Apple gives Beats Music subscribers until January 19 to move to Apple Music

As Beats Music evaporates into the ether, Apple is giving current subscribers ample time to move their content, playlists, music, and preferences over. These will be retained until Jan. 19, 2016 when the information will be gone for good. Apple emailed Beats Music subscribers a quick link to start a three-month free trial of Apple Music along with steps for migrating to Apple Music from Beats Music for both iOS and Android devices.

Apple releases Swift programming language into open source

Apple has released its Swift programming language, used for developing iOS and Mac OS applications and programs, into open source. Swift was developed two years ago as a replacement to Objective-C as a simplified yet powerful deveilopment tool.

Apple says Swift is, "the fastest growing programming language in history and combines the performance and efficiency of compiled languages with the simplicity and interactivity of popular scripting languages.

Apple today also launched the Swift.org website with detailed information about Swift open source, including technical documentation, community resources and links to download the Swift source code.

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Microsoft's employees serenade Apple Store specialists in latest holiday ad

This is definitely an 'aww' moment and one that signifies that in the end, we're all just people belonging to the same world. In its latest holiday ad, Microsoft shows its retail employees form a beeline for the Apple Store in 5th Avenue where they serenade Apple Store specialists and customers by singing "Let there be Peace on Earth." At the end of this moving rendition, we see Apple peeps and Microsoft peeps break ranks to greet and hug each other while business in both flagship stores supposedly grinds to a halt. This is great ad with a great message at a time that needs it the most.

New ResearchKit studies for autism, epilepsy and melanoma released by Apple

Apple announced that ResearchKit is enabling new research studies on autism, epilepsy and melanoma. ResearchKit turns iPhone into a powerful tool for medical research by helping doctors, scientists and other researchers gather data more frequently and more accurately from participants using iPhone apps.

With ResearchKit, study participants can review an interactive informed consent process, easily complete active tasks or submit survey responses, and choose how their health data is shared with researchers, making contributions to medical research easier than ever. Researchers and developers have already contributed to ResearchKit, with more than 50 researchers adding to the open source framework.

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