MacRumors

ROLI, the company that makes a fun music creation system called BLOCKS, today announced the launch of its next-generation Lightpad Block, the Lightpad Block M.

The Lightpad Block M is a light-up square grid that supports pressure-based multi-touch gestures to make music. The Lightpad M can recreate the sounds of drums, cellos, flutes, and hundreds of other instruments with just a touch.

Compared to the previous-generation Lightpad Block, ROLI says the Lightpad M is more sensitive and precise, and it's 50 percent brighter with a deeper, softer silicone top layer that enhances control and a higher contrast display that offers up a wider range of colors.

The silicone of the Lightpad M also includes new tactile microkeywaves for better feedback compared to the flat surface of the first Lightpad Block.

The Lightpad M Block is designed to work with the other components in the ROLI BLOCKS modular system, including the Seaboard Block, the Live Block, the Loop Block, and the Touch Block.

ROLI's Lightpad M launch is accompanied by a new version of the NOISE app that goes along with the ROLI BLOCKS. According to ROLI, the app adds new sounds and improvements to clip launching, clip editing, and user navigation.

There are also two new Treble Quartet and Bass Quartet soundpacks in the app, offering realistic cello, violin, clarinet, and saxophone sounds. Bass Quartet comes bundled with the Lightpad M.

ROLI is also introducing a NOISE audio unit for GarageBand and integration with Ableton Live Lite.

Lightpad M can be purchased for $199.95 from the ROLI website, and it will soon be available at other retailers, including Apple retail stores.

Google Drive no longer hijacks file opening duties in Apple's Files and iCloud Drive apps on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

The app was updated today with a fix for the issue. Microsoft Word documents and other file types can now be viewed directly in in Apple's Files and iCloud Drive apps on iOS 11 and iOS 10 respectively.

Since a previous update to Google Drive earlier this month, the app became the default opener for many file types due to an open-in-place issue.

When users with the Google Drive app installed attempted to open a DOCX file in Files or iCloud Drive, for example, the Google Drive app would automatically open and prompt the user to save the file in that app.

Google Drive version 4.2017.37510 is available on the App Store [Direct Link].

ESPN yesterday announced an update to its iOS app that will let users stream their favorite sports shows on demand from their mobile device.

Previously, users of the ESPN app were out of luck if they missed the live video streams of popular shows such as Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption. But that's set to change, according to the channel's latest press release.

"Our mission at ESPN is to serve sports fans, and now more than ever, they expect to stream their favorite shows on the device and time of day they prefer," ESPN vice president of digital media programming John Lasker said. "With today's launch, fans can now access an array of ESPN's most popular, award-winning shows – with more to come in the near future – anytime, anywhere."

Full episodes of select studio shows are now available to stream on demand under "Latest Episodes" within the Watch tab on the ESPN App. The shows will be accessible shortly after the conclusion of their live on-air telecasts. The full list includes:

• Around the Horn (weekdays at 5 p.m. ET)
• College GameDay Built by the Home Depot (Saturdays at 9 a.m. ET)
• College Football Countdown (most Thursdays at 7 p.m. ET)
• College Football Live (weekdays at 5:30 p.m. ET)
• College Football Final (at the conclusion of the Saturday games/post-game show on ESPN2 during the season)
• The Fantasy Show with Matthew Berry (weekdays at 5 p.m. ET on ESPN2)
• The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (weekdays at 10 a.m. ET on ESPNU)
• Jalen & Jacoby (weeknights at 1 a.m. ET on ESPN2)
• The Jump (weekdays at 3 p.m. ET)
• Pardon the Interruption (weekdays at 5:30 p.m. ET)
• The Paul Finebaum Show (weekdays at 3 p.m. ET on SEC Network)
• SEC Nation (Saturdays at 10 a.m. ET)
• SEC Now (nightly on SEC Network)
• Thinking Out Loud (Mondays at 7 p.m. ET on SEC Network).

The studio shows add to the ESPN app's expanded offering of long-form VOD content that includes 30 for 30 films, E:60, Outside the Lines and SC Featured episodes. The ESPN app is a free download available for iPhone and iPad on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Apple has expressed interest in buying advanced liquid crystal display (LCD) panels from Japan Display for use in some of its iPhones next year, according to a new report today from The Wall Street Journal.

Earlier this month, Apple announced the iPhone X, its first smartphone to adopt OLED screen technology. OLED displays offer sharper contrast and brighter colors than traditional LCD panels, but cost and supply issues are an ongoing concern for Apple, and are likely to slow down any full transition to the technology.

However, Japan Display's advanced LCD panels, which it calls Full Active LCDs, are said to match or exceed some of OLED's advantages at a lower cost, and Apple is interested in procuring them for use in at least some iPhones set to debut in its 2018 smartphone line-up, according to people familiar with the matter.

