MacRumors

French music streaming service Deezer officially opened its doors to the U.S. market on Tuesday, meaning for the first time, anyone in the States can sign up for a $10-a-month subscription.

Previously the service was only available to U.S. customers if they owned a Sonos system and paid $20 a month for Deezer Elite, or if they signed up to promotion deals through Bose and Cricket Wireless.

A Deezer Premium+ subscription offers similar features to Apple Music and Spotify, such as unlimited streaming of its 40 million-track library, machine-generated and human-curated playlists, offline listening, and access to music lyrics. Over 40,000 podcasts and radio stations (including personalized station service Flow) are also included.

Deezer offers an ad-supported free tier in other countries, but users in the U.S. only have access to the paid tier. A 30-day free trial is available however.

iOS users can avoid the App Store surcharge for signing up to the service through the Deezer app ($12.99 per month) by visiting the website instead, where the Deezer Premium+ 30-day trial is also available. Users then pay $9.99 a month and can cancel anytime. The Deezer Elite high-definition service remains exclusive to Sonos speaker owners.

Deezer currently has over 6 million users worldwide, about half that of Apple Music and around a fifth of Spotify's total paying customers. The service will also have to compete with the likes of Tidal and Google Play, as well as online radio station Pandora, which currently has over 80 million free monthly listeners.

Popular writing environment Scrivener made its long-awaited debut on iOS this morning.

For those unfamiliar with the Mac application, Scrivener is a scalable long-form writing platform and author project management system featuring multiple editing and organization tools.

Note cards, character sketches, place descriptions, and research notes are just some of the options available to writers, with import options for media, web pages, PDFs, and more also forming part of the package.

As a standalone writing environment, the new Scrivener iOS app functions in much the same way, offering rich text editing with support for comments, footnotes, keywords, and so on.

Many of the features from the desktop version have also made the port, such as the Binder, Outliner, Corkboard, and Inspector, although certain features that require more screen space — the Corkboard, for instance — are iPad-only.

The app syncs with Scrivener for macOS (Scrivener v2.8) and Scrivener for Windows using Dropbox, or users can copy projects between devices via iTunes. As mentioned however, the iOS app also works as a standalone tool, featuring multiple manuscript compilation and print formats as well as project export options, such as ebook, ePub, and PDF.

Scrivener 2.8 for Mac is a free update for all registered users of Scrivener 2, and along with iOS support, it also includes a number of bug fixes and minor tweaks.

Scrivener for iOS was first announced back in 2011, with an early launch goal originally estimated to be "some time in 2012." When that date slipped, lead developer Keith Blount kept fans updated on the troubled development of the app, with the iOS team running into coding issues and other setbacks over the years.

Scrivener for iOS costs $19.99 and is compatible with any device running iOS 9.0 or later. [Direct Link]

Earlier this year, Netflix reminded its oldest users that the terms of its grandfathered pricing -- which kept these subscribers at the $7.99 level for two years -- would be coming to a close sometime in the second or third quarter of 2016.

In a recent letter to the company's investors, CEO Reed Hastings remarked on the unfortunate churn of its subscriber base who reacted "unexpectedly" to the impending price increase.

The loss of grandfathered pricing places these older users at a new $9.99/month charge for the company's popular streaming service, which Netflix sees as an agreeable compensation for its noticeable uptick in consistent, original programs like Orange is the New Black and House of Cards. These shows debuted in 2013, and the $9.99/month price for new subscribers began just the next year, in 2014. Users can choose to stay at $7.99/month if they wish, at the loss of HD video streaming.

Due to these abandoned users, the company's stock fell 15 percent before its second quarter earnings report, shared yesterday. In the report, Netflix noted that it expected to add about 532,000 subscribers in the United States and 2.10 million internationally in Q2 2016 (just under a 2.5 million goal), but came up short on both goals. The company ultimately netted 160,000 new customers in the U.S. and 1.52 million overseas, landing under 1.7 million total in the quarter.

