the initiative to include more stations (to use the obvious name, ‘Beats 2’), breaking the service out into a dedicated app makes a lot of sense to streamline the experience. It would also make the Music app less confusing: it could refine the UI with less features to worry about accommodating into one screen.

Moreover, there are some obvious low-hanging fruit opportunities to improve listener interaction with Beats 1. You could have some voting options for the Best Of roundups or add a facility for listener shoutouts directly from the Beats 1 app. Right now, this interaction happens over Twitter but the @Beats1 account only has ~300,000 followers, so it’s not a huge attention driver. Beats 1 includes a Mixtape segment where you can submit songs: there is the space to do these recommendations right within Music. Currently, Beats hosts ask for user participation by sending in iMessages to a special iCloud address. That feels antiquated. Ultimately, these features would drive engagement and increase the Beats 1 audience.

Beats 1 has a lot of shows with famous hosts, but do people know when they are on air?

There’s always marketing to fall back on too. There is a lot of advertising for Apple Music as a service but Beats 1 is generally left alone. I think the idea of a freely available 24/7 radio station is a very compelling idea for prospective iOS customers. Apple should feature it more prominently in its TV commercials as a way to sell iPhones and iPads. When I casually mention Beats 1 to friends or family, they almost universally don’t know it exists. There is an obvious need for more awareness that the radio station exists.

Aside from traditional media marketing, there could also be hooks in the iTunes Store to push Beats 1. Contextually, people who go to listen to an artist usually like following their work and want to hear more of them. This enables some opportunities for Apple to do tasteful in-app marketing.  For instance, searching in iTunes or the Music app for music featuring Drake or Dre would show banners promoting their respective shows on Beats 1. In one tap, you could add a calendar reminder so you remember to tune in when they are on next.

Although this will help drive people to Beats 1, I got the idea from the Proactive suggestions. It is marketing but it isn’t really that intrusive or forced in your face. The Music app already includes ‘Related’ suggestions for other albums to buy — this is the same concept but applied to live radio. Naturally, Apple could include a settings toggle to disable the recommendations feature for people who don’t want it.

Finally, you can never beat having more content available for people to listen to. We did a poll a few weeks ago about new stations, and there is clearly demand for diversification into new areas like sports and news coverage … as well as people wanting more specialized music channels for certain genres. Although Beats 1 is advertised as a 24/7 station, it isn’t really true. The schedule is set up on a 12 hour basis, so for the other 12 hours it plays a recording of the last 12 hours.

This is frustrating for me, being based in the UK. If I listen in the afternoon and in the following morning, I am likely to hear the same shows repeated. Apple has done well in getting a huge roster of well-known talent on board with shows (including famous names like Elton John and Pharrell Williams) but they need to fulfil their promise of it being a truly ‘always-on’ station.

In summary, Beats 1 as a concept is great. I was skeptical back when Apple running a 7-day radio station was just a rumor. It was a pretty crazy move, but I think they’ve proven it’s a valid idea. It needs some work on the software side and the production side to make it really shine and motivate users to come back and listen on a regular basis. Let us know your thoughts about Beats 1 in the comments below …

Filed under: Apple Music, iOS, iOS Devices, Tech Industry Tagged: Apple Music, Beats, Beats 1, Music, radio station, zane lowe

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Recent software updates have really turned me on to the new Apple TV by adding features previously available on the last generation set-top box. The new Apple TV has redesigned apps and a whole App Store for finding new channels and games, a new Siri Remote with voice search that pulls in content from a handful of services, and there’s the full Apple Music experience too. The tvOS 9.1 update added Siri search for Apple Music ahead of schedule and brought support for Apple’s Remote app on iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches. The upcoming tvOS 9.2 update goes even further by bringing over an updated Podcasts app and adding app folders and a refreshed app switcher user interface. But there’s still just one more piece of low-hanging fruit left for the Apple TV to grab …

Siri Remote’s ability to click and hold the microphone button from anywhere on Apple TV and ask a question or give a command like “How’s the weather this weekend?” or “Show me the Minions movie” sets it apart from older Apple TV boxes and makes it more modern like Android TV and Amazon Fire TV boxes. In the United States, Siri can search Movies and TV shows in iTunes, HBO GO, HBO NOW, Hulu, Netflix, PBS, PBS Kids, SHOWTIME, and SHOWTIME Anytime. More providers are being added over time, but obvious partners missing include YouTube and all the major broadcast channels like ABC, CBS, and NBC which have nice selections of current and past TV shows and other content.

