Adobe Fresco (formerly Project Gemini) is designed to allow artists to create professional quality drawings, but the interface has been created with simplicity in mind so anyone can use it.

Adobe Fresco features infinitely scalable vector brushes, adaptable Photoshop brushes, and Live Brushes that are powered by Adobe’s machine learning and artificial intelligence engine, Adobe Sensei.

The Adobe Sensei-powered brushes are meant to recreate the experience of painting with oils or watercolors right on the display of the iPad, so it’s like painting with real-life materials.

There are thousands of brushes to play with in Adobe Fresco, and Adobe has built in intuitive tools for selections, masking, and more.

Adobe’s blog has a series of examples of the kids of artwork that can be created using Fresco’s range of brushes, including oil brushes, watercolor brushes, photoshop brushes mimicking crayons, ink pens, foliage, acrylic paint and tons more, and vector brushes for creating infinitely scaleable art.

Adobe says that in celebration of the 2019 Big Draw Festival, Apple retail stores are offering free art sessions where participants can try Fresco for themselves and take part in fun drawing activities.

Adobe Fresco creations are compatible with Photoshop, which means files can be transferred back and forth seamlessly between Fresco and Photoshop, plus for Creative Cloud subscribers, all files, brushes, colors, and content libraries are integrated.

Creative Cloud users can download Fresco for free, and it is included in all Adobe Creative Cloud plans and the Adobe Photoshop-only plan, but it is not included in the CC Photography Plan that includes Photoshop and Lightroom.

A freemium version of Adobe Fresco is available for non-Creative Cloud users with many of the same features, but access to brushes is limited and high-resolution files can’t be exported.

A standalone $9.99 per month plan is available for those who don’t have a Creative Cloud subscription but want to unlock all of the Adobe Fresco features. More information is available on Adobe’s website.

This article, “Adobe Launches ‘Fresco’ Painting and Drawing App for iPad” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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In a blog post, Livingston explained that at this point Kik is one of the largest apps in the United States, with industry leading engagement amid a recent growth period over the past few months. Nevertheless, the team has decided to shut down Kik, reduce the company from over 100 employees to just 19, and focus on converting more users into Kin buyers.

Livingston said that no matter what happens to Kik, the Kin cryptocurrency is “here to stay.”

While we are ready to take on the SEC in court, we underestimated the tactics they would employ. How they would take our quotes out of context to manipulate the public to view us as bad actors. How they would pressure exchanges not to list Kin. And how they would draw out a long and expensive process to drain our resources.

Together these changes will drop our burn rate by eighty five percent, putting us in position to get through the SEC trial with the resources we have.

Kik Messenger provides users with a way to connect to friends and family through text messaging, group chats, and video chats. The app doesn’t require users to enter a phone number or connect it to a social network platform, so it was appealing to users interested in anonymity, letting them sign up with any name and an email address.

It’s unclear exactly when the company plans to shut down Kik for good.

This article, “Kik Messenger Shutting Down as Company Pivots to Focus on ‘Kin’ Cryptocurrency” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple and 10 of its suppliers in China will invest nearly $300 million by 2022 to develop projects totaling one gigawatt of renewable energy. In a press release today, Apple said that includes three wind firms in Hunan and Hubei that will generate approximately one-tenth of that anticipated total.

Each farm is said to generate 48 megawatts of clean energy, supplying a combined 134 megawatts to China’s national power grid.

Apple’s environmental chief Lisa Jackson:

To see these projects completed and already supplying clean energy to the grid is really exciting. We are proud that suppliers participating in the fund share our commitment to supporting innovative energy solutions, cutting emissions and fighting climate change.

In its press release, Apple also reiterated that 44 of its suppliers in 16 countries have committed to using 100 percent clean energy to power their Apple-specific production. Apple and its suppliers remain on track to generate more than four gigawatts of clean energy worldwide by 2020, the company said.

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.

This article, “Apple Invests in Three Wind Farms in China as Part of Renewable Energy Efforts” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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In the 2019 Household Appliance and Electronics Report, Apple earned an ACSI score of 83, the same score that it had in 2018. Apple’s overall satisfaction score was higher than scores from Samsung (81), Amazon (79), HP (78), Acer (77), and others.

In the overall industry rankings, Apple stays on top for a second year with a stable and high ACSI score of 83, and its customers have by far the highest expectations. Despite a 1% downturn, Samsung keeps second place at 81 and no longer ties with Amazon, which falls much further. Amazon tumbles 4% to 79, just a point above the industry average. Among the three leaders, Apple demonstrates an advantage across all aspects of the customer experience, but it still lags both Samsung and Amazon for value.

The ACSI says that Samsung is the “industry leader” when it comes to the desktop segment with Apple in second place, but Apple devices win out when it comes to laptops and tablets, earning it the top overall score.

As with last year, Apple earned best-in-class ratings for everything from device design to features and available apps. Apple, says ACSI, demonstrates an advantage “across all aspects of the customer experience.”