In Full Active panels, the bezel or border space around each edge of the screen has been trimmed to 0.5 millimeters, the Japanese maker says, compared with as much as several millimeters on older LCDs. Current OLED smartphone panels have a bezel of about one millimeter, which makes them easier to be curved or angled. The Full Active panel has already been used by several Chinese mobile makers, including Xiaomi for its Mi Mix 2 phone, according to Kazutaka Nagaoka, chief of Japan Display's mobile unit. 

News about Japan Display's advanced LCD panels first emerged in January of this year, when they were referred to simply as "flexible LCDs". The panels were said to be bendable enough to manufacture smartphones with the same screen design as Samsung's Galaxy Edge series, thanks to a layer of plastic inside the glass. At the time, the company claimed mass production would begin from 2018.

Last month, Japan Display said that its Full Active displays would account for more than 70 percent of its business in panels for smartphones and other smart devices in the year ending March 2019. People at companies that work with Japan Display said interest about Full Active LCDs came directly from Apple, which is why the display maker is predicting rapid uptake for Full Active. Apple declined to comment on the report.

Apple's line-up of iPhones next year will introduce a larger-screened LCD model, measuring more than 6 inches, according to a rumor earlier this week. Based on the same part maker sources, Apple's supply of LCD screen from Japan Display already includes panel orders for the new larger screen size. Meanwhile, a switch to OLED-only iPhones is not expected until 2019.

After lengthy negotiations, Toshiba this morning officially agreed to sell its lucrative memory chip unit to a global consortium that includes Apple, in a deal reportedly worth $17.7 billion (via The Wall Street Journal).

Toshiba said the legally binding agreement ensures the chip unit will remain a Toshiba affiliate even after it has become the property of the Bain Capital-led group, which includes Apple, Dell, Seagate, Hoya, and SK Hynix.

Toshiba and Bain want to get the deal done by the end of March, despite ongoing litigation with Western Digital, which jointly operates the memory business with Toshiba. Western Digital claims it has the right to vote on the sale. Another hurdle is receiving antitrust clearance, which could take six months or longer, according to WSJ.

Toshiba originally announced it would sell its NAND flash memory unit in January 2017 to raise funds to cover huge losses associated with its U.S. nuclear subsidiary, Westinghouse. Toshiba wants to close the deal to raise the cash by March so it can remain listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Several companies, including TSMC, Foxconn, Amazon, Google, Broadcom, and a range of private equity firms entered bids this year in an effort to get a piece of the memory chip unit.

In a statement given to Reuters on Thursday, SK Hynix said the Bain-led group will hold 49.9 percent of the voting rights in the chip unit, while Toshiba will hold 40.2 percent and Japan's Hoya Corp will own 9.9 percent. Apple, Dell, Seagate, and Kingston Technology will invest in the form of non-convertible preferred shares, it said.

SK Hynix also revealed it will invest 395 billion yen ($3.5 billion) in the unit. Other companies declined to comment, but individual investments are believed to be 350.5 billion yen ($3.11 billion) from Toshiba, 212 billion yen ($1.88 billion) from Bain, and a combined 415.5 billion yen ($3.68 billion) from Apple, Dell, Kingston, and Seagate.

Apple has been interested in the memory chip unit because NAND flash is an essential component of its iPhones and iPads. Only a handful of companies make the chips and the dominant player is Samsung, Apple's biggest rival in the smartphone industry.

Delta this week announced plans to offer free access to mobile messaging services on its flights starting in October.

Delta will allow customers to use iMessage, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger to communicate with family and friends while in flight. Though Delta will let customers send text-based messages that include words and emoji, photo and video files are not supported.

Free messaging will be available on all Delta flights that feature Gogo Wi-Fi capabilities, which includes all aircraft with two or more cabins. Delta customers will be able to access the messaging services through the Delta Wi-Fi portal page.

"We know many of Delta's customers want or need to stay connected in the air and on the ground, which is why we're investing in an easy, free way to send and receive messages inflight through some of the most popular global platforms," said Tim Mapes, Delta's Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. "Coupled with our investments in seat-back screens, free entertainment and High-Speed Wi-Fi, free messaging is one more way customers can choose how to make the most of their time on Delta flights."

Delta plans to start offering the free messaging services on Sunday, October 1.

Apple design chief Jony Ive is one of the planned speakers at TechFest 2017, hosted by The New Yorker. Set to take place on October 6 from 8:45 a.m. to 6:30 p.m, the event will be held in New York City.

Ive will talk about "designing the future," according to The New Yorker. No additional information has been provided on what topics Ive will cover, but with the launch of the iPhone X approaching, it could come up during the discussion.

