Kirk McElhearn:

Record labels and artists are free to choose whether to allow their music to be available on streaming services. There are still some holdouts: Garth Brooks, Bob Seger, King Crimson, the Traveling Wilburys, Pete Townshend, and others are totally averse to streaming. And some artists only stream their music on certain services, as exclusives. This includes Taylor Swifts’ 1989, Adele’s 25, Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo, most of Prince’s music, and much more.

But things get complicated when music that you have added to your iCloud Music Library from Apple Music is pulled. Labels can withdraw the right to stream certain songs and albums at any time, but you won’t be notified. You may see albums and songs in your library, but their titles are a slightly lighter color (depending on the view), and their iCloud status is No Longer Available.

Interesting post.

From the Associated Press:

Apple is adding the option to enroll in a national donor registry by clicking a button within the iPhone’s Health app, which can be used manage a variety of health and fitness data. The software will come to all U.S.-based iPhones when the company updates its mobile operating system this fall.

And:

CEO Tim Cook says he hopes the new software will help ease a longstanding donor shortage. He told The Associated Press that the problem hit home when Apple co-founder Steve Jobs endured an “excruciating” wait for a liver transplant in 2009.

Update: Here’s a link to Apple’s official press release.

Dan Moren, writing for Macworld:

My Apple Watch, much as I like it, is hardly an indispensable part of my everyday life. And ready I was to go ahead and install the watchOS 3 beta when I ran up against a bit of a brick wall—because in order to install the watchOS 3 beta, I also needed to install the iOS 10 beta on my iPhone.

It doesn’t stop there, either. Want to try out Apple’s new Auto Unlock feature? You’ll need to have the watchOS 3 beta installed and the macOS Sierra beta. Meanwhile, the automation features of HomeKit in iOS 10 take advantage of the fact that an Apple TV (or, optionally, an iPad) is always on and connected to your network to run routines as specific times. And the Universal Clipboard? Well, yeah, I think you can figure that out.

You see what I’m getting at: it’s all connected.

I love Dan’s name for all this: The Beta Cascade. Nailed it.

The problem with this approach is that some betas are more “ready for prime time” than others and some devices are more critical path than others.

I might have a spare iPad on which I can easily install an iOS beta, but only one iPhone, one I use every day. If I don’t have a spare MacBook, I’m less inclined to risk an install of the Sierra beta on my day-to-day machine. This is not Apple’s issue, it just goes to the new math that has to be done when deciding whether to install a new beta.

Welcome to the new beta reality.

Jonny Evans, writing for Computerworld:

Apple already has some big music industry names on its payroll, so perhaps it makes sense for the company to acqui-hire a few more. Jimmy Iovine, Dr. Dre Trent Reznor, Zane Lowe and all the other former music industry executives and operatives probably want to have a bigger party at the Apple Music backstage bar.

Acquiring Tidal would bring in a whole bunch more big names.

And:

Not only does the music-streaming competitor give artists a huge amount of creative freedom (including allowing them to change tracks once they are released), but leading light, Jay-Z, gave some really big names shares in the company once he took it over.

These shareholders include(d) Arcade Fire, Beyoncé, Calvin Harris, Coldplay, Daft Punk, Deadmau5, Jack White, Jason Aldean, J Cole, Kanye West, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna and Usher.

This artist friendly status is also why Tidal is able to secure exclusive track releases, such as Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo.

Snarky headline aside, I do think Jonny Evans has something here. Apple has long valued bringing big names into the stable, from U2 to the Beats Electronics team and their investors, from the celebrities who have taken the stage to speak or perform at various Apple keynotes to the famous folks Apple has showcased in iPod, iPhone commercials. Apple’s marketing team has some well honed with experience marketing chops, and a Tidal acquisition makes sense from that point of view.

Marketing aside, Jim Dalrymple said it best:

Apple doesn’t need more celebrities, it needs to fix what it already has.

US Department of Justice:

An Illinois man was charged today with felony computer hacking related to a phishing scheme that gave him illegal access to over 300 Apple iCloud and Gmail accounts, including those belonging to members of the entertainment industry in Los Angeles.

Edward Majerczyk, 28, who resides in Chicago and Orland Park, Illinois, was named in a criminal information filed today in United States District Court in Los Angeles. Majerczyk has signed a plea agreement in which he agrees to plead guilty to a felony violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, specifically, one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information.

And:

According to the factual basis in the plea agreement, from November 23, 2013 through August 2014, Majerczyk engaged in a phishing scheme to obtain usernames and passwords for his victims. He sent e-mails to victims that appeared to be from security accounts of internet service providers that directed the victims to a website that would collect the victims’ usernames and passwords. After victims responded by entering information at that website, Majerczyk had access to victims’ usernames and passwords. After illegally accessing the iCloud and Gmail accounts, Majerczyk obtained personal information including sensitive and private photographs and videos, according to his plea agreement.

Ars Technica:

Traveling at a speed of 165,000 mph toward a swirling gas giant Monday night, the Juno spacecraft would have no second chances. Had its Leros 1b engine burned too long, Jupiter would have swallowed Juno into its gaseous maw. If the engine burned too short, the spacecraft would have zipped onward into space, lost into the inky blackness forever. But Juno needed no second chance late on the night of July 4th as its hardy little engine fired for a total 2,102 seconds, perfect to within one second, inserting the spacecraft neatly into orbit around Jupiter.

Like most space exploration, this mission is another amazing achievement.

Astro‘s street art style is easy to recognize in the streets. He creates giant murals with complex patterns and optical illusions that make it look like the building is empty on the inside.

I find optical illusions fascinating.

Churchill’s satirical reply to ending Britain’s drought is great.

