Author: Cameron Summerson / Source: How-To Geek
The biggest news from the last 24 hours is undoubtedly Apple’s new services, but Sony had a thing or two worth talking about in its first State of Play live stream as well. Oh, and there’s more AirPower stuff. Heh.
Apple News: Services!
Apple announced a lot of new stuff yesterday, but despite that, it was still pretty light on details. Here’s what we know right now.
- First up is News+, the company’s buffet-style magazine and newspaper service. It’s actually really cool. And available now! [Engadget]
- Then we have Arcade, which is an interesting take on mobile gaming. You pay one (still currently-unknown) fee, and you play all the games on available on the service. I’m curious. [Ars Technica, Gizmodo]
- The TV app (not to be confused with Apple TV the product) is getting a makeover to house all of your streaming services in one place. Oh, and it’s coming to smart TVs, Roku devices, and Fire TV. That’s huge. [Apple Insider, 9to5Mac]
- Then there’s TV+ (again, not to be confused with TV the app or TV the product), the home of Apple’s new original content. There were a lot of celebrities on tap to announce this one (including Oprah herself), but pricing and availability were nowhere to be found. Cool. [Engadget]
- Apple also announced a credit card. It’s made of titanium, baked into Apple Pay at its core, and is focused on privacy. It sounds really cool and equally as over-the-top. I…kind of want one. [The Verge, Gizmodo]
- The entire event was about an hour and 50 minutes, but if you want to see the TL;DR version, MacRumors condensed that bad boy down to six action-packed minutes. [MacRumors on YouTube]
- In not-announced-yesterday-news, AirPower made another surprise appearance. This time on the AirPods 2 packaging. They’re just taunting us at this point. [9to5Mac]
- iOS 12.2, which brings support for News+ (and a bunch of other stuff) started rolling out yesterday. We have the details. [How-To Geek]
- Hidden deep in the depths of iOS 12.2, Beats’ AirPods competitor was uncovered. Does this mean Apple is going to compete with itself? [Engadget]
- In dramatically different news, Apple confirmed that it will be closing its Frisco and Plano, TX store locations. Weird, man. [9to5Mac]
The past week(ish) has been surprisingly busy for Apple; last week it announced new iPads and iMacs, as well as updated AirPods. This all lead up to yesterday’s event which was focused on the new services that have been cooking for a while now. While some are already available—like News+—others were simply given the basic “later this year” timetable.
For me, the most surprising announcement was the Apple Card. Sure, it’s been making the rounds as a rumor for several weeks now, but to actually see it and get the details is something else altogether. It makes a lot of sense that it’s essentially “made” for Apple Pay—getting more people to…
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