A few weeks ago, I came across a delightful little website called Poolside.fm.

Load up Poolside, and you'll be presented with a mock desktop that looks like it came straight from an early Macintosh. Meanwhile, a mini music player starts cranking out synthwave tunes in one window, while low-resolution B-roll video from the 80s starts playing in another.

This is a music player with a point of view, specifically that we should all imagine ourselves sitting outside by the water or under neon lights, sipping wine coolers and wearing perms. But even once you get past the blatant appeals to nostalgia, the actual music—sourced from a variety of indie musicmakers and remixers on Soundcloud—is, I think, pretty good. (There's no proper mobile app yet, but if you load the Poolside.fm website through Safari for iOS or Chrome for Android, it'll still play in the background when you lock the phone or use other apps.)

Using Poolside.fm has been a nice way to stretch those summer vibes out a little longer, but it also got me thinking about other ways to enjoy music that don't just involve opening up Apple Music or Spotify and tapping on whatever songs they've laid out for you. Look around, and you'll find lots of other neat musical apps and tools for putting you in the right mindset or helping you pick the perfect playlist. Here are some notable ones:

focusmusic.fm: A small set of productivity-minded playlists, including "downtempo," "electronic," "classical," and "rain." Available on the web, iOS, and Android.

cmd.fm: Want a vibe that's even more retro than Poolside.fm? Cmd.fm presents a DOS-style interface where you can type in commands like "play bossa nova," "pause," or "next." You can also "like" tracks for future listening or create playlists as you go. It's gimmicky, but fun.
 

MagicPlaylist: A simple tool for generating Spotify playlists. Search for any song to create a playlist based off it, then delete any unwanted songs from the list or manually add new ones. Think of it like the radio station feature in Spotify, but with more flexibility.

PLYLST: Another Spotify playlist generator, but much more powerful than the one above. Choose from only songs you've already liked or the full Spotify catalog, then add rules for things like genre, tempo, acoustic vs. electric, and major vs. minor keys. Why trust Spotify's' algorithms when you can make your own?

Longplay: This $3 iOS app brings the emphasis on albums back to your music collection. For Apple Music, iTunes, or any songs you've synced to your device, Longplay presents a grid of album cover art to browse through, along with various sorting options such as recently-added and long-neglected.

Relisten: I mentioned this one back in May, but if you missed it, Relisten streams full concerts from the Live Music Archive, so you can jam out to the likes of Phish and The Grateful Dead. It's available on iOS, while Taper's Section is a close equivalent on Android.

CloudBeats: For those with personal music collections, CloudBeats can play audio files that you've stored in cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive. The app is free on iOS and Android, with an in-app purchase for extra features such as Chromecast support (for Android devices) and offline listening.

Spotify Stations: Another one I've mentioned before. Spotify Stations is an official alternative to the main Spotify app, and lets you generate radio-style stations based on any artists you specify. I like how simple it is to use, and how you can switch between stations by swiping up or down. It's free to use even without a Premium subscription.
 

Amazon Music: In case you didn't know, Amazon Music offers millions of on-demand songs for Prime subscribers on iOS, Android, the web, and Echo speakers. While the catalog is smaller than services like Apple Music or Spotify (or Amazon's Music Unlimited service), Prime Music is still a nice way to enjoy some commercial-free tunes without paying for yet another subscription.

Weav Run: This app puts an interesting spin on running to music, offering electronic tracks that speed up or slow down in sync with your steps. That way you can encourage yourself to keep up the tempo. It's iOS-only for now, but an Android version is on the way.

Auxparty: Those who hung around on the internet circa 2011 might remember an app called Turntable.fm, which offered virtual rooms where people could hang out and take turns being DJ. Auxparty is essentially a recreation of that, using either Spotify (with a Premium subscription) or Soundcloud as the audio source. I wish the public rooms were more heavily populated, but it could still be a neat way to remotely hang with your Spotify-using friends.

Did I miss any other interesting music apps? Send me your suggestions by replying to this email.
 

Upgraded exposure notifications: Apple and Google are rolling out a new version of their joint COVID-19 exposure notification system, which can alert users if they've potentially been near someone who tests positive. The new system lets public authorities notify users without having to develop their own apps, so it might help make this kind of exposure tracking more readily available in more states.

Unfortunately, the system has also been the subject of fearmongering on social media, with viral posts suggesting that governments might activate it automatically or use it to track people's whereabouts. To be clear, the system doesn't track location at all. Instead, it keeps a record of phones you've come within Bluetooth range of over a two-week period, and uses an ever-changing set of random identifiers for each phone so the record can't be tied to any personal information. It's an anonymous system that only works if you opt into it.

If that seems reasonable enough, you can allow exposure notifications on an iPhone running iOS 13.7 or higher through Settings > Exposure Notifications. (Some users are reporting bugs, though, so you may want to hold off a bit.) On Android, the option appears under Settings > Google > COVID-19 exposure notifications. In both cases, you'll only be able to turn them on if your state is participating in the system; on iOS, you can also choose to get notified when that happens.

