Price

Apple smartphones are generally more expensive than Androids. For example, the iPhone 14 Pro Max starts at $1,199, while the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra starts at $1,149. However, prices are closer together for mid-range and entry-level smartphones.

Hardware

Apple and Android smartphones are also available in a wide range of options with different hardware specifications. Apple smartphones generally have more powerful hardware than Androids. However, this difference has narrowed in recent years as Android manufacturers have begun to use more powerful processors and cameras.

Computer integration

Apple’s integration between computers and smartphones is outstanding. iPhones and iPads can be easily paired with Mac computers, and data and files can be easily transferred between devices. Android smartphones can also be paired with computers, but the integration is not as tight as with Apple products.

App selection

Both Apple and Android smartphones have a wide range of apps available. Both the Apple App Store and the Android Play Store offer millions of apps, including games, software, and media apps.

Personalization

Android smartphones are more customizable than Apple smartphones. Android users can modify the operating system, widgets, wallpapers, and apps. Apple smartphone customization is more limited, but there are still options available, such as changing icons and setting new wallpapers.

Security

Both Apple and Android smartphones are secure. Apple uses strict security standards for iPhones and iPads. Android manufacturers are also placing increasing emphasis on security and offer a variety of security features for their devices.

Summary

Both Apple and Android smartphones have their own strengths and weaknesses. Apple smartphones are generally more expensive, have more powerful hardware, and can be more tightly integrated with Apple computers. Android smartphones are generally less expensive, more customizable, and available in a wider range of options.

Which is the better choice?

The best choice depends on your individual needs. If you are looking for a smartphone with powerful hardware, tight computer integration, and easy use, then an Apple iPhone or iPad may be the right choice for you. If you are looking for a smartphone that is less expensive, more customizable, and has more options, then an Android smartphone may be the right choice for you.

Here are some additional factors to consider when making your choice:

• Do you prefer easy use or customization?
• Is computer integration important to you?
• How much money are you willing to spend on a smartphone?
• What features do you need in a smartphone?

The answers to these questions will help you determine whether an Apple or Android smartphone is the better choice for you.

Unified design and experience

One of the biggest advantages of Apple products is that they offer a unified design and experience. This means that the apps and features used on an iPhone, MacBook, or iPad will be similar, regardless of which product they are installed on. This makes it easier for users to use different Apple products, and also creates a sense of unity and harmony.

Easy-to-use products

Apple products are generally easy to use. Users usually don’t have to go through a long learning process to learn how to use a new Apple product. This ease of use makes Apple products especially attractive to users who don’t like to deal with overly complex technology.

Innovative products

Apple has always put innovation at the forefront of its product development. Apple products often have new features and technologies that are different from other manufacturers. This innovation makes Apple products especially attractive to users who always want to use the latest technology.

Collaborative products

Apple products also work well together. This means that, for example, photos taken with an iPhone can be easily transferred to a MacBook, or an iPad can be used to control an Apple TV. This collaborative ability makes Apple products especially attractive to users who use multiple Apple products.

Excellent quality

Apple products are generally of excellent quality. Users can often use their Apple products for many years without them breaking down. This excellent quality makes Apple products especially attractive to users who want to use a good quality product for the long term.

Community

Apple users often form a community. Apple users share their experiences with each other on online forums, social media, and other platforms, and help each other use Apple products. This sense of community makes Apple products especially attractive to users who like to collaborate with others.

In general, Apple users are special because they value the uniformity, ease of use, innovativeness, collaborative ability, outstanding quality, and sense of community of Apple products.

Here are some additional factors that make Apple users special:

• Loyalty: Apple users are generally very loyal to the brand. They often use Apple products for years, even decades, and rarely switch to products from other manufacturers.
• Individuality: Apple products are often seen as symbols of individuality and style. Apple users often like to show that they are Apple users, and express their individuality through them.
• Exclusivity: Apple users often feel like they belong to a special group. Using Apple products has become a kind of status symbol, and Apple users often feel like they represent something special.

Of course, not all Apple users fit these criteria. But the popularity of Apple products shows that these qualities are important to many people.

Multiple customers who transferred thousands of dollars to the Apple Savings account have had to wait weeks for money transfers in some cases, and some customers have also had money disappear. Kevin Smyth from Minnesota, for example, attempted to transfer $10,000 from his Apple account to U.S. Bank in mid-May, but Goldman Sachs would not complete the transfer.

