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The Single-Purchase Edition Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Apple Officially Rolls Out Universal Purchase Support For Mac And iOS Apps, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

Apple has announced that it is officially launching the ability for developers to sell Mac and iOS apps as a single purchase. Apple first detailed these plans back in February, teasing that the functionality would roll out to developers in March.

Apple Slaps Up To 10% Price Increase On Built-to-Order Mac Configurations In Many Countries, by Tim Hardwick, MacRumors

In Canada, Europe, Australia, and many parts of Asia, customers configuring any new ‌MacBook Air‌, MacBook Pro, iMac, iMac Pro, Mac Pro or Mac mini now face paying approximately 10 percent more for each component upgrade than they did prior to last Wednesday.

‘Find My’ Features Found In iOS 14 Code Include New Notification Triggers And AR Mode, by Zac Hall, 9to5Mac

iOS 14 will include a new notification feature for the location sharing part of Find My. Specifically, the updated app will include a new option to receive an alert when someone doesn’t arrive at a specific location at a scheduled time of day.

Stuff

Apple Music's AI-generated Upbeat Playlist Helps You Cope With Reality, by Igor Bonifacic, Engadget

Apple is trying something new to keep people's spirits up during the coronavirus pandemic. In Apple Music, it's introducing a new algorithmic playlist called the Get Up! Mix that the company says is full of "happy-making, smile-finding, sing-alonging music." With the help of human editors, it will update the playlist each week with new songs.

Apple Music's Beats 1 Hosts Shift To Remote Broadcasting, by Tatiana Cirisano, Billboard

Apple Music's Beats 1 global radio station will return to the airwaves today (March 23) with one notable change: In light of the coronavirus outbreak, all hosts will now broadcast remotely from their homes.

Apple Offering 10% iTunes And App Store Bonus As Business And Education App Downloads Jump \~300% Due To Coronavirus, by Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac

With many students out of school and lots of companies having employees work from home during the coronavirus pandemic, we’re seeing business and education app downloads grow almost 300%. Meanwhile, Apple is now offering a 10% bonus when you add money to your Apple ID for the iTunes and App Store.

Luminar 4.2, by Agen Schmitz, TidBITS

A new AI Augmented Sky tool is added to the Creative tab, enabling you to place blend objects seamlessly with a photo’s sky, using your own images or objects from the curated Luminar collection. Using content-aware technologies, foreground objects are recognized and taken into account, making the placed object blend naturally with your existing scene.

Book Track Is An App That Lets You Organize Your Entire Book Collection In One Place, by Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac

If you like to read plenty of books from different places, Book Track can be a useful app to track what you’re reading. The app is independent from other services and it works with a huge database, so you will probably find all the books you need.

Notes

A Major Feature In Apple's New iPad Pro Could Be A Clue To Where The Company's Products Are Headed, by Lisa Eadicicco, Business Insider

Augmented reality may not be a technology that most people care about, or are even very familiar with just yet. But the fact that it's one of the headlining features of the new iPad Pro could mean that's about to change. The new iPad Pro, with its dedicated AR sensors, may also lay the groundwork for what Apple could have planned for the iPhone and beyond.

Apple’s Watches Excluded From U.S. Tariffs On China Imports, by Jenny Leonard, Bloomberg

Apple Inc.’s request for its popular watches to be excluded from tariffs on Chinese imports was approved by the U.S. Trade Representative, according to a letter dated Friday from USTR to the company.

Virtual Travels In The Pandemic Age, by Reif Larsen, New York Times

After much fretting, weighing the culpability of the fossil fuel industry versus that of the individual, I’ve ended up at a tenuous philosophical balance point where I will minimize my air travel, choosing my trips carefully, but I won’t categorically say no to all travel. I will try to plan more trips locally, and I will look for alternate ways to find the magic.

Such a mind-set, it turns out, is also useful in the time of pandemics and self-quarantines. Right after we canceled our trip to South Carolina, Max, my 3-year-old, and I took a break from Hungry Hungry Hippos and attempted to recreate the trip virtually, using one of my favorite tools in the world: Google Street View.