When you land on a channel without support for Siri Remote’s voice search, the natural behavior when facing a search field on your TV with a microphone button under your finger is to click and speak what you’d like to search, but iPhone-style dictation for text input just isn’t a feature. Instead, Siri Remote points to tvOS’s universal search and doesn’t recognize the context of what’s on-screen. Designing around this problem would be difficult, no doubt, but I’d propose one of two solutions.

Either recognize a search field in apps other than Apple’s universal search app and let the microphone button default to voice dictation for text input when a keyboard is displayed rather than Sir’s system wide search for the handful of partners, or map voice dictation for text input to a new gesture like double-click the microphone button rather than pressing and holding it to access this same mode.

Neither of these solutions are totally elegant and present their own issues, but either one solves a problem that regularly slows me down when looking for specific content to play. The current workaround to access voice dictation for text input in search fields on any app is to use the Remote app on iPhone or iPad. Because iOS lets you tap the same microphone icon found on the Siri Remote to access voice-to-text input, you can technically search any app using your voice and your iOS device already, just not with your Siri Remote.

Perhaps when Apple’s revamped Remote app adopts features currently available on the Siri Remote hardware later this year it’ll be possible to use the Remote app even more and save the Siri Remote as a backup input device. As it stands now, the Remote app on iOS and watchOS is more limited and often leads to having UI elements like progress bars and closed caption toggles stuck on-screen, although it’s a much appreciated app to my family.

What do you think? Does the new Apple TV have any obvious low-hanging fruit features that you hope to see added, or does Bluetooth keyboard support and the Remote app plus Siri Remote totally satisfy you? Let us know in the comments. And in the meantime, checkout what’s coming soon in tvOS 9.2 with our hands-on video:

I’d still like to see a dedicated Apple TV app on iOS similar to the iPhone’s Apple Watch companion app, and shaving $20-50 off the price would make the new Apple TV easier to recommend, but dictation in search fields for all apps would be a relatively simple improvement in my view.

Filed under: Apple TV, Feature Request, iOS, iOS Devices Tagged: Apple, Apple Music, Apple TV, remote, remote app, Siri Remote, tvOS, YouTube

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The Super Bowl kicks off on February 7th at Levi’s Stadium, in close vicinity to the headquarters of major tech firms including Apple. Usually, the Super Bowl is funded by local government sponsorships. This year, tech companies are (at least partially) footing the bill. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has contributed free products and equipment to the host committee and has explicitly declined any company or product marketing in exchange. Apple joins other tech companies like Alphabet, Yahoo, Seagate and HP in funding the proceedings — the Super Bowl committee has raised about $50 million in total from these firms.

Why Apple wants to sponsor essentially in secret (having turned down opportunities for logo placement) is unclear. In Yahoo News on Friday, it was reported that Apple was helping out simply because it was the right thing to do:

“Our sponsors will get a lot of attention in the Bay Area because they stepped up early to be a part of this,” says Bruce. “Apple was the very first company of all our sponsors to step up. And the reason they did that is because they realized that it was important to Silicon Valley. It was during a bit of a transition time from Steve [Jobs] to Tim [Cook], and they told us, ‘This is the right thing to do. We’re building a mega campus that will be a stone’s throw from the stadium.’ They have no interest in the marketing rights, they have no interest in using our logo. But they’re promoting the partnership a lot internally to their employees.”

The motivation for other businesses is obvious: Uber is advertising ‘official’ NFL transport at the event as a way to promote its taxi services. In return for the financial support, sponsors are allowed to use the NFL logo mark in their own advertising around the event. However, it appears Apple is not interested in that either. Apple believes its logo is more influential than the NFL’s and if anything, the NFL should be paying Apple to use its trademarks.

If you ask Bruce, Apple doesn’t much care about the rights to the NFL logo anyway. “Their opinion,” he says, “is that the NFL should pay them for the right to use their mark. Because their mark is more valuable than the NFL shield.”

Although Apple is a sponsor through this deal, they are not necessarily involved with the game itself. There is some speculation that this arrangement means Apple will run an advertising commercial during the Super Bowl this year but it is not guaranteed. Apple was rumored to run a Super Bowl commercial in 2014 for the 50th anniversary of the Mac, but this never transpired.

Alas, nothing will be as iconic as the 1984 ad, arguably one of the world’s most notable Super Bowl ads ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I

Filed under: AAPL Company, iOS, iOS Devices, Tech Industry Tagged: Apple, sponsor, Super Bowl, Tim Cook

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Apple has finally managed to secure a sales ban over some Samsung phone features that infringe on its patents and intellectual property. However, the victory is effectively manginess despite the milestone in its continuing patent litigation suit with Samsung in ever-longer court battles.