Customer representatives suggested he contact U.S. Bank, but U.S. Bank said there was no incoming transaction. Later, he was told that Goldman Sachs had placed his account under a security review. Another customer, Nathan Thacker of Atlanta, tried to transfer $17,000 from his Apple Savings account to JPMorgan Chase on May 15, and it took more than two weeks for the transaction to complete.

In a statement to The Wall Street Journal, Goldman Sachs said some customers had experienced delays due to security processes designed to protect customer deposits.

“The customer response to the new savings account for Apple Card users has been excellent and beyond our expectations. While the vast majority of customers see no delays in transferring their funds, in a limited number of cases, a user may experience a delayed transfer due to processes in place designed to help protect their accounts.”

According to The ‌Wall Street Journal‌, transferring large amounts of money that make up much of a newly-opened account’s balance can trigger anti-money-laundering alerts, resulting in delays that last around five days. Some of the issues may be caused by the newness of the Savings account.

Apple Savings account users who have had issues and who have contacted Goldman Sachs have said that the customer service has been poor, with customers receiving varying information with each call.

Opening a high-yield Apple Savings account requires an ‌Apple Card‌, and it offers a competitive 4.15 percent interest rate. Opening up a new savings account takes just minutes to do, and it is also designed to aggregate all Daily Cash earned through the ‌Apple Card‌.

This article, "Apple Savings Users Complain of Delays Withdrawing Money" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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A great digital audio workstation for the iPad with some experimental ways to make music

Over the past few days, I’ve been having a lot of fun composing riffs, beats, and rhythms using the new iPad version of Apple’s music production software Logic Pro. The subtly redesigned app translates the company’s pro-level audio app to a touchscreen interface really well, and thankfully, it does not dumb it down for a mobile screen.

Those who have used GarageBand on an iPad will be familiar with a touch interface for virtual instruments and recording, but with Logic Pro, you have a whole lot more things to adjust — more knobs, faders, automations, plug-ins, and samples. I’ve been using Logic Pro on a 12.9-inch iPad Pro, so I’m using the biggest touchscreen available for this app (and basically the size of a laptop). That being said, nothing really felt cramped or hard to navigate in this interface. Using it on my iPad mini might not be as fun, though.

The biggest change with adapting Logic Pro for the iPad is the way you interact with plug-ins, the play surfaces, and the redesigned browser. To accommodate the screen size, the plug-in window has simplified versions of each plug-in that Apple is calling “tiles.” There, you can tweak basic settings on compressors, EQ, reverb, etc., and then tap the tile to open up the full version of the plug-ins to refine settings. Quickly adjusting something like the threshold on a compressor, viewing the parametric EQ, or adjusting the wet / dry mix of a pitch shifter while still having the full view of the editor is really helpful and more efficient for this sort of setup.

Using multi-touch to play the neck of a bass, keys on the piano, or a drum pad is an obvious plus to using the iPad for producing music virtually, and that’s where a lot of the fun comes in. I made a funky beat sitting in the airport waiting for a flight, tooled around with mixing on the plane in the air, and landed a few hours later with something that I would seriously consider using for a professional project.

In Logic Pro for the iPad, finding instruments, samples, and audio loops is slightly different than how it’s laid out on the Mac, with instruments, loops, samples, presets, and patterns all in one place. At first, this was a little confusing figuring out which kind of sound will support which kind of track, but overall, it’s a lot easier to navigate when you want a certain type of instrument, genre, or sample. The browser allowed me to search for the right type of kick drum I want to add to my drum pad or preview a synth that would work best for my project, so overall, not many complaints there. If you want to add your own samples or audio files, you can drag those into a project from the Files app.

Apple has also added more samples and tools to this new version, including Sample Alchemy and Beat Breaker, which are some very fun experiment tools for manipulating sounds. I could probably spend a few hours just playing with Beat Breaker on a track and making wild new sounds chopping up a drum beat or sample.

Surprisingly, I did not feel the need for a keyboard with Logic Pro and used the Magic Keyboard to mostly prop up the iPad. There are still some things I prefer to use a keyboard for, of course, like pressing the spacebar to play, switching between the mixer, editor, and plug-in windows, or searching in the browser window, but like a lot of DAWs, Logic Pro’s interface is modeled after analog mixers, so adjusting a knob or a fader with your finger just makes more sense. (I’ve never met an engineer who likes to use a mouse to adjust a potentiometer knob.)

