politics

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on politics:

The Problem with Jon Stewart season 2 trailer yuks it up over tough topics

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Apple TV+ unveiled the season 2 trailer Tuesday for the Emmy-nominated series The Problem With Jon Stewart. The show premieres Friday, October 7.
The new season lands Friday.
Photo: Apple TV+

Apple TV+ unveiled the season 2 trailer Tuesday for the Emmy-nominated series The Problem With Jon Stewart. The show premieres Friday, October 7.

“Welcome back, it is season 2 of the The Problem — this is the new variant,” Stewart says at the trailer’s opening, offering a bit of self-effacing pandemic humor.

Apple employees overwhelmingly back Biden over Trump

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Election contributions by Apple employees for heavily toward Democrats
Political contributions by Apple employees show a clear preference for Democrat candidates.
Photo: Pixabay/Pexels CC

Apple employees show they lean to the left in the clearest way possible: with their wallets. Election contributions by Apple employees inclined strongly toward Democrats in the 2020 presidential race.

It’s not even close. Apple employee contributions to Joe Biden’s campaign were more than 13 times greater than they were to President Donald Trump’s, for example.

Sen. Warren targets App Store in bid to break up Apple

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App Store
The App Store should be a separate company, according to a high-profile presidential candidate.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign for U.S. president has taken a hard line against big tech, and she has Apple in her sights. On Friday she proposed breaking up a number of large tech firms, and the iPhone-maker made the list.

Now she’s shared more details on why she thinks dividing Apple into at least two parts is necessary.

Elizabeth Warren wants to break up Apple

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Elizabeth Warren chimes in on allegedly discriminatory Apple Card algorithm
Sen. Elizabeth Warren thinks the tech industry would be more competitive if some big companies were divided up.
Photo: elizabethwarren.com

Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has proposed breaking up some of the biggest names in tech, including Apple. She says these companies have “bulldozed competition.”

She turned most of her ire on Amazon, Facebook and Google, though.

Tim Cook made massive donation to keep Trump out of White House

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Tim Cook
Tim Cook was an outspoken Hillary supporter.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Tim Cook fought harder than any other Apple employee to make sure Donald Trump didn’t become president.

A study of all the political donations made by Apple employees found that Tim Cook contributed more than any other employee to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election campaign with a $236,100 payment to the Hillary Victory Fund fundraising committee. Tim’s favoritism towards Democrats isn’t surprising, and the study found that an overwhelming majority of Apple employees are following his lead.

Tim Cook talks politics, privacy and machines taking over

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Tim Cook and Ivanka Trump
Tim Cook at yesterday's WWDC event.
Screenshot: Apple

Following yesterday’s WWDC keynote, Tim Cook participated in an interview on CNN with Senior Technology Correspondent, Laurie Segall.

In a wide-ranging interview, Cook discussed everything from the threat of machines taking over to the “fundamental human right” of privacy to why he’s not interested in running for office. Here are the big takeaways:

Apple and Silicon Valley continue to fight Trump on immigration

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President Trump: Apple encryption could protect ‘criminal minds’
Apple and other tech giants say ending immigration program would be bad for hiring.
Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr CC

Apple’s not giving up on fighting what it considers to be the good fight when it comes to immigration. On Thursday, a coalition of businesses including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others urged President Trump not to abandon a program that allows the spouses of high-skilled immigrants to work in the U.S. while they are in the process of seeking permanent residence.

The initiative was introduced by President Barack Obama in 2015, but could be abandoned by the Trump administration as part of its crackdown on immigration.

App makers take stand against Trump’s immigration ban

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Donald Trump signing document
App makers are stepping up to fight Donald Trump's executive order on immigration.
Photo: The White House

President Donald Trump’s executive order banning immigrants from some Islamic countries from entering the United States has been met with a flood of tech companies making record-breaking donations to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Tim Cook encourages Apple to move forward after Trump win

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Tim Cook was short on surprises at the 'Hello Again' keynote.
"Apple's North Star hasn't changed," says Tim Cook.
Photo: Apple

The U.S. presidential election left people around the world anxious about the future, but Apple CEO Tim Cook rallied employees yesterday saying we all have to keep moving forward.

