Despite my affinity for adding smart home accessories whenever I can in my home, there is one area, or rather one company, that I haven’t had in my life for quite a few years now. Back when Philips Hue first burst onto the scene, I was right there along for the ride, adding the company’s light bulbs, light strips, and dimmers, everywhere I could.

However, as my smart home needs evolved, I ended up leaving the Hue ecosystem, not because of any issues or troubles, but rather, because I wanted smart light switches to be the end all lighting solution for my home. So needless to say, I lost a little color in my life when making the transition.

I recently began thinking about adding some accent lighting or bias lighting to my desk setup, and despite a plethora of options now available on the market, I just couldn’t resist the allure of going back to Philips Hue. I ended up picking a Hue Play Bar Starter Kit, which also included the most important piece of the puzzle, the Hue Hub. While I…

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Goldman Sachs was asked whether Apple’s image would hamper it.
Apple is seen as a friendly company, but Goldman says that won’t get in the way.
It’ll still chase debtors as and when it needs to.

Don’t miss your Apple Card payments.

The Apple Card might have Apple’s logo on it and it might have fewer strings attached then most credit cards, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous. And Apple’s partner Goldman Sachs says it will chase down anyone who owes it money despite Apple’s image.

The news came during a Goldman Sachs earnings call as reported by Business Insider. During the call Goldman CFO’s pointed out that even though Apple may ”lay claim” to Apple Card, it’s still a Goldman Sachs card at heart.

”Whoever lays claim to the creation of the card, there’s only one institution that’s making underwriting decisions, and that’s Goldman Sachs,” says CFO Stephen Scherr.

It was also posed that Apple’s brand and reputation might get in the way of Goldm…

Tokyo Mirage Sessions is back for a very literal encore on the Nintendo Switch. Here’s what to expect from the Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem mashup.

Nintendo keeps porting Wii U games to the Nintendo Switch, but that should surprise no one at this point. The Wii U’s relatively small audience is overshadowed completely by the success of the Switch, but it means that many amazing titles went unnoticed on the older system. One of those titles, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, was widely praised but not widely played.

That means it’s getting an Encore, quite literally. The mash-up of Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem is finally making its way to the Nintendo Switch to get a second lease on life on the far more popular system, along with a bit of extra content and the entirety of the Wii U’s DLC content to bolster its revival.

Don’t worry if you know nothing about Shin Megami Tensei, Fire Emblem, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, or any of it. If you have a Switch and are interested in magic, music…

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Apple is telling people to sign up for a free year of Apple TV+ soon.
They have 90 days to do so.
Buyers of new iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple TVs, and iPod touches are eligible.

Why pay if you can get it for free?

Apple has begun warning users that they should take advantage of their free year of Apple TV+ within the next 90 days. Or it’ll be too late.

When Apple launched Apple TV+ on November 1 2019 it said that anyone buying a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac, or iPod touch would receive a free year of the streaming service. But it didn’t say when that would come to an end. Now we know.

As noted by 9to5Mac, users are receiving emails and notifications if they are eligible for a free year of Apple TV+ but are yet to sign up. The message tells them that they must take advantage of the free year within 90 days of activating their device.

When users sign up for the free year of service they are agreeing to also sign up for the $4.99 per month subscription f…

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Mikey Hooks and Mikey Shorts are back in the App Store.
They’re available via the GameClub subscription service.
They’ve both been updated for modern devices.

If you loved these the first time around, you’re going to love them all over again.

Mikey Hooks and Mikey Shorts were both hugely popular the first time around. I spent far too long playing them both back in 2012 and 2013 respectively but now we can all play them again thanks to GameClub.

GameClub is a game subscription service that takes old and abandoned games and brings them back for life. You can play them all for $4.99 per month and it’s absolutely worth each and every penny. Even if the only games you’re going to play are this pair.

Both titles were developed by Beavertap games, with GameClub picking up the story.

Two speed run fanatics met each other on the TouchArcade forums, competing for lower and lower times on games, and decided instead of being rivals they should join forces and cre…

All eight episodes of Season 1 are out now!

What you need to know

Apple TV+’s brand new show Little America is out now.
Episodes 1-8 of Season one are all available to stream.
The half-hour episodes form an anthology series about immigrants in America.

Apple’s latest original content offering, Little America is out now on Apple TV+!

All eight episodes of season one are available to stream. The half-hour episodes are an anthology series about the surprising stories of immigrants in America. The show’s description says:

Inspired by the true stories featured in Epic Magazine, ”Little America” will go beyond the headlines to look at the funny, romantic, heartfelt, inspiring and surprising stories of immigrants in America, when they’re more relevant now than ever.

”Little America” is written and executive produced by Lee Eisenberg, who serves as showrunner, and Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon. Alan Yang executive produces through Universal Television. The series is also…

Previously a suggestion, now heading towards a compulsion.

What you need to know

The EU is moving towards mandating USB-C adoption on electronics.
The bloc had previously adopted a voluntary directive back in 2014, but the results were less than satisfactory.
Now, USB-C might be made a mandatory inclusion irrespective of the price-point or OEM.

USB-C is more or less a standard in 2020. Smartphones like the Pixel 4 come with it, Apple’s iPads have adopted it, and even laptops are powered with USB-C ports. Yet, while it’s everywhere, it’s not entirely ubiquitous. Some lower-end devices from brands as storied as Huawei and Nokia still ship with Micro-USB ports. So while it’s a standard on all flagships, it hasn’t reached the saturation point where the EU is satisfied.

The bloc had pushed for the establishment of a common charging standard that would fit ”all mobile phones, tablets, e-book readers and other portable devices” back in 2014, and adopted a policy of gently nudging ind…

But it is still hoping to monetize the app through the Status feature…

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Facebook is ”backing away” from plans to sell ads inside of WhatsApp.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the team working on the feature has been disbanded in recent months.
The code they’d written into to WhatsApp has also been deleted.

Facebook has reportedly abandoned efforts to sell ads inside WhatsApp, plans that resulted in co-founder Jan Koum leaving the group in 2018.

According to the report:

Facebook Inc. is backing away from efforts to sell ads in WhatsApp, in a retreat from a controversial plan that drove the creators of the popular messaging service to resign more than 18 months ago, according to people familiar with the matter. WhatsApp in recent months disbanded a team that had been established to find the best ways to integrate ads into the service, according to people familiar with the matter. The team’s work was then deleted from WhatsApp’s code, the people said…

The switch from 32 to 64-bit is apparently to blame.

What you need to know

Mamut AccountEdge will not be getting macOS Catalina compatibility.
The news was announced in a post on Visma’s website.
It’s reported that the move from 32-bit to 64-bit apps is to blame.

Mamut AccountEdge will not be Catalina Compliant according to Visma, after it was informed by Acclivity Software, the programme’s developer.

According to their website:

We are extremely disappointed to share that Acclivity Software (the world-wide developers of AccountEdge) have informed us that AccountEdge will not be offered as a Catalina compliant product – now or in the future.

As you may be aware, Apple’s decision to remove support for 32-bit applications, requiring that all software be upgraded to 64-bit with no backward compatibility, demanded that AccountEdge be similarly upgraded. In spite of Acclivity’s multi-year 64-bit upgrade project, involving their full team of developers and analysts, it’s a p…