Latest news with #iPodTouch
Sydney Morning Herald
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
This electronic star failed high school music. But it didn't stop her
Ninajirachi still remembers that tenth-grade assessment in her high school music class. The assignment was simple: compose a piece of instrumental music. By then she was well versed in dance music production – with the help of YouTube tutorials, she'd already taught herself how to make songs in FL Studio, which she'd got for her 14th birthday (she'd saved up for years and her parents gave her the final bit of cash as a gift). Understandably, her confidence was high. 'I knew my way around a DAW [digital audio workstation], so I was like, 'I can do this, this is what I'm good at!'' she recalls. 'So I made this cool thing using presets and I handed it in like, 'I killed that, no one's gonna have anything as good as that.'' It did not go well. 'I got back this really shit mark! The feedback was that I had used a violin preset and a violin can't physically play what I put in. I was like, 'Oh OK, I see that we're not on the same page here.'' As origin stories go, it couldn't be more precise: the electronic artist set on her path after challenging the possibilities of traditional music. 'That's the thing, I didn't even care,' the 25-year-old DJ and producer says. 'They had wanted us to compose for a real instrument, but I was on a different wavelength already.' Ninajirachi, real name Nina Wilson, is posing in between claw machines at games arcade Koko, looking at home in its futuristic Blade Runner glow. Her blunt red fringe pokes from under her black hoodie, which she removes to reveal an oversized shirt with the slogan 'I wanna f--- my computer', a provocative rendering of the title – and thematic drive – of her new album, I Love My Computer. 'That was a voice memo I had from early 2024,' Wilson says, laughing. 'I had just finished making something that sounded really good, and I was thinking about those memes that are like, 'Listening to music isn't enough, I need to f--- the song.'' Coming almost a decade after her first single as Ninajirachi (her moniker is a portmanteau of her first name and Jirachi, her favourite Pokemon, a plush version of which hangs from her handbag), and having built a reputation as one of Australia's most esteemed and idiosyncratic electronic artists, the album is somehow Wilson's debut full-length. 'I guess I just didn't feel like it until now,' she says. 'Maybe it would have been good for my career to put out an album five years ago, but I just didn't have the vision or the idea for it until now.' Across its 12 noisy and affecting tracks, Wilson charts a life entwined with computers and the internet and the way 'computer music' cracked her world open. On the bouncy highlight iPod Touch, she sings about her teenage years growing up in the Central Coast's beachside Kincumber, and the fantasy world she conjured catching the 64 bus to school and back, her headphones blaring the warped sounds of Rustie and Yung Lean, artists she was discovering on SoundCloud. Like an evocative haiku ('It sounds like iPod Touch, yellow Pikachu case/FL Studio free download in my search history/Hidden underneath my pillow 'cause I should be asleep,' she sings), iPod Touch also outlines Wilson's online and musical initiation. She was watching a YouTube tutorial on how to tie-dye denim shorts when the song playing in the video's background undid her. It was, as she later found out, French DJ Madeon's viral Pop Culture (Live Mashup). 'I was like, 'Oh my god, what is this?'' Wilson recalls. 'I had never heard anything like it. It felt like someone had given me crack. I just wanted to know how it was made.' Growing up on the Central Coast, loving dance music wasn't a normal teenage phase. 'It was mostly skater music, beach music – that was what most of my friends were into. They didn't really like what I was listening to; they thought I'd gone down the rabbit hole,' she says, with a laugh. Even so, Wilson says she felt primed for a career in electronic music. Her mum, who worked primarily in homoeopathy and remedial massage when Wilson was growing up, and her dad, a tradie, were ex-ravers. Mum, who lived in London in the '90s, even frequented Ministry of Sound and stockpiled the label's CDs. By the time Wilson finished high school, she'd already been named a finalist in triple j's Unearthed High and was booking gigs; her parents were instantly supportive. 'Neither of them went to uni so they were like, 'As long as you are making your own money and working hard, we don't care, go give it a go,'' says Wilson. Since she was 17 and still underage, they'd chaperone her to gigs that generally started after 11pm. 'One time I had a gig and my dad came in his pyjamas and flip-flops, and he got asked to leave the venue because he didn't have the right clothes or shoes,' Wilson says. 