Apple Music has announced that its analytics platform for musicians, called Apple Music for Artists, is out of beta and available for all.

These types of back-end dashboards are invaluable for artists to get insights about how their music is performing on a platform across the world.

Apple Music for Artists has been around in beta since mid-2018, and much of what was around then is still around now.

It’s just been tweaked and refined as musicians have given their input.

Basic dashboard stats like your overall plays, song purchases on iTunes, and radio spins — on Apple Music editorial and algorithmic stations — are still front and center, badges are still automatically awarded for hitting milestones and personal bests, and artists can upload their own profile image.

I’ve always loved that Apple Music for Artists displays this info both ways; if an indie artist wanted to look at planning a tour, looking at a heat map would be an easy way to start mapping a route or figure out how to adjust a setlist from city to city.

Earlier today, Huawei EMUI 10 based on Android Q was officially unveiled at the Huawei Developers Conference.

According to the official introduction, from September 8th, the P30 series and other models will start beta testing.

The next-generation Mate series will launch EMUI 10 stable version.

Google should release a stable version by the end of August.

According to reports, EMUI 10 breaks through the hardware boundary and virtualizes the hardware capabilities (display, camera, microphone, speaker) of different terminals.

Furthermore, it puts them into the hardware capability resource pool and uses the capabilities of each terminal to support each other.

Streaming service Twitch is making it easier for anyone to stream on its platform via Twitch Studio, a streaming app that has arrived for beta testing.

Twitch describes the software as an all-in-one solution for new streams, simplifying the setup process and offering tools for engaging with viewers.

Streaming setups can range from simple to very complex, though the latter are typically reserved for full-time streamers who treat their channel as a job.

For those who are new to streaming, setting up one’s hardware and getting everything situated can be tricky.

The Twitch Studio app helps solve that by guiding users through the setup process, including making sure the microphone is active and adjusting the video’s white balance to ensure the picture is clear.

As well, users are given access to customizable templates for creating things like a ‘Be right back’ screen.

This didn't go down too well with many members of the Android community, but with the final release of Q just a few weeks away, Google has told them it's going to stay that way – and what's more, people will like it.

With the old three-button navigation system, the left button lets you scroll through open apps, the center button returns you to the home screen, and the right button takes you back.

After upgrading to Android Q, you swipe from the left or right edge of the screen to go back, and swipe from the bottom up to return to the home screen.

We've also rounded up the best free Android games

The main complaint involves the new back gesture, which presents issues for apps that already use that gesture for tasks like opening menus.

Developers can choose to deactivate the back gesture entirely, or just for a section of the screen if it interferes too much.

We still don't know Android Q's full name, but the software is now on its final beta, specifically Beta 6, and according to Google the company is now “just a few weeks away” from the official Android Q release.

So what does Beta 6 get you?

Not much to be honest that we haven’t seen in previous betas.

But the focus seems to be on improvements to gesture navigation, with Google saying that there’s now a “200dp vertical app exclusion limit for the Back gesture”.

In English that means that apps can prevent the back gesture from working, but only in certain parts of the screen.

In other words, it means app makers can stop the back gesture (which takes you back to a previous screen or the home screen) from interfering with their app, but can’t completely lock users out of being able to use the gesture.

Apple Music launched its data dashboard for musicians more than a year ago.

Today, the company is taking that product — Apple Music for Artists — out of beta, and adding some new features in the process.

For one thing, it’s no longer a web-only product, because Apple is releasing an iPhone app.

On both web and iOS, Apple Music for Artists allows musicians and their teams to see how often a song has been played, how many listeners it’s reaching and how many times it’s been purchased.

There’s also an “insights” section designed to highlight noteworthy data at any given moment, like how the first week of a new song compares to the first weeks of previous songs, or when the popularity of a song is spiking, or if they’ve hit a big milestone like 1 million plays.

Apple is also introducing data from Shazam, the music-recognition app it acquired last year.

Microsoft's social code biz GitHub on Thursday said its automation system, GitHub Actions, will now play real nice with third-party continuous integration and continuous deployment tools, a duo better known among IT types by its stage name, CI/CD.

Actions emerged in beta in October, and is slated for general availability on November 13 this year.

It is free for public GitHub repos, though it subject to certain usage limits and prohibitions on serverless computing, cryptomining, and other undesirable behavior spelled out under GitHub's Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.

"GitHub Actions can plug into any part of the software lifecycle and integrates with many CI/CD tools developers use today," said Max Schoening, senior director of product design at GitHub, in an email to The Register.

