Software & Apps - Page 42

Google has quietly increased the price of its YouTube Premium and YouTube Music subscription services, with both of their websites updated to reflect the new prices. However, there is no official announcement of anything changing.

The price increases mean that it is now more expensive than ever to subscribe to Google's services.

YouTube Premium has now been increased to $13.99 per month in the United States which is a $2 price hike over the previous price. That's for the monthly price, but the annual subscription has also increased by $20 to $139.99.

Owners of Google Wear OS-powered Smartwatches like the Pixel Watch can now download and install WhatsApp on their wrists for the very first time. The news was confirmed by Meta via a post to Twitter.

None of this should be all that surprising to anyone paying attention of course. The WhatsApp Wear OS app was teased during Google I/O so it was only a matter of time until the app was released.

Those hoping to install WhatsApp will need to have a smartwatch running Wear OS 3 (or later) but assuming that's all squared away there shouldn't be all that many problems. The release also comes just as Samsung is expected to announce its next generation of smartwatches. The Galaxy Watch 6 and Galaxy Watch 6 Classic are expected to be announced on July 26 and there's some suggestion that they will be the first to run Wear OS 4. If so, this timing from Meta and Google, bringing WhatsApp to Wear OS today, is unlikely to have happened by accident.

YouTube has rolled out a new feature to YouTube Premium subscribers that enables video playback speed to be increased much easier.

The new feature will be greatly appreciated by users that are avid podcast or lecture listeners, especially considering the ease of access to the new feature. According to reports from 9to5Google, to adjust playback speed now users need to press the screen, navigate and press the settings option (gear icon), then select the desired speed. YouTube's new feature only requires users to hold down on the video for two seconds, as this will enable 2x speed playback.

Once the gesture is completed YouTube will notify the user with a "Playing at 2x speed" message at the top of the window. Notably, this new feature is only available for YouTube Premium members and is currently undergoing a testing phase that will end on August 13. If you are interested in testing some of YouTube's coming features you can opt in here.

TikTok is looking to challenge the biggest music streaming platforms with its own service called "TikTok Music," and it's rolling out the service in three markets.

The new app is being rolled out in Australia, Mexico, and Singapore, and according to TikTok, users within those regions are invited to join a beta test that begins on July 19. Users will need to download the TikTok Music app from either the App Store or the Google Play Store by visiting the music.tiktok.com webpage and signing up for the beta. All users will be able to sign into the new app with their TikTok account, and beta participants will receive a free three-month trial of the new service.

ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, has already acquired songs from labels such as Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music. As with all music streaming services, users will be able to stream music, download it and share songs.

Twitter is preparing to release a new feature that will enable users to post long-form articles, or even if an entire book.

The in-development feature was confirmed by Twitter owner Elon Musk who replied to a tweet from a user that noticed Twitter quietly renamed its Twitter Notes feature to Twitter Articles. Musk confirmed the name change and wrote that users will be able to post "very long, complex articles with mixed media," which is presumably a mixture of embedded GIFs, video, images, and audio. Moreover, Musk said that you will be able to "publish a book if you want".

For those that don't remember, Twitter announced its Notes feature last year, and it was rolled out to select regions such as Canada, Ghana, the UK, and the United States. However, the new feature buried in the news that Elon Musk was interested in purchasing the company, and according to reports, this is the first time the company has officially recognized the feature since it was first announced and tested.

If you've been enjoying Instagram's Threads you're in for a treat, because it's just gotten a whole lot better. Although you'll need to be using an iPhone to enjoy them for now.

That's because Instagram has now released an updated version of its iPhone app that includes a number of fixes and new features that have been requested since it was released. However, while this update does appear to be related to an iOS update it is also linked to a server-side change. With that in mind, it might take a little while before you see the changes on your own device. Instagram software engineer Cameron Roth suggests that you could try force-quitting and restarting the app if you want to check if your account has the new goodies enabled.

Roth also shared details about what's gone into this new update, and there are some big improvements. At the top of the list are new translations for posts as well as a follows tab on the activity feed that shows people that you are following on the platform. Beyond that, users can now subscribe to unfollowed users while tappable reporter labels and a ton more. Roth also says that there are a handful of other small bugs included, too.

Meta's subsidiary company Instagram released what was deemed as the "Twitter killer", a new text-based app called Threads.

Millions of people rushed to try Threads and within the first five days of it being available to download the app received more than 100 million sign ups. The speed of which Threads gained new users earned it the title of the "fastest growing app ever", but with most things that seem to good to be true, they aren't, and the hype circling around the app has seemingly died off, according to a report from SimilarWeb.