'I felt like an undercover agent, like no one knows I'm underage and my dad's not even in the venue. I loved it, it felt like a very dangerous lifestyle.' It's an odd thing to attempt to describe Ninajirachi's otherworldly sound; you find yourself turning to nonsense like 'scree', 'scronk', 'grunch' and 'glang' to try to convey her off-kilter sonic madness. The drums on CSIRAC, for example – a track named for the first computer to ever play music, now housed at Scienceworks in Melbourne – recall pots and pans tumbling around a washing machine. Closer All at Once is glitched-out subterranean techno filled with cartoon boings, clatters and laser bursts, an intricate symphony of noise. 'I love novelty and surprise, and I'm just always trying to get as close to that feeling of when I first heard stuff like that,' she says. 'I'm never trying to reinvent the wheel because that's just a crazy goal to have. I just want to make something that impresses me or makes me happy.' After segueing from simple loops on GarageBand as a kid, Wilson's early releases, including her first EP, 2019's Lapland, were made using FL Studio, before she switched to Ableton. 'A lot of it is, like, re-sampling,' Wilson explains of her process. 'If I synthesise something and then re-record it to audio and then do something to that and re-record it to audio again, it becomes this big, long recording of rubbish that I'll then sift through. And then it's like patchwork or collage, getting all the prettiest scraps and putting them together.' All I Am, a whirring trance track built around an MGMT-style chant, was born from an impromptu jam session at Ben Lee's Los Angeles home, with Lee and Alex Greenwald from Phantom Planet. 'Ben is so kind and generous, and he really supports Australian musicians that come to America,' Wilson says. 'We all microdosed mushrooms and had such a fun, silly day. The idea was I was at the computer and I was the scribe and they would all just bash on different instruments around Ben's studio and I'd record it and try to turn it into something ... I started playing it at shows and it went off, so I messaged them in the group chat, like, 'Can I release this?', and they were like, 'Oh my god, go for it'.' By I Love My Computer 's second half, technological bliss makes way for dark-web brain-rot. On Infohazard, Wilson's back on her school bus, but now she's being exposed to snuff films and body horror. 'I was so horrified, I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks, just beheading videos and stuff,' says Wilson, recalling the things older boys with 4chan proclivities would share on the way to school. 'It was a huge loss of innocence moment. It made me think of, if I'd never had the internet, or if I'd been this age even 100 years ago, maybe I would never even know about these things?' Perhaps most impressively, I Love My Computer showcases Wilson's range, pivoting from the Dare-style indie sleaze of London Song to the sweet PC Music-influenced propulsion of Delete. 'There's this quote from Lorde that I love so much I have it screenshotted on my desktop and I always think about it – it was in a mailing list email she wrote on the 10-year anniversary of Pure Heroine,' Wilson says. 'It's about how every person is sitting on a gold mine that no one can rob because everyone's unique makeup gives them their own perspective. I feel like, as long as I just do what I like, I can trust that my upbringing, experiences, physiology, taste will combine in a way that makes it all feel like me.' Like every Ninajirachi release since 2018, I Love My Computer comes via NLV Records, the label imprint of Sydney DJ Nina Las Vegas. Having a female mentor to guide her through such a male-dominated industry has been a privilege, Wilson says. 'You're just so naive when you're young, and you don't know what you don't know, and also I don't come from a music family or a white-collar family, so I didn't know anything about business industry stuff. If I hadn't met Nina when I was so young, maybe I would have ended up in other hands who didn't care so much.' Loading More recently, Wilson herself has stepped in as mentor and unifier. In 2022, as part of Vivid, she launched Dark Crystal, a club night celebrating underground dance culture. Inspired by overseas parties like Subculture and Heaven (where she once saw her idol, the late electronic artist Sophie, perform), the event proved so popular that this August she'll host its fourth annual instalment. If privately tinkering in the laptop glow is her musical foundation, performing live is its own reward. 'It's pretty hectic a lot of the time, it's not getting to bed til four or five in the morning and then getting a flight the next day, but I love it,' Wilson says. 'I'm totally sober when I'm touring; I just have heaps of fruit and vitamin C powder, and it's really chill. So even if it's brutal, it's fun. It's all just memory-making.'