If you want to take advantage of both the touchscreen and a keyboard and mouse, Logic Pro for the iPad still recognizes some of the keyboard shortcuts from the Mac version, but not everything. This app really benefits from you using multi-touch. My reflex shortcut that I’ve ingrained in my head is Command-S for saving, but this does not seem to do anything on the iPad. (The projects do auto-save, but to rename or save as, I had to do in the file browser.)

Eventually, I started to prefer the precision of the Apple Pencil over my finger to fine-tune MIDI note placements or trimming clips. But like other Pencil-centric apps, it was a bit awkward going back to using multi-touch to zoom in and out of my timeline with the Pencil in my hand. The most useful Pencil feature is for drawing automation curves right on the screen rather than the slightly frustrating desktop way of clicking and dragging little dots over clips with a mouse.

Photo by Andrew Marino / The Verge

I also found plugging the iPad in to a monitor was a pretty neat experience — sort of like using a Wacom tablet — drawing automatic curves or playing a virtual instrument while viewing the DAW on a bigger screen.

As for compatibility with the Mac version, the biggest thing you cannot do with the iPad version is load a lot of third-party plug-ins used in many desktop DAWs. The iPad version supports a bunch of Audio Unit plug-ins available in the App Store, but if you use any VST plug-ins or ones that are not in the App Store (such as the popular Waves options), they won’t carry in your project on the iPad. Those plug-ins will be missing. Your best bet is bouncing those effects down to a new audio track and saving before your transfer to the iPad. There are some other power user features that are missing in the iPad app, like viewing more MIDI data, adding project notes, and more customizable export settings. This did not really impact my workflow, especially if I am going to carry over the project to my desktop, but it might be an issue for some.

Another stumbling block is when I transferred an iPad project to the Mac, an audio sample from the library was not available on my desktop. So if you’re going back and forth between devices on one project, you’re going to have to think about what is compatible with what version. Apple says Logic Pro for Mac will have a compatibility update today to make it work with the iPad, including the ability to open tracks with non-editable versions of Beat Breaker or Sample Alchemy, but no word on when the full version of those plug-ins will come to the Mac version. However, if you do not have the sounds downloaded on your Mac that you have downloaded in the iPad version, Logic Pro will automatically download those sounds for you when opening the project on the Mac, and vice versa. And, of course, this is all great if you actually have a Mac to go and use some pro-level plug-ins — Logic Pro is only on Apple products. Exporting lets you AirDrop the file to another device, as well as the other apps in your share sheet.

What excites me the most about using Logic Pro for the iPad is just having a professional and reliable multitrack digital audio workstation on an iPad that I can easily transfer projects to my Mac. I was able to plug in a number of external audio interfaces into an iPad Pro, and Logic Pro recognized them quickly in the audio input / output settings. That’s where it really started to feel like a professional audio workstation.

And really, the ideal way to mix with Logic Pro for the iPad is with an external audio interface. There are not many iPads with a headphone jack anymore (Logic Pro is supported on iPads with an A12 chip and above, which includes the ninth-gen iPad, the lone remaining option with a 3.5mm jack), so you’re likely going to need some sort of adapter anyway to listen with headphones. Of course, you can try to use Bluetooth headphones, but that’s not ideal for music-making due to Bluetooth lag and syncing issues. Apple even warns you in the app when you pair wireless headphones that “You may notice a delay when playing Touch Instruments or playing back your song.” When I paired my Bose QC35 to my iPad to try to mix, it was unmanageable.

Photo by Andrew Marino / The Verge

Apple offers Logic Pro for the iPad for $4.99 a month or $49 for a yearly subscription (with a month free), as opposed to the $199 perpetual license on the Mac. Though I am hesitant about subscription-based production software, five dollars a month is really a great price for a powerful tool like this, and you can unsubscribe when you’re not using it. I will most likely be paying for Logic Pro on and off on my iPad Mini when I want to do some multitrack recording or make some fun tracks when I’m traveling.

Five bucks a month is a very low bar to entry for anyone wanting to get into making music, so I’ll be looking out for the first album made entirely in this app. Logic Pro for the Mac has been used by artists and producers for years and has been the DAW of choice for artists like Lil Nas X, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and many more. Bringing this software to the iPad (along with Final Cut Pro) really shows off the strength and flexibility of the iPad more than any software I’ve seen so far.