Other speakers at TechFest include Hyperloop One co-founder Josh Giegel, author Van Jones, Human Rights Foundation chairman Garry Kasparov, Snap chairman Michael Lynton, and M.I.T. computer science and AI lab director Daniela Rus, among others.

Tickets for The New Yorker's TechFest are priced at $1,500.

Since at least the iOS 11 beta, the App Store has been prioritizing old reviews from several years ago for some users. Now that the software update is publicly released, we're starting to receive more user reports about the change.

On my own iPhone, the first review for Facebook is from 2008, the year the App Store launched. The reviewer called it a nice app that allows him to stop using Facebook over text messaging, which is clearly a dated comment.

Similarly, the first review I can see for the Skype app is seven years old. The reviewer said he was glad the app finally has the ability to make phone calls over a 3G network, a feature added way back in May 2010.

Old reviews appeared at or near the top of the list for several regularly updated apps in my testing, including Airbnb, Dropbox, Google Maps, Instagram, Minecraft, Netflix, Twitter, Waze, WhatsApp, Yelp, and YouTube.

It's worth noting that I live in Canada. A few MacRumors editors living in the United States checked the App Store and saw much newer reviews for the Facebook app, although they were shown a three-year-old review for the Google app.

A handful of MacRumors forum members living in the United States report seeing very old reviews, however, so there doesn't appear to be any consistency to this change. Your mileage may vary completely.

"Now I have to wade through 6-yr-old app reviews, which are worthless," said MacRumors forum member AllergyDoc, whose location is listed as Utah.

"For example Evernote, the first four reviews are older than three years old," said MacRumors forum member vahdyx, who lives in Colorado. "One of the reviews were from when Obama was a new president."

Many users are frustrated because Apple currently provides no way to sort the reviews in a different order on iOS 11.

Ideally, the App Store should be displaying reviews in reverse chronological order to ensure the newest comments are at the top. A few slightly older reviews mixed in is surely fine, but reviews from 2008 aren't particularly helpful.

Previously, reviews would only show for the latest version of an app, but that is currently not the case on both iOS 10 and iOS 11.

It's quite possible that this is simply a bug, and if so, it's probably an easy fix that might not even require a software update. MacRumors has reached out to Apple for comment, and we'll update this article if we hear anything back.

On the heels of the launch of the Apple TV 4K with support for HDR and 4K, Amazon today unveiled its next-generation Fire TV, which also has 4K HDR support.

The new device, which appears to replace both the Fire TV box and the Fire TV stick, features a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, an Alexa Voice Remote, Dolby Atmos support, 802.11ac WiFi, and 2160p video at up to 60 frames per second.

Designed to be more like the Chromecast than the Apple TV, the new Fire TV is a small, hockey puck-sized square with a cable at one end to plug into a television set. It has Alexa support and offers access to hundreds of apps.

Amazon plans to offer pre-orders for the device starting today, with a launch set for later this year.

LIFX just recently introduced HomeKit support for its existing Wi-Fi connected smart bulbs, and today, the company is launching a new product with HomeKit compatibility, the LIFX Tile.

The LIFX Tile is similar to the Nanoleaf Aurora, offering a series of five 7.87-inch square plastic panels that are meant to be attached to a wall using 3M adhesive. Tile panels can be arranged in any configuration, but unlike Aurora, only five panels can be connected to a single controller.

Though only five panels can be connected, there are 64 individually addressable zones in each Tile for creating unique light patterns with multiple colors on each of the squares.

Across five panels, Tile offers 2100 lumens of light and can be set to turn any color just like LIFX bulbs. There's also a dimming feature to control the light output.

According to LIFX, Tile is compatible with HomeKit, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa. Tile connects to a home setup over Wi-Fi, with no hub required to control the lights.

LIFX is charging $250 for its Tile Kit, which includes five tiles and a power pack. Pre-orders are available starting today from the LIFX website, with the product set to ship out in November.

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming tvOS 11.1 update to developers for testing purposes, one week after releasing tvOS 11 to the public.

Designed for the fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV models, the tvOS 11.1 developer beta can be downloaded onto the Apple TV via a profile that’s installed using Xcode.

It's not yet clear what new features or changes might be included in the tvOS 11.1 update, but it likely focuses on bug fixes and performance improvements and could perhaps offer up some outward-facing design changes and feature tweaks.

tvOS 11 was something of a minor update, introducing features like full support for AirPods, automatic switching between light and dark mode based on local time, Home screen syncing options designed to keep multiple Apple TVs in a single household in sync, and new background modes and notification support.

We'll update this post when we find out what's new in the tvOS 11.1 beta.