The Age
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
This electronic star failed high school music. But it didn't stop her
Ninajirachi still remembers that tenth-grade assessment in her high school music class. The assignment was simple: compose a piece of instrumental music. By then she was well versed in dance music production – with the help of YouTube tutorials, she'd already taught herself how to make songs in FL Studio, which she'd got for her 14th birthday (she'd saved up for years and her parents gave her the final bit of cash as a gift). Understandably, her confidence was high. 'I knew my way around a DAW [digital audio workstation], so I was like, 'I can do this, this is what I'm good at!'' she recalls. 'So I made this cool thing using presets and I handed it in like, 'I killed that, no one's gonna have anything as good as that.'' It did not go well. 'I got back this really shit mark! The feedback was that I had used a violin preset and a violin can't physically play what I put in. I was like, 'Oh OK, I see that we're not on the same page here.'' As origin stories go, it couldn't be more precise: the electronic artist set on her path after challenging the possibilities of traditional music. 'That's the thing, I didn't even care,' the 25-year-old DJ and producer says. 'They had wanted us to compose for a real instrument, but I was on a different wavelength already.' Ninajirachi, real name Nina Wilson, is posing in between claw machines at games arcade Koko, looking at home in its futuristic Blade Runner glow. Her blunt red fringe pokes from under her black hoodie, which she removes to reveal an oversized shirt with the slogan 'I wanna f--- my computer', a provocative rendering of the title – and thematic drive – of her new album, I Love My Computer. 'That was a voice memo I had from early 2024,' Wilson says, laughing. 'I had just finished making something that sounded really good, and I was thinking about those memes that are like, 'Listening to music isn't enough, I need to f--- the song.'' Coming almost a decade after her first single as Ninajirachi (her moniker is a portmanteau of her first name and Jirachi, her favourite Pokemon, a plush version of which hangs from her handbag), and having built a reputation as one of Australia's most esteemed and idiosyncratic electronic artists, the album is somehow Wilson's debut full-length. 'I guess I just didn't feel like it until now,' she says. 'Maybe it would have been good for my career to put out an album five years ago, but I just didn't have the vision or the idea for it until now.' Across its 12 noisy and affecting tracks, Wilson charts a life entwined with computers and the internet and the way 'computer music' cracked her world open. On the bouncy highlight iPod Touch, she sings about her teenage years growing up in the Central Coast's beachside Kincumber, and the fantasy world she conjured catching the 64 bus to school and back, her headphones blaring the warped sounds of Rustie and Yung Lean, artists she was discovering on SoundCloud. Like an evocative haiku ('It sounds like iPod Touch, yellow Pikachu case/FL Studio free download in my search history/Hidden underneath my pillow 'cause I should be asleep,' she sings), iPod Touch also outlines Wilson's online and musical initiation. She was watching a YouTube tutorial on how to tie-dye denim shorts when the song playing in the video's background undid her. It was, as she later found out, French DJ Madeon's viral Pop Culture (Live Mashup). 'I was like, 'Oh my god, what is this?'' Wilson recalls. 'I had never heard anything like it. It felt like someone had given me crack. I just wanted to know how it was made.' Growing up on the Central Coast, loving dance music wasn't a normal teenage phase. 'It was mostly skater music, beach music – that was what most of my friends were into. They didn't really like what I was listening to; they thought I'd gone down the rabbit hole,' she says, with a laugh. Even so, Wilson says she felt primed for a career in electronic music. Her mum, who worked primarily in homoeopathy and remedial massage when Wilson was growing up, and her dad, a tradie, were ex-ravers. Mum, who lived in London in the '90s, even frequented Ministry of Sound and stockpiled the label's CDs. By the time Wilson finished high school, she'd already been named a finalist in triple j's Unearthed High and was booking gigs; her parents were instantly supportive. 'Neither of them went to uni so they were like, 'As long as you are making your own money and working hard, we don't care, go give it a go,'' says Wilson. Since she was 17 and still underage, they'd chaperone her to gigs that generally started after 11pm. 'One time I had a gig and my dad came in his pyjamas and flip-flops, and he got asked to leave the venue because he didn't have the right clothes or shoes,' Wilson says. 