Spotify Testing 'Your Daily Drive' Curated Playlist That Mixes Podcast and Music Recommendations

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Spotify is beginning to test new podcast features for a select group of users, beginning with a playlist that suggests podcast episodes for you to listen to, interspersed with songs.

The playlist is aimed at users who commute frequently in their vehicles and is called "Your Daily Drive" (via The Verge). The podcasts seen in the playlist mainly center around news shows.

Spotify has been slowly gearing up for a strong push into podcasts for a few years now, but it has yet to introduce any sort of podcast curation feature or used its algorithms to recommend podcasts to subscribers. In the new playlist, the company is testing out doing just that, albeit with a few song recommendations thrown in as well.

Spotify confirmed the test to The Verge with the usual statement: "We're always testing new products and experiences, but have no further news to share at this time." Because of this, it's unclear if this new playlist will launch to a wide audience on Spotify. As of now, the playlist's podcast recommendations are in Portuguese so it appears the test is happening only outside of the United States.

Spotify appears to have a new (?) algorithmic playlist for morning commutes that mixes news podcasts and music, but all the podcasts are in a foreign language? pic.twitter.com/8HZyq6Ji3J

— dan seifert (@dcseifert) May 1, 2019

In 2019, Spotify's podcast goals began taking clearer shape with a trio of acquisitions revolving around podcasts, including Gimlet Media, Anchor, and Parcast. These acquisitions give Spotify a suite of high-profile shows to launch on its platform, as well as Anchor's podcast creation tools that could let users create and share their own podcasts on Spotify.

Once it fully launches, Spotify's podcast initiative will be a direct competitor to Apple Podcasts, which has long dominated the market, although some creators and listeners have ongoing gripes with the platform. To get an edge on Apple Podcasts, Spotify plans to focus on exclusives and improved podcast discovery -- like with this week's test -- to challenge Apple as the go-to destination for podcasts.

Tag: Spotify

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Apple Watch Continues to Dominate With Estimated 1 in 3 Share of Smartwatch Sales Last Quarter

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Apple Watch remained the world's most popular smartwatch by a significant margin last quarter, with an estimated 35.8 percent market share during the January-March period, according to Counterpoint Research. In other words, one in every three smartwatches shipped last quarter was an Apple Watch.


Samsung was a distant second with an estimated 11.1 percent market share last quarter, although that is up from 7.2 percent one year prior.

Apple Watch shipments increased 49 percent last quarter year-over-year, according to Counterpoint Research, but no specific numbers were provided. Apple has never disclosed Apple Watch sales, but its "Wearables, Home, and Accessories" category set a new March quarter revenue record of $5.1 billion.


Counterpoint Research's latest Consumer Lens survey found that ECG functionality on Series 4 models is the Apple Watch's most desirable feature. Apple recently expanded the ECG app to 19 European countries and Hong Kong.

While estimates can vary, it is clear that the Apple Watch continues to dominate the smartwatch market as it celebrates its fourth anniversary.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 5

Buyer's Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)

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'Harry Potter: Wizards Unite' Open Beta Comes to Australia and New Zealand

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Niantic, known for Pokémon Go, has been working with WB Games on a new augmented reality project set in the Harry Potter universe, called Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Today, Niantic officially made an open beta of the game available in Australia and New Zealand for both iOS and Android users.


In the game, players become recruits of the Statute of Secrecy Task Force and must investigate and contain a "Calamity" that has befallen the wizarding world. To that end, players must cast spells and collect artifacts and memories, and rescue characters to level up, all with the goal of keeping magic hidden from muggles.

The collecting mechanic is similar to Pokémon Go, with players locating magical artifacts instead of Pokémon, and using spells rather than Pokéballs to capture them.

Niantic notes that in the beta version of Harry Potter: Wizards Unite the features, available languages, design, and overall appearance are not final, and the product might be buggy and unstable at times. The idea of the beta is to get feedback from players so that the developers can improve the game experience.

The open beta launch in Australia and New Zealand follows a similar pattern to Pokémon Go, which was initially released in the two countries first before launching worldwide. A global release date hasn't been announced yet for Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, but Niantic plans to release the game later this year. Interested gamers can sign up to receive updates on the Wizards Unite website.