Foldable phones are still too expensive: Samsung has put a price tag of $1,999 on its next foldable phone, the clunkily-named Galaxy Z Fold 2 5G, which launches on September 19. Like the original Galaxy Fold from last year, the new version is a pocket-sized device with a screen on the outside, and it unfolds to reveal a small tablet-sized screen on the inside. The Fold 2, however, seems more like an actual product than a prototype, with a larger outer screen, a more durable hinge, and a plastic-covered glass display instead of a chintzier all-plastic one. (CNet has a nice hands-on overview.)
 

It's still a bleeding edge product, though, one that's about twice the price of a regular high-end phone, and that may not change anytime soon. Harry McCracken, my editor at Fast Company, asked Samsung Electronics VP Drew Blackard whether he envisions a future of more affordable foldables. "That’s something we’re going to push towards,” Blackard said. “The bigger question is more of time frame.” A more encouraging answer would have been "Yes."

Intel's new chips: Intel-powered laptops are about to get another leap forward with the company's new 11th-generation Core processors, codenamed "Tiger Lake." I wouldn't expect laptops with these chips to look significantly different—the ones announced so far seem to be just processor upgrades for existing designs—but Intel's promising a twofold increase in graphics performance for gaming, along with more modest improvements in either performance or battery life. (PC makers, as always, will be able to prioritize one or the other.)

The new chips come at time that Intel's dominance in laptops is being tested. AMD-powered laptops like the HP Envy x360 have been undercutting Intel-powered equivalents on price, and while Intel claims that its new chips are faster, most users will experience diminishing returns for basic productivity use. Apple will soon offer an alternative to Intel as well, with the first MacBooks powered by Apple silicon coming later this year.

For now, though, most people buying a laptop will be ending up with Intel chips, so it's helpful to know there's a new generation out there. Look for Tiger Lake-powered laptops to arrive later this year—and for prices to fall accordingly on the current 10th-generation chips.
 

Simplified scheduling: I absolutely love the thinking behind Available, a new Chrome extension that helps streamline the meeting scheduling process in Gmail. Once installed, the extension displays a little calendar icon to the right of Gmail's Send button. Press the button, and you'll see a pop-up view of your Google Calendar where you can pick potential meeting slots. Available then takes whatever times you've chosen and pastes them as plain text in the body of your email.

Available is hardly the only scheduling tool out there. Calendly is a well-known service for setting up open meeting slots that other people can pick from, and the Gmail extension Boomerang can embed a time slot picker widget directly inside your emails. While Available isn't quite as interactive, the plain text approach also makes it feel less self-important.

"I've been a user of various calendar scheduling tools in the past, but always felt awkward sending a branded widget or URL to my recipient asking them to book time on my calendar," Available creator Shahed Khan wrote in his description of the product. That's my sentiment exactly, which is why Available is the first scheduling tool I can actually see myself using.
 

The Winamp Skin Museum: Okay, here's one more music-related nostalgia trip this week. If you have fond memories of using Winamp to play your ill-gotten MP3 files in the 1990s, take a trip to the Winamp Skin Museum, where you can browse all the beautiful, weird, and gaudy ways in which we all made our music players more aesthetically unique. Scroll through a wall of roughly 65,000 skins, or narrow them down with a search. And in case you're still using Winamp, you can of course install any of those skins for yourself. Because let's face it, we're not getting a HI-C Ecto Cooler or wood grain theme in Spotify anytime soon.
 

• Good read on Apple's new privacy protections in iOS 14. (Too bad it's delaying them.)
• Nvidia's new 30-series graphics cards sound like a big leap forward.
• Now you can send all your Facebook photos to Dropbox.
• LG preps an extremely weird-looking dual-screen phone called the Wing.
• 10 million homes are now eligible for free T-Mobile internet.

Samsung is already offering discounts on some of its newest devices. Over at B&H, both the new Galaxy Note 20 and the higher-end Galaxy Note 20 Ultra are $200 off, bringing the starting prices to $800 and $1100, respectively. Meanwhile, Amazon is selling the black, 45mm version of Samsung's new Galaxy Watch 3 for $365, which is $65 off the regular price.

Other notable deals this morning:

• Woot is selling the OnePlus 7 Pro with 256 GB of storage for $430, which is $120 off the current street price and $270 off the original price when it launched last year.
• Costco members can save $40 on Klipsch's ProMedia 2.1 desktop computer speakers, a very nice set of speakers that normally sells for $140.
• Google's Nest Secure alarm system, with a pair of door/window sensors and two key fobs for arming it, is on sale for $250, which is $150 off the sticker price.
• Need a bare-bones smartwatch for telling time, counting steps, and reading notifications? The Amazfit Bip lasts up to 30 days on a charge with its transflective display (sort of like my beloved Pebble), and it's on sale for $50.

I hope everyone had a restful Labor Day weekend. If you have any lingering tech questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them, and I'd also love to hear your suggestions on what to cover next. Just reply to this email to get in touch, or drop into the Advisorator chat room on Slack.

Until next week,
Jared