'I felt like an undercover agent, like no one knows I'm underage and my dad's not even in the venue. I loved it, it felt like a very dangerous lifestyle.' It's an odd thing to attempt to describe Ninajirachi's otherworldly sound; you find yourself turning to nonsense like 'scree', 'scronk', 'grunch' and 'glang' to try to convey her off-kilter sonic madness. The drums on CSIRAC, for example – a track named for the first computer to ever play music, now housed at Scienceworks in Melbourne – recall pots and pans tumbling around a washing machine. Closer All at Once is glitched-out subterranean techno filled with cartoon boings, clatters and laser bursts, an intricate symphony of noise. 'I love novelty and surprise, and I'm just always trying to get as close to that feeling of when I first heard stuff like that,' she says. 'I'm never trying to reinvent the wheel because that's just a crazy goal to have. I just want to make something that impresses me or makes me happy.' After segueing from simple loops on GarageBand as a kid, Wilson's early releases, including her first EP, 2019's Lapland, were made using FL Studio, before she switched to Ableton. 'A lot of it is, like, re-sampling,' Wilson explains of her process. 'If I synthesise something and then re-record it to audio and then do something to that and re-record it to audio again, it becomes this big, long recording of rubbish that I'll then sift through. And then it's like patchwork or collage, getting all the prettiest scraps and putting them together.' All I Am, a whirring trance track built around an MGMT-style chant, was born from an impromptu jam session at Ben Lee's Los Angeles home, with Lee and Alex Greenwald from Phantom Planet. 'Ben is so kind and generous, and he really supports Australian musicians that come to America,' Wilson says. 'We all microdosed mushrooms and had such a fun, silly day. The idea was I was at the computer and I was the scribe and they would all just bash on different instruments around Ben's studio and I'd record it and try to turn it into something ... I started playing it at shows and it went off, so I messaged them in the group chat, like, 'Can I release this?', and they were like, 'Oh my god, go for it'.' By I Love My Computer 's second half, technological bliss makes way for dark-web brain-rot. On Infohazard, Wilson's back on her school bus, but now she's being exposed to snuff films and body horror. 'I was so horrified, I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks, just beheading videos and stuff,' says Wilson, recalling the things older boys with 4chan proclivities would share on the way to school. 'It was a huge loss of innocence moment. It made me think of, if I'd never had the internet, or if I'd been this age even 100 years ago, maybe I would never even know about these things?' Perhaps most impressively, I Love My Computer showcases Wilson's range, pivoting from the Dare-style indie sleaze of London Song to the sweet PC Music-influenced propulsion of Delete. 'There's this quote from Lorde that I love so much I have it screenshotted on my desktop and I always think about it – it was in a mailing list email she wrote on the 10-year anniversary of Pure Heroine,' Wilson says. 'It's about how every person is sitting on a gold mine that no one can rob because everyone's unique makeup gives them their own perspective. I feel like, as long as I just do what I like, I can trust that my upbringing, experiences, physiology, taste will combine in a way that makes it all feel like me.' Like every Ninajirachi release since 2018, I Love My Computer comes via NLV Records, the label imprint of Sydney DJ Nina Las Vegas. Having a female mentor to guide her through such a male-dominated industry has been a privilege, Wilson says. 'You're just so naive when you're young, and you don't know what you don't know, and also I don't come from a music family or a white-collar family, so I didn't know anything about business industry stuff. If I hadn't met Nina when I was so young, maybe I would have ended up in other hands who didn't care so much.' Loading More recently, Wilson herself has stepped in as mentor and unifier. In 2022, as part of Vivid, she launched Dark Crystal, a club night celebrating underground dance culture. Inspired by overseas parties like Subculture and Heaven (where she once saw her idol, the late electronic artist Sophie, perform), the event proved so popular that this August she'll host its fourth annual instalment. If privately tinkering in the laptop glow is her musical foundation, performing live is its own reward. 'It's pretty hectic a lot of the time, it's not getting to bed til four or five in the morning and then getting a flight the next day, but I love it,' Wilson says. 'I'm totally sober when I'm touring; I just have heaps of fruit and vitamin C powder, and it's really chill. So even if it's brutal, it's fun. It's all just memory-making.'
