MacRumors

In celebration of Valentine's Day today, February 14, numerous companies have launched sales for a variety of products, ranging from iPhone and MacBook accessories to Bluetooth speakers and more. Below we've rounded up a few of the sales going on today, most of which will be ending by midnight tonight or early tomorrow.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

Gazelle

Gazelle shoppers today can get $20 off any certified pre-owned devices priced at $200 or more on Gazelle's website, including Apple products like recent MacBooks, iPads, and iPhones. You'll see the discount applied automatically at checkout.

Incipio

Take 20 percent off sitewide at Incipio using the promotional code LOVE20 at checkout. The accessory company has launched separate Valentine's Day guides for Her and Him, but the promo code will work on any product across the website.

DirecTV Now

DirecTV Now's updated Apple TV 4K offer is still ongoing this Valentine's Day, and remains the best sale price for the 32GB device available online, regardless of whether or not you decide to keep paying for the streaming TV service once the prepaid period ends.

With the deal, if you sign up for three months of DirecTV Now at an upfront cost of around $105, you'll get the 32GB Apple TV 4K at no cost.

DirecTV Now starts at $35/month for the "Live a Little" package, which adds up to $105 for three months of service. So the limited time offer means that you can get the latest 32GB Apple TV 4K for just $105, which is $75 cheaper than its traditional price point of $180 at Apple and other retailers. The company is expected to raise the sale back up to four weeks prepaid at $140, which is still a nice deal on the Apple TV 4K, but if you're interested definitely check out DirecTV Now's website for more information.

Braven

Speaker and headphone company Braven has launched a BOGO sale in celebration of Valentine's Day, offering shoppers the chance to buy one product and get another 50 percent off when using promo code LOVEBRV.

The offer is available sitewide and can be combined across product lines, with the discount appearing at checkout. The only items excluded from the offer are any products already on sale.

Sonos

Another ongoing sale could be a good opportunity for couples this Valentine's Day, with Sonos offering customers the chance to purchase two Sonos One speakers for a price of $349.00. Each individual Sonos One is priced at $199.00, so this bundle saves you $49 from what would be a $398.00 price tag.

Sonos debuted the sale on the day that pre-orders for Apple's HomePod went up, January 26, and has kept it live since then in an effort to compete with Apple's first entry into the smart speaker market.

In terms of price, the Sonos One two-speaker bundle matches the cost of one of Apple's $349.00 HomePod speaker. For more on the Sonos sale, visit the company's website.

MacPaw

MacPaw is offering customers the chance to buy a CleanMyMac 3 double pack this Valentine's Day, taking 20 percent off the total cost of the bundled software. The company said this could be a good gift for couples, since the deal nets you one license that can then be used on two separate Macs. With the offer, you can get two copies of CleanMyMac 3 for $47.96, down from $59.95.

MacPaw sells a variety of other Mac applications like Gemini and Wallpaper Wizard, and the company describes CleanMyMac as a "simple and powerful application for keeping your Mac clean, maintained, and healthy."

Other Sales

There are plenty of other sales going on today, so we've listed some of them below with a brief description of the promotion or items discounted. If we see any other Valentine's Day sales appear, we'll add them to this list and update the post.

• Twelve South - Inspire [mac candle N°2] for $24.99, down from $29.99
• Casetify - Buy two get 20 percent off, or buy 3 get 25 percent off with promo code LOVEIT
• Griffin - Save 40 percent off sitewide with promo code LUVGRIFFIN
• Speck - 28 percent off sitewide
• JBL - Save up to 75 percent off select Bluetooth speakers and headphones
• T-Mobile - Get a free line of service when you add one line to a family plan
• Best Buy - Sphero iPhone-connected interactive Spider-Man for $34.99, down from $149.99

• Amazon - iPhone X leather case in Black and Midnight Blue for $39.99, down from $49.99

• Walmart - Powerbeats3 Wireless Earphones for $99.00, down from $199.99
• B&H Photo - DJI Mavic Pro Fly More Combo for $949.00, down from $1,299.00

For more sales happening this week, be sure to head over to our full Deals Roundup.

HomePod acoustic tests performed by Fast Company and published Tuesday appear to support Apple's claim that algorithms built into the smart speaker make it capable of distributing sound evenly throughout a room.

According to Apple's marketing material, music played on HomePod is evenly distributed so that it sounds similar regardless of where the listener is standing or sitting in the room. Apple also claims that HomePod's output remains consistent wherever it is placed in an environment, thanks to sophisticated always-on sound processing algorithms.

HomePod uses its six-microphone array to record the behavior of the sound waves emitted by the speakers, while the algorithms analyze the incoming data to adjust the output of the speakers and deliver a consistent representation of a piece of music throughout the listening environment. Another microphone deeper inside the HomePod picks up the presence of walls and other large objects that might interfere with the distribution of certain sounds, like the long sound waves of bass notes, and the algorithms adjust the output accordingly.

