Apple has rolled out the macOS 12.2 beta update to public testers in its beta program, just a day after it became available to developers. As 9to5Mac notes, the OS comes with a new Music app that Apple had rebuilt as a full native application. Apple introduced macOS' dedicated Music app back in 2019, but it kept some iTunes elements for some parts of it, which means it still displays web content within the app.

Based on what 9to5Mac has seen, macOS 12.2 beta uses AppKit, the framework needed to give applications a native interface. There won't be a big difference in looks, but the new app will apparently work faster. Searching for songs within Music, for instance, will appear more quickly because the results will be displayed on a native interface, while scrolling will feel smoother and trackpad gestures will feel more responsive. 

In addition to a brand new Music app, macOS 12.2 will also make scrolling in Safari smoother for the 14-and-16-inch MacBook Pro models that support refresh rates of up to 120Hz. To test out macOS 12.2, you'll have to download and install the macOS Developer Beta Access Utility. You'll then be able to access the latest beta update in the Software Update section of System Preferences.

Meta, formerly Facebook, is firmly in the FTC's crosshairs over its various acquisitions that the agency believes may have been made to dominate the space and eliminate competition. According to The Information, one of the purchases the Federal Trade Commission is looking into is its $400 million deal to acquire Within, the developer of popular virtual reality workout app Supernatural for the Oculus platform. 

The agency reportedly opened a probe into the purchase after Thanksgiving, almost a month after the companies announced the acquisition back in October. If the report is true — neither the FTC nor the companies confirmed the regulatory review to the publication — then Within and Meta wouldn't be able to finalize the deal for another year. It could take even longer than that if the agency challenges it in court.

Within wasn't the only VR app developer that Meta had acquired, but the others were apparently too small to be investigated. VR fitness apps, like at-home workout equipment, soared in popularity during the lockdown, and Supernatural quickly became popular after its launch in April 2020. As The Information notes, one of the FTC's possible lines of inquiry is whether Meta was planning to develop a VR workout app of its own. It will take Meta less time to snap up an existing product than make one of its own, after all.

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg famously said in the past that "it's better to buy than to compete," with regards to Facebook's Instagram acquisition. The FTC recently filed new antitrust charges against the company, accusing it of using its Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions in 2012 and 2014 to secure its position in the market. Meta is still also facing an investigation over its reported $400 million Giphy purchase in 2020.

An update is rolling out for the Google Home app that should make it faster for users to hop between events captured by Nest devices. New “Transport Controls,” as Google calls them, include play/pause, back and forward buttons. The feature works with footage from the wired and wireless version of Nest Cam, the battery-powered Nest Doorbell and Nest Cam with Floodlight.

Until now, as 9to5 Google notes, users needed to scrub through the timeline or make their way to the Full History tab to get to all of the events. While it might now be faster to move from one event to the next compared with the Nest app, Home users won't have the granular control of the forward and backward buttons from the older app, which moved the playhead 15 seconds at a time in either direction.

Navigation of Nest recording history in the Google Home app has seemingly been a bugbear for many Nest users. As such, improving that experience is a welcome move. Users have been able to view Nest activity in the Google Home Feed tab since March 2020, so the change seems overdue.

The Epic Games vs. Apple trials brought to light how Microsoft tried to conjure up solutions on how to make Xbox games available from the App Store. Apple revised its guidelines last year so that companies like Microsoft and Google can make their games available on iOS. That said, they can only do so by releasing each game as an app that users can download. Microsoft previously said that forcing users to download hundreds of game apps is "a bad experience," but it would've reportedly done so if Apple had agreed to its proposal. 

According to private emails seen by The Verge, the Xbox head of business development Lori Wright laid out a proposal for Apple, which would allow Microsoft to put individual game apps on the iOS store without taking up all of a user's storage space. Wright asked Apple to allow Microsoft to put its streaming tech inside the Gaming Pass app alone. That would give the company a way to make the game apps themselves around 30 MB in size instead of the 150 MB that they would be if its streaming tech was incorporated into each of them. 

Instead of using the device's processing power, the games would stream out of remote servers powered by Xbox One and Xbox Series X processors. Wright also apparently offered to make Xbox-exclusives available for iOS users in an effort to convince Apple. "This would be an incredibly exciting opportunity for iOS users to get access to these exclusive AAA titles in addition to the Game Pass games," she wrote in an email. 

Microsoft told The Verge that Apple rejected its solution and wanted the company to incorporate its streaming tech into every game application. As for Apple, it told the publication that Microsoft's proposal didn't adhere to its App Store Review Guidelines, "specifically the requirement to use in-app purchase to unlock additional features or functionality within an app." Microsoft denied that in-app purchases factored into Apple's rejection.

