MacRumors

Originally offered as a cable channel by Time Warner, Boomerang has this week been spun off into a streaming bundle of its own, offering subscribers on iOS, Android, and desktop access to classic cartoons like Hanna-Barbera's Wacky Races and Yogi Bear, as well as shows featuring Looney Tunes characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Road Runner (via Variety). Slightly more modern cartoons like The Life and Times of Juniper Lee and Courage the Cowardly Dog are also up for streaming.

Boomerang will allow subscribers on-demand access to these shows, and some will even be gaining new episodes each week, including additional episodes of modern shows as well as classics from the Boomerang vault. The service also plans to launch new, exclusive shows to Boomerang subscribers sometime later this year. Boomerang is still sticking around as an addition for traditional cable packages, with the new video-on-demand service being referred to as a "complementary" package to its cable channel.

For its classics, Boomerang offers over 1,000 episodes of the older cartoons, although there remain a few noticeable omissions like The Flinstones and The Jetsons, but the company has said more shows will continuously be added after this week's launch. Movies related to certain characters -- including Scooby-Doo --are included as well in the subscription plan.

Boomerang is THE place to watch all your favorite cartoons to your heart’s content, on demand and ad free. Enjoy classic shows and new originals you can’t get anywhere else. Your Boomerang subscription allows you to control the viewing experience in a kid-friendly environment with your whole family with no TV package required.

The library is only part of the fun! New episodes of new original shows or classics from the vault are added every week. Get new episodes of New Looney Tunes, Bunnicula, Be Cool Scooby Doo, Tom and Jerry and more, plus brand new shows coming later this year! Enjoy full seasons of old favorites from Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and all the favorite cartoons you love.

In terms of cost, users can pay $4.99 a month for Boomerang, or opt in for a $39.99 yearly subscription to drop the monthly cost down to $3.33. Those interested can download the Boomerang app now on the iOS App Store for free [Direct Link], and it's also available on Android and on desktop and laptop computers. TV-enabled streaming boxes, including Apple TV, will be gaining Boomerang apps in the near future as well.

StubHub, the world's largest online ticket marketplace, today announced that it has updated its iOS app with a new iMessage integration for sharing events and voting on which tickets to buy or where to sit.

Meanwhile, in the main app, StubHub now allows users to connect with Facebook friends to see which events they are planning on attending, as well as which artists, teams, and venues are of interest to them. This information is found within a new Activity feed under the Profile tab after updating the app.

Last, StubHub has launched a new Facebook Messenger chatbot that serves as a "personal event concierge" by recommending local and upcoming events based on the information that a user supplies.

StubHub is a free download on the App Store [Direct Link] for iPhone and iPad. Apple Watch and Apple TV apps are also available.

Early in March, Apple suppliers Foxconn and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company announced their intention to bid for a stake in Toshiba's memory chip unit, which the company has put up for sale in an effort to offset a nearly $6 billion loss related to its overseas nuclear division. TSMC eventually dropped out of the race, leaving Hon Hai (Foxconn) as the highest bidder at nearly 3 trillion yen, or $27 billion.

Today, people familiar with the sale speaking to Bloomberg said that Toshiba is expected to reject Foxconn's lofty bid, mainly because of likely opposition from both the Japanese and American governments if Foxconn were to win Toshiba's memory chip business. Taiwan-based Foxconn has deep ties with China due to its numerous, large iPhone production facilities being located in the country, and those ties are expected to sit unfavorably with Japanese officials watching the bids on Toshiba's memory chip unit.

According to insiders, Toshiba sees a sale to Foxconn as an inevitable drag through regulatory approvals and delays, and is now willing to give "serious consideration" to lower bids.

Taiwan’s Hon Hai, which has indicated its willingness to pay as much as 3 trillion yen ($27 billion) for the chip unit, would face resistance because of its ties to China, said the people, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. That could drag out regulatory approvals and delay badly needed cash payments to Toshiba, raising the risks of such a deal, the people said. Hon Hai, the primary iPhone assembler for Apple Inc., has most of its factories in mainland China.

Next in line is said to be a potential offer of 2 trillion yen made by Broadcom, but current bids are non-binding and could change at any time, with the next round of bidding coming in the middle of May. The Japanese government is said to be "keeping a close eye on the process" and is expected to protect its interests in any sale that occurs with Toshiba.

On Tuesday, two senior officials, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga and Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko, said Japan would protect its interests in any sale. “We are keeping a close eye on the process,” Suga said. “As a general principle, there would be a requirement to examine any deal under the foreign exchange law.”

The Japan government is organizing an alternative offer from Japanese companies that aims to inject 500 billion yen into the chips unit in exchange for a minority stake, one person said. Current bids are non-binding and could change. The deadline for the next round of bidding is mid-May, one of the people said.