“Gross additions were on target, but churn ticked up slightly and unexpectedly, coincident with the press coverage in early April of our plan to un-­grandfather longer tenured members and remained elevated through the quarter,” said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings in a letter to investors. “We think some members perceived the news as an impending new price increase rather than the completion of two years of grandfathering.”

As the price hike began to near in the spring, Hastings admitted that users googling and researching the increase in their subscription cost appears to be consistent with the churn the company has seen this quarter. Despite Netflix's increase in programming, "Whatever the price is for something, people don’t like for it to go up," Hastings admitted, while still claiming that the new price tiers are "working great" for new members.

Announced earlier this year at CES, Withings today officially launched its latest connected health device, Thermo, a contactless thermometer approved by the FDA that "yields the most precise temperature possible" for parents looking to diagnose not only their children, but themselves.

With a connected app, which syncs to Thermo firstly through Wi-Fi but defaults to Bluetooth if Wi-Fi is unavailable, the company aims to track anyone's rough patch of sickness with temperature logs, medicine reminders, and a symptoms tracker all available for each user.

Thermo claims its "clinical accuracy" comes from HotSpot Sensor technology, which uses 16 infrared sensors to take more than 4,000 measurements and readings in one swipe of the device on a sickly individual's forehead. After finding the hottest point of contact, the Thermo detects changes in temperature and displays its highest reading on the digital screen of the product's handle, with convenient LEDs for easy visual confirmation of a normal, elevated, or high temperature based on the user's age.

Using revolutionary HotSpot Sensor™ Technology, Thermo uses 16 infrared sensors to take over 4,000 measurements to find the hottest point. Thermo sweeps over the forehead and measures from the temporal artery — considered the best way to detect temperature changes, as the blood that circulates there comes directly from the core of the body.

Thermo is a game changer. Now a fast, simple, no-contact gesture yields the most precise temperature possible, and automatic sync with the dedicated app also allows you to track temperature readings, get reminders, and input related symptoms/medications right on your smartphone.

The biggest advantage of the new connected thermometer is that it doesn't require direct contact with skin to successfully read a person's temperature, which means, unlike traditionally invasive designs, Thermo avoids contact with potentially unsanitary body fluids like saliva and ear wax. Withings said this advantage makes Thermo "the most sanitary way to take anyone’s temperature."

All of these readings are subsequently wired into the connected Withings app (supporting up to 8 family members), which accounts for a patient's age, fever history, and symptoms, guiding users to the best potential path for treatment. After temperature is determined on Thermo, a touch sensitive pad on the device's LED readout lets users toggle through family members to assign each reading. Push notifications can also be set up, so the app will remind users to take consistent readings throughout the day.

Thanks to a partnership with Boston Children's Hospital, parents can also get even more in-depth information on what kind of medication and dosage amounts they should look into if fevers run high enough to need a doctor visit. In order to keep track of everything happening during a period of illness, they can also mark down specific notes -- like how the sick family member is feeling -- to provide a more robust view of an individual's sickness when talking to a doctor.

Microsoft announced an overhaul of its Groove music app for iOS yesterday, featuring a redesigned interface and a handful of new features for the subscription-based service, home to over 40 million tracks.

The 3.5.6 update promises a much faster sign-in for mobile users of the $9.99-per-month service and introduces a new Explore view to the UI where users can discover popular songs and new releases from top artists.

The update also offers significant improvements to playback reliability, as well as faster download of songs and albums for offline playing. Lossless OneDrive support and new sorting options when viewing music collections have also been implemented.

In addition, the update includes fixes to the sync process that requires users' music collections to be rebuilt from scratch, which Microsoft promises is a one-time procedure, as well as optimizations to screen resolution to support larger mobile displays.

The app still needs to be in the foreground to download music, although Microsoft says a background download feature is coming in a future update. 

Microsoft Groove is a free download for iPhone and iPad available from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Apple has been warned by the Iranian government that it faces having its products banned in the country unless it officially registers with Iran's anti-smuggling office.