In the end, Microsoft eventually shifted its development focus and gave iOS users access to xCloud via Safari. Xbox Cloud Gaming CVP Kareem Choudhry told The Verge, however, that the company "will continue to look for viable resolutions that [will] allow [its games] into the App Store."

Apple is still fighting Russia over alleged App Store abuse. Both 9to5Mac and RT report Apple is asking for a judicial review of a Federal Antimonopoly Service warning from August that allows developers to mention alternatives to the App Store's in-app payment system. FAS gave Apple until September 30th to alter its policies, but the company declined to change its rules despite the threat of a fine.

The opposition parallels Apple's legal battles in the US. The judge in Epic's lawsuit against Apple ordered the tech firm to let App Store developers point to other payment systems, but Apple appealed the injunction in hopes of a delay. The court denied Apple's request, and the company will have until December 9th to let app makers point to other options. Apple will make exceptions to its policy for some media apps in 2022.

Pushbacks like those in the US and Russia aren't surprising. Apple still makes most of its money through hardware sales, but its services business is growing. Easier third-party alternatives could theoretically hurt App Store revenues, not to mention increase the chances of rogue apps pointing users to malicious sites. The iPhone maker might not have much choice, however. Regulators are concerned Apple's approach stifles choice and competition, and they're unlikely to let the matter slide.

Last year, Apple focused on quarantine life for its App Store Awards. For 2021, it's continuing that concept with a focus on "connection" as its trend of the year — basically, things that brought us together even though we're still dealing with a global pandemic. That trend award was bestowed upon five apps, including familiar names like Bumble and Among Us!. But the niche winners are even more interesting: there's EatOkra, an app that helps you find black-owned restaurants; Canva, which helps anyone create pro-grade designs; and Peanut, a social network focused on connecting women to find support throughout major life events.

You'd probably be surprised by some of the winners for Apple's mainstay categories too: the Apple TV app of the year was the boxing streaming service Dazn, something I've admittedly never heard of. The Apple TV game of the year, Space Marshals 3, also came out of seemingly nowhere. But the strong review scores for both of those apps make it clear that users genuinely enjoy them.

While the App Store Awards are very much a marketing exercise, it's also a useful way to highlight some of the best apps users may have missed. (And I'm sure developers appreciate the recognition, and the aluminum App Store icon they can display on their shelves.) LumaFusion, the best iPad app of the year, makes complex multi-track video editing easy to do with your fingers. And Carrot Weather, the best Apple Watch app, looks like a truly unique watch face.

Apple

Here are the rest of Apple's App Store Awards for 2021: 

• iPhone app of the year: Toca Life World

• Mac App of the year: Craft

• iPhone game of the year: League of Legends: Wild Rift

• Mac game of the year: Myst

• iPad game of the year: MARVEL Future Revolution

• Apple Arcade game of the year: Fantasian (the incredible RPG from the creator of Final Fantasy)

Niantic has acquired another company to help build out its augmented reality platforms. The company has announced that it's acquiring the team behind Lowkey, an app you can use to easily capture and share gameplay moments. While you can use any screen capture application — or even your phone's built-in feature — to record your games, Lowkey was designed with casual gamers or those who don't want to spend time editing their videos in mind. 

The app can capture videos on your computer, for instance, and sync them with your phone where you can use its simple editing tools to create short clips optimized for mobile viewing. You're also able to share those clips with friends within the app Snapchat-style or publish it for public viewing like TikTok. Niantic didn't reveal what the Lowkey team will be doing for its AR games and experiences exactly, but it said the team's "leadership in this space will accelerate the social experiences [it's] building in [its] products." The company added: "We share a common vision for building community around shared experiences, and enabling new ways to connect and play for our explorers."

The Pokémon Go creator purchased other companies in the past in its quest to build more tools and features for its augmented reality products. In 2017, it purchased social animation startup Evertoon to build a social network for its games. Last year, it bought 3D mapping startup 6D.ai to develop "planet-scale" augmented reality, and just this August, it acquired LiDAR scanning app Scaniverse to create a 3D map of the world.

Xbox video game clips are about to become much more easily shareable via unique public URLs on the Xbox mobile app, according to a tweet from Microsoft's Larry Hryb (@majornelson). Those links will also be collected into a new "trending content" area so you can see what others are doing. The features are now being tested in the app and will "soon' roll out to all users, Hryb said. 

"With Link sharing, just go to the capture you want to share in the Xbox mobile app to get a link, then paste it anywhere to share with your friends, who don't need to be signed-in to view your capture. We are now testing this long requested feature," Hryb said in the thread.

According to images shared by Hryb, the trending content section is a new social media-type site on iOS and Android kinds of resembles (wait for it) TikTok's feed — somewhat of a trend lately. Clicking on it opens up highlights that you can scroll through and then like, comment and share (top). 

