The Guardian is reporting that Apple has acquired media analytics startup Semetric, apparently as part of the ongoing Beats Music relaunch. Of note, Semetric owns Musicmetrics, an analytics tool for artists to track the popularity of their music around the web. Apple replied to the Guardian with its typical company acquisition statement: The Musicmetrics platform measures things like BitTorrent activity, social network reach and other sales data to offer comprehensive reports on the uptake and reactions of the general public for a given song....

Angela Ahrendts is officially out as CEO of Burberry, replaced by Christopher Bailey, after giving six months notice last October ahead of her new role as SVP of Apple Retail. Burberry’s leadership page now reflects the change and Reuters reports the change in leadership was made official today as yesterday was Ahrendts’ last day in the CEO role. After first only sharing that Angela Ahrendts would join Apple in the spring of this year, Tim Cook specified last week during Apple’s earnings call with analysts and investors that Ahrendts would indeed be joining the company sometime this week....

As we head into spring, the excitement of summer and WWDC starts to become a reality. Apple’s plans for iOS 15 and macOS 12 are likely being finalized about this time, so it’s the time of year where I began pondering what to expect. While it was big news at the time, we’ve heard almost nothing out of Apple regarding its plans for Fleetsmith after it acquired the company. About Apple @ Work: Bradley Chambers has been managing an enterprise IT network since 2009....

According to several emails from readers, Apple is reminding former MobileMe customers that their free 20GB of iCloud storage will go away on September 30th. That’s a week from today. With the transition in 2011 from MobileMe to iCloud, Apple offered paying MobileMe users the extra 20GB. Now, these users will be stuck with only the free 5GB that iCloud includes unless they choose to upgrade to one of the priced plans....

Apple is continuing to expand the cast of its upcoming “Are You Sleeping?” drama. According to a new report from Variety, Apple has rounded out its case for the series, adding a handful of notable stars… Previously, it had been reported that Octavia Spencer and Lizzy Caplan would star in the series, but now Apple has added Aaron Paul, Ron Cephas Jones, Elizabeth Perkins, Mekhi Phifer, Michael Beach, Tracie Thoms, and Haneefah Wood....

Following the dedicated Kids section added to the App Store back in 2013, Apple has now added a Games for Kids sub-section. Like its parent category, Apple has split it out into three different age ranges: 5 and under, 6-8 and 9-11. Apple is also featuring the free book Family Time with Apps in the new section, created by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center to “help parents better understand the variety of ways that apps can support children’s healthy development and family learning, communication and connection” … Apple specifically celebrated its Kids Category in a press release announcing a record-breaking year and start to the new year....

And sometimes benchmarks can be quite unbelievable. This is how I feel about the recent benchmarks for Samsung’s newest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S22. Now, we’ve already seen benchmarks that show that the Galaxy S22 Ultra and S22+ outpaces all other Android smartphones but is still beaten by the A15 chip in the iPhone 13 Pro Max. But it gets worse. A lot worse. Another benchmark has emerged that shows the Exynos 2200 chip present in some versions of the Galaxy S22 being outperformed by the A13 Bionic chip that powers the iPhone 11 and the current-generation iPhone SE....

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa_QVIprn8Y&feature=youtu.be] Angry Birds Seasons version 2.3.0: Rovio updated its Seasons edition of Angry Birds with 30 new levels for Halloween and much more. The HD iPad version gets the same update. BOO! The pigs are hiding in their spookiest location yet: a haunted house! The Angry Birds will have to brave ghosts and ghouls to get their eggs back — if they can survive the house first! Are your eyes playing tricks on you or did that painting just move?...

Anna Kendrick is a star of stage, screen, and Twitter. Although she’s well known for a quip Twitter account these days, Kendrick started out as Broadway star. She’s been treading the boards since she was just a child and was nominated for a Tony award at age 13. Since then she’s become a stalwart of cinema, starring in a string of comedies, musicals, and dramas. Anna Kendrick sure knows how to pick a role and throughout her career, she’s starred in a number of highly re-watchable films....