The report states that within one week Threads' daily active users dropped from 49 million to 23.6 million. For comparsion, SimilarWeb reports that Twitter's daily active users sits around 109 million, which means that Threads during its peak of public interest reached nearly half of Twitter's daily active users within just one week. Another interesting metric is usage across the US, which on July 7 peaked at about 21 minutes of engagement within the app, but by July 14 was down to just 6 minutes.

The launch of Threads has undoubtedly been a success for Meta and its subsidiary company Instagram, as the new text-based platform has attracted millions of users just within the first week of its release.

While we may never see Twitter owner Elon Musk enter an octagon with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the real war is already being fought on the digital playing field, as the release of Threads has shaken up the social networking industry, or at the very least, Musk. Reports now indicate that Zuckerberg's new app has attracted more than 100 million users just within the first 5 days of its being available to download, according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri.

The good news for Threads doesn't stop there, as new data provided by app intelligence firm data.ai reveals that Threads has already reached one-fifth of the weekly active user base of Twitter, or around 93 million active users globally during that first week of availability. Notably, the data firm revealed that 33% of Threads' global downloads came from India, 22% came from Brazil, 16% from the US, 8% from Japan, and 5% from Mexico.

Russia's Federal Security Service has told thousands of employees that they shouldn't use iPhones or other Apple devices anymore over national security concerns.

The officials appear to be worried that Apple devices could enable US surveillance of the country, with state employees and officials banned from using iPads, iPhones, and other devices starting today. The Financial Times reports that the trade ministry said that it will ban iPhone usage for work purposes starting today with the digital development ministry saying that it will also do the same.

A source told the Financial Times that iPhones and similar Apple devices are no longer considered to be safe for government use and that alternatives should be used instead. That obviously means that iPhones are out and Android phones are in - although it isn't clear whether any particular OEM will be preferred. It's also possible that people will have to switch to using the Russian-developed Aurora operating system may not be popular.

The transition to paperless workflows, the need for electronic documents, and the necessity for software that can handle document security and compliance are all driving development in the PDF editor market. The use of PDF editors is increasing as it offers many benefits, such as embedded multimedia content, security features, and cross-platform compatibility.

But some users may just need some features of pdf editing, annotating, signing, convert, rather than all features of Acrobat. So, why would they invest in the expensive Acrobat? This is when UPDF just got them covered. It offers the same range of features and functionality at an unbeatable price - 12% of Acrobat's yearly price to get all features. Moreover, now you can get UPDF at 54% off. Dive in to learn more about this amazing product!

UPDF was developed with the aim to revolutionize PDF editing and offer affordable PDF editing solutions. Sticking to its purpose of creation, this amazing software has come up to expectations, easing PDF handling to be convenient and manageable for everyone out there.

Windows 11 should soon get a handy new way of fixing the OS via Windows Update when things go wrong.

As discovered by XenoPanther on Twitter, this new in-place repair feature is present in build 25905 (in the Canary channel), and the functionality is fully working.

Testers can find it under Recovery options (Settings, System), where there's an option to 'Fix problems using Windows Update.'

We know Cortana is on its way out, to make way for Microsoft's new AI assistant Copilot in Windows 11, but we've just seen a welcome new option in the OS to make it easy to get rid of Cortana.

As XenoPanther highlighted on Twitter (spotted by Neowin), the new preview build 25905 has an option to uninstall Cortana.

In other words, the ailing digital assistant can be removed just as with any other app in Windows 11.

Threads is taking the world by storm right now and the Instagram-owned social network is taking on plenty of users. More than 100 million have signed up for Threads to date, and now Instagram has fixed a major bug that was impacting a whole ton of them.

That bug caused the Threads app on iOS 17 to crash whenever someone tried to add a photo or video to a new post. There were workarounds, including pasting the media rather than adding it via the usual photo and video picker. But they were less than ideal. Now, the issue has been fixed in what is the first big software update for the Threads app in the App Store.

Now yes, it's obvious that iOS 17 is indeed beta software and that Instagram can't necessarily be held responsible for its app not working on beta software so early in the cycle. But still, we're willing to bet that a lot of people who are using beta versions of iOS 17 on their iPhones are also likely to be early adopters of a new social network like Threads. The result? This was a bug that needed to be fixed, and quickly.

Microsoft fixed 132 vulnerabilities in its latest releases for Patch Tuesday this week, including six zero-day flaws.

Those fixes spanned the entirety of its software ecosystem, meaning Windows 11 and Windows 10, as well as the Office apps and various other Microsoft products.

As mentioned, six were zero-day vulnerabilities, meaning they became public knowledge before a fix was issued, and were exploited as such. But the good news is that the cures are here with these new patches.

The Google One VPN is getting an upgrade that will make it work better with location-based apps, it's reported.