Toshiba's likelihood in passing on Foxconn's bid is also said to be backed by a fear of the supplier's business methodology displayed during its acquisition of Sharp in 2016. In that process, the two companies originally agreed to a $6.2 billion takeover, but the final amount landed around $3.5 billion due to Foxconn's last minute bidding adjustment. Foxconn said the decision was based on discovering that Sharp had hundreds of billions of yen in "previously undisclosed liabilities," but the tactics are now said to make Toshiba "reluctant" to agree to Foxconn's bid.

Toshiba is also looking closely at a bid made by South Korea's SK Hynix, but the winning bidder isn't expected to be announced until June, ahead of Toshiba's next shareholder meeting.

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.

Over the past few months, users on Reddit have been voicing excitement for a new app being developed and beta tested that would finally bring Spotify onto the Apple Watch. Called "Spotty," and then "Snowy" when Spotify cited copyright concerns with the first name, the new app faced troubles with Spotify's legal team who also referenced UI similarities to the company's first party iOS app.

Because of this, news surrounding Snowy had slowed in recent weeks, but this week developer Andrew Chang gave users a big update: Snowy will live on thanks to an official partnership with Spotify itself. This means that Spotify will work with Chang to develop and add Apple Watch functionality and playlist pairing into the streaming music service's main iOS app.

Hi all, thanks for your patience and understanding. I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be working closely with Spotify to bring Snowy to the Apple Watch as part of an official Spotify iOS app. Spotify’s powerful iOS SDK made it possible to develop Snowy, but I can’t wait to take things to the next level with the expertise and tools available at Spotify. While I can’t give any estimates as to when it’ll be available, you can rest assured that a Spotify Apple Watch companion app is in the pipeline.

Although a launch date is still unclear, when it debuts the new Spotify Apple Watch companion app will finally give Spotify listeners a comparable experience on Apple Watch as Apple Music subscribers have had over the past few years.

Chang didn't confirm that every feature will make it into the final version of the app, but Snowy's website currently lists features like offline playback so users can leave their iPhone behind and still listen to Spotify through the Apple Watch, multiple real-time complications support, Siri controls, and even hands-free gestures that enable music controls through "a flick of the wrist."

In March, Spotify announced that it had hit 50 million paid subscribers, growing steadily from the 40 million it had in September 2016. As its rival, Apple Music has shown impressive growth since its launch in 2015, boasting 20 million paid subscribers in December 2016 and beating Spotify in the realm of monthly unique users thanks to Apple Music's lengthy three-month free trial given to every new subscriber.

Dropbox's collaborative editing software Paper received an update to its iOS app on Tuesday that allows users to edit their documents offline.

Similar to Google Docs, Paper offers Dropbox account holders a minimalist document editor and conversational tools for collaborative projects. Users review and revise work in a single, shared space which includes an image gallery feature, advanced search across files and comments, and a notifications system that works across both the iOS app and the web version of the service.

The new offline feature was introduced to allow users to create new documents, or access, edit, and comment on documents stored in the cloud even if they lost their internet connection. When the connection is restored, changes are automatically synced to the Paper service.

The change brings Paper one step closer to Google Docs functionality, but currently the offline mode applies to mobile users only – Dropbox has yet to add the support to the web app version of the service.

In addition to the offline mode, Dropbox announced Paper support for 20 additional languages, including Danish, Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål, Malay, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian.

Paper is a free download for iPhone and iPad available on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Google yesterday announced a new feature in the latest update to its Chrome browser that aims to make the progressive loading of web pages less jumpy and annoying.

The idea behind progressive loading is to allow users to begin consuming web content immediately before the page has fully loaded, but the offscreen loading of pictures and so on can cause unexpected page jumps and push down what's already on screen, making for a frustrating experience, especially on mobile devices. Google's answer to this problem is something called Scroll Anchoring.

Similar to other features designed to protect our users from bad experiences, starting in version 56 Chrome prevents these unexpected page jumps with a new feature called scroll anchoring. This feature works by locking the scroll position on an on-screen element to keep our users in the same spot even as offscreen content continues to load.

While the focus of this feature is on mobile, scroll anchoring is actually also on by default on Chrome for Mac. Meanwhile, Google is encouraging web developers to participate in a community group to discuss the feature's functionality, offer feedback, and learn how to design websites or services "with a no-reflow mindset".

Google Chrome is available to download for free on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Samsung's Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, announced in late March, are set to go on sale starting on April 21, but one feature will be notably missing on smartphones sold in the United States - Samsung's Bixby voice assistant.

Samsung is planning to delay the launch of the English-language version of Bixby, reports The Wall Street Journal, due to performance issues discovered over the course of the last few weeks.

