Month: July 2016

When ‘No Longer Available’ Strikes your iCloud Music Library

PissedOffFace“I recently wrote for this column about problems with iCloud not matching the correct versions of songs. This is a huge source of frustration for music lovers who want their music in the cloud,” Kirk McElhearn writes for Macworld. “But iCloud Music Library has other annoyances. One of these is the iCloud Status that you may see in your iTunes library: No Longer Available.”

“Record labels and artists are free to choose whether to allow their music to be available on streaming services. There are still some holdouts,” McElhearn writes. “Things get complicated when music that you have added to your iCloud Music Library from Apple Music is pulled. Labels can withdraw the right to stream certain songs and albums at any time, but you won’t be notified. You may see albums and songs in your library, but their titles are a slightly lighter color (depending on the view), and their iCloud status is No Longer Available.”

McElhearn writes, “It’s hard to spot these tracks, unless you go to play one, or unless you make a smart playlist.”

Read more in the full article here.

EyeFi Discontinuing EyeFi-X2 and Earlier Generation Products

EyeFiLogoEarly Friday, EyeFi, makers of its WiFi SIM card for cameras, has send an email to customers that its EyeFi-X2 type card and some of its earlier products are being discontinued.

The below is the actual email that customers have gotten:

To Our Eye-Fi X2 and Earlier Generation Product Customers:

This message is for customers that purchased an Eye-Fi Pro X2 or earlier generation products prior to March 2015.  Effective today, June 30th 2016, we will no longer be offering support for our legacy product lines, a complete list of which appears below.  This notice formally begins the final stage of the “end-of-life” (EOL) process started in mid-2015 for the affected products.  It’s very important that customers cease using these products no later than September 16, 2016 as some key services these products rely on will be shut down at that time.    All customers who have a Mobi or Mobi Pro products purchased since 2013 are not affected by this announcement.

We began EOL on these product lines in 2015 largely driven by technological obsolescence of some of the key technologies included in these products.  The primary technologies relate to Internet security and authentication mechanisms that were state-of-the-art in 2007 when we built them into our products but have since proven to be vulnerable.  Since mid-2015 we have been offering migration services free of charge for Customers who have paid Eyefi Premium accounts.  We will continue to offer this service migrating your Eyefi View data to Eyefi Cloud. You can request a migration here. For those customers that wish to use an Eyefi Mobi Pro card in place of their earlier generation products, we have also made a limited quantity available at a deep discount, see details here if you wish to take advantage of this offer.

Please note that we will maintain our customer service Web site and content for all customers.  The support site includes detailed explanations for how to accomplish migration to Eyefi Mobi/Mobi Pro and Eyefi Cloud services.  We are grateful to all the customers around the world that used Eye-Fi products in the past as well as for our newest customers.  The EOL of a product line is always difficult and we have made every effort to minimize the impact of this change on our customers.  Thanks for your loyalty and understanding.

LISTING OF IMPACTED PRODUCTS

Customers with Eye-Fi 1.0  product line and Eye-Fi Premium subscriptions will be impacted by this EOL process.  Effective September 16, 2016 the following products may no longer operate:

Eye-Fi 1.0 Products:

  • All original pre-X2 products (Original, Home, Share, Explore, Video Share, Video Explore, Pro)
  • 4GB Geo X2
  • 4GB Connect X2
  • 8GB Explore X2
  • 8GB Mobile X2
  • 8GB Pro X2
  • 16GB Pro X2
  • Visioneer X2
  • Sandisk X2
  • Eye-Fi Windows desktop software (Eye-Fi Center)
  • Eye-Fi Mac desktop software (Eye-Fi Center)
  • Eye-Fi app for iOS
  • Eye-Fi app for Android
  • Eye-Fi Center web app (center.eye.fi)

The Mobi, Mobi Pro and Eyefi Cloud products and applications are unaffected and will remain operational with continued future developments.

Frequently Asked Questions

I just purchased an X2 card, why isn’t it supported?

Eye-Fi began phasing out sales of the X2 product line in 2012.  The last version produced by the company were sold through authorized channels in the United States in March, 2015.  Although Eye-Fi stopped shipments of these products via authorized channels, some units were still available from third party sellers and after-market resellers.  Eye-Fi’s warranty period for the affected products purchased through our authorized channels has expired.

Will I still be able to create an Eye-Fi Center account after September 16th?

No, you will not be able to create an Eye-Fi Center account or log in to an existing Eye-Fi Center account.

Can I still download and install Eye-Fi Center applications after September 16th?

The Eye-Fi Center applications can be installed, but since account creation and logging in will no longer work, these applications will not be functional.

Will I be able to use my Eye-Fi 1.0 card after September 16, 2016?

Certain functions, such as Direct Mode, may not be directly impacted by our end of life process. If you wish to try Direct Mode you will need to set it up  prior to the end of life date. You can find instructions on how to set up direct mode here for Android and here for iOS. Please note that while Direct Mode may not be directly affected, Eye-Fi applications will no longer be updated for operating system updates, and their functionality is not guaranteed - additionally, no support will be provided either for the setup or functionality of Direct Mode. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT DIRECT MODE CONFIGURATIONS WILL CONTINUE FUNCTIONING AFTER THE SEPTEMBER 16, 2016 SHUT DOWN.

For an extended FAQ, please see here.

Copyright © 2016 Eyefi, All rights reserved.

 

Dell drops its remaining Android tablets – 6 months after dropping HP

DellLogoThe weak sustainability of low-end market share has claimed a new victim. Dell has dropped its remaining Venue-branded Android tablet line and will instead focus on selling conventional PCs and hybrid "2-in-1" devices running Windows, citing over-saturation and declining demand for slate-style tablets.

According to a report by Agam Shah for PC World, Dell previously discontinued most of its Android offerings "some time ago" (including Venue-branded smartphones, which were dropped in 2012) but continued to build Venue tablets and an "Android-based Wyse Cloud Connect, a thumb-size computer that can turn a display."

Those remaining Android product have have now also been abandoned, and Dell will no longer be issuing any new Android updates for them.

"For customers who own Android-based Venue products, Dell will continue to support currently active warranty and service contracts until they expire, but we will not be pushing out future OS upgrades," the report cited a Dell spokesman as saying.

Dell's Android tablets were some of the company's cheapest products, and many were bundled for free with PC laptops. That turned out to be a poor strategy for maintaining sustainable profitability, despite the fact that IDC, Gartner, Strategy Analytics and other market research groups have been hailing Android's shipment volumes as meaningful for years, abetted by media sources that repeat their numbers without criticism.

To read the rest of the AppleInsider.com report, click here.

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