While many people use a VPN to make it appear like they are in another country in order to get around location-based restrictions, that isn't what the One VPN is for. Instead, it's designed for privacy and security with an eye on preventing third parties from tracking a user's activity. And while it already connects people to a server in their home country, it hasn't always been one nearby. And that's caused issues with apps that use IP addresses as a means of locating a user for specific features like weather forecasts. But that's changing.

In an email to Google One VPN users, the company says that from July 29 it'll instead connect people to servers that are in the same local region to try and ensure that location-based apps and services aren't impacted in their ability to do what they need to do. The change will app for all of the One VPN apps but can also be undone - a new option to use a broader IP address region will be offered as an option inside those apps. When enabled, the VPN will choose a server in the user's country rather than their specific local region.

If you use Apple's iCloud Keychain password manager but also find yourself using third-party web browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, we have good news for you. The upcoming macOS Sonoma update will add third-party web browser support for iCloud Keychain and it's already live in the latest beta release.

The iCloud Keychain password manager is built into all iPhones, iPads, and Macs and allows passwords and usernames to be stored securely in iCloud. Unfortunately, that means that accessing those passwords in apps like Chrome isn't currently possible, but that's changing when macOS Sonoma arrives this fall. Now, it's been confirmed that the latest macOS Sonoma beta already has the feature enabled which means those on the developer and public betas can now test it out.

The way this all works is by installing an Apple extension that is already available for Chrome and Edge and it's that extension that handles everything. The iCloud Passwords browser extension hooks into iCloud Keychain on your Mac and then pulls out the required credentials when they're needed.

Linux has never been as popular as Microsoft Windows or Apple's macOS; that has been true for decades. But according to StatCounter's latest data, the open-source operating system hit a 3% market share in the desktop PC space in June 2023 - pointing to a growing audience enjoying Linux's lightweight, bloatware-free, and customization-friendly approach.

Naturally, 3% is a small figure compared to Windows commanding 68% of the desktop OS market share, and it even falls behind Google's ChromeOS, which is sitting on a 4% market share. This is a good news story for Linux (and Linux fans out there) because Linux's share has doubled since 2018. However, the macOS market share has also doubled in the same timeframe, growing to over 21%.

Linux is mainly seen as an operating system for the server space due to its open-source nature and customization-friendly design. It's a situation where you might find that two Linux setups look and behave very differently, thanks to different desktop environments like GNOME, KDE, Xfce, and others.

There can't be all that many people using the fourth or third-generation iPod Shuffle, but for those people, Apple has now released a new macOS Ventura software update to fix an issue that caused them to be unable to sync their music.

The new software update is called macOS 13.5 and it's specifically built to deal with a problem that meant that some iPod Shuffle owners received an unknown error (-244) message when trying to sync their iPod Shuffle. To be clear, Apple discontinued that iPod way back in 2017 which makes this particular fix interesting. How did Apple ever realize this was an issue and how much of a priority inside the company did it become?

The iPod Shuffle is of course an iconic product and some people absolutely loved theirs. It was first introduced in 2005 and was the first iPod not to have a display. Not being able to choose your songs was both a limitation and a feature, with Apple leaning into the fact that people would have to leave the shuffle feature to choose what track would play next.

Chalk this one up as a tech demo or a "let's see if it works" situation as NTDEV, as the creators of the lightweight tiny11 version of Windows 11 have managed to get the OS up and running on a system with only 176 MB of RAM. The minimum specs for Microsoft's latest OS list 4 GB for RAM, so you're looking at a system with 40 times less memory.

However, if you expect this build to load into the standard Windows 11 desktop, it doesn't. You're looking at a "heavily trimmed down" version of tiny11, to the point where all you've got is the Command Prompt to do things. Even so, the demonstration video shows the build opening up Task Manager and Notepad to showcase this build's multitasking capabilities.

NTDEV notes that this experiment resulted from extensive trial and error, where it went through countless drivers and services to find which ones were necessary for Windows 11 to boot, as well as limiting the disk drive to IDE without SATA or NVMe support. Can it run Crysis? Most definitely not.

The launch of Meta's new text-based app under its subsidiary company Instagram has shaken the social media landscape as the new app has attracted more than 100 million sign-ups.

Threads was launched last Wednesday, and since then, it has seen a significant increase in the number of users. The launch of Threads was quickly met with criticism from direct competitor Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, the world's second-largest social media platform, who said that Threads was simply Instagram without the "thirst pics". Threads was described as the "Twitter killer", given that it's fully integrated with the standalone Instagram app that has more than a billion users.

Furthermore, Musk's lawyers have already sent a heated letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claiming that Threads was developed by former Twitter staff that unlawfully revealed Twitter IP and trade secrets that significantly sped up the apps release timeline. Now, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince has taken to his personal Twitter account to share a chart that reveals that Twitter's domain ranking significantly dropping over the weekend, an indication that the website is losing traffic.