Apple Music is official and coming to Android this fall

It was Apple’s “One more thing…” during this year’s WWDC 2015 and after unveiling all the new developments in iOS 9, watchOS 2, and OSX El Capitan, the tech giant officially took the wraps off of Apple Music. It’s Apple’s long rumored subscription-based music streaming service that looks to compete with the likes of Spotify and Google Play Music All Access.

It’s kind of a big deal, with “tens of millions” of iTunes music available to stream or download for more convenient offline listening. That alone should be enough to appease music fans with more obscure tastes, or even those who are fans of big artists who only make their music available on iTunes. Apple Music will also feature it’s own 24/7 live streaming global radio station called BeatsOne with live DJs Zane Lowe, Ebro Darden, and Julie Adenuga playing curated music around the clock in over 100 countries.

Apple also has a new feature called Connect which sort of gives music artists — both signed and unsigned — their own social page where they can post basically whatever they like be it new tracks from an upcoming album, photos, lyrics, or remixes. Users can interact with these artists by liking or commenting on these posts, much like any other social app. The only difference is this is built into Apple Music and it’s another way the services looks to differentiate itself from all the others.

So you’re probably wondering why we’re telling you. That’s because in addition to iOS devices, Apple Music will also be launching on both Windows and Android this fall for only (June 30th for iOS devices). Apple says the first 3 months will be free, with a 6-person family plan also available for .

The Walking Dead: Michonne mini-series launching this fall

E3 is kicking off today with a series of announcements from big name video game publishers and if you keep an ear out, you’ll even find some mobile related news coming out of the show. In fact, Telltale Games announced a new Walking Dead title on their blog this afternoon. The new mini-series — The Walking Dead: Michonne — spans across 3 episodes taking place between issues #126 – #139 and centers on everyone’s favorite sword-wielding bad ass.

Telltale isn’t revealing too many specifics, only mentioning that the side-story will be launching this fall on all current and previous generation consoles (Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4, and PC), as well as iOS and Android. Oh, and something about requiring at least the first episode of The Walking Dead: Season Two in order to play the Michonne story.

Telltale Games CEO and Co-Founder Kevin Bruner had this to say:

“Michonne’s complexity and range make her an ideal lead for the compelling interactive drama fans have come to expect from Telltale. With this mini-series, players will experience Michonne’s challenges first-hand, and the choices they make will shape her journey.”

We’ll keep you  posted as we learn more.

 

The Saygus V2 gets another massive delay to Fall 2015 (and a sketchy IndieGoGo campaign, to boot)

The Saygus V2 is a very cool phone that’s very real, but it’s also very late. And that is starting to get very annoying. The company has announced yet another delay, with this particular instance pushing the phone’s arrival back to Fall 2015.

Reasons for the delay were credited to unforeseen hiccups in manufacturing, which is not all that uncommon for companies without much experience. It’s not like we’ve never suffered a delay before, so we suppose we’ll just have to cope the best way we know how.

What we’re more concerned about, however, is that the company has thrown up a new IndieGoGo campaign for the thing with a lofty million goal. It’s being used as an avenue for folks to learn about the phone and place orders for it that are lower priority than those who were able to pre-register for the device earlier in the year.

That campaign’s million goal was over 80% fulfilled the second it went live, with funds being pledged at least two days before the campaign even kicked off. A vast majority of those pledges came in at 9 a pop, to boot. It’s possible IndieGoGo allowed Saygus to backload the campaign with the funds they secured from the pre-registration users in order to make their current campaign look more legit. But in doing so, it actually doesn’t.

Whatever the case may be, the Saygus V2 is so far off at this point that it will be silly to continue calling it the world’s most advanced smartphone by the time it’s out. Half the specs touted (seeSaygus V2 specs) are either matched or bested in other OEMs’ 2015 flagships, and Saygus’s plans to add a last minute USB Type-C port to the phone don’t do much to persuade us not to go with something that’s already on store shelves. Want to know more about this phone? We got our hands on it back at CES so be sure to check that out and decide if it’s worth jumping through hoops for.