A great digital audio workstation for the iPad with some experimental ways to make music

Over the past few days, I’ve been having a lot of fun composing riffs, beats, and rhythms using the new iPad version of Apple’s music production software Logic Pro. The subtly redesigned app translates the company’s pro-level audio app to a touchscreen interface really well, and thankfully, it does not dumb it down for a mobile screen.

Those who have used GarageBand on an iPad will be familiar with a touch interface for virtual instruments and recording, but with Logic Pro, you have a whole lot more things to adjust — more knobs, faders, automations, plug-ins, and samples. I’ve been using Logic Pro on a 12.9-inch iPad Pro, so I’m using the biggest touchscreen available for this app (and basically the size of a laptop). That being said, nothing really felt cramped or hard to navigate in this interface. Using it on my iPad mini might not be as fun, though.

The biggest change with adapting Logic Pro for the iPad is the way you interact with plug-ins, the play surfaces, and the redesigned browser. To accommodate the screen size, the plug-in window has simplified versions of each plug-in that Apple is calling “tiles.” There, you can tweak basic settings on compressors, EQ, reverb, etc., and then tap the tile to open up the full version of the plug-ins to refine settings. Quickly adjusting something like the threshold on a compressor, viewing the parametric EQ, or adjusting the wet / dry mix of a pitch shifter while still having the full view of the editor is really helpful and more efficient for this sort of setup.

Using multi-touch to play the neck of a bass, keys on the piano, or a drum pad is an obvious plus to using the iPad for producing music virtually, and that’s where a lot of the fun comes in. I made a funky beat sitting in the airport waiting for a flight, tooled around with mixing on the plane in the air, and landed a few hours later with something that I would seriously consider using for a professional project.

In Logic Pro for the iPad, finding instruments, samples, and audio loops is slightly different than how it’s laid out on the Mac, with instruments, loops, samples, presets, and patterns all in one place. At first, this was a little confusing figuring out which kind of sound will support which kind of track, but overall, it’s a lot easier to navigate when you want a certain type of instrument, genre, or sample. The browser allowed me to search for the right type of kick drum I want to add to my drum pad or preview a synth that would work best for my project, so overall, not many complaints there. If you want to add your own samples or audio files, you can drag those into a project from the Files app.

Apple has also added more samples and tools to this new version, including Sample Alchemy and Beat Breaker, which are some very fun experiment tools for manipulating sounds. I could probably spend a few hours just playing with Beat Breaker on a track and making wild new sounds chopping up a drum beat or sample.

Surprisingly, I did not feel the need for a keyboard with Logic Pro and used the Magic Keyboard to mostly prop up the iPad. There are still some things I prefer to use a keyboard for, of course, like pressing the spacebar to play, switching between the mixer, editor, and plug-in windows, or searching in the browser window, but like a lot of DAWs, Logic Pro’s interface is modeled after analog mixers, so adjusting a knob or a fader with your finger just makes more sense. (I’ve never met an engineer who likes to use a mouse to adjust a potentiometer knob.)

If you want to take advantage of both the touchscreen and a keyboard and mouse, Logic Pro for the iPad still recognizes some of the keyboard shortcuts from the Mac version, but not everything. This app really benefits from you using multi-touch. My reflex shortcut that I’ve ingrained in my head is Command-S for saving, but this does not seem to do anything on the iPad. (The projects do auto-save, but to rename or save as, I had to do in the file browser.)

Eventually, I started to prefer the precision of the Apple Pencil over my finger to fine-tune MIDI note placements or trimming clips. But like other Pencil-centric apps, it was a bit awkward going back to using multi-touch to zoom in and out of my timeline with the Pencil in my hand. The most useful Pencil feature is for drawing automation curves right on the screen rather than the slightly frustrating desktop way of clicking and dragging little dots over clips with a mouse.

Photo by Andrew Marino / The Verge

I also found plugging the iPad in to a monitor was a pretty neat experience — sort of like using a Wacom tablet — drawing automatic curves or playing a virtual instrument while viewing the DAW on a bigger screen.

As for compatibility with the Mac version, the biggest thing you cannot do with the iPad version is load a lot of third-party plug-ins used in many desktop DAWs. The iPad version supports a bunch of Audio Unit plug-ins available in the App Store, but if you use any VST plug-ins or ones that are not in the App Store (such as the popular Waves options), they won’t carry in your project on the iPad. Those plug-ins will be missing. Your best bet is bouncing those effects down to a new audio track and saving before your transfer to the iPad. There are some other power user features that are missing in the iPad app, like viewing more MIDI data, adding project notes, and more customizable export settings. This did not really impact my workflow, especially if I am going to carry over the project to my desktop, but it might be an issue for some.