To test the claim, a HomePod was placed on a 30-inch high table by a wall and a white noise test sound was played through it that produces an equal amount of decibels throughout the frequency spectrum. This output was recorded from four locations in the room, and then each sound profile was compared to see how much variation occurred across the full frequency spectrum. The testing gear used in the experiment was loaned by Liechtenstein-based acoustics company NTi Audio AG.

According to Brian MacMillan of NTi Audio AG, which provided the testing gear used in the experiment, the HomePod's profile changed very little, with an average variance of less than 0.95 decibels across all audible frequency bands, which is considered below the threshold that can be heard by a human ear. Comparatively, the test team saw considerably more output variation from a Harman Kardon Invoke speaker, which had an average variance of 3.4 decibels.

In short, Apple's claim that the HomePod can deliver a consistent representation of a piece of music throughout the room looks truthy.

"The developers have done an excellent job of having the HomePod adjust to the room; (it has) impressive consistency in overall level and frequency response," said NTi's MacMillan.

"The HomePod automates spatial compensation that previously required a real audiophile's expertise, tools and time," he said.

The HomePod's sound has received praise by both new HomePod owners and media sites that tested the device ahead of its release, although Consumer Reports' doesn't believe the HomePod outshines the Google Home Max and the Sonos One. Other reviews have disagreed with that analysis, including an extensive, in-depth review published by a self-professed audiophile on Monday.

Apple's mobile news platform has been accused of "living in the past" by the co-founder and head of rival news curation service Flipboard. The comments were made at Tuesday's Code Media event in California, where Flipboard CEO Mike McCue participated in an onstage Q&A regarding the future of content curation in the digital mobile space.

Now in its eighth year, the Flipboard iOS app organizes online articles into a more conducive reading format for mobile devices, and reaches around 100 million users a month. Comparatively, major rival Apple News – which Apple began shipping with iOS 9 – has at least 70 million monthly users.

"When you're an entrepreneur and you're competing with Apple, that's a pretty big deal," said McCue. "They're a partner and a competitor at the same time." McCue then went on to criticize Apple's mobile news platform for its lack of human curation.

"Apple News as a product is living in the past. There's no social sharing capability, no curation happening — it's algorithmic,” McCue said, adding: "It's another format that publishers have to adopt."

McCue also picked holes in Apple's walled garden approach to online content, comparing Flipboard's ad-friendly platform to Apple News's "closed ecosystem", which McCue called "a big deal for publishers". The suggestion here is that Flipboard benefits publishers by regularly redirecting readers to the publisher's site, where more ads are shown, whereas Apple News keeps users within the app's native display format with its attendant ad restrictions.

Despite the latter approach, Apple News does offer a built-in advertising platform that allows publishers to earn 100 percent of the revenue from the content they publish, or 70 percent of revenue from iAds inventory sold by Apple. The Apple News Format also lets publishers create custom editorial layouts geared towards their individual brands, allowing content to be viewed by millions of iPhone and iPad users in the way the publishers intended.

Facebook has started promoting the Onavo VPN client it acquired back in 2013 directly within the Facebook app for iOS devices. A link to the Onavo VPN client is available in the Facebook app in the United States under a new "Protect" section of the Facebook navigation menu.

To get to it, tap on the hamburger menu in the right hand side of the app, and then scroll down. "Protect" features a blue icon with a shield, and when you tap on it, it links to the Onavo VPN app in the iOS App Store.

As TechCrunch points out, while Onavo offers to "keep your data safe while you browse" and let you know when you "visit potentially malicious or harmful websites," Facebook's real aim with Onavo is tracking user activity across multiple different apps to learn insights about how its customer base uses third-party apps.

But Facebook didn't buy Onavo for its security protections.

Instead, Onavo's VPN allow Facebook to monitor user activity across apps, giving Facebook a big advantage in terms of spotting new trends across the larger mobile ecosystem. For example, Facebook gets an early heads up about apps that are becoming breakout hits; it can tell which are seeing slowing user growth; it sees which apps' new features appear to be resonating with their users, and much more.

In August of last year, The Wall Street Journal took a look at how Facebook uses Onavo to track what people do on their smartphones outside of the Facebook ecosystem. Using Onavo data, for example, Facebook was able to determine that the Instagram Stories feature was impacting Snapchat's business well ahead of when Snap disclosed slowing user growth.

As The Wall Street Journal explains, whenever a person using Onavo opens an app or website, Onavo redirects the traffic to Facebook's servers and logs the action in a database, allowing Facebook to draw conclusions about app usage from aggregated data.

Onavo for iOS and Android has been installed on more than 33 million devices, according to Sensor Tower, with 62 percent of those installs on Android. TechCrunch speculates that Facebook may be promoting Onavo in the iOS app to encourage more iOS users to download the app.