Fred Wilson:

I’ve written many times about how I/we prefer to invest in mission driven founders vs mercenary founders. The former starts a company because they see a problem they feel compelled to fix. The latter starts a company because they see an opportunity to make money.

I love mission driven companies. Those are the ones that solve problems we have as users.

Apple is being sued by a subsidiary of China’s broadcasting regulator over a propaganda film more than 20 years old, in the latest legal wrangling for the tech giant in China in recent weeks.

A Beijing court says the case has been brought by a production center that alleges that Apple has infringed its exclusive online rights to broadcast a film that depicts Chinese fighting against Japanese soldiers in northern China in the early 1930s.

Quartz:

People do get their news on social networks, dubious proposition or not. A report from the Pew Research Center in May found that 44% of Americans get news from Facebook. Sure, that’s enabled a worrying and sometimes all-consuming tug of war between publishers’ resentment of Facebook and their reliance on its benevolence, but this new normal is already well established.

So here’s what I need from you: I need you to share news you think people should know about, and post examples of journalism you love.

The author makes a very interesting point but it’s hard for “average people” to want to go to the effort of absorbing real news when it can be so depressing and when sharing it can invite aggressive and unpleasant reaction.

Touch Arcade:

The entire Infinity Blade trilogy has just all gone free. While you could have gotten the various games in this notable franchise for free at various points, right now on July 4th you can get all 3 games for free. These games were all must-play titles when they released, and if you haven’t checked them out, or only played one or two entries in the series, then here’s your chance to complete your collection for free.

I’m not a huge fan of this style of game but the original was a great way to show off the iPad when it first came out.

Six Colors:

Is Apple removing the headphone jack from the iPhone? Nobody really knows, though rumors have swirled for quite a while now. A recent exchange between Nilay Patel and John Gruber returned this debate to the foreground last week.

Of course, the truth is that it’s very hard to talk about this rumor in the absence of actual information. Any move like this by Apple would be accompanied with a raft of other information, including Apple’s rationale, any new features enabled by the removal, and of course adapters for existing hardware. In the absence of all that, people are able to fill in the blanks with bogeymen or rainbows depending on their point of view.

As Snell says, “This is a tech unicorn, an unannounced feature on a nonexistent product, and it’s important to keep that in mind.” But it’s also helpful to remember, Apple has done this kind of thing many times in the past and it’s always (generally) worked out – after a period of time when tech pundits bitch, moan and complain about it.

This is absolutely fascinating.

A digital video disc player was found in the Tesla car that was on autopilot when its driver was killed in a collision with a truck in May, Florida Highway Patrol officials said on Friday.

“As to the video, there was a witness who came to the scene immediately after the accident occurred, and we can’t verify it at this point,” said Paul Weekley of Tampa, the lawyer for the truck driver. “But what we have been told is that he saw a Harry Potter video still playing when he got to the scene.”

Again, tragic loss of life, but come on. You are responsible for your car.

Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell:

“Our guidelines apply equally to all app developers, whether they are game developers, e-book sellers, video-streaming services or digital music distributors; and regardless of whether or not they compete against Apple. We did not alter our behavior or our rules when we introduced our own music streaming service or when Spotify became a competitor,” Sewell explains. “Ironically, it is now Spotify that wants things to be different by asking for preferential treatment from Apple.”

I absolutely love that Apple didn’t take this criticism sitting down!

Choosing a music service is a very personal decision and not one that somebody else can make for you. However, Daniel Bader does a good job of highlighting the good and bad of each service.

Accessibility is Apple doing the right thing for its users—all users. It’s hard not to support a company that does the right things for the right reasons.

From the Nike press release:

The Company also announced today that Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, has been appointed lead independent director of the Board, effective immediately. Cook has been a Nike director since 2005, is chair of the Board’s Compensation Committee and serves as a member of the Nominating & Corporate Governance Committee.

The changes to the board came as a result of Board Chairman Phil Knight’s retirement.

The Verge:

Facebook is shutting down Paper, a bold reimagining of the company’s flagship app for iOS that impressed critics but failed to attract a large audience, the company said today. The app transformed the core Facebook experience into a kind of newsreader, with customizable sections for politics, technology, food, and other subjects. Visitors to the app received a message saying the app would no longer function after July 29th.

This is a shame.

As a sidebar project, this is fine, and fun. But I would hate to have to depend on this document as my only official source of this sort of information.

[H/T Mayur Dhaka]

From this USA Today article:

The maker of the iconic iPhone has partnered with NASA on the eve of the Juno mission, which is expected to enter Jupiter’s orbit Monday, in a highly publicized July 4th orbital insertion. The mission launched five years ago.

NASA will send back sounds of space for artists to make music with, to be featured on Apple’s iTunes and the Apple Music subscription service.

Here’s a link to the official Visions of Harmony iTunes page.

The video at the heart of this project is posted below. Beautifully done.

A useful collection of Mac tips. Step through the headlines, scan for stuff you don’t already know. Some good fixes here.

This is from the Tesla blog. Much of it was quoted/linked in the CNBC article we posted yesterday, but as the source, thought this was worth posting.

The talks are ongoing and may not result in a deal, these people said. Apple is exploring the idea of bringing on Tidal to bolster its Apple Music service because of Tidal’s strong ties to popular artists such as Kanye West and Madonna.

Apple doesn’t need more celebrities, it needs to fix what it already has.

The May crash occurred when a tractor trailer drove across a divided highway, where a Tesla in autopilot mode was driving. The Model S passed under the tractor trailer, and the bottom of the trailer hit the Tesla vehicle’s windshield.

“Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied,” Tesla wrote.

This is tragic, but you have to maintain control of your car. Perhaps it happened so quickly that the driver wouldn’t have been able to avoid it either.