The Apple Beat: Apple’s Year in Review for 2015

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla 

If I’ve learned anything about Apple in 2015, is that it is no longer as predictable as it used to be and the old established norms no longer hold water. 

2015 was a huge one of for Apple in various areas. The company released its first new major product category with the Apple Watch, it also enjoyed an unprecedented year of product releases as well as an ever expanding focus on operating systems, ecosystems, music services and mobile payments.

What struck me most about Apple in 2015 is that it seems to have shifted from being conservative in its product announcements to being more like the multi-billion-dollar company it actually is. This means taking bigger risks with new product categories, filling-in empty spots between existing product sizes and models plus growing its various ecosystems and services.

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BMW’s AirTouch introduces gesture-based control into your car

CES 2016 is turning more into a car technology show. BMW, one of the many car makers making their way to Las Vegas next year, will be introducing a refinement to its new gesture-based control system the company calls AirTouch. It makes use of sensors so you can control things like navigation, entertainment, and communication using “simple gestures” made with a flat hand and you don’t even have to make contact with the panorama display.

First making its appearance in the BMW 7 Series as a Gesture Control feature, AirTouch introduces a new concealed button on the rim of the steering wheel and in the side sill of the door area for the passenger side. This makes it easy to navigation the interface. You can also just tap on it once to change a setting or go to a desired menu or program. For the passenger, you can use one hand to navigate through the menus and the other to input things quickly. We should see demos of this feature at CES, which is starting in a few days, and perhaps we also get news when they plan to deploy this to the public.

Source: BMW | Via: Paste Magazine

Find out what you listened to the most with Spotify’s ‘Year in Music’ recap

Did you have Taylor Swift’s music on repeat all year? Or was The Weeknd more your thing? Spotify’s “Year in Music” feature gives you a recap of the songs you listened to this year. It will even suggest new tunes you might want to check out in 2016 based on the songs you’ve listened to previously. The site will also show you what were the top songs you’ve listened to; who were the top artists you’ve listened to; and how long and how many tracks have you listened to on Spotify. And of course, you also get a new “Play It Forward” playlist based on your past year’s listening habits.

Source: TechCrunch

Twitter finally updates Mac app

After Twitter has neglected its Mac app for so long, it’s good to see Twitter has kept good on its word to release a newly redesigned app to match its other desktop client, web, and mobile app counterparts. This new version gets features like inline video, animated GIFs, and Notification Center widget support. The look of the new app also works more with the design aesthetic of Mac OS X Yosemite and El Capitan. The app even has a new dark mode to match the dark theme introduced in Yosemite.

It also now supports group messaging, the ability to mute specific accounts, and it supports new quote style for retweeting. Unfortunately, it doesn’t support Twitter’s new poll feature just yet. Let’s hope Twitter continues to update this app and not just make this a one-off thing.

Source: Macworld