Facebook is clear about Onavo's purpose, with a disclosure available on the App Store: "Onavo collects your mobile data traffic. This helps us improve and operate the Onavo service by analyzing your use of websites, apps, and data. Because we're part of Facebook, we also use this info to improve Facebook products and services, gain insights into the products and services people value, and build better experiences."

Facebook in October introduced a new feature designed to let publishers sell subscriptions to their news sites directly on Facebook, but the social network could not work out a deal with Apple, preventing the news subscription options from being available on Facebook for iOS.

At issue was Apple's demand for its standard 30 percent cut of any subscription revenue brought in through the Facebook iOS app, while Facebook wanted all money to go to publishers.

At today's Code Media event, Facebook executive Campbell Brown said the dispute with Apple had been resolved, which means the subscription service tool will launch on iOS devices on March 1.

Brown did not provide details on the deal that Facebook and Apple worked out, so it is not clear if Apple will be taking a standard 30 percent cut, a lower cut, or no cut at all.

Facebook's news service does not offer subscriptions purchased directly on Facebook, but instead redirects customers to sign up for a subscription on the publisher website once the article limit has been reached.

Publishers have asked Facebook to change the number of free articles Facebook users can view without a subscription from 10 to 5, a change Facebook will also implement starting on March 1.

Apple is expanding discounted student memberships for Apple Music to 82 additional markets, making half price subscriptions available in nearly all regions where the Apple Music streaming service is available.

According to iMore's Rene Ritchie, student discounts are available in 79 new regions as of today, with an additional three to be added on February 26. New countries where Apple Music discounts are available for students include Israel, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, and Taiwan.

A full list of countries where student memberships can be purchased should is available on Apple's Apple Music availability page. You can also see if your country supports discounted Apple Music subscriptions by checking on the UNiDAYS website.

First introduced in 2016, Apple Music memberships for students cut the normal price of Apple Music in half. In the United States, this means the regular $9.99 Apple Music subscription is priced at $4.99 for students.

To qualify for discounted pricing, students must be enrolled in an eligible college or university. Student eligibility is determined and verified through UNiDAYs, a student validation service.

UNiDAYS confirms that Apple Music subscribers are enrolled in a degree-granting program before allowing customers to get the discounted subscription price.

Customers who subscribe to Apple Music with a student subscription will need to confirm their status on a regular basis through UNiDAYS. Subscribers who are no longer students or who have had student pricing for a total of 48 months will be switched over to a full price individual Apple Music subscription.

Instagram is testing a new feature that will send an alert whenever you take a screenshot of a story, effectively putting an end to the practice of covertly taking screenshots of the temporary story posts on the social network.

News of the new feature was shared on Twitter by a user who posted an image of a screenshot warning message. Instagram plans to offer a one-time warning letting screenshotters know that subsequent screenshots or screen recordings will be visible to the person who posted the story.

The feature is being tested with a small number of users. Participants can see who took a screenshot of their story by going to the list of story viewers and checking to see if there are camera icons next to any of the names. A flash icon denotes a user who took a screenshot.

Instagram does not plan to send out notifications when a screenshot of a story is captured, but it will be visible in the list of people who viewed the story.

Instagram confirmed to TechCrunch that the feature is in testing right now: "We are always testing ways to improve the experience on Instagram and make it easier to share any moment with the people who matter to you."

It's not yet clear if and when Instagram will officially introduce this feature.

Apple today shared three new iPhone tutorial videos on its YouTube channel, providing quick walkthroughs on shooting a Portrait mode selfie, editing a Portrait selfie, and creating a Live Photo that uses the "bounce" effect.

The first two videos pertain to the iPhone X, which is the only iPhone that supports Portrait mode selfies thanks to the front-facing TrueDepth camera, while the Live Photos video is applicable to all devices that support Live Photos.

Each video is just over 30 seconds in length and goes through all of the steps necessary to accomplish each task using an actual iPhone screen recording to highlight each action.

Apple has thus far shared several videos in this same tutorial series, offering quick tips on how to use various iPhone and iPad features. Like Apple's other tutorial videos, these new photo tutorials are aimed at people who aren't particularly familiar with the feature set of the iPhone.

Apple recently updated its Maps app to add transit directions and data for Tucson, Arizona. Transit directions have been available in Phoenix, Arizona since October of 2017, but transit information for Tucson appears to be new.

Apple Maps users in Tucson can now select public transportation routes when getting directions between two locations, with SunTran bus lines available as a transit transportation option. Amtrak routes are also available, and have been for some time.

Apple has not yet added Tucson to the website where it lists locations where transit directions are available, but it should be added in the near future.

Transit directions were first added to Apple Maps in 2015 with the launch of iOS 9. Maps initially only offered transit information in a handful of cities, but over the course of the last three years, Apple has worked to expand the feature to additional areas.

Transit information is now live in dozens of cities and countries around the world, with a full list available on Apple's iOS 11 Feature Availability website.