Apple’s ban resides over three features encumbered by its patents: the controversial ‘slide to unlock’ patent, predictive text technology and autocorrect. Getting a ban is a huge symbolic achievement, but the effect it will have on day-to-day business of the two companies is minor. The ban is effectively useless as FOSS Patents explains …

Primarily, the ban only applies to older models of Samsung phone. Most of the affected devices are outdated in the US and no longer sold. It’s nowhere close to a ban on Samsung’s flagship Galaxy phones, that’s for sure. A good example is the slide-to-unlock patent — no ‘721. The wording of the patent is such that it only affects certain visual types of unlock patterns, it doesn’t encapsulate wording for wider applications. Even at the original trial in 2014, Apple was only claiming infringement on a select number of Samsung’s devices. The Galaxy Nexus is notably affected by this, but who is buying a Galaxy Nexus nowadays? It’s a five-year old phone.

Another amusing wrinkle for the quick links patents is that its set to expire at the beginning of February. The enforcement of the injunction has a 30 day leeway period, where Samsung is given some time to make necessary adjustments to its products. However, because the patent expires within that 30 day window, the ban is literally meaningless.

Unsurprisingly, Samsung is still disappointed with the conclusion, as it would with any decision that favoured Apple. In a statement to Bloomberg, Samsung said the ruling creates a bad precedent for future patent cases.

“We are very disappointed,” Samsung said in an e-mailed statement. “While this will not impact American consumers, it is another example of Apple abusing the judicial system to create bad legal precedent, which can harm consumer choice for generations to come.”

The start of these trials date all the way back to 2010, with Steve Jobs wanting to go ‘thermonuclear on Android’. Tim Cook has taken a very different stance, calling patent litigation a distracting ‘pain in the ass’. Apple has not filed further lawsuits since the initial bout leading most to believe that Apple will not ignite further litigation under Cook’s leadership. However, the residual fallout from the Samsung-Apple case will continue for some time yet.

Filed under: AAPL Company, General, iOS, iOS Devices, Tech Industry Tagged: Apple, Galaxy Nexus, Google, iOS, patents, Samsung

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Over the weekend, Apple posted its latest EEO-1 statement: the Equal Employment Opportunity form follows government regulations to note diversity of Apple’s employee base (via AppleInsider). The newly-released 2015 statement shows that 30 percent of Apple’s employees in the United States are female, a rise of 1% over the numbers posted in the 2014 statement. Black and Hispanic employees make up 8.6 percent and 11.7 percent of the workforce, respectively.

At an executive level, Apple continues to be heavily stacked towards white men. The report says that Apple’s senior officials, executives and managers are 83 percent are male, and 83 percent are white.

That being said, it’s worth noting that Apple refutes the EEO-1 process. It says that the federally-enforced survey is outdated and does not reflect reality. The company’s own numbers paint itself in a much better light, claiming >50% growth in employment of black, Hispanic and female hires.

This is how Tim Cook talks about Apple’s diversity efforts in a letter posted on its Diversity site last year. On that same page, Apple pours cold water on the EEO-1 numbers, explaining that whilst it is a benchmark for comparison across companies, it is not how Apple measures its progress. Apple has not updated its diversity site with the latest data however.

Last year we reported the demographics of our employees for the first time externally, although we have long prioritized diversity. We promised to improve those numbers and we’re happy to report that we have made progress. In the past year we hired over 11,000 women globally, which is 65 percent more than in the previous year. In the United States, we hired more than 2,200 Black employees — a 50 percent increase over last year — and 2,700 Hispanic employees, a 66 percent increase. In total, this represents the largest group of employees we’ve ever hired from underrepresented groups in a single year. Additionally, in the first 6 months of this year, nearly 50 percent of the people we’ve hired in the United States are women, Black, Hispanic, or Native American.

Apple says the EEO-1 statement ‘has not kept pace with changes in industry or the American workforce over the past half century’. It’s unclear what Apple means by this exactly, but it at least addresses the discrepancies. Apple says its own data is a more accurate representation of reality. Regardless of whether you agree with the methodologies, Apple’s diversity stats are better than most of the industry.

Apple has also made a big note of highlighting the role of women in its company over the last few years. Following Ahrendts high-profile appointment to SVP in 2014, Apple gave demo time to two female managers on its keynote stage: Jennifer Bailey (presenting Apple Pay) and Susan Prescott (presenting Apple News). Bailey also appeared at the Code/Mobile conference earlier in the year.

Filed under: AAPL Company, Developers, iOS, iOS Devices Tagged: Apple, Discrimination, diversity, EEO-1, gender, Government, iOS, racial

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CBC News is reporting that Apple would not disclose Apple ID passwords to a widow after presenting her late husband’s death certificates and her will. Instead, Apple demanded Peggy Bush, 72, to attain a court order in order to gain access to the account. See the video after the jump for the full story.

