Software & Apps News - Page 16

Editing photos on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac just changed completely after the popular Photomator app from Pixelmator got a new update that adds support for new HDR features. The new update is now available in the App Store on all platforms and those who have the automatic update function enabled likely already have it installed without even knowing it.

The update, which Pixelmator announced via a press release, adds full HDR support for the first time. From now on, the release notes, users can choose to always work with HDR photos in Photomator or continue to work with SDR photos instead. All the usual editing tools will continue to work, and they've all been upgraded to add HDR support. However, users will need to have iOS 17 or later installed on the iPhone, iPadOS 17 or later on the iPad, or macOS Sonoma or later on the Mac for any of the new HDR editing to work.

Pixelmator also announced Smart HDR, a new feature that allows people to convert standard SDR photos to HDR. The press release says that users can now click a single button and then instantly convert an SDR photo into an HDR one. Those photos can then be edited just like any other HDR photo, we're told.

It sometimes feels like you can't take two steps in any direction without falling over a new AI feature right now and WhatsApp is no different. The popular Meta-owned instant messaging platform is reportedly testing a new feature that will make it easier for people to quickly access an AI-powered chat, although it's in very limited testing right now.

The new feature is only available to those who have the latest beta versions of the WhatsApp app installed on an iPhone or Android phone and even then, we're told your account needs to be enabled for you to see it. The number of people who fall into that category is a small one, so don't worry if you haven't seen this tweak yet.

The change was first reported by the WhatsApp beta watchers at WABetaInfo and apparently adds a new button to make it quicker to access a new AI-powered chat. The button is in the Chats tab which means that people can create a new chat with the help of AI without having to go through their chat list to find a previous AI chat.

Whenever you see a cool Instagram Reel and want to save it for later, the chances are that you have always had to just save it to Instagram. That is, unless you live in the United States where people have been able to download Reels ever since June. However, that's all changing now with the news that Instagram is rolling out downloadable Reels to everyone all around the globe.

The new change was announced by Instagram chief Adam Mosseri in a post to his Instagram channel and comes after months of only those in the United States having the option to physically download Reels.

However, there is still going to be a catch. As TechCrunch points out, Reels that are downloaded from Instagram will have a watermark that has the Instagram logo and the account's name. That isn't new of course, because we already see the same thing done by TikTok and YouTube and it's obvious why - it's to ensure that anything ripped from one service shows where it came from if it's uploaded somewhere else.

Keeping your files in the cloud is a great way to make sure that you always have access to them when you need them. It's also possible to use that cloud storage as a kind of way to back up your data, although it's important to remember that anything that syncs isn't strictly backup. Regardless, encrypting that data is important and now Mac owners have another option for storing their data online.

Proton Drive launched on the web a few months back and then launched mobile and Windows versions of its apps. Until now, the encrypted cloud storage service was only available to Mac users when they visited the Proton Drive website, but that's all changed with the launch of a proper Mac app for the first time.

The new app means that Proton Drive is now properly multi-platform and that's good news for people who want to rely on it because it means they can access their data in more ways. The new Mac app is now available for download and promises full encryption of files and folders by default. It gives users 1GB of data storage for free with additional options for those who need extra capacity. Plans start at $4 per month for 200GB of storage and versioning is available on each file for up to 10 years, which is handy should something go awry.

Spotify is reportedly testing a tweak that will allow music fans to turn off its popular personalized recommendations system. That system currently allows Spotify to recommend new music based on the songs and artists that a user likes and frequently listens to, but a new report claims that there is work afoot to give people the ability to disable all of that.

The testing was first reported by MacRumors, although it isn't yet clear how it will work or how Spotify will market it. However, it seems likely that Spotify will give users the opportunity to temporarily disable the personalized recommendation system to allow them to listen to songs without having those songs negatively impact future recommendations. The most obvious use for such a feature is road trips where a family member's songs could alter recommendations moving forward. Nobody wants Baby Shark to have an effect on which songs they're recommended, do they?