"If Apple will not register an official representative in Iran within the next few days, all iPhones will be collected from the market," said the director of Iran's anti-smuggling project on Sunday.

The ultimatum was reported by Tasnim News Agency and translated today by The Japan Times. According to the report, more than 40 million Iranians use smartphones, including millions of iPhone users whose devices are often imported into the country by smugglers.

To stop the flow of smuggled phones, Iran's presidential office will initiate a scheme later this week that requires all mobile phones to be registered with Iran's telecommunications user database. Phones not registered will not be able to be used in the country. According to the office, former users of iPhones and other smuggled phones are excluded from the scheme.

Despite the cooperation of mobile operators, customs, and the union of mobile phone sellers, IT activists in the country have criticized the state's decision to potentially ban iPhones.

"Collecting this huge number of iPhones will not be easy," the head of the Tehran IT union told Tasnim News, and expressed concerns that the telecommunications database could be susceptible to hacking attempts.

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.

The BBC released a new app today called BBC+ which aims to let users customize the content offered by the British broadcaster for a more relevant, personalized experience.

The idea behind the app is to work as a customized one-stop portal for all things BBC that corrals content from across the service, from TV and radio to exclusively online bitesize and longform content.

Users are prompted to sign in to the app on launch and begin choosing their content preferences. The app's homepage for example offers a fully customizable content carousel that users populate by choosing from a list of editorial themes, including regional and national news, sports, gaming, science, music, business, politics, health, food, and more.

Pooled data collected by the app is then used by algorithms and human curators to work out what content formats are most popular and help identify trending themes to better serve up more relevant content.

"BBC+ is a key part of the journey towards achieving a much more personal BBC, and truly brings topical information from across the whole organization to your pocket, ready for you to access at your convenience," said the head of BBC+ Paul Owen in a press release. "This is just the start for us, and over time the app will evolve and add new features based on user feedback."

The app is a key aspect of the broadcaster's vision for the BBC in the digital era – the "myBBC revolution", as director general Tony Hall called it – which seeks to reinvent public service broadcasting by using viewers' data and interests to put them in the driver's seat.

According to the BBC, 7.2 million people have signed in to the BBC's existing digital services to date, and consumed 44 percent more content than those not signed in.

In terms of the broadcaster's data privacy policy, Hall made the following statement:

We believe your data is yours. Wherever we collect and use your data, we will only use it to bring you the things that matter to you, surface hidden gems that you might not otherwise have found, and improve the BBC’s services.

We’ll put you in control over how we use your data, and be open and transparent about what we’re using your data for. You will always be able to change or delete it.

We will not do anything with your data that isn’t clearly explained, or that you don’t agree to. We will never sell your data, let other organizations track what you do with the BBC for their own purposes, or spam you.

And we’ll guard and protect your data. The BBC is set up to serve the public, and to help everyone in the UK get the best out of digital technologies and the BBC. We have no reason to collect your data other than to serve you better.

BBC+ is a free download for iPad and iPhone available on the U.K. App Store. [Direct Link]

The U.S. Army Special Operations Command is looking to switch from Android smartphones for its Tactical Assault Kits to iPhones, according to Military.com's DoDBuzz. The switch away from Android, and specifically Samsung devices, is largely because the devices aren't reliable enough.

The iPhone is “faster; smoother. Android freezes up” and has to be restarted too often, the source said. The problem with the Android is particularly noticeable when viewing live feed from an unmanned aerial system such as Instant Eye, the source said.

Specifically, Android will freeze up and apps will fail to refresh properly when viewing split screens with information on them. This forces the user to restart the phone, wasting valuable minutes. The source tells DoDBuzz that the same process is "seamless" on the iPhone and that the graphics are "clear" and "unbelievable."

The Tactical Assault Kits are made up of a system that links a smartphone to a connected network radio, allowing unit leaders to keep track of their own locations and the locations of their troops on a digital map. It's unclear which version of Android or which Samsung device the Army was using in the Tactical Assault Kit. In 2013, the Department of Defense approved the use of iOS devices for military networks.

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.