In an email to employees, Cook told employees that “Apple’s North Star hasn’t changed.” The Apple CEO invoked the late Martin Luther King Jr. in his note, saying, “We only do great work and improve the world by moving forward.”

Check out the full email:

Nancy Pelosi slams Tim Cook for GOP fundraiser

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Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is mad at Tim Cook.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is mad at Tim Cook.
Photo: Shawn Calhoun/Flickr

U.S House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took shots at Apple CEO Tim Cook for participating in a GOP fundraiser in Silicon Valley this week.

Pelosi, who represents the nearby 12th district of California, called Cook “naive” for helping House Speaker Paul Ryan raise money for her rivals in the GOP, especially after the company just broke off its support for the GOP convention.

Vote different? John McAfee ‘borrows’ from Apple in presidential bid

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John McAfee at DefCon 2014.
Here's to the crazy ones...
Photo: NullSession/Flickr CC

Having developed the world’s first commercial antivirus software, John McAfee now wants to clean the malware out of politics — and he’s using one of Apple’s most iconic advertising mantras to do so.

Libertarian presidential candidate McAfee’s new ad encourages American citizens to “Vote Different,” and uses the same verbiage as Apple’s famous “Think Different” ads from 1997. But it features footage of figures like Ron Paul, Aaron Schwartz, Jeffrey Tucker, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk instead of the historical figures in Apple’s ad.

Is it enough to take him into the White House? Check it out below to make up your own mind!

Website lets you be a bigger blowhard than Donald Trump

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Trump did not win Iowa. Sound the horns!
Trump did not win Iowa. Sound the horns!
Photo: trumpdonald.org

The headlines that once elevated Donald Trump now predict his fall from presidential politics. If his second-place showing in the Iowa caucuses is an indication, the comedy will soon turn toward Ted Cruz.

Variety even magazine headlined one story: “Donald Trump: Is the Joke Over?” It doesn’t have to be, thanks to a website that lets you blow a loud trumpet in his face and send his much-talked-about combover flying in the breeze.

Donkey or elephant, this dating app will help you find your mate

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The dating app candiDate helps you find a political soulmate - and reminds you to vote. Illustration courtesy of HelpsGood
The dating app candiDate helps you find a political soulmate - and reminds you to vote. Illustration courtesy of HelpsGood

Politics makes for strange bedfellows. But it doesn’t have to.

The creators of a new dating app helps singles connect based on politics to help find like-minded matches on hot-button issues like guns, abortion, gay marriage and climate change.

So if size (of government) does matter, candiDate is available for free download on the Google Play store with a version for iPhone in the works.

A majority of single people in the United States have tried online dating, according to the website Statistic Brain. OK Cupid has 12 million users while Tinder boasts of having 50 million seeking a connection.

More than 50 percent of people ages 18-29 are not registered to vote and the digital agency HelpsGood wanted to develop a product that could invigorate young people to get more politically engaged.

Italy’s Prime Minister wants to learn from Jony Ive

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Italian premier Matteo Renzi's desk. Photo: La Stampa.

Summer reading tends to lean towards the frothy or the ambitious. It looks like Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is definitely in the ambitious camp.

His summer reads, as shown on his desk, include a work by an economist about innovation, a tome on the power of the labor force, and, oh yeah, Leander Kahney’s Jony Ive The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products.

This post contains affiliate links. Cult of Mac may earn a commission when you use our links to buy items.

iCitizen Turns Your iPhone Into A Powerful Political Tool [Daily Freebie]

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icitizen

 

One of the most phenomenal — and frankly, underrated — aspects of the handheld computing revolution ushered in by the iPhone and its ilk is how much power, in the form of knowledge, has been placed, literally, in people’s hands.

Case in point: iCitizen is a new, free app that clearly and elegantly places pretty much all the information you need to know in order to make informed voting decisions — right in the palm of your hand. There you go: Direct democracy in the palm of your hand, courtesy of the iPhone (and the app’s developer).

