MacRumors Giveaway: Win a Lifetime Plex Pass and 2TB Western Digital My Cloud Home

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For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Plex to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win a media bundle that includes a lifetime Plex Pass and a 2TB Western Digital My Cloud Home connected storage device.

Plex is an all-in-one media hub that organizes your entire library of content, from TV shows and movies to music, photos, and more. Plex also offers free access to news, web shows, podcasts, and, for cord cutters, live television access when paired with an antenna.


Plex is free to download and use as a media server, but advanced music, photo, TV, and movie features like live TV, automatic photo upload, lyric search, and more, require the Plex Pass. Plex Pass is $119 for a lifetime pass, $4.99 per month, or $39.99 per year.

To use Plex, you need a media hub where all of your content is stored, and that's where the Western Digital My Cloud Home portion of the giveaway comes into play. Until recently, Plex had a cloud service that let you access your media content anywhere, but that's been discontinued.


Luckily, with connected devices like the Western Digital My Cloud Home, you can still access your media library from anywhere. My Cloud Home is a network attached storage device, which means it connects to the internet and makes whatever's stored on it accessible even when you're away from home.


To use this combo, all you need to do is set up the My Cloud Home, install the Plex Media Server software on it, and then upload your media content like music, photos, and more. Then with the Plex app on the Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and other devices, you can access all of your content anytime, anywhere.

This same setup works with any NAS, and it also works with a plain old hard drive or Mac when you're connected to your home WiFi network.

We have three My Cloud Home drives from Western Digital paired with three lifetime Plex passes to give away to MacRumors readers. To enter to win our giveaway, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winners and send the prizes. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, following us on Instagram, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page.

Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years or older and Canadian residents (excluding Quebec) who have reached the age of majority in their province or territory are eligible to enter. To offer feedback or get more information on the giveaway restrictions, please refer to our Site Feedback section, as that is where discussion of the rules will be redirected.

a Rafflecopter giveaway The contest will run from today (November 2) at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on November 9. The winners will be chosen randomly on November 9 and will be contacted by email. The winners will have 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before new winners are chosen.

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Apple Design Chief Jony Ive Talks iPad Pro Design in New Interview

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Following Tuesday's event, Apple Design Chief Jony Ive did an interview with The Independent, where he shared some thoughts on Apple's new product lineup and what makes a device "appear magical."

Ive explained that the design of the iPad Pro is "so singular and integrated" that it stands out from "99 percent of other complex technology products."


Specifically, Ive pointed out the display of the device, which uses a subpixel anti-aliasing technique to produce rounded corners that flow into the sides of the screen smoothly and without distortion.

Ive said he finds traditional displays with square corners "disappointing" because it turns the display into a distinct component when assembled into a design without square corners.

If you look at the iPad Pro, though, you can see how the radius, the curve in the corner of the display, is concentric with and sympathetic to the actual enclosure. You feel it's authentic, and you have the sense that it's not an assembly of a whole bag of different components: it's a single, clear product.

Ive said that one of Apple's goals with the iPad was to create a sense that the product is not oriented in a specific way. The new iPad Pro, says Ive, doesn't have an orientation because there's no Home button, speakers are all around the device, and Face ID works in landscape and portrait modes.

The simple flat edge of the iPad Pro is also an achievement, something Apple was able to implement when the engineering teams were able to pare down the thickness of the iPad Pro. Ive says Apple couldn't have attempted a straightforward edge detail like that when the products weren't as thin.

These seemingly simple changes are "the most difficult thing to do." Ive said Apple is most proud of the things that should be there but aren't. "It's an odd thing when you're most proud of those things which aren't there.

As for the second-generation Apple Pencil, the way that it snaps onto the side of the iPad Pro is an example of "a magical feeling." The new Apple Pencil connects to magnets built into the iPad Pro's enclosure, and when connected, it both pairs and charges.

Ive says that designing products like the Apple Pencil that introduce features no one knew they wanted until they debuted is a "fundamental part" of his job. He doesn't work with articulated problems and he says it's rare that new Apple designs come in response to a known problem.

Ive said when changing a well-known and loved product like the iPad, there's a need to not "fall into the trap of just making things different." It's important when changing things not to "make it different, but make it better."

"If you are making changes that are in the service of making something better, then you don't need to convince people to fall in love with it again. Our sense of habit and familiarity with something is so developed, there is always that initial reaction that is more of a comment on something being different rather than necessarily better or worse. In my experience, if we try very hard to make material improvements, people quickly recognise those and make the sort of connection they had before with the product."

Ive's full interview, which goes into more depth about the design decisions made for the iPad Pro, can be read over at The Independent.

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Apple News Gaining Dedicated 'Election Night' Tab With Real-Time Results

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Apple will replace the existing "2018 Midterm Elections" channel in Apple News on November 6 with a new "Election Night" section, providing readers with real-time results of Election Day 2018 (via TechCrunch). The change will happen at 8:00 p.m. ET on November 6 and showcase live results, updates on key races, the latest developments, and more.

To ensure that readers can quickly keep tabs on results, Apple will also replace the central "Digest" tab in Apple News with the Election Night section. Apple is partnering with the Associated Press for the update, using its real-time election results to create dynamic infographics and a complete list of federal election results in every state, as well as House and Senate seats.


The AP's data will allow Apple News to send out special alerts at the top of the Election Night feed -- or as a push notification if users choose -- to note if the balance of power in either the House or Senate has changed. All of these infographics and results data will automatically update every minute, and there will still be a manual page refresh option to force an immediate update.

Readers can expect the usual news coverage and live video feeds from existing Apple News partners as well:

Another section will focus on the latest developments – meaning breaking news headlines and stories related to election night coverage. This will feature news from a variety of sources including Axios, Politico, The Washington Post, Fox News, CNN, The New York Times, CBS, and others.

CBS News, CNN, and Fox News will also contribute video clips to the Election Night hub, while ABC will offer a live video feed. Another live video feed from NBC News will appear in a widget alongside the Live Results infographic.

Apple says that having a wide range of various news sources was necessary to ensure that all voters were informed about the election, no matter their political leaning. The company also notes that all of the Election Night coverage is not being driven by algorithms, and the November 6 update will see an "all-hands-on-deck" situation for the Apple News team.

This preference for human curation was recently highlighted in a report by The New York Times, which talked with Apple News editor in chief Lauren Kern about how her team approaches daily news curation for Apple. The company's decision to lean more heavily on human-led news selection instead of algorithms is the opposite strategy of rivals like Google News and Facebook, and Kern argues that Apple's way is "really the only legitimate way to do it at this point."

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

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Spotify is Coming to Apple Watch With Beta App Available Now

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Spotify is officially coming to Apple Watch, as the streaming music service today delighted users with an early beta version of the app through TestFlight. There is no timeframe for a public release yet.

Reddit users participating in Spotify's public beta testing program shared screenshots of the app:


More details to follow…

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