MacRumors

Microsoft-owned keyboard app maker SwiftKey today launched a brand-new iOS app, this time focused on predictive emoji suggestions. Called Swiftmoji, the app runs a crowdsourced usage data algorithm to begin suggesting its users specific emoji characters when they send text messages, with the app set to eventually learn each user's preferences and recommend frequently-used emoji above those hardly ever sent in a message.

The app works by piggybacking on the written text created in Apple's -- or any other third-party's -- keyboard, showcasing a wall of emojis meant to be related to the message waiting to be sent. All users need to do is type something, tap the globe icon to switch over to Swiftmoji, and pick from the app's proposed emoji characters. SwiftKey hopes this method is a bit more streamlined in comparison to the emoji hunt that happens in Apple's first-party keyboard but, as TechCrunch noted, its predictive capabilities have room for improvement.

Testing the app out ahead of launch, the predictions seemed a tad tenuous and/or hit and miss at times. For example, typing ‘viva la France’ did indeed yield the French flag emoji as the first prediction. However the second prediction was the Italian flag. Which it’s hard to imagine being useful.

The app also lets users send an "emoji storm," which shoots out emojis from its suggestion box in a random order at the tail-end of a message, if users think sending just one or two characters isn't enough. In addition, there's a tab for frequently used emoji, and a basic, scrollable section akin to what iOS users have been used to over the past few years. Interestingly, the Android version of the app is more robust, offering quick-access emoji suggestions above a full third-party keyboard.

Due to its ability to condense vast topics down to cartoonish characters, a SwiftKey spokeswoman is also ensuring users that the company has "worked to reduce the chances of anyone using Swiftmoji to be caused offence from the emoji predictions suggested." All the same, she confirmed that SwiftKey wouldn't outright censor its users, letting everyone have "the option to use whichever emoji they like and in whatever way they like,” with truly questionable outcomes from the app advised to be reported to the company.

Anyone interested can check out Swiftmoji for free on the App Store today. [Direct Link]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to finally approve a three-year extension on local-sourcing rules within the country, granted to Apple due to its single-brand retail company status selling "cutting-edge technology." Those familiar with the matter, speaking with Bloomberg, claimed that the Indian government as a whole is gearing up to make it easier for all companies like Apple to meet a similar criteria.

Before the so-called "shift" in Modi's government, India's rules on foreign direct investments required 30 percent of goods sold by a foreign company to be manufactured and produced within the country. Like most companies, the law prevented Apple's retail growth within India -- leading to a handful of third-party endorsed pop-up shops -- because of the fact that most of its goods are created in China.

Apple filed for a new retail application when the new shifts in India's laws began to pick up steam, but some confusion still remained over what would be considered "cutting-edge" and "state of the art" technology, which could eventually grant a company another 5-year extension on top of the blanketed 3-year ruling being made common. It's this "push to clarify" the country's laws and procedures that Modi is spearheading, eventually expected to allow Apple to open its first retail stores in India.

Modi’s push to clarify those procedures will pave the way for Apple to open a retail store, according to the people [familiar with the matter]. The new rules may also impact China’s Xiaomi Corp. and Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp., which have also asked for exemptions.

Apple has been attempting to gain a foothold in India for a while now, most recently with CEO Tim Cook visiting the country, and Modi himself, to discuss manufacturing and retail opportunities. Its Authorized Mobility Resellers program has allowed Apple to skirt the country's restrictive retail presence rules, but still lacks the ability to bring in big sales numbers from India.

Niantic has decided to postpone the launch of Pokémon Go in Japan today, due to an unexpected email leak that revealed details about the company's rumored sponsor partnership with food chain McDonald's. A source close to the company confirmed the delay to TechCrunch, referring to a specific email chain between Pokémon Go's creators and McDonald's as the reason behind the move.

The two companies -- in addition to The Pokémon Company and Nintendo itself, presumably -- believed that the all-but-confirmed launch of Pokémon Go in the country would create a hype that "would overload the game" for a lot of its players, not just within Japan. The creators of Pokémon Go now hope that a restructured, less publicly expected launch will prepare the game's servers for an influx of players in the country that will undoubtedly be quite high.

When Pokémon Go does launch in Japan, it will be the first territory to introduce sponsored retail partnerships, which aim to lure players to restaurants like McDonald's in order to generate revenue for both Niantic and the corporate food chain. According to these sources close to the launch, all 3,000 McDonald's locations in Japan will be turned into gyms where players can battle opposing teams to take over the location, or train their Pokémon with teammates if they've already conquered the gym. It's unclear if any locations will be PokéStops instead of gyms.

The debut of Pokémon Go in Japan is now said to be "imminent," with a report from Nikkei suggesting the new launch date could be as soon as tomorrow, July 21. Over the weekend, the game launched in Canada and 26 countries across Europe, and it's already been available in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Japan will mark its first launch in Asia, with an expected rollout to other countries in the region in the coming weeks.

Thanks to Pokémon Go's success, Nintendo's market value has more than doubled since the game launched earlier in July. The company is now worth $42.5 billion, and it even broke the single-day trading record in Tokyo last Friday when $4.5 billion worth of stock was traded. Nintendo's new valuation now puts it ahead of Sony, which has a market cap sitting around $40 billion.

WhatsApp was forced offline in Brazil yesterday after Facebook failed to provide a court with chat logs related to a criminal investigation – only for the block to be lifted hours later.

The blocking order by Brazilian judge Daniela Barbosa came after Facebook argued that it could not provide the court with the requested data since all messages relayed through the service are end-to-end encrypted.