Phone Arena
04-06-2025
- Business
- Phone Arena
YouTube app will no longer work on some older iPhone and iPad models
When Steve Jobs unveiled the original generation iPhone in 2007, many were surprised to see the device come with a pre-installed YouTube client. Apple even mentioned this in an ad it ran for the iPhone. "You'll be surprised by some of the stuff you find on YouTube," says the voiceover announcer while the ad shows the YouTube client on the device. As we see a YouTube video of a dog riding on a skateboard, the announcer adds, "But when it comes right down to it, maybe the biggest surprise is finding YouTube on your phone." Things changed with the release of iOS 6 beta 4 in 2012 when Apple removed the YouTube client from iOS (along with Google Maps). Google created iOS apps for YouTube and Google Maps that iPhone users continue to use to this day. But YouTube recently updated its iOS app to version 20.22.1 and with this update came an important change. To install the YouTube app on an iPhone, the handset must be running iOS 16 or later. As a result, several older iPhone models are no longer able to use the YouTube app. The iPhone models no longer compatible with the YouTube app are those that cannot be updated past iOS 15. These models include the following: iPhone 6s iPhone 6s Plus iPhone 7 iPhone 7 Plus iPhone SE (first-generation) Also included in this list is the iPod touch 7. As for the iPad, the YouTube app now requires that the tablet run iPadOS 16 or later. As a result, there are a couple of iPad models that will no longer be compatible with the iOS YouTube app. These models are the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4. The mobile YouTube website on Safari. | Image credit-PhoneArena Apple devices that are no longer compatible with the YouTube app can still view YouTube by opening the mobile web version of the video streamer. Simply open the Safari mobile browser or another mobile browser and head to Back in the day, I had to use the site to watch YouTube videos on my LG Voyager and it doesn't deliver the same experience as the YouTube app. Still, unless you go out and purchase a new iPhone or iPad that can install iOS 16 or later, you might find yourself heading to the site to catch YouTube videos.
Forbes
03-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
New iPhone And iPad Warning: YouTube Just Canceled Support For These Models
YouTube has just updated its app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. It means that eight devices which until today could run the latest version, can do so no longer. Here are the affected devices and what it means. YouTube on iPhone The update has arrived just days before Apple's annual World Wide Developers Conference. On Monday, June 3, Apple announced details for how to watch next week's keynote on Apple's YouTube channel. The new update, which is version 20.22.1, requires iOS 16 and iPadOS 16, which means there are five iPhones and two iPads affected by this. The iPhones that aren't compatible with the new version of YouTube are iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which first launched in 2014, iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus from 2015 and the original iPhone SE from 2016. All these phones are capable of running iOS 15 but no later. Similarly, the requirement for iPadOS 16 means the latest YouTube update won't run on the iPad Air 2 (released in 2014) and iPad mini 4, first sold in 2015. Finally, the iPod touch 7, the last iPod Apple released, first came out in 2019 and was discontinued in 2022. It doesn't support iOS 16, so it won't work with the new update. If you have one of the above devices, you can't update to the new version. However, the older version of the app will continue working, so you can still use it. It won't receive new features or updates, and eventually, YouTube will stop supporting these older versions so they will stop working eventually. YouTube on the web is another option, though that is neither as feature-packed nor as convenient as the app. Apple products are well-built and durable, so there are surely plenty of these devices, especially the long-lasting iPads, still in use. That said, the most recent iPhone affected was first released nine years ago, and discontinued six years ago.
