Apple and Microsoft to Compete in Music Streaming Services

Both Apple and Microsoft made moves to capture strong positions in the music streaming services market.  Apple, with its immensely popular iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Mac, ventured into online music streaming by launching its Apple Music service.  Microsoft, which has a foothold on consumers via its Windows monopoly, Xbox One and 360 consoles, and Windows mobile devices, seeks to gain market share in music streaming by rebranding its service from Xbox Music to Groove Music.

Apple announced its music streaming service, Apple Music, in early June 2015 and launched it later at the end of that month, together with iOS 8.4.   It was announced that it would be free for its first three months and then cost $9.99 per month.

Microsoft announced the rebranding of its online music streaming service in early July 2015.  From Xbox Music, it would be now known as Groove Music.  A Groove Music Pass will still have the same price as an Xbox Music Pass at $9.99 per month or $99 a year.

Apple’s first entry into music streaming was its iTunes Radio.  It was free but ad-supported and only available in the U.S. and Canada.  It was announced in June 10, 2013, and launched on September 18, 2013 with the release of iOS 7.  iTunes Radio has been rebranded as Apple Music Radio with the launch of Apple Music.  It will still be free but ad-supported.  Apple Music will also include another free and ad-supported online streaming radio station, Apple Music Beats 1.

Microsoft has already rebranded its music service twice.  At first, it was known as Zune Music, back when the unpopular Zune device was still being sold.  It was renamed to Xbox Music to take advantage of the popularity of the Xbox 360 console after the Zune player was abandoned.  This time, because the Xbox brand was not well known by non-gamers, Microsoft decided to rename the Xbox Music service to Groove Music.  Originally, Microsoft’s Groove brand was used for non-music purposes.  Microsoft bought Groove Networks for its Groove software.  This software has already been supplanted by OneDrive for Business.

The most popular competitors of Microsoft and Apple in the music streaming service marketplace include Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and Rhapsody.  Of these, only Microsoft and Rhapsody do not provide a free and ad-supported option.   Apple offers its Apple Music Beats 1 and Radio for free listening.

For ad-free listening, Spotify offers Spotify Premium for $9.99 and Spotify Family for more users, starting at $14.99.  Pandora has an ad-free subscription, Pandora One, for $4.99 per month or $54.89 per year.  Aside from its basic listening option for $9.99 per month, Apple also provides a family plan for up to six family members for $14.99 per month.

Apple Music is available on iTunes for Mac and Windows.  On iOS devices, it is only available for iOS 8.4.  Supported Apple devices include 5th gen iPod Touch, iPad 2 and later versions, iPad Mini and later, and iPhone 4s and above.  Apple Music for Android is not available at launch but will come out later.

Microsoft’s Groove Music is currently available on the Xbox One and 360, Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8, iOS 6 and later, and Android 4 and later.

Family Sharing Announced on Steam's 10th Anniversary

The past week marked the 10th year of existence of Valve's Steam service. The past week also saw Valve announce a Family Sharing scheme for users to share their Steam game library with family and friends. A good move to commemorate Steam's 10th Anniversary.

Family Sharing is a boon for users who have family or friends who have hundreds of games in their Steam library and who can't seem to find the time to whittle down their game backlog. These hundred game backlogs are a sign of how far Steam has come from 10 years ago.

When Steam came out in 2003, like many people, I regarded Steam as just another form of oppressive DRM and I vowed I'd rather pirate their games than use Steam. Like many people, what changed my mind was the incredible sales Steam offered throughout the years.

I bought my first game on Steam, which was Half-Life, for only $0.98 in 2008. Since then I've bought all of my games on the various sales of different game shops. The low prices effectively ended the specter of piracy for me. Like many people, the sales built up my game collection to the point where I have a huge backlog.

Thank you Steam for helping to revive PC gaming and to reduce software piracy. Curse you for making me spend so much. Happy 10th Anniversary.

Oscar Schmidt Enters the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inducted new members this past week. Most of the attention is usually focused on well known recently retired NBA greats, which in this batch consisted primarily of Gary Payton followed by Bernard King.

I'm a huge admirer of Bernard King, one of the most unstoppable scorers of all time, but I was only interested in the event this year because of the induction of one of my basketball idols, one of the greatest shooters in the history of the game and a scorer on par with the scoring champions of the NBA, the Brazilian great, Oscar Schmidt.

After seeing him dismantle a Team USA led by David Robinson in the 1986 PanAm Games (now called FIBA Americas), leading Brazil to take the gold medal, I wanted to shoot and play like Oscar Schmidt. More than my other basketball shooter idols, more than Larry Bird, Andrew Toney, Pistol Pete Maravich, and Chris Mullin, I wanted to be like Oscar. I wanted to be like Mao Santa (Holy Hand).

He never played in the NBA because of his low draft position and his age. It also didn't help that he didn't play any defense and didn't rebound well for his height, but oh could he shoot and score. He looked so effortless and it was beautiful to watch him work. He didn't have the on-court arrogance of players like Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, or even Drazen Petrovich but he also had no conscience whatsoever in dominating the ball and putting up a shot. 

Oscar played similarly to Kiki Vandeweghe, the former All-Star NBA player who also played at small forward and was also a shooter with a beautiful effortless touch but who played no defense. Their difference was that Oscar had the confidence of a superstar who felt he could take every shot and make them. He was a player a team could build their whole offense around and this is what his teams did for his entire career.

He never made it to the NBA but he is the all-time leading scorer in the Olympics and he has scored more points than anyone in his entire career. For his accomplishments, for his love of the game, and for showing fans how beautifully the game could be played, my idol, the Holy Hand, Oscar Schmidt, deserves his rightful place in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

20 Thoughts After Resurrecting My Galaxy Tab

I got my Samsung Galaxy Tab P1000 for free in December of 2010 through a promo of Smart.  The promo offered the free GT-P1000 if I subscribed to Smart's unlimited mobile Internet plan for around $45 monthly and a lock-in period of 24 months.

The warranty expired 12 months later and I cancelled my subscription in December 2012 after the lock-in period was over.  A few days into 2013, the internal storage of my Galaxy Tab failed, becoming read-only, reducing my Android tablet into a pricey media player.

6 months later, after a month of research and trial-and-error, I was finally able to revive my tablet. I'll be writing about how I fixed my Galaxy Tab in more technical detail at a later date, but for now, I'll just give a summary of the procedure of my solution:

1. Root the tablet
2. Enable boot or init.d scripts
3. Add a MicroSD Card
4. Create a loopback filesystem image on the MicroSD card
5. Mount the loopback filesystem image and copy /data to the loopback filesystem
6. Edit the boot scripts to unmount /data and mount the loopback filesystem as /data
7. Edit the boot scripts to mount the MicroSD card as /mnt/sdcard