Month: September 2017

Enlarge / This little squid boy can now check Twitter without having to disconnect from his in-game chat session.

When Nintendo launched its smartphone-based Nintendo Switch multiplayer coordination app back in July, we took major issue with the baffling decision to disconnect voice chat if you switch to another app or put the phone into "sleep mode" with the screen inactive. Credit where it's due, then, because the version 1.1.0 update to the app released yesterday fixes these major issues. Voice chat with other Switch players can now continue even in sleep mode or with other apps open.

This kind of basic, background functionality really shouldn't have taken about two months to add to an app that came four months after the console's launch, especially when everything from Skype to Discord already had the same capability. But it's better late than never, and Nintendo still has a while before its online service leaves its current "free beta" and becomes a $20-per-year subscription service in 2018.

Of course, requiring a separate smartphone app to chat with other players is still a somewhat baffling decision in and of itself, leading to some ridiculous hardware solutions for those who want to combine game and chat audio. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime has said that using your existing smartphone and earbuds is preferable to "having some sort of bulky gamer headset," but we're still not 100 percent convinced on that score.

Enlarge / The new 10.5-inch iPad Pro. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

iPads didn't make an appearance in the new Steve Jobs Theater yesterday during Apple's event, but some models did experience a change. Apple raised prices for select iPad Pro 10.5- and 12.9-inch models by $50 yesterday, and a report by 9to5mac suggests it's due to the increased prices of NAND flash storage.

The 256GB version of the 10.5-inch iPad Pro now costs $799 and the 512GB model now costs $999. The 256GB model of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro costs $949 after the price increase, while its 512GB counterpart now costs $1,149. The prices for the 64GB base models of each iPad Pro have not changed: the 64GB 10.5-inch tablet still costs $649 while the 12.9-inch model with the same amount of storage costs $799.

The report cites "sources in the know" that claim the price increase is due to the increased cost of NAND flash storage. The NAND shortage has been an issue that manufacturers have had to deal with since the beginning of the year. It's mostly due to the increased demand for SSDs and the transition from 2D NAND to 3D NAND.

Microsoft is continuing to tinker with the privacy configuration and options in Windows 10, with the Fall Creators Update, due for release on October 17, including yet more changes to the privacy controls above and beyond those made in the previous update.

The biggest change surrounds not Windows itself, but third-party applications. Similar to applications on mobile platforms, Windows Store applications require permission to access things that might have privacy sensitivity—the camera, microphone, calendar, contacts, and so on. Currently, that permission has been provided implicitly; except for access to location information, which requires an explicit user grant, applications get access to these sensitive things by default. Access can be revoked after the fact, from the Privacy section of the Settings app, so users still have control, but the model is one of opting out of giving applications access, rather than opting in.

With the Fall Creators Update, Microsoft is switching things around to make Windows behave more like mobile platforms: all access to these sensitive things will now require an explicit per-application opt-in, with an on-screen prompt to allow access to, for example, access to the camera. On installing the update, existing applications will retain their permissions, but any new apps installed from the Windows Store will require their access to be enabled.