Mitchel Broussard

After a slow rollout began in March, Pandora today announced that all Premium tier subscribers can now access their own personalized music playlists. Similar to Apple Music and Spotify, Pandora's selection of playlists personally curate a specific collection of tracks, but Pandora focuses on moods, activities, and genres (via TechCrunch). For example, Pandora can create "Your Energy...

Last December, The Walt Disney Company outlined plans to acquire 21st Century Fox and a collection of its subsidiaries for $52.4 billion in stock. Those plans have been under regulatory scrutiny for months and have yet to be finalized, and now Comcast has confirmed it is in "advanced stages" of sending Fox a "superior" all-cash offer in hopes of besting Disney's all-share offer (via Bloomberg). ...

Facebook today updated its mobile Marketplace to include home service professionals, such as house cleaners, plumbers, and contractors. The company says that Marketplace will integrate with existing service professional marketplaces like Handy, HomeAdvisor, and Porch to provide users with an all-in-one location for finding help around the house. In total, there will be hundreds of thousands of ...

Apple supplier Foxconn Technology Group is making a shift in its expansion plans to Wisconsin in the United States, where it will now produce small to medium-size displays for Apple and other customers. This is a change from its original plan of having the Wisconsin plant produce large television displays, and the move to smaller displays is said to help lower initial costs at the factory (via Nik...

Graphic designer Álvaro Pabesio shared his vision for an updated, enhanced Apple Music on Behance earlier today, and it's an impressively detailed look at UI tweaks and changes that Apple could make to fix a few user gripes with its streaming music app. As you look at Pabesio's designs, remember that this is a concept and in no way indicates or confirms what we'll see with Apple Music in iOS 12...

eBay shoppers this week have the chance to save 15 percent off their purchases thanks to the online marketplace's new Memorial Day coupon. While the coupon is limited to certain sellers, it provides savings on select top brands like Apple, DJI, Dyson, and more. Similar to some previous eBay coupons, the discount applies to the purchase price (excluding shipping, handling, and taxes) of an...

Instagram today announced the ability for you to mute accounts in your feed, so that you can hide posts from people or brands you may not want to see anymore without needing to unfollow them completely. Instagram says that the change is another update to make your feed "even more personalized to what matters to you." Account muting will be in the ellipsis menu at the top right of each post,...

By the end of 2018, an estimated 23.4 million users in the United States will be paying for their coffees and bakery items at Starbucks using the company's own in-store mobile payment system. The estimate comes from research firm eMarketer (via Recode), which also predicts that Apple Pay will hit 22 million users by the end of the year. Starbucks itself says that its mobile order-and-pay...

Podcast app "Castro" updated to version 3.0 this week, introducing a collection of notable additions like a rebuilt player engine, cleaner layout, Apple Watch app, and more. Developer Supertop Software says that Castro 3 is "much faster" when users start streaming a podcast and the app's controls are more responsive thanks to a simpler layout on the player screen. Users can now star the...

Yubico is a company that sells the "YubiKey," a small piece of hardware that protects access to computers and online accounts by providing strong two-factor authentication in lieu of receiving a text message code on a smartphone or other 2FA steps. With the NFC-equipped YubiKey NEO, Android users have been able to authenticate their log-ins with a tap, and this week Yubico announced that ability...

Our next exclusive partner sale is debuting this week, and it allows our readers the chance to save on nine Apple accessories from well-known company RavPower. The products on sale focus on power delivery for your Apple devices, with Qi mats, Lightning cables, portable battery packs, and more available at a discount. All of RavPower's products included in the sale are on Amazon, so if you're...

Note-taking app Evernote was updated over the weekend with a new feature that allows you to connect your Bluetooth headphones to the app and use them to record audio and transcribe voice-to-text notes. The company says that as long as the headphones have a microphone they will work, so if you own AirPods or BeatsX you'll be able to use the wireless earphones to quickly jot down notes and...

A questionable new report from Apple's supply chain claims that the company's rumored "low-priced" version of the HomePod will be placed under the Beats by Dre brand instead of the expected Apple branding. The report comes from Chinese news site Sina, which also says the $199 speaker will have MediaTek as the supplier, a change from Apple's decision to give Inventec sole supplier duties on the...

After retaining the #3 spot on the Fortune 500 list for the past two years, in 2018 Apple has dropped one place and now sits at #4 on the list of the top U.S. corporations based on gross revenue. Apple's displacement on the list came due to Exxon Mobil rising from #4 in 2017 to #2 in 2018. The full top five spots were Walmart at #1, Exxon Mobil at #2, Berkshire Hathaway at #3, Apple at #4, and ...

Illustration app Procreate today updated its Procreate Pocket iPhone app to version 2.0, which developer Savage describes as "reengineered from the ground up" and "an entirely new app." Procreate Pocket 2 is powered by Silica-M, the same graphics engine that powers Procreate for iPad, as well as Apple's own Metal technology. Savage says that with the upgraded technology boost in version 2.0, ...

A few days after Norwegian news site Dagens Næringsliv accused subscription music service Tidal of being months behind on royalty payments, as well as falsifying and inflating streaming numbers, Music Business Worldwide now reports that Tidal has learned of a "potential data breach" on its platform. Tidal CEO Richard Sanders said in a statement that when the company learned of the potential...

PayPal this week announced plans to acquire the Swedish-based payments hardware company iZettle for $2.2 billion, with a plan to expand its presence in brick and mortar stores thanks to iZettle's technology. The acquisition will also help PayPal bolster its business across iZettle's main markets of Europe and Latin America (via Bloomberg). Notably, the purchasing deal marks PayPal's biggest...

Next week, Valve is launching a "Steam Link" app for iOS and tvOS, allowing users in the Apple ecosystem to play Steam games streamed from a host Mac/PC (using either a 5GHz network or a wired Ethernet connection) onto an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV. In advance of the app's launch, our sister site TouchArcade got the chance to go hands-on with Steam Link and came away entirely impressed by the...

At CES in January, Ford discussed a new partnership with crowdsource navigation app Waze that aimed to bring Waze onto the touch screen of SYNC 3 vehicles through Ford's AppLink. That partnership has been fully realized today with Waze users worldwide now able to connect their iPhones to AppLink via USB and mirror Waze on their infotainment system. This allows drivers to access their...

eBay today announced "Interests," a new feature that tailors the iOS and Android app's shopping experience to your own personal passions, hobbies, and style. The company says that the feature is aimed at making it easier for you to find unique, interesting items you care about among eBay's vast assortment of inventory. The backbone of Interests is a questionnaire eBay will begin asking...