Microsoft has an app that helps Mac users switch to Surface

photo from TechnoBuffalo

Microsoft is dead serious about getting Mac users to switch to Surface devices. Not only has the Redmond giant offered trade-ins and discounts for trading older Macs towards Surface Pros and Surface Books, the company has even created an app that helps Mac users migrate more seamlessly to a new Surface device.

The very specific Mac to Surface Assistant is a macOS app which Microsoft has reportedly been working on. Switcher apps are nothing new, we have them on smartphones and they make the process of transferring to a different platform less painful. Microsoft has this app in beta and has pulled it but it is likely going to be made available officially soon. Not only is Microsoft competing with Mac in terms of devices, specs and in-store experience, they now have specific apps to capture that market better.

Source: Thurrott.com

Drake smashes Apple Music’s single-day streaming record, too

Canadian rapper Drake didn’t just break records on Spotify. It seems his done the same thing on Apple Music, too. His 22-song “playlist” called More Life was streamed 89.9 million times on Apple Music for the first 24 hours it was available. It broke the record on Apple’s streaming service, which was believed to have been held by Drake as well for his last album Views. Aside from that, it even set records on Beats 1 with the weekend’s episode of “OVO Sound Radio,” where Drake premiered this playlist, became the biggest Beats 1 show to date. It isn’t known how many listeners tuned in, though.

As 9to5Mac points out, this streaming record on Apple Music might prove important for Apple and the viability of its streaming service as it has been streamed some 28.6 million times more there than on Spotify for its first 24 hours of availability. It’s a big deal especially with the difference in number of subscribers the services have. Apple is supposedly “well past” 20 million subscribers while Spotify reached 50 million paying listeners recently.

Apple now makes it easier to stream rented movies across different devices

Apple is employing a “rent once, watch anywhere” approach to movie rentals in the iTunes Store. The latest iTunes 12.6 update for the desktop will no longer restrict you to watch a movie you rented on the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, or PC you rented it on. This feature will be available to work on devices with iOS 10.3 or tvOS 10.2. These haven’t been officially released to the public yet but with this update, we won’t be surprised if the rollout is soon.

Source: The Verge

Create fun short videos with Apple’s Clips app

App developers are making it easy for us to make fun videos on the internet to share with friends and family (and fans, for the more popular set). Apple is joining in on the fun with a new app. Called Clips, you can create short videos on your iPhone or iPad that combine videos, photos, and music that you can share on popular social media sites. Inside the app, there’s what Apple calls the Live Titles feature, which lets you add animated captions and titles to videos with just your voice. The app will automatically generate the captions as you speak. It supports up to 36 different languages at the moment.

There are different filters available in the app including speech bubbles, shapes, comic book filters, and full-screen animated posters. You can opt to shoot the videos or photos on the spot or get the clips and photos from your camera roll. It lets you create multi-clip videos without timelines, tracks, or editing tools that could confuse the typical user. The app will be available for free starting next month. It works for iPhone 5s or later, new 9.7-inch iPad, all iPad Air, and iPad Pro models, iPad mini 2, and later. Your device need to run iOS 10.3 for it to work.

Source: Ubergizmo