If that all sounds familiar, it should. Apple recently started testing a similar function in the current iOS 17.2 beta that allows people to disable Apple Music's listening history when they are in a particular Focus Mode. With that in mind, music fans with a Driving Focus Mode could have their listening history disabled when driving but then have it automatically turn back on when they aren't.

When making what he saw as a stand against ugly URL cards posted by online publishers, Elon Musk took the decision to have X remove headlines from those cards in the name of 'aesthetics'. However, that meant that readers would have to open the link just to see what it was about, which in turn made for a terrible experience. Now, Musk seems to have seen the error of his ways and is now turning this car around - and headlines are coming back.

In a post to the X social network, previously known as Twitter, Musk confirmed that X will overlay the title in the upper portion of the image posted on a URL card, making it easier for people to understand what they are about to read without having to first open it. This comes a few weeks after the initial change that saw publishers find new and interesting ways to convey their message.

For some that involved simply putting the title of the piece in the X post itself, while others got more creative and chose to embed the title in the imagery instead. However, it now appears that none of those workarounds will be required soon.

If you've been following along with the OpenAI controversy over the last few days you will know that the company fired its CEO, hired another one, and then got rid of them and took the original CEO back all in the space of a weekend and change. But after all of that, the company still managed to find the time to launch a new feature.

To be more specific, it took an old feature and rolled it out to more people. The ChatGPT voice chat feature was previously limited to people who paid for the Plus or Enterprise subscriptions which meant that those who use the free version of ChatGPT were unable to take advantage of it. However, that's all changed after co-founder Greg Brockman shared the news via a post on X, the social network previously known as Twitter.

The ChatGPT voice chat feature allows iPhone and Android app users to speak to the chatbot and then have it answer back using a synthesized voice. It's similar to Siri and other digital assistants in that sense, but it's backed by the OpenAI Large Language Model that has made ChatGPT such a huge deal for people around the world of late. That also means that it's lightyears ahead of Siri and those similar assistants.

Whenever you sign into WhatsApp you have to wait for the instant messaging service to send through an SMS with a six-digit code for you to enter. And that's fine most of the time, except when it isn't. And for those times WhatsApp is now implementing a whole new way to verify that you're who you say you are.

As noted by the WhatsApp watchers at WABetaInfo, a new version of the WhatsApp app now available in the App Store seems to have enabled a new feature that allows users to verify themselves using their email address for the first time. The change means that users can now request the verification code be sent to their email address, allowing them to sign in that way.

This is of course huge news for people who need to sign into their WhatsApp account but don't have an active cellular connection. That could be when they are outside of cell service, for example, and is one of those very times when something like WhatsApp could be so vital.

Those wanting to use the Media Creation Tool to install the latest version of Windows 11, the 2023 Update (or 23H2), will be pleased to hear this is now possible.

Normally, this would be the case pretty much straightaway following the release of a new version of Windows, and indeed Microsoft updated the current version of the Media Creation Tool to indicate it would install 23H2 just after the upgrade was launched.

However, to the confusion of those using the tool, it actually fetched the 22H2 version of Windows 11 instead.

Being able to choose what drive or directory to install a PC game on is not something you'd consider a luxury feature. It has been a point of contention for the Microsoft Store since the storefront debuted with Windows 8 in 2012. Fast forward to 2023, and the Microsoft Store app in Windows 11 (version 22310) has finally been updated to do just that - including the ability to install games like Starfield and Halo Infinite on an external drive.

You can now buy a game directly from the Microsoft Store and choose a drive or location on your PC to install it. To quote Jim Carrey from The Cable Guy, "The future is now!" For those using the Xbox app on Windows 10 or 11, you'll undoubtedly be aware that this has been a feature for a little while now - so it is great to see it finally make its way to the Microsoft Store proper.

It's just wild that it's taken so long and that Microsoft can tout what should be the norm as a brand-new feature coming to an app that has been around for over a decade.