Tag: Niantic

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FCC Questions U.S. Carriers on Phone Location Data Sales Practices

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The United States Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday sent out letters to Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint questioning the carriers about their data selling practices, reports Motherboard.

The carriers have been found selling real-time location information from customer devices to data aggregators, leading the location data to end up in the hands of private investigators, bounty hunters, law enforcement, credit companies, and more.


Companies like LocationSmart and Zumigo obtained location information from U.S.-based cellular carriers and passed that data on to dozens of other companies, putting real-time customer location information in the hands of those who should not have it.

After coming under scrutiny for their location sharing practices, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile, pledged to stop doing so, but many had not actually stopped entirely as of January.

The FCC is now demanding answers from the four carriers. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel asked the heads of each company to provide details on whether the data aggregators were allowed to save phone location data and what steps carriers are going to take to make sure shared data has been deleted. From the letter to AT&T:

Real-time location information is sensitive data deserving the highest level of privacy protection. But it is evident from press reports that this data may have been sold without the explicit consent of consumers and without appropriate safeguards in place.

Accordingly, I appreciate your decision to end these location aggregation services by March of this year. To that end, I kindly request that you provide an update on your efforts and confirm by what date AT&T ended its arrangements to sell the location data of its customers. Please also confirm whether and by what date the company ended arrangements to sell assisted or augmented GPS data.

Finally, the public still has very little detail about how much geolocation data is being saved and stored-including in ways that may be far too accessible to others. Even de-anonymized location data may be combined with other information in ways that could make it personally identifiable again. Accordingly, please explain whether AT&T's agreements permitted aggregators or others to save and store location data they received from your company. If so, please confirm what steps your company is taking to ensure that these companies delete or destroy previously shared data and any derivative data. Alternatively, please explain what steps AT&T is taking to safeguard such data from use or onward sale that is inconsistent with consumers' original content.

Similar letters were also sent to Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile, and all four carriers have been asked to provide responses to the FCC by May 15, 2019.

Tags: Sprint, T-Mobile, FCC, AT&T, Verizon

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Parental Control App Developers Urge Apple to Make Screen Time APIs Available for Third-Party Apps

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Last weekend, The New York Times reported that Apple has removed or restricted many of the most popular screen time and parental control apps on the App Store since launching its own Screen Time feature in iOS 12 last year, raising concerns over potentially anticompetitive behavior.


Apple was quick to respond. In both an email to a concerned customer and in a press release, Apple indicated that it became aware over the last year that some parental control apps were using a technology called Mobile Device Management or "MDM" that puts users' privacy and security at risk.

MDM technology is intended for enterprise users to manage their company-owned devices, and Apple says the use of MDM by consumer-focused apps carries privacy and security concerns that resulted in Apple addressing the situation in its App Store review guidelines in mid-2017.

"Contrary to what The New York Times reported over the weekend, this isn't a matter of competition," wrote Apple. "It's a matter of security."

Apple added that when it found out about these App Store guideline violations, it communicated with the necessary developers, giving them 30 days to submit an updated app to avoid being removed from the App Store.

In the days since, a handful of developers behind parental control apps including Qustodio, Kidslox, OurPact, and Mobicip have responded to Apple's press release with open letters, calling for the company to make the APIs behind its Screen Time feature available to the public for use in third-party apps.

Eduardo Cru, co-founder of Qustodio:

If safety is such a great concern to Apple, why not share the APIs used in Apple's own Screen Time competitive service and instantly make the environment safer and open for everyone?

Viktor Yevpak, co-founder of Kidslox:

Ultimately, making the "Screen Time" API's public is the solution to this issue which would truly prove Apple's commitment to the safety and welfare of children. This would allow 3rd party developers like us to create effective products that give users genuine choices, while also complying with Apple's self-set standards.

OurPact:

If Apple truly believes that parents should have tools to manage their children's device usage, and are committed to providing a competitive, innovative app ecosystem, then they will also provide open API's for developers to utilize. Now, more than ever, the focus should be on building better and more diverse solutions for families to choose from.

