While it’s not quite the 20 percent firesale we’ve grown accustomed to, Best Buy’s 15 percent off of iTunes gift cards still represents a healthy discount on your possibly overpriced movie rentals and season passes. Get it while it’s hot! Which it should be all day. More »
Hurricane Sandy’s taken out more than the electricity of hundreds of thousands of Northeastern USers — it’s also pillaged the internet connections of many, leaving our Netflix and Hulu Plus subscriptions unused, and subsequently our Eddie Murphy ’80s movie marathons unmarathoned. Comcast understands this to be the dire situation it is, and is offering its Xfinity WiFi service free of charge for folks living in Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Washington D.C., and West Virginia (sans New York City, as there aren’t any hotspots in the Big Apple, sadly). Just select “Complimentary Trial” from the landing page and you’re in like Flynn until November 7 (when the deal ends).
Or perhaps you’re one of our lucky readers unaffected by the crazy hurricane? Apple’s got an opportunity through iTunes for direct donation to the American Red Cross, should you wish to help out our friends suffering through worse than just lacking internet. Donation increments range from $5 to $200 — just sign into iTunes and click the Red Cross advert below New Music.
Filed under: Apple
Sandy got you down? Comcast offering free WiFi to affected regions, iTunes allowing Red Cross donations originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Nov 2012 14:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Earlier this week, Hurricane Sandy ripped through the northeast with haughty vengeance, hitting one of the most populous cities in the entire country, New York City. If you were lucky enough to be missed by the storm, and are now wanting to help out those who were hit hard, the iTunes Store is accepting donations on behalf of the American Red Cross.
Through the iTunes Store on either your desktop computer or your iOS device, you can make a donation for as little as $5. Other denominations include $10, $25, $50, $100, and $200. And no, Apple won’t take a 30% cut — all 100% of your contribution goes straight to the American Red Cross. As long as you have a credit card set up, which you most likely do if you’ve been downloading and buying apps, donating is just like buying an app; quick and easy.
Of course, this isn’t the first time that Apple has partnered up with the Red Cross and started accepting donations through its iTunes Store. They also hosted a fundraising campaign for the Japanese earthquake and tsunami back in March 2011, and in January 2010, they accepted donations following the earthquake in Haiti.
Apple currently boasts over 400 million iTunes Store accounts, so the company and its customers will no doubt make a difference raising money for those in the northeast who weren’t as lucky. The Hurricane ended up being so bad that all public transportation was shut down, and most stores closed their doors in preparation for the storm, turning the most-populous city in the country into an apocalyptic nightmare.
iTunes Store accepting donations for Hurricane Sandy relief is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Welcome to Tuesday evening everyone. We had so many big posts today that it’s hard to know where to start. Kicking things off, we’re live at Microsoft Build 2012, bringing you the latest on Windows 8, Surface, and Windows Phone 8. We also went hands-on with the Samsung Nexus 10 and the LG Nexus 4 today, so be sure to check those out if you’re thinking about picking up either (or both!) when they launch next month. Today we found out that Disney is buying out LucasFilm and that Star Wars Episode VII is in the works – both of those were major announcements for the millions of Star Wars fans out there.
Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer told us that 4 million Windows users have upgraded to Windows 8 since it launched last week, and today the company release the Windows Phone 8 SDK for eager developers. Twitter outed its Windows 8 app a few months ahead of launch, while Microsoft confirmed that apps like PayPal and Dropbox will be hitting the new operating system shortly. Microsoft also responded to complaints about Office 2013 on Surface, so if you’ve got one of the company’s new slates, you might want to hold off on using Office until these problems are fixed.
The fourth generation iPad has been benchmarked, showing a 1.4GHz A6X processor and 1GB of RAM, and one analyst was spotted predicting massive sales for the iPad line up. Apple delayed the roll out of its new iTunes overhaul today, while Google said it will be pushing developers to make extraordinary app experiences for Android tablets. Hurricane Sandy knocked out a number of big sites like Gawker and The Huffington Post over the weekend, and Modern Warfare 4 was outed by one excited voice actor.
Shortly after announcing that Disney had purchased LucasFilm, George Lucas talked about the deal and the future of Star Wars in a new interview, and today the Pentagon clarified that it will still be using BlackBerry phones in addition to iPhone and Android handsets. Grand Theft Auto V has been confirmed for a Spring 2013 release, and we received quarterly reports from both MetroPCS and ASUS today, the latter of which did particularly well in its third quarter.
Before we go, we want to remind you that our reviews for the iPad Mini and the fourth generation iPad went live not too long ago, so check those out if you’re interesting in buying one! That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, enjoy the rest of your night folks!
SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: October 30, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Apple may have a lot of iMessage users, but it has also had its share of teething troubles as the chat service (and iCloud) grows. That’s certainly been true this month: Apple has confirmed that, for the second time in a week, iMessage is down for at least some users. There’s a real chance those conversations won’t go through unless it’s between iPhone users that can try SMS. More pressing for anyone in the UK is a wider iTunes outage, as we’ve heard multiple reports of the app and media repository being inaccessible in the country no matter what device they use. We’ve reached out to Apple and will update if there’s an explanation or a repair schedule for either outage. For now, we’d suggest that iMessage lovers communicate through social networks and passive-aggressive word choices in Letterpress.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Update: And no sooner than we post than Apple has iMessage back up and running. Let us know through tips if you’re still having iMessage or iTunes UK trouble, however.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Internet, Mobile, Apple
Apple iMessage sees second outage in a week, iTunes UK follows suit (update: back up, in theory) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Oct 2012 18:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Last month, we heard that Apple was planning to roll out a pretty big update for iTunes. That update was scheduled to land sometime this month, but with October ending tomorrow, it’s become pretty clear that the iTunes refresh probably won’t make it out the door before November arrives. Sure enough, Apple confirmed today that it has delayed this major iTunes update, and now the company is saying that it should be available before the end of next month.
Apple spokesperson Tom Neumayr confirmed the delay of the update to All Things D today, though sadly, he didn’t get too specific about why it was pushed back. “The new iTunes is taking longer than expected and we wanted to take a little extra time to get it right,” Neumayr said. “We look forward to releasing this new version of iTunes with its dramatically simpler and cleaner interface and seamless integration with iCloud before the end of November.”
There could be any number of reasons for this delay – including, as All Things D points out, Apple’s recent management shake up – but we’re tempted to take Apple at its word when it says that needs more time to iron out the kinks. Remember, Apple doesn’t have the best history with these iTunes updates after all. In any case, once the update does finally arrive, it will come sporting a bunch of new features, including the iCloud improvements Neumayr mentioned.
There are also improvements to the user interface and playlist creation to get excited about, as well as general boosts to performance. Sadly, the iTunes faithful will have to a wait a few more weeks before they can put this update through its paces, but it’s better for Apple push it back than release it on time with a bunch of bugs. Stay tuned, because we’ll probably hear more about this iTunes update as we draw closer to its yet-unknown November release date.
iTunes overhaul pushed back to November is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
An update to iTunes normally isn’t the most exciting news, but iTunes 11 promises to be the biggest update to Apple’s content engine in years. And during Apple’s iPad Mini event, it was promised before the end of October; Apple was sure enough that they put a countdown on the iTunes page. Well, they’ve had to change plans–no, it wasn’t because of the Scott Forstall affair–and now iTunes 11 is due sometime in November. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: iTunes get a redesign, iTunes 11 could be unveiled today alongside the iPhone 5,
We were all a little shocked when Apple failed to deliver a redesigned iTunes at its last keynote. The company promised a major revamp of the service would land in October yet, here we are with one day left in the month, and no iTunes overhaul in sight. Today Tom Neumayr, a spokesperson for the Cupertino firm, confirmed to AllThingsD that the software release had indeed been pushed back by a month. Only a few short days ago CFO Peter Oppenheimer was touting the refresh during the company’s earnings call saying, “We look forward to looking to launching a redesigned iTunes. The new iTunes has a dramatically simpler and cleaner interface.” But he made no mention of a delay. Neumayr says the goal now is to release the update before the end of November stating that development is “taking longer than expected and we wanted to take a little extra time to get it right.” While the issue primarily cited in Neumayr’s statement is “seamless integration with iCloud” we wouldn’t be shocked if it’s rumored internet radio service also is playing a role in the delay. Read the complete statement below.
“The new iTunes is taking longer than expected and we wanted to take a little extra time to get it right. We look forward to releasing this new version of iTunes with its dramatically simpler and cleaner interface, and seamless integration with iCloud before the end of November.”
iTunes refresh delayed till ‘end of November’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
We heard last month that Apple was planning to launch a Pandora competitor within the coming months, but according to new reports, it won’t launch until sometime in the first quarter of 2013. That could mean it’s coming in January, or it may not be until March, but if the rumors are true, we should be seeing an online music service from Apple before spring hits.
Bloomberg is reporting that negotiations with record labels has intensified, and that the goal is to launch the streaming music service sometime in the first quarter of the new year. The deal could be complete as soon as the middle of next month, with ad revenue sharing being the focus of discussion at the moment.
Rumored features that may arrive with the new service (and which Apple is negotiating for) include auto-generated playlists of what listeners have heard, and the ability to buy tracks as “music streams”, which we’re not sure what exactly that entails, but it could mean that you can purchases songs that stay in the cloud, so there wouldn’t be a need to download the file.
It’s still unclear as far as what the service will look like and what exactly it will do, but Apple is currently trying to make updated licensing deals with several labels to extend out from what the current iTunes business model consists of. Microsoft just revamped its Xbox Music service, which includes free, ad-supported streaming music. So, if Apple wants to compete, they’ll have to have a response fairly soon.
[via Bloomberg]
Apple rumored to launch online music service in 2013 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Today, Apple finally announced its highly anticipated iPad mini. This 7.9-inch “little tablet that could” will be available from Verizon, AT&T and Sprint with shipping starting “a couple of weeks after” WiFi models go on sale on November 2nd. Available in black and white for $459 (16GB), $559 (32GB) and $659 (64GB), the company will begin accepting pre-orders on October 26th. So, if you plan on calling dibs on one of these little guys, we suggest that you plan accordingly.
Continue reading iPad mini coming to Verizon, AT&T and Sprint in mid-November starting at $459
Filed under: Misc, Apple, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T
iPad mini coming to Verizon, AT&T and Sprint in mid-November starting at $459 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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