"GitHub Actions helps you build, test, and deploy applications, but you can also use it to automate other tasks common to your developer workflows: triaging and managing issues, automating releases, collaborating with your user base, and more," said GitHub CEO Nat Friedman in a blog post.

We should point out that Actions enables a broader spectrum of automation tasks than CI/CD, which generally is used to automate code compilation, validation, testing, building, and deployment.

The AR feature in Google Maps that Google first demoed more than a year ago — a heads-up mode called Live View that provides directions from phones’ cameras in real time — will roll out in beta in the coming weeks for compatible iOS and Android devices, the company today announced.

Live View was previously only available to users who were enrolled in the Google Maps beta and were level 5 or above in Google’s Local Guides program, and to owners of Pixel 3a, Pixel 3a XL, and older Pixel smartphones.

As before, Live View will require an ARCore- and ARKit-supported smartphone and will only work in countries where Google Street View is available.

Google also warns that Live View will slightly increase Maps’ battery and cellular data consumption.

Tapping the Start AR button kicks off Live View navigation, and holding up the phone reveals arrows, indicators, and a live map that guides you to your final destination.

Using a technique known as global localization, Maps gets a phone’s coarse location via GPS, and it uses Street View imagery to narrow down the exact location.

Businesses with large data sets on their hands can rest a little easier tonight — at least if they’re Amazon Web Services subscribers.

Amazon this evening announced that AWS Lake Formation, a fully managed service that facilitates the building, securing, and management of data lakes, is now generally available.

Customers with instances in the US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), and Europe (Ireland) regions can take advantage starting today.

“Our customers tell us that Amazon S3 is the ideal place to house their data lakes, which is why AWS hosts more data lakes than anyone else — with tens of thousands and growing every day.

They’ve also told us that they want it to be easier and faster to set up and manage their data lakes,” said vice president of databases, analytics, and machine learning at AWS Raju Gulabani.

“That’s why we built AWS Lake Formation, so customers can spend more time learning from their data and innovating, rather than wrestling that data into functioning data lakes.

Thousands of apps are released every day, capturing the right market is the key. The forecast for the year 2020 says that global mobile app revenue is going to reach around $200 billion. Since about a third of the traffic received is through mobile phones, it is good to start catching the business through mobile phones. Thus the real question that arises is how you can make your app reach milestones.

What cost to build an app? How to build an app? Well, it comes in stages. It always starts with someone’s brilliant idea, and then research. Here we are to help you out in guiding through the different stages of app development. The 8 key steps involved in the process are stated as follows:

1. Getting the idea & Goals:

You need to have a real detailed strategy for your business to work. Everything about the idea and goals of the applications should be clear especially in startup ideas. Any necessary changes can be made later. The mobile app you develop should come handy to the users. The idea should be feasible and it should also be able to solve some genuine problems of the target audience as only then people will get to download the app. There are so many cool app ideas in case you need to search for one, all you need to do is have a look and select according to your goals.

2. Performing research:

The mobile application market is full of apps, thus it is always good to analyze of your competitors work, establish ideas according to the needs that the competitors are not able to sustain so that you can fill into the gap, completing objectives in a timeline. You can scout the app stores for similar applications. You may also get good startup ideas while conducting this research.

3. Infrastructure:

After conducting research, you need to choose from the various technologies available in the market. You need to have proper knowledge of the tools you are going to use, if you don’t, and then you need the team that does. This is the point when your question changes from “What is to be made?” to “How are we making it?”

4. Designing and Wire framing:

First thing you need to do is pen down the idea of your application. Try out with explaining your concept to your coworkers or other people and see if they get it. After establishing the feasibility of your product, sorting out the scope and requirements, and making a clear target of a list of features that your app is going to provide, all you need to do is to start experimenting with these things.

Designing includes visualizing the layout of the screen, i.e., placement of buttons, banners, icons, and other elements. The primary objectives are needed to be maintained as the user should not get lost while using the application. Moreover, it focuses on building unique UI without compromising any sort of experience for users. Experimenting with UI sometimes help in making it more feasible for users.

5. Development in phases:

Developers prefer to build the app from scratch; some platforms offer to make prototypes easily to begin the work. So, before deploying the app on app stores, mobile app development consists of multiple phases.

• Alpha Phase:

In the alpha phase, only the core functionality is addressed. The app can barely perform tasks and have plenty of bugs and glitches. However, this phase gives a rough idea as to how the app is going to look and perform.

