Thursday
Jun222017

LG rumoured to be launching V30 at IFA

One of the rumoured leaks of the V30 shows the secondary display sliding out of the bottom of the device

If the recent report coming out of South Korea is to be believed, LG plans to launch the latest V30 flagship at IFA in Berlin. But they’ll be announcing it supposedly a “day before the opening day of IFA 2017,” which puts that at August 31st. Bringing the phone to IFA will be a first for the brand’s V series. It’ll reportedly also be the first time LG is holding preorder sales for the V line for at least three mobile network providers in South Korea. Whether that’ll extend to other countries isn’t known. But if LG does launch the V30 at IFA, it’ll give them a slight advantage over the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and new iPhone release, which are rumoured to be launching sometime in September.

Source: 9to5Google

Thursday
Jun222017

Apple reportedly asking music labels to take smaller revenue cut from Apple Music

Apple is supposedly renegotiating its licensing deals for Apple Music and iTunes with major music labels. Apple is hoping the labels are up for reducing revenue shares from streaming to bring them closer to the rate that Spotify pays labels. The deals with the record labels are said to expire at the end of the month but there’s a likelihood it will be extended if the parties can’t agree on new terms—at least according to the sources of Bloomberg who asked not to be identified since they’re sharing private information.

Streaming has been seen to be a source of hope for the music industry after a decade of decline in this digital age. With the help of the likes of Apple Music and Spotify, the industry grew by 5.9 percent last year worldwide. Under Apple’s existing deal, labels get around 58 percent of revenue from Apple Music subscribers, which is considered a higher cut than other services. But labels are supposedly amenable to the cut, if Apple meets other requirements. Apple overpaid labels to placate those concerned that the streaming service will cannibalize iTunes, which as shown hasn’t quite happened. But labels are still asking for precautions. Apple won’t comment about the report.

Wednesday
Jun212017

Emporio Armani joins the smartwatch market

Emporio Armani is the latest fashion brand to release an Android Wear device. Coming by September 24th, the Connected line of smartwatches will feature both Android Wear-powered devices and different hybrid models. These will run on Android Wear 2.0 with Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor and will have circular AMOLED display. And since it runs on Google’s wearable platform, it gets things like Google Assistant support. There will also be Armani-specific watchfaces as well as eight different interchangeable straps made from materials like metal, fabric and leather. No word on the pricing yet but they will be sold both online and where Armani watches are sold.

Source: 9to5Google

Wednesday
Jun212017

Spotify is now available in the Windows Store


Talk about first mover advantage, the Spotify music streaming app is finally on the Windows Store. This means it can be downloaded and installed on Windows 10 and even Windows 10 S devices like the new Surface Notebook. Advantage of downloading Spotify via the Windows Store is it gets automatic updates and is somewhat curated by Microsoft.

Spotify has released a Windows Store version of its app in every country where its streaming music service is available.

Source: Engadget