Another stumbling block is when I transferred an iPad project to the Mac, an audio sample from the library was not available on my desktop. So if you’re going back and forth between devices on one project, you’re going to have to think about what is compatible with what version. Apple says Logic Pro for Mac will have a compatibility update today to make it work with the iPad, including the ability to open tracks with non-editable versions of Beat Breaker or Sample Alchemy, but no word on when the full version of those plug-ins will come to the Mac version. However, if you do not have the sounds downloaded on your Mac that you have downloaded in the iPad version, Logic Pro will automatically download those sounds for you when opening the project on the Mac, and vice versa. And, of course, this is all great if you actually have a Mac to go and use some pro-level plug-ins — Logic Pro is only on Apple products. Exporting lets you AirDrop the file to another device, as well as the other apps in your share sheet.

What excites me the most about using Logic Pro for the iPad is just having a professional and reliable multitrack digital audio workstation on an iPad that I can easily transfer projects to my Mac. I was able to plug in a number of external audio interfaces into an iPad Pro, and Logic Pro recognized them quickly in the audio input / output settings. That’s where it really started to feel like a professional audio workstation.

And really, the ideal way to mix with Logic Pro for the iPad is with an external audio interface. There are not many iPads with a headphone jack anymore (Logic Pro is supported on iPads with an A12 chip and above, which includes the ninth-gen iPad, the lone remaining option with a 3.5mm jack), so you’re likely going to need some sort of adapter anyway to listen with headphones. Of course, you can try to use Bluetooth headphones, but that’s not ideal for music-making due to Bluetooth lag and syncing issues. Apple even warns you in the app when you pair wireless headphones that “You may notice a delay when playing Touch Instruments or playing back your song.” When I paired my Bose QC35 to my iPad to try to mix, it was unmanageable.

Photo by Andrew Marino / The Verge

Apple offers Logic Pro for the iPad for $4.99 a month or $49 for a yearly subscription (with a month free), as opposed to the $199 perpetual license on the Mac. Though I am hesitant about subscription-based production software, five dollars a month is really a great price for a powerful tool like this, and you can unsubscribe when you’re not using it. I will most likely be paying for Logic Pro on and off on my iPad Mini when I want to do some multitrack recording or make some fun tracks when I’m traveling.

Five bucks a month is a very low bar to entry for anyone wanting to get into making music, so I’ll be looking out for the first album made entirely in this app. Logic Pro for the Mac has been used by artists and producers for years and has been the DAW of choice for artists like Lil Nas X, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and many more. Bringing this software to the iPad (along with Final Cut Pro) really shows off the strength and flexibility of the iPad more than any software I’ve seen so far.

The fine was issued by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, which regulates Facebook across the EU, after it ruled that the social network’s data transfers to the U.S. “did not address the risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms” of EU users and violated General Data Protection Regulation.

The fine constitutes the largest ever imposed under the EU’s GDPR privacy law, the previous one being a €746 million penalty issued to Amazon in 2021 for similar privacy violations.

In addition to the fine, Meta was given five months to suspend any future transfer of personal data to the U.S., and six months to end “the unlawful processing, including storage, in the U.S.” of transferred personal data. Instagram and WhatsApp, which Meta also owns, are not subject to the order.

A previous mechanism to legally transfer personal data between the U.S. and the EU, known as the “Privacy Shield” pact, was struck down by the EU bloc’s top court in 2020. The Irish regulator alleged that Meta infringed on the EU’s GDPR laws when it continued to transfer personal data to the U.S. after 2020 despite the court ruling.

The issue has been ongoing for a decade after a legal challenge brought by Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems against Facebook in 2013, over concerns resulting from the Edward Snowden revelations that EU user data is not sufficiently protected from U.S. intelligence agencies when transferred across the Atlantic.

“This decision is flawed, unjustified and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies transferring data between the EU and U.S.,” said Nick Clegg, Facebook’s president of global affairs, responding to the decision in a blog post. “We will appeal the ruling, including the unjustified and unnecessary fine, and seek a stay of the orders through the courts.”

This article, "Facebook Fined Record $1.3 Billion Over EU User Data Transfers to the US" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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