Apple Shares Behind the Scenes Look at New Holiday Ad 'The Song'

Over the weekend, Apple released a touching new holiday ad called "The Song," focusing on a woman who found an old record of her grandmother singing a love song to her grandfather, which she then enhanced with her own vocals and musical accompaniments using Apple's tools.



Apple has now released a second video, which offers details on how the spot was created. As explained by the musician who starred the ad, Dana Williams, and vocalist Rhiannon Giddens, a series of recordings were made with a voice-o-graph, a 1940's booth for recording short spurts of audio directly onto a record.






The voice-o-graph used in the spot was supplied by Third Man Records, which is Jack White's indie label. Giddens, voicing the grandmother, sang the "Love Is Here to Stay" audio, and it was then transferred into GarageBand for editing by Williams, who says that she uses the app for recording "basically all of her music." "Anyone who's not tech savvy like myself can just kind of find their way around it," she explains.






"The Song," which highlights both GarageBand and the iPad mini, follows in the footsteps of last year's sentimental holiday ad, "Misunderstood,", which focused on the video recording capabilities of the iPhone.

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Posted in 2014 at 07:58PM, December 17

Apple Reportedly Planning to Shut Down Beats Music

Apple is planning to discontinue Beats Music, the streaming music service that it acquired as part of an acquisition of Beats Electronics back in May. According to TechCrunch , multiple sources that include "several prominent employees at Apple and Beats" have confirmed that Apple is shutting down the music service.

Many engineers from Beats Music have already been moved off the product and onto other projects at Apple, including iTunes. It's not clear when exactly Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre's music service will be shut down or what Apple will do with streaming, but every source with knowledge of the situation that we talked to agreed Apple plans to sunset the Beats Music brand.

Apple first acquired Beats Music in May, and at the time, announced plans to leave the music service untouched. There were no plans to integrate Beats Music into iTunes, with the company suggesting that it would remain as a standalone service.



Apple shutting down Beats Music is unusual news given the efforts that the company has gone to in order to promote it in recent weeks, adding it to the list of "Apps Made by Apple" and recommending the app to new iOS users.

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Posted in 2014 at 07:58PM, September 22

Apple Maps may finally be able to do something that Google Maps can’t

Other than possibly finding the Loch Ness monster, there aren't many good reasons to use Apple Maps instead of Google Maps. However, a recent acquisition reported by TechCrunch might actually change that. According to TechCrunch's sources, Apple has purchased Spotsetter, a social search application that could help Apple add some interesting new features to its oft-ridiculed Maps application on the iPhone.

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Posted in 2014 at 07:58PM, June 06

Developers Now Able to Provide Promo Codes for In-App Purchases

Apple appears to be allowing developers to create promo codes for in-app purchases, a useful feature that makes it far easier to test and promote freemium games and apps with content that can only be purchased within an app once it has been downloaded.



Promo codes for apps have long been available, but were previously limited to initial app downloads and were not available for in-app purchases. This change will make it easier for developers to give early app testers, reviewers, and other users access to the full content available within freemium apps.



While it is unclear if the feature is currently available to all developers, Jeff Scott of 148apps.com shared a screenshot on Twitter of an in-app purchase promo code for Real Racing 3, from major developer EA. EA is using the promotion to give customers 10 free gold within the app, which has an in-app value of $1.99. The gold can be obtained by visiting this link on an iOS device.





Entering the promo code provides users with gold in the app, and if the app is not installed, it will automatically download before redeeming the in-app purchase code.





Apple has not yet updated its developer site to reflect the availability of in-app promo codes and its rules still state "Promo codes don't work for In-App purchase products, including Newsstand issues."

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Posted in 2014 at 07:58PM, May 15

FDA has no problem with camera-equipped smart pills travelling your body

The FDA has approved a “bite-sized” camera-equipped smart pill for medical use in patients who aren’t able, for whatever reason, to have a complete colonoscopy, Mashable reports. The smart pill has a camera on both ends and will travel the human body in eight hours, taking high-speed pictures of intestines and sending them to a device worn by the patient. The doctor can then take a look at the pictures once the procedure is complete.



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Posted in 2014 at 07:58PM, February 10