Barbosa apparently took issue with the nature of the response, accusing Facebook of treating the country like a "banana republic" and criticizing WhatsApp for replying to the court via email and in English, "as if this was the official language of this country." She then ordered the company to pay $50,000 per day until it complied with the court order to release the information.

However, in a matter of hours, the judge's order was struck down by the country's Supreme Court, which ruled that the lower court's order to ban WhatsApp was unreasonable and disproportionate. As TechCrunch notes, the ruling suggests Brazil's highest court favors an open internet, even if that means embracing encryption.

This is the fourth time a judge has ordered that WhatsApp be taken offline in the country, only for access to be reinstated soon after. The last order occurred in May and blocked the messaging service in Brazil for 72 hours, affecting over 100 million people.

"In recent months, people from all across Brazil have rejected judicial blocks of services like WhatsApp," said a WhatsApp spokesperson. "Indiscriminate steps like these threaten people's ability to communicate, to run their businesses, and to live their lives. As we've said in the past, we cannot share information we don't have access to."

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

French music streaming service Deezer officially opened its doors to the U.S. market on Tuesday, meaning for the first time, anyone in the States can sign up for a $10-a-month subscription.

Previously the service was only available to U.S. customers if they owned a Sonos system and paid $20 a month for Deezer Elite, or if they signed up to promotion deals through Bose and Cricket Wireless.

A Deezer Premium+ subscription offers similar features to Apple Music and Spotify, such as unlimited streaming of its 40 million-track library, machine-generated and human-curated playlists, offline listening, and access to music lyrics. Over 40,000 podcasts and radio stations (including personalized station service Flow) are also included.

Deezer offers an ad-supported free tier in other countries, but users in the U.S. only have access to the paid tier. A 30-day free trial is available however.

iOS users can avoid the App Store surcharge for signing up to the service through the Deezer app ($12.99 per month) by visiting the website instead, where the Deezer Premium+ 30-day trial is also available. Users then pay $9.99 a month and can cancel anytime. The Deezer Elite high-definition service remains exclusive to Sonos speaker owners.

Deezer currently has over 6 million users worldwide, about half that of Apple Music and around a fifth of Spotify's total paying customers. The service will also have to compete with the likes of Tidal and Google Play, as well as online radio station Pandora, which currently has over 80 million free monthly listeners.

Popular writing environment Scrivener made its long-awaited debut on iOS this morning.

For those unfamiliar with the Mac application, Scrivener is a scalable long-form writing platform and author project management system featuring multiple editing and organization tools.

Note cards, character sketches, place descriptions, and research notes are just some of the options available to writers, with import options for media, web pages, PDFs, and more also forming part of the package.

As a standalone writing environment, the new Scrivener iOS app functions in much the same way, offering rich text editing with support for comments, footnotes, keywords, and so on.

Many of the features from the desktop version have also made the port, such as the Binder, Outliner, Corkboard, and Inspector, although certain features that require more screen space — the Corkboard, for instance — are iPad-only.

The app syncs with Scrivener for macOS (Scrivener v2.8) and Scrivener for Windows using Dropbox, or users can copy projects between devices via iTunes. As mentioned however, the iOS app also works as a standalone tool, featuring multiple manuscript compilation and print formats as well as project export options, such as ebook, ePub, and PDF.

Scrivener 2.8 for Mac is a free update for all registered users of Scrivener 2, and along with iOS support, it also includes a number of bug fixes and minor tweaks.

Scrivener for iOS was first announced back in 2011, with an early launch goal originally estimated to be "some time in 2012." When that date slipped, lead developer Keith Blount kept fans updated on the troubled development of the app, with the iOS team running into coding issues and other setbacks over the years.

Scrivener for iOS costs $19.99 and is compatible with any device running iOS 9.0 or later. [Direct Link]

Earlier this year, Netflix reminded its oldest users that the terms of its grandfathered pricing -- which kept these subscribers at the $7.99 level for two years -- would be coming to a close sometime in the second or third quarter of 2016.

In a recent letter to the company's investors, CEO Reed Hastings remarked on the unfortunate churn of its subscriber base who reacted "unexpectedly" to the impending price increase.

The loss of grandfathered pricing places these older users at a new $9.99/month charge for the company's popular streaming service, which Netflix sees as an agreeable compensation for its noticeable uptick in consistent, original programs like Orange is the New Black and House of Cards. These shows debuted in 2013, and the $9.99/month price for new subscribers began just the next year, in 2014. Users can choose to stay at $7.99/month if they wish, at the loss of HD video streaming.

Due to these abandoned users, the company's stock fell 15 percent before its second quarter earnings report, shared yesterday. In the report, Netflix noted that it expected to add about 532,000 subscribers in the United States and 2.10 million internationally in Q2 2016 (just under a 2.5 million goal), but came up short on both goals. The company ultimately netted 160,000 new customers in the U.S. and 1.52 million overseas, landing under 1.7 million total in the quarter.

“Gross additions were on target, but churn ticked up slightly and unexpectedly, coincident with the press coverage in early April of our plan to un-­grandfather longer tenured members and remained elevated through the quarter,” said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings in a letter to investors. “We think some members perceived the news as an impending new price increase rather than the completion of two years of grandfathering.”

As the price hike began to near in the spring, Hastings admitted that users googling and researching the increase in their subscription cost appears to be consistent with the churn the company has seen this quarter. Despite Netflix's increase in programming, "Whatever the price is for something, people don’t like for it to go up," Hastings admitted, while still claiming that the new price tiers are "working great" for new members.