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The Netflix-of-Magazines Edition Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Apple Acquires Digital Newsstand Texture As It Doubles Down On Content ‘From Trusted Sources’, by Ingrid Lunden, TechCrunch

As the debate continues over fake news and the role that aggregators like Facebook have played in spreading it, Apple is making an acquisition that could help it lay out a position as a purveyor of trusted information. The iPhone maker is buying Texture, a magazine that’s known as the “Netflix of magazine publishing” that gives readers access to around 200 magazines for a monthly fee of $9.99.

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From what we understand, Texture — formerly known as Next Issue — will continue to operate as is with no changes — meaning that it will continue to offer apps for iOS, Android, Amazon Kindle Fire and Windows 8 and 10. Apple is acquiring the full company, including employees, and the deal is expected to close very soon.

Hands On: Apple's 'Netflix Of Magazines' Texture Provides A Wealth Of Content To Readers, by Andrew O'Hara, AppleInsider

Navigation is easy, with the actual magazine taking up the largest portion of your display, and only an ellipsis in the bottom left corner to bring up the controls. Individual pages/images can be zoomed in on with an outward pinch, something you clearly can't do in the print edition.

SXSW: Apple's Eddy Cue Talks Going "All In" On Original Programming, by Natalie Jarvey, Hollywood Reporter

So far, Apple has about a dozen projects in development, from a Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon morning show drama to a Ronald D. Moore space drama. Cue revealed on Monday that Apple's worldwide video team is now about 40-people strong and has begun to expand into international hiring. "We're building what I think is an incredibly talent, capable team."

But a lot of questions remain, including how Apple will release this content to users. (Will it be exclusive to iPhones? Or perhaps a TV service that is wrapped into Apple Music?) As per usual for executives from the notoriously secretive company, Cue was tight lipped about future plans at the company. Though Byers tried to get Cue to say whether he would be interested in buying a Netflix or Disney, he would not say definitively. Instead, he noted, "Look, the good news is that both Netflix and Disney are great partners of ours and have been with us from the very beginning."

Inside the App Store

Eddy Cue Explains Why Apple Won’t Remove The NRA TV App, by Mark Sullivan, Fast Company

Calendar App That Mines Cryptocurrency Vanishes From The Mac App Store, by Abhimanyu Ghoshal, The Next Web

Ars Technica reported that Calendar 2, a well-known scheduling app for Mac, was recently updated with the ability to mine cryptocurrency on users’ devices for the developer. It’s one of the first known cases of an offering from the Mac App Store to engage in this activity, and it’s now vanished from the platform.

Stuff

Hands On: Agenda 2.0 For Mac Is A Beautiful New Notes App With Unique Calendar Features, by William Gallagher, AppleInsider

Agenda 2.0 for Mac genuinely brings something new to the field: it's a a notes app that concentrates on when you write things as well as what you write. If that fits the way you work, you'll never use anything else.

7 Fun And Useful Things You Can Do With The Google App In iMessage, by Matt Elliott, CNET

iPhone owners may have noticed a new icon showed up in the iMessage app drawer. If you are diligent with your app updates and updated the Google app recently, then you can now do a few new things with it right from within the iOS Messages app. Let us count the ways.

Develop

Apple Adds Specs For USB-C Port On Made-for-iPhone Accessories, Lightning To 3.5mm Out Cable, by Jordan Kahn, 9to5Mac

With the new specs, companies in the MFi program can now include USB-C receptacles on their officially certified iOS and Mac accessories for charging. That allows users to charge MFi accessories with a USB-C cable and or power adapter they might already have, for example, and also draw power from the USB port on a Mac using the same cable.

Coding And Autism Prove A Perfect Match, by Craig Smith, EducationHQ Australia

Learning to code is all about learning how to solve problems, to work with others in creative ways and to learn how to think in a new language.

Teaching children with autism employs the exact same skills – creating logical connections, breaking tasks into smaller parts and sequencing them, but it is also much more than this.

Bottom of the Page

And all along, I thought Apple only has its eyes set on the Netflix of music, and the Netflix of... well, Netflix. I am pleasantly surprised to find Apple is also interested in doing the Netflix of magazines for reading.

Is the Netflix of books in the works too?

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Of course, Texture is not available in Singapore. Neither is the iBook store.

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Thanks for reading.