Apps

Spotify will now let you download music on your desktop

You can finally play songs while working offline

Published

April 19, 2021

Shivam Vahia

One of the biggest updates to arrives for premium members on Spotify is the ability to download music on your laptop or computer. While this has always been a must-have feature on mobile phones, it wasn’t extended to a full-fledged PC.

Music streaming has taken over the world, and Spotify is leading the market. Streaming lets you listen to anything within a tap, so you never have to download songs via pirated sites or torrents. But the biggest problem with Spotify was — you can’t download songs for offline playback on your computer.

The hurdle is now gone, and you’ll never have to think of piracy or a legal alternative anytime soon. Just fire up Spotify’s free desktop app, and you’re good to go. Similar to the mobile UI, you can choose to keep an album or playlist offline. It’ll download all the tracks and be ready for you whenever you need them.

While this may seem like a minor addition that should’ve been implemented long ago, it technically isn’t. Only the desktop app supports it, and you can’t access it via the website player.

Spotify redesign

Spotify is also rolling out a redesign for the web and desktop app that looks similar to the mobile app. The move was aimed to improve the app’s navigation, add new features, and make the experience uniform across platforms or devices.

The old search bar is now relocated and toned down visually and sits in the left menu section. The “Made For You,” “Daily Mix,” and more playlists now sit within your library section. The Recently Played tab showed playback history up to three months ago.

If you’re a playlist fanatic, there’s now an option to add a description, upload your own images, and drag-drop apps within existing playlists. The new update is aimed at improving your discoverability, in turn offering more opportunities to curators. The hybrid manul-AI setup gets perfectly tuned to understand your taste and offer the most relevant curations.

Read Also: Spotify launches Car Thing, a voice-controlled music player for cars

Related Topics:music streaming Spotify Spotify Desktop Spotify Download

Apps

Apple Creator Studio: Creative apps bundled into single subscription

All the tools you need, one payment

Published

January 14, 2026

GadgetMatch

Apple has officially streamlined its popular creative apps into one single subscription suite with the introduction of Apple Creator Studio.

The collection includes some of the most useful apps for today’s creators: Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage.

New AI features and premium content in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers also make the Apple Creator Studio an exciting subscription suite. Freeform will eventually be added to the lineup.

The groundbreaking collection is designed to put studio-grade power into the hands of everyone. It builds on the essential role Apple devices play in the lives of millions of creators worldwide.

The apps included cover video editing, music making, creative imaging, and visual productivity to give modern creators the features and capabilities they need.

Final Cut Pro introduces exceptional new video editing tools and intelligent features for Mac and iPad.

For the first time, Pixelmator Pro is also coming to iPad with a uniquely crafted experience optimized for touch and Apple Pencil.

Logic Pro, meanwhile, for Mac and iPad introduces more intelligent features like Synth Player and Chord ID.

Apple Creator Studio will be available on the App Store beginning January 29. In the Philippines, the rates are PhP 399 a month or PhP 3,990 annually.

There is also a free one-month trial which includes access to:

Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Pixelmator Pro on Mac and iPad
Motion, Compressor, and MainStage on Mac
Intelligent features and premium content for Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and later Freeform for iPhone, iPad, and Mac

College students and educators can subscribe for a discounted price of PhP 149 per month or PhP 1,490 per year.

Apps

Apple gives up on making AI, inks a deal with Gemini to power Siri

Gemini gets another feather in its cap.

Published

January 14, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

In the not-too-long-ago past, the biggest names of the tech industry competed to build their own AI software. Now, though some brands are still on the hunt, it’s easier to name certain software that have more successfully drowned users in a flood of AI-powered features. Today, Google gets another win by adding Apple’s Siri to its Gemini cap.

In the past, Apple peddled Apple Intelligence, an upcoming AI-powered system to compete against the giants of the industry. However, much like other features from other brands, Apple Intelligence came out half baked with features still lacking months after the initial launch.

Now, Apple has signed a deal with Google to use Gemini for a revamped Siri. The former plans to launch a new version of Siri later this year. Because of the deal, the voice assistant will start using Gemini as a foundation for its own services. Currently, Samsung’s Galaxy AI already uses Gemini.

Formerly a battleground between so many competing brands, it’s now looking like a battle between two major companies: Google and OpenAI. Google now has a huge grip, though. Both Samsung and Apple are no slouches when it comes to owning market share in the world’s smartphones.

Now, as consumers, Apple’s deal probably doesn’t mean much besides the continued influx of features that add little to no value to a smartphone.

Apps

Microsoft continues to shove Copilot where it’s not wanted

This time, it’s reportedly coming to File Explorer.

Published

January 14, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

If you look at a modern keyboard, you’ll find that the Copilot button is the cleanest one on the entire panel because no one ever willingly presses it. And yet, Microsoft still believes in the feature’s value. To show their odd commitment, the company is reportedly adding Copilot to File Explorer.

According to @phantomofearth from X (via Windows Central), a new Windows 11 preview build will add a button beside File Explorer’s navigation menu. Currently, the button is invisible and doesn’t do anything. However, the report says that the feature is tied to something called “Chat with Copilot.” It’s becoming clear that the system aims to add the AI software right inside the file organization app.

Besides revealing the potential addition of the egregious feature inside File Explorer, @phantomofearth also added mock-ups of a desktop with Copilot right on the taskbar, hinting at a potential nightmare of the feature lording itself over where it’s not wanted.

Thankfully, the preview build doesn’t always represent a final version of the system. There’s still a chance that Microsoft will not add the AI to the File Explorer.

As of late, Microsoft has received a lot of flak for persistently pushing Copilot onto users, regardless of how they feel about the feature. The company is also facing criticisms in the background for being a major proponent of AI data centers in the United States, which, in turn, have caused the prices of tech to skyrocket this year.