Tim Cook Shoots Hate Rays At Experts Testifying Against Apple About Tax Dodging [Image]

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Screen Shot 2013-05-21 at 11.07.51 AM

Tim doesn’t look too happy, does he? And no wonder: the Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc. is a hostile room, and the experts are being very clear about the why and how Apple is dodging its U.S. tax burden. And so far, the only person defending Apple in the room is Rand Paul.

Tim Cook is expected to testify before the Senate Sub-Committee sometime this morning. We’ll be covering it live.

Senator John McCain: Apple Is Cheating The U.S.A. In Taxes

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Senator John McCain just laid out his case against Apple in Washington D.C. in a Senate hearing about Apple’s tax rates, and he’s out for blood.

According to McCain, although 95% of Apple’s research and development happens in the USA, they funnel most of their profits through overseas entities that are not tax residents in any country in the world.

Ireland is a big target for McCain here. Ireland has long had liberal tax policies in an attempt to attract foreign companies, but McCain says that Apple paid less than $10 million in taxes on $22 billion in earnings in Ireland, a tax rate of less than 1.20th of 1%.

WP Politics: An iPad App That Helps You Understand Politics [Review]

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WP_Politics_cover

The Washington Post’s WP Politics app for the iPad is an excellent resource for anyone interested in United States politics. I spent a few days with this free app and found it to be an excellent tool for tracking and understanding the 2012 election season. While not without its flaws, this app does two critical things exceedingly well. First, it aggregates media and information from a broad range of sources into one tool. Whether you’re looking for the latest news about a particular candidate or economic data from years ago, it’s all here. Second, it organizes and contextualizes the information in a way that helps the casual user to understand it. It classifies news articles by genre, organizes Twitter feeds by source, and breaks candidates down by their stances on the issues.  If you’re looking for an app to help you follow the upcoming election, or politics in general, look no further.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney Fight To The Death Infinity Blade-Style In This iOS Game

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Who would win?
Who would win?

The 2012 U.S. presidential election is only months away. Leading up to election day, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will continue debating one another and fervently addressing the “issues’ in passionate speeches and ad spots.

Obama and Romney go head-to-head in a new iOS game developed by the makers of Infinity Blade, and well, you get the idea.

Official Mitt Romney Photo App Can’t Spell “America”

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Yes folks. I'm with Mott.
Yes folks. I'm with Mott.

Matt Rimney’s campaign has released an official photo app with a text template that reads “A Better Amercia.” Ooops.

The app comes with a bunch of text overlays (the others, you’ll be pleased to hear, with correct spellings throughout) that you can add to photos of – well, anything you consider suitably Republican and Presidential. I’m sure you’ll come up with something.

It’s not even a very good app. The image you line up in your viewfinder gets shifted down considerably when the overlay is applied, so don’t bother with careful composition.

Oh, and take note of the terms of use: “By using this application, you may be placed on Romney for President Inc’s contact list.”

You know what to do, people of Amercia! Show Mutt Rumnoy your support! Some folks have already started.

In 1991, The FBI Investigated Steve Jobs’s Reality Distortion Field For George Bush

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jobs-1991

Back in 1991, according to a recently released FBI file on Apple’s iconic founder, Steve Jobs was considered for a sensitive position in the Bush Administration.

The file is quite long, and we’re reading through it now. But one thing that the file immediately makes clear is that even the FBI knew about Steve Jobs’s patented reality distortion field! In fact, it’s directly referenced in their file on more than one occasion.

Almost All Of Your iPhone Was Made In America

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iphone4review9-copy

If you’ve been paying any attention to the Presidential Primaries lately, you’ll know that the number of iPhones China makes is a big issue this year. Why are we sending so many “great” jobs to China to build America’s most iconic tech product when unemployment is such a big problem?

Well, Foxconn may employ tens of thousands of Chinese laborers to build the iPhone, but the vast majority of the labor costs associated with making an iPhone is spent right here in the States. In fact, only $10 per iPhone goes to paying workers abroad.