The next OnePlus Ace 5 phone will use a very interesting chipset

You may have heard of MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400, a flagship SoC launched last year, and the Dimensity 9400+, a higher-bin version of the 9400 that was announced a few weeks ago. You probably haven’t heard of the Dimensity 9400e, unless you’ve read our recent report on the upcoming vivo X200 FE which is rumored to use it. Basically, the 9400e will be the lower-bin 9400 – the 9400+ is the top of the family, the 9400 is in the middle, the 9400e is the lower-end version, but still very much top of the line. And now OnePlus is rumored to put the Dimensity 9400e in the next Ace 5 device, which…

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Samsung is bringing back the Classic Galaxy Watch

Last year Samsung launched the Galaxy Watch7 alongside the Galaxy Watch Ultra, but there was no Classic model with a rotating bezel. There are apparently still quite a lot of fans of the rotating bezel, and thus Samsung will launch the Galaxy Watch8 Classic this year along with the Galaxy Watch8. This has now been revealed through the Watch8 Classic’s certification at the Bluetooth SIG, which has confirmed its name and model number – SM-L505U. The Watch8 and Watch8 Classic are expected to make their debut with the Galaxy Z Fold7 and Flip7 in early July. At the beginning of this…

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It’s Been 22 Years Since Apple Launched the iTunes Store

On April 28, 2003, Apple introduced the iTunes Store, its iconic digital marketplace for downloading music. 22 years later, most of us don’t purchase songs and albums individually anymore, and the iTunes Store doesn’t exist as it once did, but played a major role in Apple history.


Early Years

When it launched, the iTunes Store was only for the Mac, but it expanded to Windows PCs before the end of 2003. It was a one-stop shop for music that could be loaded onto an iPod, and Apple CEO Steve Jobs inked deals with a number of different record labels to get it up and running.

In the first 18 hours following the launch of the iTunes Store, Apple sold ~275,000 tracks, with songs priced at $0.99 at the time. Less than a week after launch, Apple sold 1 million songs, and at the two week mark, Apple was at 2 million songs sold.

By 2008, five years after the iTunes Store launched, Apple’s iTunes Store was the biggest music vendor in the United States. In 2010, it was the largest music seller in the world, bringing in over a billion dollars.

Pricing

The iTunes Store sold songs for $0.99 in the United States, though some were more expensive at $1.29. Albums were priced at $9.99 by default, but distributors were able to set higher prices. Apple regularly offered iTunes promotions, including weekly free songs.

Beyond Music

Before the App Store launched in 2008, the iTunes Store also housed apps, plus it was home to digital books before the launch of the iBooks Store. Apple also used the iTunes Store for distributing podcasts, TV shows, and movies.

The Rise of Streaming Music

In the 2010s, interest in streaming music started to pick up, cutting into music purchases. Streaming services like Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, and Pandora launched earlier in the decade, but more people became interested in streaming music when Spotify launched in the United States in 2011.

Beats Music launched in 2014, and was quickly purchased by Apple when Apple acquired the Beats brand. Apple ended up turning Beats Music into Apple Music, a Spotify competitor that launched on June 30, 2015. By 2016, just 24 percent of the music industry’s revenue came from digital music sales, with streaming services bringing in over 50 percent of total revenue.

The iTunes Store Today

You’ll still find the iTunes Store app on your iPhone, but it’s a little harder to find on the Mac. It’s available as a dedicated section in the Apple Music app for those who still purchase music.

TV shows and movies were split out into the TV app, while podcasts were split into the Podcasts app as part of changes made in macOS Catalina back in 2019. The Windows version of the iTunes Store stuck around longer, but in 2024, Apple launched dedicated ‌Apple Music‌, Apple TV, and Apple Devices apps for Windows users to replace iTunes.

Tag: iTunes
Related Forum: Mac Apps

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Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 to launch early

Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset in October of last year, so you’d normally assume its successor, tentatively called Elite 2, would arrive this coming October. However, according to a rumor out of China, the next Elite will actually be announced in late September. Then, in October, we’ll already see devices using it hitting the streets, at least in China. Previously, the Elite 2’s AnTuTu benchmark score got leaked, suggesting some pretty healthy upgrades in performance compared to its predecessor, and then we heard that its GPU performance would be up by 30%, while…

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Sécurité mobile : Les 5 réflexes à adopter pour bloquer les logiciels espions furtifs

Plusieurs agences de sécurité gouvernementales du monde entier mettent en garde contre des <a href="https://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/logiciels-espion-une-coalition-detats-sentend-sur-un-code-de-conduite-pousse-par-la-france-411822.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">logiciels espions</a> qui scrutent les données privées des utilisateurs de téléphones portables. Un <a href="Anthropic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">avis</a> publié en début de mois par ces agences révèle que ces variantes ciblent des utilisateurs liés au mouvement indépendantiste taïwanais et à […]

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CMF Phone 2 Pro in for review

This just in – the CMF Phone 2 Pro has arrived at HQ and joining our review queue! Nothing’s CMF sub-brand’s first Pro phone starts at €250/£220/₹19,000 for the 8/128GB model, and you can have double the storage for €280/£250/₹21,000. The 8/256GB variant will also be available in the US for $280 via the Beta Program. Ours is the Light Green color, though we’d argue it’s more of a light blue, and it ships with a USB-C cable, a transparent case, and a SIM eject tool. The phone is light for its size, it’s something you’ll notice right away. It’s likely to do with the materials used…

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