MacRumors

Verizon and Apple today announced a new partnership which will see Verizon Unlimited customers able to sign up to receive six months of Apple Music for free.

Starting on Thursday, August 16, both new and existing customers who have one of Verizon's Unlimited wireless plans can access a special offer for six months of Apple Music at no cost. Following this period, the subscription will be priced at $9.99 per month, the standard cost for an Apple Music subscription.

This is available to both new and existing Apple Music subscribers. According to Verizon, current Apple Music subscribers will get the same six months of free service as new subscribers, but will be required to cancel and reactivate their Apple Music subscriptions.

Verizon says that once registered, its VZW Unlimited customers will have full access to Apple Music on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Mac, HomePod, CarPlay, PC, and Android devices, and the company has promised additional offers in the future through the Apple partnership.

"This first-of-its-kind offer is just the first step in an exclusive partnership with Apple," said Angie Klein, vice president of marketing, Verizon. "It gives our customers exactly what they want: Apple's best-in-class music streaming experience, paired with an unlimited plan tailored to them, on the network they deserve. And now that you can mix and match our unlimited plans, every person in your family can stream worry-free on the unlimited plan they need, without paying for things they don't - and enjoy all the music they want for six months free with Apple Music with this exclusive offer in the U.S."

Apple normally offers new subscribers three months of free access to Apple Music, so this is double the normal trial period.

Verizon offers three unlimited plans, priced starting at $75 for a single line. All plans offer unlimited text, talk, and LTE data, but offer varying video quality and mobile hotspot limits.

The cheapest Go Unlimited plan includes 480p video streaming and unlimited mobile hotspot access at 600kb/s. The middle tier Beyond Unlimited Plan offers 720p video streaming and 15GB of LTE hotspot data, while the higher-end plan offers up 720p video streaming, 20GB of LTE hotspot data, and other perks like Mexico and Canada Text and Data, and five TravelPasses per month.

Verizon's cheapest plan offers unlimited LTE data, but warns that customers could be throttled at times of peak usage. The Beyond Unlimited plan lets customers use 22GB of LTE data before throttling, while the Above Unlimited plan provides customers with 75GB of unlimited LTE data before throttling kicks in at times of peak congestion.

Verizon will be providing more information about the partnership with Apple Music on its website on August 16.

Apple's Health Records feature, introduced in iOS 11.3, now allows iOS users to access their medical records from more than 75 different hospitals and medical providers in the United States.

Apple maintains a list of all of the healthcare institutions that support Health Records on the iPhone, which as VentureBeat points out, was updated in August ahead of a talk from Apple's Clinical and Health Informatics lead Ricky Bloomfield, M.D. given at the ONC 2nd Interoperability Forum (via EHR Intelligence).

When the Health Records feature first launched earlier this year, it worked with just 12 healthcare providers, a number that Apple has been working to improve. Recent additions include Kaiser in Oregon and Washington, Baptist Health, Buffalo Health, Greater Hudson Valley Health System, UC San Diego Health, UCLA Health, and others.

Health record data is available in the Health app, and allows patients who have multiple healthcare providers to access all of their information in one convenient place.

According to Bloomfield, Apple's Health app leverages Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) that were developed to facilitate better data sharing standards. FHIR is in a draft stage and won't be finalized until the end of the year, but Apple's adoption may drive widespread adoption of FHIR in the medical community.

Apple is using an "Argonaut" implementation of the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources standard, in fact, because it's simple and will encourage medical providers to adopt it.

The Health Records feature in the Health app is designed to connect with partner systems using FHIR to collect data and display it right on a user's device.

"It makes it very easy for you to manage your health information," Bloomfield told attendees of the ONC 2nd Interoperability Forum on August 8. "You as a user have complete control over who has access to the data. If you don't want to share it, it won't be shared. It stays private on your device until you decide to share it."

As Bloomfield explains, Health Records can be accessed in the Health app under the "Health Data" section. After choosing and authenticating with a provider, all relevant medical data is available through the Health app and is updated automatically following doctor visits.

"That significantly reduces the friction typically associated with accessing your health information where you need to remember your credentials, log in, and then get the information," he continued. "And when you have new information, you may get an email that there's new information, but you still need to log in to access the information."

Health Records is designed to display information that includes allergies, vital signs, conditions, immunizations, medications, labs, and procedures.

As with all Apple features, privacy is a key with Health Records. As Bloomfield says, patients have control over who is able to access their data.