• Beta Phase:

During the beta phase, the majority of the functions are developed, the app needs testing so that the remaining fixes can be identified. At this stage, the app is released out to specific users to carry out further testing of the product.

• Release Phase:

After several rounds of testing, the app is finally released. Almost every bug is fixed from the developer point of view the customers can now use the service.

6. Testing in Phases:

Testing is one of the never-ending processes, no matter how much you do it, you can never ensure it is fail proof. The aim should be to make it seamless; something that worked well in beta phase might not work that well in the release phase. In startup ideas, the app should be made by taking care of mobile app development security. So, there are various steps of tests that are conducted to ensure quality.

• Testing Functions:

All functions of the app should work properly as if they don’t then the objective of the app is itself not met.

• Testing Performance:

The app should perform tasks in the least possible response time.

• Testing Usability:

Navigation through the app should be easy for any new user so that they do not get confused.

• Testing specifically for a device:

Trying app in various screen sizes and different OS helps to ensure the feasibility of the app. You can prefer using some tools, as well as hands-on testing.

• Testing User Acceptance:

Getting feedback from beta testers can help you know the acceptance of your app.

7. Launching Product:

All the efforts, time, energy, and hard work payout when you launch your app. The primary goal now is to get it downloaded by a good amount of users. Along with the organic reach, you need to boost up your app downloads by using your social media platforms.

It is good to have a website for your app apart from having it only on the play store and the app store, the link to the website can be linked with the description on app stores. You can invite selected people to pre-launch beta testing and provide them with good service. This might help out in ensuring a good amount of downloads once it is released.

8. Post-Launch:

After the successful app launch, you can’t just sit. You need to do post-launch monitoring, market analysis, build updates for your app. Along with this, you need to check out reviews, fix problems faced by customers. Doing this, help you in making your product better.

Conclusion:

It is not rocket science to develop and run a mobile application these days. Making it successful is one of the big things. It requires proper pre-planning, beta testing, deployment and regular maintenance. Increasing sales becomes easier with the help of these applications. We hope that your application works out well.

Microsoft’s GitHub today launched the beta of a new version of GitHub Actions with full continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) capabilities built right into the service.

General availability is planned for November 13.

The company also today announced that it now has more than 40 million developers on its platform.

Still, developers were obviously quite interested in using Actions for CI/CD.

“Since we introduced GitHub Actions last year, the response has been phenomenal, and developers have created thousands of inspired workflows,” writes GitHub CEO Nat Friedman in today’s announcement.

“But we’ve also heard clear feedback from almost everyone: you want CI/CD!

This is a day full of updates for OnePlus, after the arrival of the 9.0.8 version of OxygenOS for OnePlus 5 and 5T, the Open Beta 24 and 16 have been made available for download respectively for OnePlus 6 and 6T.

As always, these updates will be available OTA over the next few hours on all compatible devices where a previous Open Beta release is already installed.

Among the news we find the latest security patches updated to August 2019, various system optimizations and the inevitable customization of Zen Mode.

The changelog is the same as for OxygenOS 9.0.8 dedicated to OnePlus 6/6T.

OxygenOS Open Beta 24 /16 for OnePlus 6/6T Changelog

Optimized and made the screenshot taking process smoother and faster

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations will have a major version 10.0 released during the next two (2) weeks.

Based on the D365 F procedures rolled out during 2018 Q3, the D365 on-cloud customers are to be on the latest three versions, and that would be versions 10.0, 8.1.3 and 8.1.2.

Customers on the prior versions like 8.0 & 7.3 will need to update to one of the supported versions.

Microsoft has streamlined the release management to two major releases per year, in April and October of each year.

This has made the update needs predictable and the customers are able to plan better.

Please find the release notes of version 10.0 (April 2019) for Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations.

Some timesaving features include

• Automatic ledger settlements
• Payment journal summary report
• Financial dimension allocation on forecast position
• Summary budget vs. actual report
• Master Resource Planning – stability and recovery improvements
• Enterprise asset management

Continual enhancements to Common Data Model

Microsoft’s Open Data Initiative is consistently expanding and enhancing. The Common Data Model(CDS) enables multiple (& growing list of) applications interact with Dynamics 365, extending your business process, expanding your dataflow and workflow across applications, and your reports and dashboards spanning to data sources with no boundaries, literally (networks, applications, technologies, platforms, …)

Preview of planned features & updates for Common Data Model and Data Integration.

If you are new to Common Data Model, this 5-minute read will give you a good overview.

Case study on how Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service helps service technicians see the data from the buildings and enables a proactive organization.