Tim Cook: "Great desktops," are in the roadmap

There's been growing concern that Apple has somewhat neglected its desktops. Sure, the iMac was updated in 2015 with impressive new 5K and 4K variants, but it's been two years since the Mac mini has gotten revised and three long years since the Mac Pro was launched. Well, Apple CEO Tim Cook reassured Apple staff that desktops are very much a part of Apple's roadmap in an internal memo to employees.

Some folks in the media have raised the question about whether we’re committed to desktops. If there’s any doubt about that with our teams, let me be very clear: we have great desktops in our roadmap. Nobody should worry about that.

This is very good news for Apple desktop users who have been waiting patiently for an upgrade path from their current desktops. Like most manufacturers of the PC industry, Apple's likely been held back by Intel, who supplies the processors that power notebooks and desktops and whose latest Kaby Lake processors are trickling out. The Mac is also a shrinking part of Apple's business. Notebooks may be on the upswing but desktops are a tough sell all around. Tim Cook's reassurance that great desktops are coming will help put a lot of speculation to rest.

Source: TechCrunch

Rogers brings Roam Like Home to more wireless consumers

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Bringing smartphones or other mobile devices while on trips is almost a necessity. But having to pay so much for roaming fees is a bummer. Rogers hopes to help out its clients by expanding its Roam Like Home to more postpaid wireless consumers. This offer is meant to let Canadian subscribers use their wireless plan as they would at home when traveling to the U.S. and over 100 destinations worldwide.

Rogers says almost 800,000 more of its subscribers can avail of this data bucket along with talk and text included in the plan. This charges $5 per day in the US and $10 per day for the other destinations around the world. Customers will only be charged for a maximum of 10 days on each monthly bill or $50 in the U.S. and $100 in eligible international destination. Long distance charges won’t be applied to calls and texts made to local numbers in your destination or back home to Canada. You can find out more about this offering in this link.

Twitter tweaks search results to show ‘relevant’ tweets

Comparison of the old and new Twitter search results

Aside from doing it on its main timeline, Twitter is updating what results you see when you search for something on its service. Instead of going with reverse chronological order, Twitter is basing it off relevance to the user. According to Twitter’s early trials, this approach results in users engaging more with the service. In a blog post, Lisa Huang, senior software engineer for search quality, says the change was made because “the most recent results may not be what the searchers are looking for.” You might get a better grasp of a certain topic from popular tweets or other more relevant tweets than the most recent ones.

Twitter relies on its algorithm and your user behavior to collect this information. It seems to be using roughly the same programming it uses for your main timeline but perhaps with some adjustments since it has to pull information from the social network’s entire database. Now, when you pull up a search on Twitter the different categories (most popular ones, the latest, by people, photos, videos, etc.) will now be algorithmically controlled.

Source: VentureBeat

The Black Keys hesitantly brings latest albums to Spotify

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The Black Keys have caved and put two of its latest albums (2011’s El Camino and 2014’s Turn Blue) on Spotify. It wasn’t without any hesitation, though. As The Black Keys’s drummer Patrick Carney tweeted: “After five years of struggling with this we agreed to put the keys songs on Spotify. I’d rather people hear our music than not.” Carney, who has spoken out against the streaming service before, also tweeted: “No advance or money was exchanged. I’m still an advocate for artists to be paid fairly. I’m still apprehensive.”

In a 2014 interview with the Seattle Times, Carney has acknowledged that Spotify was the “way of the future” but he hopes artists were giving fair share of revenue. "My whole thing about music is: if somebody’s making money then the artist should be getting a fair cut of it," he said. "The owner of Spotify is worth something like 3 billion dollars… he’s richer than Paul McCartney and he’s 30 and he’s never written a song."

Source: Billboard