Initially, Apple said that a death certificate would suffice but the company changed its mind on followup calls, making this situation even more frustrating for Bush. She just wanted to play her iPad freemium card game in peace. Law regarding digital assets after death is murky, although Bush points out that death certificates enabled her to transfer pensions and benefits, making it seem ridiculous that Apple would also not cooperate with the same information.

“I thought it was ridiculous. I could get the pensions, I could get benefits, I could get all kinds of things from the federal government and the other government. But from Apple, I couldn’t even get a silly password. It’s nonsense,” 72-year-old Peggy Bush told Go Public.

CBC contacted Apple directly, who have since sorted the specific problem with Bush’s case, but it would not elaborate on its company policies regarding iCloud and Apple ID ownership after death. This serves as a warning for others to sort out their digital assets ahead of time, perhaps by sharing important account passwords with trustworthy friends. Apple said that Bush’s situation was a “misunderstanding” but refused to comment further.

Many are asking for government oversight of digital-accounts-after-death situations, demanding laws be modernized to treat account data in the same as any other possession when someone passes away. Independent of the confusion associated with this particular case, Apple is clearly lagging behind in this area. Facebook and Google have made big leaps in accommodating deaths with their respective cloud services. For example, Google has a clear process for Google account recovery after death posted on its website. Apple has no such form. Users who find themselves needing iCloud and Apple ID ownership transfer should contact Apple Support for assistance.

Filed under: AAPL Company, Apps, General, iOS, iOS Devices, Tech Industry Tagged: account, after death, Apple ID, icloud, iOS

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According to a new investigation performed by Amnesty International, Apple is one of several technology companies using cobalt mined by child labor in their lithium-ion batteries. The report claims that Apple, Sony, Samsung, and Microsoft are all using the cobalt mined by child labor, as are electric car makes like Volkswagen and Daimler.

There are a handful of steps before the cobalt actually gets to an iPhone, however. Traders first purchase the mined cobalt from small producers, then sell it to Congo Dongfang Mining, which is a subsidiary of Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Ltd, a Chinese mineral retailer. Battery manufacturers are next to acquire the cobalt, using it to produce the lithium-ion batteries found in smartphones like the iPhone.

Amnesty International conducted interviews with 87 current and former cobalt miners, 17 of which were children. The children told the organization that they worked 12 hours a day in the mines, carrying heavy loads and earning between one and two dollars per day. One 14-year-old boy stated that he would work 24 hour shifts in the tunnels. There are an estimated 40,000 children working in mines throughout the Democratic Republic of the Congo, some as young as seven.

Regarding the Amnesty International report, Apple issued a statement to the BBC. The company reaffirmed that it has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to the use of child labor in its supply chain. Apple says it is currently investigating the claims against its cobalt supplier.

“Underage labour is never tolerated in our supply chain and we are proud to have led the industry in pioneering new safeguards.  We are currently evaluating dozens of different materials, including cobalt, in order to identify labour and environmental risks as well as opportunities for Apple to bring about effective, scalable and sustainable change.”

When a supplier is found to be violating child labor laws, Apple forces it to perform the following tasks:

• fund the worker’s safe return home
• finance the worker’s education at a school chosen by the worker or his/her family
• continue to pay the worker’s wages
• offer him or her a job when he or she reaches legal age to work.

Every year Apple releases a Supplier Responsibility Progress Report that discloses information discovered in audits of its suppliers around the world. Last year, the company dropped four smelters from its supply chain after they refused a conflict-free audit. In 2014, Apple was put under fire for a BBC documentary that claimed to show the negative working environment of Apple’s supply chain. Following the accusations, Tim Cook said he was “deeply offended” by the allegations and that Apple is constantly working to improve working conditions.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple, battery, Child labor, iOS, Manufacturing

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2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump today held a rally at Liberty University in Virginia during which he spoke about his normal wide range of topics. This time, however, Trump brought Apple into his speech when discussing how to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States and away from countries like China.

Trump told the audience at Liberty University that to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States he would make Apple “build their damn computers in this country.” While this isn’t a bad idea, or even the first time it has been suggested, Trump didn’t offer any specifics on how he would force Apple to abruptly change its manufacturing (via Gizmodo).

We have such amazing people in this country: smart, sharp, energetic, they’re amazing,” Trump said. “I was saying make America great again, and I actually think we can say now, and I really believe this, we’re gonna get things coming… we’re gonna get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country, instead of in other countries.”