When it comes to overall customer satisfaction, desktop PCs, notebooks, and tablets still lag behind overall smartphone satisfaction, but amid larger machines, desktop computers have higher levels of customer satisfaction.

To create its scoring system and compile device scores, the ACSI uses data from interviews with approximately 300,000 customers to analyze customer satisfaction with hundreds of companies across dozens of industries.

This article, “Apple Devices Continue to Earn Highest Customer Satisfaction Score Among PC and Tablet Makers” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Beta testers and developers took to Twitter to share the news in the early hours of this morning, although it’s still unclear whether the gaming service is rolling out to all Apple set-top boxes running the Golden Master candidate, or just those in certain locations.

As the image below demonstrates, Apple Arcade on Apple TV features a native interface optimized for television screens, and currently sports a ‘Try it Free’ button promoting the service’s one-month free trial available to everyone.

Games on Apple Arcade are supported by Made for iPhone game controllers along with PS4 and Xbox controllers, and Apple has built controller support into tvOS 13, so users won’t need to rely on the Apple Remote to get playing.

The service’s launch on tvOS is also hotly anticipated because Apple Arcade supports multiple platforms, so you’ll be able to start a game on, say, your iPhone, and then swap over to Apple TV without losing your place.

Apple Arcade is priced at $4.99 per month, and allows up to six family members to access games through Apple’s Family Sharing feature. It’s currently only available on iPhone, but will officially roll out to iPad and Apple TV when the public releases of iPadOS and tvOS 13 arrive on Tuesday, September 24. A Mac launch is likely to arrive in October. For more information, check out our dedicated Apple Arcade guide.

This article, “Apple Arcade Appears on Apple TVs Running Latest tvOS 13 Beta” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Part of iOS 13, which was released last week, real-time lyrics lets Apple Music listeners view song lyrics in a karaoke-style while songs are playing, and the new dedicated page serves to showcase the new feature.

According to the page’s description, “Lyrics to Live By” is intended to “celebrate this new frontier in the listening experience.”

“Whether it’s today’s biggest artists telling the personal stories behind the indelible lines that double as invaluable life advice, or robust playlists showcasing the sharpest lyricists in the history of music, you’ll have a whole new appreciation for that your favorite artists are saying, not just how they’re saying it.”

The page also includes a “Modern Masters” playlist series with songbooks from a variety of artists, including Jack Antonoff, Benny Blanco, Brody Brown, J Kash, Bonnie McKee, Julia Michaels, Victoria Monet, Ed Sheeran, Sia, Chris Stapleton, Starrah and Ryan Tedder.

Lastly, further down the page there’s a section called “Songwriting Gods and Goddesses” highlighting selections from Apple Music‘s “Essentials” playlists.

This article, “Apple Music Launches ‘Lyrics to Live By’ Video Series to Promote New Real-Time Lyrics Feature” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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According to social media chatter, Hollywood Film and TV editors discovered late on Monday that “trashcan” Mac Pros running older versions of macOS and AVID’s Media Composer software were refusing to reboot after shutting down.

The root cause of the issue remains unknown, but online speculation is surfacing a few possibilities, including a virus specifically targeting post-production Macs in the Hollywood area.

Others have suggested an issue with AVID’s iLok activation dongle, or perhaps a conflict with the software and a recent system update – possibly related to Apple’s Safari browser – that is corrupting data.

Affected users are being advised to try booting in single-user mode and disabling Wi-Fi so that they can back up, while non-affected AVID users have been told not to shut down their Macs so they can also deactivate Wi-Fi and any other networks until a solution is found.

This article, “Hollywood Mac Pro Workstations Hit by Mysterious AVID Software Issue” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple is selling the second-generation Apple Pencil for $109, which is a $20 discount off of the original $129 price. $109 is the lowest price that we’ve seen on the Apple Pencil 2, so Apple’s deal is solid for anyone looking to pick up a new Apple Pencil.

The Apple Pencil 2 is compatible with the 2018 11-inch iPad Pro and the 2018 12.9-inch iPad Pro only. All other iPad models that support the Apple Pencil work with the original Apple Pencil, not the second-generation version.

Next-generation iPad Pro models that are in development will also likely be compatible with Apple Pencil 2.

Compared to the original Apple Pencil, the Apple Pencil 2 does away with the Lightning port at the top of the device, instead charging wirelessly via the iPad Pro itself through a magnetic connection.

The second-generation Apple Pencil also supports gestures, so with a tap, you can change brushes or quickly switch from a brush to an eraser without having to pick up the pencil and select a new tool.

This article, “Apple Pencil 2 Now Available From Apple’s Refurbished Store for $109” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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The updated version of TestFlight features support for Dark Mode for the first time, allowing users who have Dark Mode enabled in iOS 13 to see a dark view of TestFlight rather than the standard light mode.

iOS 13 is required for the Dark Mode to be activated, and it will turn on whenever the overall iOS Dark Mode is setting is on – there’s no separate toggle.

Apple says that the TestFlight update also includes stability improvements and bug fixes.

This article, “Apple Updates TestFlight Beta Testing App With Dark Mode Support” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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