Microsoft already offers the ability to share game clips and screenshots via your profile's activity feed, clubs, messages and social media, on consoles as well as the mobile app. Sony also recently unveiled a similar feature on the PlayStation 5. However, letting you generate public links should make it more seamless, and Microsoft is making it more accessible with the social media aspect. The company has been testing the feature with developers, but you should see the feature in the near future.

Amazon has delayed its plan to integrate Comixology purchases and the platform itself into its broader ecosystem. In a FAQ the company posted this week, it said the updated Comixology app, which is slated to bring a host of changes to how the service works, will arrive in early 2022, instead of 2021 as previously announced.

“We wanted to take just a little extra time to incorporate feedback we received from our community,” the company says in the document. “ With this goal in mind, we decided to hold launch until early next year.”

According to Amazon, the new Comixology app includes improvements to filtering and sorting. It also promises faster and more reliable downloads. The catch is that you’ll need an Amazon account to use the app at all. What’s more, once the company rolls out the updated software, the current Comixology app won’t work following a grace period.

However, the biggest change the app was set to introduce is already live as of this week. You no longer need the Comixology app to read purchases you make through the platform. Instead, they're also available through the Kindle app. All that points to a future where Comixology may not exist sometime in the next few years.

Ten years ago Moog released Animoog — a strange departure for a company best known for its old-school analog synths. The company had dabbled in the app world before with the Filtatron, which was an emulation of the classic Moog ladder filter. But Animoog was a different beast entirely. It was a full-fledged software instrument that used wavetable synthesis, often associated with cold and complex digital sounds that are in many ways the antithesis of what Moog stood for. But, the app turned out to be a huge success. And for its tenth anniversary it’s finally getting a proper sequel in Animoog Z.

The core, which Moog calls Anisotropic Synth Engine, is largely the same. Of the dozens of waveforms you choose up to eight at a time from. They range from samples of analog saw waves to decidedly more digital sounds. What makes it relatively unique is the ‘orbit’ and ‘path’ modules which shape the timbre. The way they work is hard to describe, but basically notes you play travel along a path drawn in space, and orbit around that path. You control the speed and intensity of distance of the orbit, as well as the speed at which it travels along the path and that determines how the sound of each note evolves, in a relatively opaque way.

Moog

The big change here from the original app is that Animoog Z adds a third dimension to the path. So instead of just traveling along an X and Y axis, the notes also can move along this Z axis. This gives the new app just a touch more depth and notes a bit more room to evolve. The difference can be subtle at times, but certain presets in Animoog Z take advantage of additional modulation path to create truly wild and complex sounds. (Just check out Downward Spiral and Ball Lightning.)

There’s also a new effects section with a looper, delay, filter, an arpeggiator and a “thick” section. Thick was also in the original app and it just offers a variety of ways to beef up your sound, from adding detune, drive and bit crushing effects. While a few of these are holdovers from the original, the way they’re grouped together here makes sound design a little more fluid and linear.

The whole app has received a massive face lift that not only makes it feel more modern, but also makes it easier to navigate. While the UI can feel a bit cramped on an iPhone, it’s still light years beyond the original. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to test it on an iPad or a Mac, so I can’t speak to how well the interface scales up when it has space to breathe. But, the general layout is clean, logical and consistent.

Moog

The LFO, mod and envelope sections are more accessible and more powerful than their counterparts in the original app. In Animoog Z there is an entire tab dedicated to envelopes, with a clearly labeled amp envelope, and you’ll find it in the same place you’ll find the FX, orbit, filter, path and LFO tabs. There’s no need to go searching. In the original some of these features were scattered amongst dropdown menus. There are also just a lot more options for routing modulation in the new app.

Lastly, Moog added MPE support to the app, and even offers a limited version of it through the touchscreen interface. If you expand the keyboard, you can slide your fingers up and down individual notes to add unique modulation to each. You can also bend each note individually by moving your fingers. One of the great ways to add a little character to your playing is to turn down the keyboard correction and turn up the glide which will just by dint of your imperfect and imprecise human fingers add subtle detuning and bends as you play. With the right settings this can simulate everything from subtle analog drift to the tape warbles of a dying Walkman.

Moog

Animoog Z is available as a free download, but only in an extremely limited version. You can play the built-in presets and manipulate some basic parameters, but if you want full access to all its features you’ll need to pay $10. One nice change here is the flat price no matter the platform. Currently the iPhone version Animoog is $10, but it’s $20 on the iPad. Animoog Z is $10 no matter where you’re using it.

Animoog is definitely starting to look and feel its age. So this sequel couldn’t have come at a better time. And Animoog Z is definitely a worthy successor to this groundbreaking app.