Suren Ramasubbu, co-founder of Mobicip:

Knowing that parental controls apps using MDM have been around for years, wouldn't it have been a better option for Apple to support an officially supported API before pulling the plug?

Tony Fadell, a senior executive at Apple in the 2000s, agrees that Apple should create and provide developers with APIs for Screen Time.

2/ Apple’s Screen Time still has many holes & deficiencies. Their v1.0 solution was a rush job & it’s very non-intuitive to use. Apple should be building true APIs for Screen Time so the “privacy” concerns are taken into account instead of limiting users App Store choices. https://t.co/rGRwB6HT4r

— Tony Fadell (@tfadell) April 28, 2019

The developers also refute parts of Apple's press release, with OurPact claiming that its parental control app for children was removed from the App Store on October 6, 2018 without any prior communication from Apple, just three weeks after iOS 12 was publicly released with Screen Time.

Three out of four of the developers add that Apple was slow to respond and did not provide any resolution for the sudden guideline violations.

While Apple is firm in stating that competition did not play a role in its crackdown on these apps, the timing is certainly curious. Many of the removals occurred shortly after Apple rolled out its Screen Time feature in iOS 12 last September, despite several of these apps having used MDM for a number of years.

At face value, Public APIs for Screen Time does appear like a viable solution for both the privacy and security of users and ensuring a competitive landscape on the App Store. Whether that happens remains to be seen.

Tag: Screen Time

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Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 81 With Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements

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Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced three years ago in March 2016. Apple designed the Safari Technology Preview to test features that may be introduced into future release versions of Safari.

Safari Technology Preview release 81 includes bug fixes and performance improvements for Dark Mode, JavaScript, WebRTC, Media, Layout, Accessibility, Web API, Storage, Security, Web Inspector, WebDriver, and Web GPU. Today's update adds the privacy preserving Ad Click Attribution API as an experimental feature, according to Apple's notes.

The new Safari Technology Preview update is available for both macOS High Sierra and macOS Mojave, the newest version of the Mac operating system that was released to the public in September 2018.

The Safari Technology Preview update is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store to anyone who has downloaded the browser. Full release notes for the update are available on the Safari Technology Preview website.

Apple’s aim with Safari Technology Preview is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development process. Safari Technology Preview can run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while designed for developers, it does not require a developer account to download.


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Qualcomm Got $4.5 Billion From Apple Settlement According to Earnings Release

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Qualcomm today announced its quarterly earnings results and shared details on the amount of revenue that it will be receiving in the coming quarter as part of its recent settlement with Apple.

As pointed out by Axios, Qualcomm will record $4.5 to $4.7 billion in revenue from the Apple settlement, which includes a "cash payment from Apple and the release of related liabilities."


Apple and Qualcomm announced a settlement in mid-April, dropping all lawsuits and litigation against one another. Apple at the time said the settlement included a payment from Apple to Qualcomm, but both companies declined to provide specific details on just how much Apple paid out in backdated royalties.

An analyst estimate put the number at around $5 billion to $6 billion, but it appears Apple didn't shell out quite that much.

Apple's deal with Qualcomm also includes a direct six year licensing agreement and a multiyear chipset supply agreement, which will see Qualcomm supplying modem chips to Apple for future devices.

Apple appears to have had no alternative but to settle with Qualcomm as it needed 5G modem chips for its 2020 iPhone lineup. Apple originally planned to use Intel chips, but rumors suggested Intel wasn't meeting development goals, leading to tension between Apple and Intel.

Just hours after Apple and Qualcomm announced a settlement deal, Intel said that it was exiting the 5G smartphone modem business and would not be making 5G smartphone chips at all, a decision the company later said was based on Apple and Qualcomm's settlement.

Yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Apple "feels good" about the resolution with Qualcomm. "We're glad to put the litigation behind us and all the litigation around the world has been dismissed and settled," said Cook. "We're very happy to have a multi-year supply agreement and we're happy that we have a direct license arrangement with Qualcomm that was important for both companies."

Tags: Qualcomm, Apple vs. Qualcomm

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