Jack Baty (Mastodon): Some former Nik Software people are building a new tool for managing photo libraries. It’s called Aspect. I’m a sucker for any photo-related software, so I installed the beta and spent yesterday testing it. I took some notes after using it for a day.First impressions were good. I like the ideas behind Aspect. […]

Glenn Fleishman: When you enter an email address or type one into the address field in Messages, the software does a quick behind-the-scenes check. Messages tries to determine if the address is associated with an active iCloud account. As you accept or paste in an address, you might notice that it always briefly lights up […]

Nice update to Menial’s excellent SQLite developer tool for the Mac. Worth the wait.

Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

Apple today announced that the monthly price of Apple TV+ is rising in the United States and some international markets. From today, the monthly subscription will cost $12.99, up from $9.99.

Existing subscribers will see the price change 30 days after the next renewal date. The pricing for yearly TV+ subscriptions and the Apple One services bundle remains unchanged.

The annual price for a standalone TV+ subscription — unchanged, as Mayo reports — remains $99. The usual rule-of-thumb for subscriptions of any sort seems to be to charge 10× the monthly rate for an annual subscription. That’s exactly where the TV+ month/annual prices were before today. Now, the annual subscription price isn’t just a little bit cheaper than 12× the monthly price ($156), but a lot cheaper.

This seems to be a clear sign that streaming services are different than most subscriptions. People subscribe to newspapers or blog/newsletters and they stay subscribed, because they want to read regularly. Same for a music subscription, like Spotify or Apple Music — people want to listen to music all the time. Churn is just naturally higher with streaming video — people subscription hop. Subscribe, catch up on all the exclusive content you’ve missed, then unsubscribe. Subscribe again when there are a few more exclusive shows you’ve missed again. Unsubscribe again. And Apple TV+ has been reported to have higher than average churn. So I think today’s price hike, affecting only the monthly price, is about dealing with that. If you want to subscription hop, Apple TV+ is going to cost a bit more. If you want to stay subscribed to Apple TV+, you really ought to subscribe annually (or subscribe to Apple One and get Music, Arcade, and additional iCloud storage bundled together).

Fox (capitalization verbatim):

Fox Corporation today announced the official launch of FOX One, a bold new streaming service that brings together the full portfolio of FOX’s News, Sports and Entertainment branded content — all in one place, both live and on demand.

Available today across major web, mobile and connected TV platforms, FOX One is priced at $19.99/month with a 7-day free trial or $199.99/year, with the option to add-on B1G+ or bundle FOX Nation for an even greater value. Starting October 2, customers will also have the opportunity to bundle FOX One with ESPN DTC Unlimited for $39.99/month.

I just mentioned yesterday, re: MS NOW’s idiotic backronym, that Fox often styles its name in all caps without pretending the f-o-x letters stand for anything. Anyway, $20/month seems steep, but Fox carries a lot of sports.

Apple is promoting the launch prominently in the App Store (including Fox’s preferred all-caps styling), no doubt because Fox — unlike certain well-established streaming services — offers its subscriptions via IAP.