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Apple updates the iPod Touch lineup, with price cuts across the board and a new 16GB model
There’s a new iPod Touch available for sale on Apple’s online store. Apple announced a new, $199 iPod Touch model with 16GB of internal storage Thursday morning. Previously, the low-end iPod Touch cost $230, and unlike the current (fifth-generation) iPod Touch lineup, the low-end model lacked a rear camera and only came in two colors, black and silver. It was a bit of an odd duck. The new model comes in all five colors and has a rear camera — it is the same as the current generation 32GB and 64GB models, but with less storage space and a little bit cheaper.
The other two iPod Touch models in the fifth-generation lineup also got price cuts: the 32GB model now costs $250, as opposed to $300, and the 64GB model got a full $100 cut down to $300. As 9to5Mac’s Seth Weintraub points out, this is the first time that Apple’s broken from its traditional $100 charge to double storage on an iOS device. For instance, on a two-year contract, a 16GB iPhone costs $200, and to bump up to 32GB would be $100 more. This iPod Touch price cut breaks from that model.
Combined with recent rumors that Apple might be planning to use 128GB storage space as a featured differentiator for the larger iPhone supposedly coming out this fall, and that the newest iPhone could start at 32GB of internal storage at minimum, it does appear that Apple might be planning to reevaluate its iOS internal storage pricing.
Although there is no natural Android competitor to the iPod touch, recently, low-end phones like the Moto G and Moto E have started offering similar feature sets at competitive prices, in addition to the capability to add phone service. The iPod Touch last got a redesign in October 2012.
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Foodie video startup Tastemade raises $25M, releases Android app
Los Angeles-based online video startup Tastemade wants to become the digital Food Network, and it just got another major cash injection to make that happen: Tastemade raised a $25 million Series C from Scripps Networks Interactive and Liberty Media, with existing investors Redpoint Ventures, Raine Ventures and Comcast Ventures also chipping in, bringing the total amount raised to date to $40 million. And to reach the other half of the mobile world, Tastemade is also launching its app on Android.
The launch of the Android app, which will exclusively available on Samsung phones for the first three months, comes after Tastemade debuted an iPhone app a little less than a year ago. The company's mobile apps allow food bloggers and other foodies to record brief restaurant video reviews that are spiced up with thematic background music and a basic script that turns rants and raves into professional-looking clips.
Tastemade is also producing professional shows around food in its own studio, which are being distributed on Hulu, YouTube and elsewhere. And it operates what's known to YouTube video publishers as a multi-channel network, helping producers of food-related content to find audiences and monetize their videos on YouTube. With that network, Tastemade now reaches 18 million monthly active users who view 100 million videos a month. "We continue to have a lot of success on YouTube," said Tastemade co-founder Larry Fitzgibbon during an interview earlier this week.
I asked Fitzgibbon if one of those three areas will eventually become Tastemade's core business, but he said that all of them are essential, arguing that if you want to build a modern media company, you need all of it: original content production, distribution and audience engagement.
And with technology advancing, the line between audience and creators is getting increasingly blurry. Fitzgibbon told me that his company has started to mine content produced with Tastemade's apps for talent that could produce longer and more professional content. And even those short clips are starting to look better: "You can now shoot in really high-quality HD," with ordinary camera phones, said Fitzgibbon, adding: "It looks beautiful on a TV."
Buffer’s Daily app is a “Tinder for news” that makes you look smart on Twitter
One of the biggest challenges on social media sites, especially on a real-time platform like Twitter, can be finding something to say. While scheduling app Buffer has remedied that by allowing users to schedule tweets or links directly from a bookmark (becoming an essential tool in my everyday social media arsenal) it hasn’t had a proper showcase for its other use — surfacing links to schedule automatically, no vetting required.
Buffer’s link suggestion algorithms power its new iOS app, Daily. Marketed as a “Tinder for news,” users can quickly sift through Buffer’s link suggestions, swiping left to trash and right to load into Buffer for Twitter as well as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. There isn’t much tweeted beyond a link to news — Buffer picks out content in areas like Marketing and Design — and the odd standalone quote, with no opportunity to actually edit the material before it goes out. However, the app’s lightweight interface makes it easy to find raw material to share to social networks quickly, helping you sound smart and relatively well-informed.
It’s hard to tell whether Daily provides a diverse enough set of content from the get-go to really capture people who don’t normally share content in the business, tech, or design world, but it could certainly help Twitter power users surface content and share links when nothing strikes them organically.
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Sponsored post: Secure file sync, share and store in the age of bring your own app
As you may know, the consumerization of IT continues to surge, and IT departments must continue to adapt. According to LogMeIn's recent survey, more than 70 percent of end-user employees use sync, share and store apps at work. However, more than 50 percent of the time, end users do not inform IT of their decision. That means your corporate data may be at risk.
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