Business Insider
26-04-2025
- Business Insider
Your iPhone comes with a built-in white noise machine. Here are 3 more cool things you may not know it can do.
Apple took the world by storm with the iPhone in 2007, and its crown jewel is only getting more features that can be lifesavers — or just really cool. I upgraded from the iPod Touch to an iPhone 5 as a 13-year-old in 2012, so I consider myself a bit of an expert. Yet years later, my iPhone 14 Pro Max seems to be outpacing me with innovations. I've grown used to the old ways of manual functions, typing queries into the Safari search bar, and having to rely on my memory. As Apple introduces new features, I've picked up on the tools that I see every day — like sending voice notes over iMessage or searching for apps instead of looking for them in all of my folders. However, there are more obscure additions that I hadn't made use of. These days, top-of-the-line iPhones cost over $1,000, and Apple analysts have said they could become much more expensive if President Donald Trump follows through with the steep tariffs he wants to impose on China, the main hub for iPhone manufacturing. I decided it's time to get my money's worth out of my handset since I won't be getting an upgrade for a while. Here are four ways I'll be putting Apple's software to good use. Shortcut Automations Apple launched the Shortcuts app as part of iOS 12 in 2018. It was marketed as a time-saving app that could perform actions according to custom commands. I remember the "I'm Being Pulled Over" feature being a big deal in 2020. When activated it would begin recording your interaction with police during traffic stops, but that's the last I paid attention to Shortcuts. I perused the app again and found a number of customizable features that could come in handy. What's more, they can be automated. For a trial run, I made a command for my phone to automatically FaceTime my friend whenever he sent me the word "hey." It worked, though it's probably not a command he'd like me to keep on. You can use Shortcuts for things like: Turning on "Do Not Disturb" when you open a certain app. Sending a message when you leave a location. Changing your wallpaper every day. Voice Isolation Voice Isolation is one of my favorite iPhone features of this decade. Since its release in 2021, I've been singing its praises to anyone I talk to on the phone. In New York City, I find myself talking in a loud environment as soon as I step out of my door. Inside, my two dogs go wild with barking whenever someone gets too close to the windows. Voice Isolation, however, silences all of the fuss. When my best friends and I fell into the habit of group FaceTime calls, we discovered that we could isolate our voices and silence non-vocal background noise. So, when a ambulance whizzes by with a loud siren, my friends can still hear me recapping my day. You can enable it by pressing "Phone Controls" in the Control Center while you're on the phone. Clean Up Safari Tabs Automatically If you're an organized technology user, you probably don't need this. However, if you're like me, you're welcome. I like to leave my Safari tabs open as a way to keep track of places I want to visit, things I want to buy, and any other helpful sites that I might need to refer to. Naturally, many many tabs are never revisited again as I continue to add more. Eighty-nine tabs is modest compared to the 150+ that I've proven to be capable of. I'm hoping that will change now that I know I can set my tabs to automatically close after a period of time. I think I'll start with monthly tab closings — just to ease myself into the concept. Follow these steps to close all of your tabs: Settings > Safari > Close Tabs. Background Sounds The most zen discovery of the group is also the coolest. I've played rain sounds and white noise before by looking them up on Apple Music, but I learned that they've been built into my iPhone. Through the Settings app, you can turn on Background Sounds to hear calming sounds like the ocean, dark noise, or a crackling fire. The sounds will continue playing behind other media if you that setting toggled on. Follow these steps to enable Background Sounds: Settings > Accessibility > Audio/Visual > Background Sounds.