The English-language version of Bixby could be delayed until the end of May, according to a source that spoke to The Wall Street Journal, but Samsung has not made a final decision on timing. A Samsung spokesperson confirmed that the Bixby service will not be available in the United States until "later this spring."

During internal tests in recent weeks, the performance of Bixby's voice recognition in English has lagged behind that of the virtual assistant's performance in Korean, these people said, and company executives are still discussing when to make Bixby available in English.

Samsung's Bixby virtual assistant was first announced in March, ahead of the debut of the Galaxy S8 and S8+. According to Samsung, Bixby is "fundamentally different" than competing products like Siri and Cortana because it is able to be deeply integrated into apps.

Samsung also says Bixby is intelligent enough to understand commands with incomplete information and execute the commanded task to the best of its knowledge. Bixby was built on technology that was acquired from Viv, an AI virtual assistant created by some of the same people who originally built Siri.

As a major feature in the Galaxy S8, with a dedicated button on the left side of the device, Bixby's absence could deter customers from purchasing Samsung's new smartphone.

The Galaxy S8 and the S8+ feature a 5.8 or 6.2-inch AMOLED display, a 12-megapixel rear camera, an 8-megapixel front-facing camera, IP68 water resistance, iris scanning and facial recognition capabilities, a Snapdragon 835 processor, and 4GB RAM. Pricing on the S8 starts at $750 while pricing on the S8+ starts at $850.

Apple's TestFlight platform, used by developers for beta testing iOS apps, was today updated to add several important new features including multiple builds, groups, and tester management.

With support for multiple builds, developers are now able to distribute and test more than one build of an app at a time, allowing beta testers to choose from several app builds to test.

TestFlight groups have been improved and are now more useful to developers. TestFlight users can be organized into groups for testing different builds of an app or for better management. Developers who use TestFlight will see all of their existing external testers added to a new "External Testers" group to start with following the update.

Going forward, beta testers of an app can continue testing a build once it goes live on the App Store for a seamless transition, and iTunes Connect users are able to access all active builds, making it easy to do quick comparisons. Apple has also made it easier for developers to resend invitations to testers who have not accepted a beta invitation.

For those unfamiliar with TestFlight, it's Apple's iOS beta testing platform, designed to let developers recruit beta testers for their apps to work out bugs ahead of releasing apps to the public.

TestFlight can be downloaded for free from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Apple's new video editing app Clips, released on April 6, saw between 500,000 and 1 million downloads during its first four days of availability, according to estimates from app analytics firm App Annie that were shared with TechCrunch.

Following its release, Clips climbed to the number 28 spot in the U.S. App Store, but it hasn't managed to attain a higher rank as of yet. In comparison, Apple's Music Memos app, which is aimed at a smaller number of users, reached number 29 during its first day of availability.

Since its release, Clips' App Store ranking has declined. On Thursday, it was number 28, but on Saturday, it dropped to 39 and today it's ranked as the number 53 app. Clips may grow in popularity as it's discovered by iOS users. Apple is featuring it in the App Store and is listed in the "New Apps We Love" section.

"The average user is not yet aware of it," notes Danielle Levitas, Senior Vice President, Research & Professional Services at App Annie. "They'll start to become more aware of it through that network effect as people share these clips in Facebook, in Instagram, in WeChat," she says. Clips does not have its own built in social network, so it will rely on these shares.

Clips, as the name suggests, lets users combine several video clips, images, and photos with voice-based titles, music, filters, and graphics to create enhanced videos that are up to an hour in length.

Clips can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Misfit today introduced its newest wearable device, the Misfit Flare, which is a new entry-level sleep and fitness tracker that's available at an affordable $60 price point.

The Flare, like all Misfit wearables, is designed to track steps, distance, and calories burned, along with sleep quality. It can track different activities, like walking, running, yoga, soccer, basketball, and swimming. Tracking laps while swimming will require a $9.99 in-app purchase.

Simple and stylish, the Flare features an aluminum outer case mounted on a matching black band. There's a capacitive touch sensor and a single LED located underneath the face of the fitness device, which is used to track activity progress throughout the day.

A double tap on the Flare causes an LED indicator to flash. A single flash means a user is 25 percent of the way towards an activity goal, a double flash is 50 percent, and a triple flash is 75 percent. A light animation indicates the activity goal for the day has been reached.

Flare uses a replaceable watch battery that lasts up to four months, so it does not need to be charged. It is also water resistant to 50 meters, so it can be worn while swimming, bathing, and showering.

With Link compatibility, available in most Misfit wearables, the Flare can be used as a smart button to take a selfie with an iPhone, and it can control music, advance slides in a presentation, control household devices, and more.

Flare can be purchased from the Misfit website for $59.99 starting today.