There’s currently no legal reason as to why Apple would have to bring all of its manufacturing stateside under a Trump presidency, although factors like incentives and tax breaks for the company could be offered. Nevertheless, Trump didn’t detail his plans for forcing Apple to manufacture in the United States at all.

During 60 Minutes last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained that the reason Apple manufacturers is not the lower wages, but rather the skills that those workers possess. Cook noted of how China put an enormous focus on manufacturing and vocational skills.

“China put an enormous focus on manufacturing. The U.S., over time, began to stop having as many vocational kind of skills. I mean, you can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we’re currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields.”

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple, Donald Trump, Manufacturing

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Today we’re taking a quick look at two Incase sleeves made specifically for Apple’s 12″ Retina MacBook. Neoprene Classic Sleeve ($39.95) comes in five colors and zips the 12″ MacBook in a low-profile soft carrying case. ICON Sleeve ($69.95) has a slightly larger profile that makes it thinner and ditches zippers for a tight-fitting opening at one end.  We compare both MacBook sleeves in detail below:

Both sleeves perfectly fit the 12″ Retina MacBook without adding spare space or slots for lots of adapters and accessories. Neoprene Classic Sleeve can accommodate throwing in a USB-C cable and power adapter for charging away from home while ICON Sleeve achieves a thinner profile with no room for carrying extras.

Neoprene Classic Sleeve measures 12″ wide by 8.75″ tall by 1″ thick without a MacBook inside. Slipping a notebook inside stiffens the sleeve and leaves room for a power adapter and cable inside with a footprint barely larger than the 12″ MacBook. The Neoprene Sleeve is lined with white faux fur to safely stow away a laptop just like Incase’s other classic sleeves fit for other MacBooks. Two zippers run across the wide top of the sleeve to either secure the notebook inside or offer access to it or accessories.

While I tested black, Neoprene Classic also comes in Dolphin Gray, Racing Red, Midnight Blue, and Pink Sapphire. Incase’s Neoprene Classic Sleeve is an affordable option for 12″ MacBook owners looking for a low-profile sleeve to tote the ultra-slim notebook around.

ICON Sleeve is a bit more expensive and doesn’t leave room for carrying around a MacBook charger, but it features an attractive design and slimmer profile than Neoprene Classic. The exterior measures roughly 1.25″ wide by 9″ tall by 0.75″ thick. The left side of ICON Sleeve’s flap pulls back to reveal a slit inside just fit to snuggly hold a 12″ MacBook. Incase touts the ability to charge the enclosed MacBook thanks to this slot’s position.

A sturdy material called Tensaerlite acts as a bumper around the opening to absorb shock during drops and generally keep the MacBook secure inside ICON Sleeve during travel. The sleeve cleverly uses magnets to keep the opening securely shut when during travel without using zippers or velcro. Most importantly, during testing I never felt concerned that the MacBook would slide out and the notebook never took any tumbles.

I tested the good-looking Heather Gray/Black version, but an all Black version is also available. ICON Sleeve feels a tad bit more protective and the Heather Gray color looks and feels nice if you’re a fan of this style. ICON Sleeve is made especially for 12″ MacBook owners looking for an inconspicuous way to travel with the slim notebook while respecting the thinness of the computer.

Both Incase sleeves are useful as standalone carrying solutions if you don’t need to lug along chargers and adapters. Personally, I’ve enjoyed traveling with ICON Sleeve inside my own backpack to comfortably pack it to the limits without worrying about something scratching the surface of my MacBook. For more Incase bags and cases, check them out online here.

Filed under: Mac, Reviews Tagged: Incase, MacBook, sleeve

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Apple has notified developers that App Store prices in Canada, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore and South Africa are increasing. Customers in these regions will see prices for apps and in-app purchases rise within the next 72 hours. If you have a renewing subscription, Apple will notify you with an email about the price change ahead of the next subscription payment, although customers in Russia and South Africa will have to resubscribe manually.

Low price tiers are also being introduced into Canadian and New Zealand markets; Alternate Price Tier A and Alternate Prier Tier B. These offer alternate price increments for developers, useful for smaller items like In-App Purchases. In emerging markets, the alternate tiers are extremely cheap, often as low as 20 cents USD when converted. The price differential for Canada and New Zealand will not be as drastic.

Prices in Romanian App Store are remaining the same for customers, but developers will see slightly increased profits on every sale due to changes in regional VAT changing from 24% to 20%.

Expect to see the price changes roll out to the App Store in affected countries over the next three days. Apple adjusts prices periodically in response to exchange rate changes.

Filed under: AAPL Company, Apps, Developers, iOS Devices, Tech Industry Tagged: Apps, developer, developers, iOS

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