Following the release of 2018 MacBook Pro models last month, some customers have turned to the MacRumors Forums, Apple Support Communities, Reddit, and YouTube to report intermittent crackling from the built-in speakers.

The crackling appears to occur spontaneously during audio playback on both 13-inch and 15-inch models, based on a handful of videos shared by customers. As with many crowdsourced issues, there are a lot of variables involved, making it difficult to pinpoint exactly what may be causing the problem.

MacRumors forum members have speculated about possible causes, including radio interference due to a lack of shielding, audio drivers, and the T2 chip.

A few years ago, some customers experienced similar crackling from the built-in speakers on the 2016 MacBook Pro, oftentimes when running Windows via Boot Camp. The crackling was so loud that it often permanently damaged the speakers, resulting in the MacBook Pro needing to be repaired or replaced.

Within days, Apple acknowledged the issues in a support document, and released updated audio drivers for Boot Camp with a fix:

If you installed Windows 10 using Boot Camp Assistant before November 25, 2016 on a MacBook Pro introduced in October 2016, it's important that you install the Audio Driver Update for Boot Camp using Apple Software Update for Windows to avoid issues with your speakers.

The speaker issues with the 2018 MacBook Pro don't appear to be as dire, or nearly as widespread, but enough complaints have surfaced that we wanted to bring some attention to the matter in the interest of those affected.

At least one user claims the issue may have been fixed in the latest macOS Mojave betas, which is unconfirmed. Another user claimed that Apple engineers are looking into the matter. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

Of course, in a production run of millions of new MacBook Pro units, a small percentage may have defective speakers, but this does appear to be an actual issue that hopefully can be or has been addressed in a future software update.

If you are affected by this issue, we recommend contacting Apple Support. In the meantime, some users have shared potential workarounds, such as resetting the System Management Controller and NVRAM, disabling Hey Siri, or simply rebooting, but these solutions may not be ideal or work for everyone.

Although Google's major fall event is still about two months away, typically occurring in October and ushering in a new generation of Pixel smartphones and other products, today leaked pictures have been shared online highlighting the upcoming Google Pixel 3 XL.

Previous CAD leaks suggest that a smaller 5.4-inch Pixel 3 will not have a notch, while the larger 6.2-inch Pixel 3 XL is what appears in the images today, notch included. It's believed that Google is using the notch to house improved cameras, including two camera lenses.

Per Bloomberg, from a report in May:

The bigger Pixel will include two camera lenses on the front of the phone inside of the notch, one of the people said.

The notch, or cutout, at the top of the new larger Pixel’s screen won’t be as wide as a similar feature on the iPhone X, but is noticeably taller, according to the people. Google aims to eventually remove the bezels completely in a future Pixel, but is retaining the notch and chin this year to keep stereo speakers on the front of the phone, the people said

Additionally, the images suggest that customers will get "Pixel Bud-esque" wired USB-C earphones with the Pixel 3 XL. There also appears to be a charging brick, charging cable, and a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter in the box. The unboxing images depict "what looks to be a pretty new iPhone-like wallpaper," as Android Police points out.

Software running on the units was Android 9 with an 8-core Qualcomm processor and an Adreno 630 GPU. The Pixel 3 XL in the images also has 4GB of RAM and a resolution of 1440x2960 with a pixel density of 494 PPI.

Following the release of the iPhone X in November 2017, clones of Apple's notch style hardware began surfacing in December and throughout 2018. In March, Google announced Android P, which introduced software support for display notches that are built into the Android smartphones mimicking Apple's design.

For Apple, the company decided on the notch-style design in order to maximize the available display area of the iPhone X, while also still leaving room for the various sensors and tech that make up the TrueDepth camera system for Face ID. Although Android smartphones are copying Apple's design, many of them lack the front-facing biometric security features as the iPhone X and instead opt for fingerprint scanners.

Apple today shared a new ad in its recent "Just Text Them the Money" ad campaign for Apple Pay Cash, this time focusing on how easy it is to sent cash to other people following a group dinner.

Today's 18-second ad is the fifth in the "Just Text Them the Money" campaign, with Apple having introduced the first four ads in mid-July. These short ads will be used on TV and on social media sites like Instagram and YouTube.

Apple first introduced Apple Pay Cash in iOS 11.2, allowing iPhone and iPad users to send peer-to-peer Apple Pay payments to one another using the Messages app. Money received via Apple Pay Cash can be used for Apple Pay payments or deposited in a bank account, much like other mobile peer-to-peer payment services like Venmo.

