Light Start — Apple camera advice, RIP MP3, Netflix without roots, and retro Knuckles
Brett Venter
Apple wants you to get better at iPhone photography, posts lessons on YouTube
Apple wants you to take more photographs using your iPhone 7 and they’re perhaps a little concerned that you’re not holding it correctly or something. So they’ve come out with a whole series of videos that are designed to improve your point-and-shoot skills. Covering everything from selfies to sunset, Apple is keen on sharing their knowledge with the world at large. Which can then take better photos using iPhones. If you want to hunt down the full series of Apple’s tutorial clips you can hunt along the company’s YouTube page, where they’ll be shunted around as more videos are loaded, or you can hit up the link below which handily collects them in one permanent place. Say cheese.
Remember the MP3? You probably have a few thousand of them on your computer right now (you naughty person, you). Well, it’s dead. And that’s official, according to the Fraunhofer Institute which was the closest the world got to having an actual owner of MP3s. Actually, it’s the licensing program for the MP3 format that is gone, which means that the format itself is dead. Except it’s not gone. MP3 files are still around, and they’re not going anywhere, but as “…most state-of-the-art media services such as streaming or TV and radio broadcasting use modern ISO-MPEG codecs such as the AAC family or in the future MPEG-H”, MP3 use is going to be declining in future. Like that hasn’t largely happened already.
Got a rooted mobile device? Netflix probably isn’t going to like that
We know that some of you out there like to root your Android smartphones. We’ve all wanted more control than the standard Android OS offers, even when that default amount of control is considerable. But if you’re also the type to spend a lot of time sneaking in shows on Netflix on your mobile, then you’ll find that you’re not going to be able to download the newest versions of Netflix. That’s because the app won’t show up if you’re browsing the Google Play Store on a phone that isn’t Google Certified. A phone that has been rooted, in other words. They’re not trying to be mean to rooted devices but the service is concerned about piracy. A little. It seems that being able to download a Netflix show to a mobile device is one thing, but when the device is also rooted it makes it far simpler to pirate that show. Of course, if you know how to root your phone then you probably also know that there’s more than one way to install an Android app. Just sayin’.
Step back in time with Sonic Mania’s take on the Flying Battery Zone
Sonic Mania is a retro take on the iconic hedgehog’s past adventures, and it’s a game that is supposed to drop to commemorate 25 years of Sonic the Hedgehog. We’re now got a new look at some decidedly familiar territory in the Flying Battery Zone and, rather than being some throwback gameplay, this is taken from Mania and it’s… good. Playing as Knuckles makes progress a tad slower than we’re used to but when you look at just how many horrible spiky things are lurking waiting to make life difficult it’s understandable. Sonic Mania has, sadly, just been delayed till later this year but it’ll be launching on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and the Switch when it does finally land.