AOL is launching an Alto app today for iOS (and Android) that aims to offer a fresh take on email. AOL’s new app features a single dashboard that intelligently organizes the most important info from your email, calendar and elsewhere. Alto, which was previously available on the desktop for a limited number of testers, hopes you’ll want to ditch the traditional inbox-format for email, serving up the most important info from emails in card-form in what it refers to as the Dashboard....

It’s confirmed that judges Katy Perry, Lionel Ritchie, and Luke Bryan are officially returning for another season of American Idol. The TV talent show will be graced by these multi-talented judges when it returns in the spring of 2020. American Idol, the original music competition series, has dominated Sunday nights, proving that there is still so much undiscovered talent from all over America. The iconic show, which has been around since the turn of the millennium, ran for 15 seasons on FOX, later being reprised by ABC (this is technically American Idol’s third season on ABC, totaling 18 seasons across both platforms)....

One Bank of America analyst believes that the next major redesign of the iPhone following the drastic changes in the X model will be a new foldable form factor. Via CNBC, BoA Merrill Lynch report that Apple is working with suppliers to create a foldable phone, to launch in 2020. Samsung has been teasing a foldable device for a while now, although at the moment it’s still vaporware. Foldable and flexible devices are definitely the future, it’s just not clear how soon that can become a reality....

An analyst note today from Barclays’ Mark Moskowitz and company predicts that Samsung is in position to take more of the premium smartphone market share with the launch of its Galaxy Note 8. They are also concerned that less than 1 in 5 potential iPhone buyers will spend $1,000 or more on a new iPhone. The note shares that even though the Note 8 isn’t a “revolutionary” device, it still represents a return to stiff competition in the premium smartphone market, particularly between Samsung and Apple....

In this tutorial, we’ll take a look at various methods that we can use to inject a DLL into the process’ address space. For injecting a DLL into the process’s address space, we must have administrator privileges on the system so that we’ve completely taken over the system at that time. This is why these methods cannot be used in a normal attack scenario where we would like to gain code execution on the target computer....

Completing the iCloud/iMessage/App Store trifecta, readers reported that they are not able to make purchases on the App Store. We have been able to confirm that the App Store is working for us, but we are, like many of our readers, unable to make a purchase. This follows a poor day for Apple in which iCloud email is gone for some and iMessages is (again) being flaky. Update: FaceTime appears to be down too....

This is exactly why community management on social media is so important. Investing in it can bring out the humanness of your brand and help you forge a strong connection with your followers. In this guide, we take a deep dive into what community management is on social media and how you can develop effective community management strategies. Community Management on Social Media: What is Social Media Community Management? Social media community management refers to the process of building a strong community of followers made up of customers, employees, and partners using social media....

Last year was infamously rough for Warner Bros’ burgeoning DC Comics Extended Universe. Both Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad were the subject of heavily mixed reviews, earning 27 percent and 26 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively. And while they seemed to have come out ahead in the box office, many audience members left theaters disappointed. With a heavy lineup for 2017 and 2018, fans are still hanging on to hope that Wonder Woman, Justice League, and Aquaman will redeem the franchise....

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqTwYa46OKE] Tonight, Apple has aired two new television commercials for both the full-sized iPad and iPad mini. The new ad showcases reading with iBooks, collaborative gaming, and several apps from the App Store. Above is the “Alive” ad and after the break is “Together:” [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvRaNXmsqcM] https://twitter.com/iHKDesign/status/303361408849039360 The ads appear to be of a much different style compared to Apple’s previous iPad and iPad mini commercials. Thanks, Matt, Tyler, and Doug!...

The slide above is an interesting look at the rapid growth of tablets and how the category is growing much faster than desktop or notebook PCs ever accomplished. That and the fact there is still much room for growth is one of the key trends in a presentation from Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers at this week’s Code Conference. The slide on the right above shows the potential for growth if tablets are to reach the population penetration of PCs (21%), smartphones (22%), or TVs (78%)....

Noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has provided relatively accurate information on future Apple product plans in the past (but frequent misses on timing), has issued a new report today indicating that the Apple smart watch will enter mass-production in November. Kuo’s previous estimate on production for the “iWatch” indicated that the device would enter mass-production rounds in September. “We have pushed back our estimated time of iWatch mass production from late-September to mid-/ late- November....