At the current time, Apple Pay Cash is a feature that's limited to the United States, and Apple has not provided details on when it will expand to other countries.

Last month, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent letters to Apple and Google parent company Alphabet with 16 multi-part questions about how the companies handle customer data.

Apple has since responded to the letter, reiterating the company's belief that "privacy is a fundamental human right" and that it purposely designs its products and services to minimize its collection of customer data.

Timothy Powderly, Director of Federal Government Affairs at Apple, responded on behalf of Apple CEO Tim Cook:

Dear Mr. Chairman:

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the capabilities of Apple iPhone devices. Not all technology companies operate in the same manner— in fact, the business models and data collection and use practices are often radically different from one another. Apple’s philosophy and approach to customer data differs from many other companies on these important issues.

We believe privacy is a fundamental human right and purposely design our products and services to minimize our collection of customer data. When we do collect data, we’re transparent about it and work to disassociate it from the user. We utilize on device processing to minimize data collection by Apple. The customer is not our product, and our business model does not depend on collecting vast amounts of personally identifiable information to enrich targeted profiles marketed to advertisers.

Because we strongly believe the customer should control their personal information and the way it’s used, we provide a number of easily accessible resources on our website so that they can make wise choices. Most of your questions are addressed in public-facing documents such as our privacy website, which can be found at www.apple.com/privacy. In addition, we recently answered similar questions from Senator Charles Grassley, and our responses are available online.

Innovation at Apple means designing a new product or service with customer privacy as a key element of design, and not an obligation. We hope that the responses below are helpful in understanding these topics and make clear Apple’s position that customers are entitled to transparency, choice, and control over their personal information. We would be pleased to brief Committee staff at your convenience.

Apple provided detailed responses to all 16 questions, and background information on location services, in its full-length letter.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

In an extensive profile of Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek, Fast Company's Robert Safian recently sat down to speak for a few minutes with Apple CEO Tim Cook at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California.

The topic was, of course, Spotify and Apple Music, two of the major players in the streaming music market and fierce competitors. Cook said that he looks to music as inspiration and motivation, a philosophy that's shared at Apple and has guided its focus on human-based music curation.

"Music inspires, it motivates. It's also the thing at night that helps quiet me. I think it's better than any medicine," Cook said.

While he declined to mention Spotify by name, Cook told Fast Company that Apple worries about streaming music losing the human touch, alluding to Spotify's more algorithmic approach to highlighting content.

Cook's words embody Apple's longstanding critique of Spotify, which is that its algorithms are eroding music's spiritual role in our lives. Cook doesn't mention Spotify by name but says, "We worry about the humanity being drained out of music, about it becoming a bits-and-bytes kind of world instead of the art and craft."

Despite launching just three years ago, Apple Music has 50 million paid subscribers and free trial members, with the company slowly catching up to Spotify. At last count, Spotify said that it had 83 million paid subscribers around the world.

Apple has always had an edge over Spotify due to its massive 1.3 billion active installed base, and the fact that it's never needed to worry about profitability like Spotify has. "We're not in it for the money," Cook told Fast Company.

Ek, too, didn't mention Apple Music by name, but he said he believes Spotify has something going for it that other companies don't: a singular focus. "Music is everything we do all day, all night, and that clarity is the difference between the average and the really, really good," he said.

Spotify's dedication to music and music alone is what Ek believes will ultimately help the company beat Apple and expand the Spotify service in the future.

Competing with Apple was always Spotify's plan, says Ek, even before Apple Music. Apple dominated digital music downloads via iTunes in 2008 when Spotify launched, with Ek aiming to replace the iPod with on-demand music.

Competition with Apple and working within tight margins, Ek says, has driven Spotify to be more disciplined.

Despite industry complaints and criticism from Apple, Spotify has continued to focus on free music, which is how Spotify draws in new paying subscribers. After going public earlier this year, Spotify overhauled its free listening tier, offering new features that include on-demand playlists and a data saving mode, which were previously limited to paying subscribers.

Ek believes that there's money to be made with Spotify's free tier, with radiolike advertising options. "Billions of people listen to radio, and most of that today isn't monetized very efficiently," Ek said.

Going forward, in addition to working to expand revenue via its free tier, Spotify plans to focus on artists. Ek eventually wants to get 1 million artists to make a living off of Spotify, ultimately imagining something akin to YouTube where artists and listeners can interact.

For anyone interested in the inner workings of Spotify or how Ek operates, Fast Company's full profile of the founder is well worth checking out.