This week on The CultCast: We react to everything announced at Apple’s iPhone X press event! Plus, we’ll tell you all we now know about iPhone X, iPhone 8, the new Apple TV 4K, Apple Watch Series 3, the AirPods update, and the new AirPower charging mat. It’s a packed show. Better hit play, fam.
Following three months of beta testing, macOS High Sierra is almost ready to make its public debut.
There are a whole bunch of new features and improvements to look forward to in this update, including an overhauled Photos app, enhanced Siri, and the new Apple File System.
The new Apple TV, expected to make its debut alongside iPhone X at a special event on Tuesday, will need powerful new internals to drive super-sharp 4K video.
According to the latest discoveries in Apple’s own code, “Apple TV 4K” will have just that. It will rock the same processor as the latest iPad Pro — plus ample RAM — to become by far the most powerful Apple TV yet.
4K video is likely to be the big update for this year’s Apple TV, and to mark the occasion Apple has been trying to finalize deals with movie studios to begin offering 4K movies to accompany it.
The only problem? According to a new report, both parties are struggling to meet when it comes to pricing.
Apple TV is expected to get a major upgrade this September. Sources familiar with Apple’s plans say the set-top box will finally deliver 4K video streaming with support for HDR, and a greater focus on live television content like news and sports.
This week on The CultCast: What does Apple have in store for the next generation of Watch? We round up the current rumors and reveal our Series 3 wish list. Then: Could Face ID actually replace Touch ID on iPhone 8? We have concerns. Plus: Proof that a 4K Apple TV is right around the corner; more incredible demos of ARKit; and we share our favorite new shows, movies and board games in an all-new What We’re Into!
Our thanks to EERO for supporting this episode. The EERO router system will blanket your home in hyper-fast, reliable Wi-Fi, and you can score free overnight shipping with code CULTCAST at checkout.
Developer and Apple sleuth Steve Troughton-Smith has managed to get Apple’s tvOS Simulator to run in 4K, the same screen resolution that’s been rumored for an upcoming fifth-generation Apple TV.
4K resolution is twice the standard HD resolution. Based on what Troughton-Smith has shared, tvOS appears to work fine in 3840 x 2160 resolution, with text, icons, and more scaling effectively to 4K.
The next generation Apple TV could be unveiled later this year, based on the latest leak from Apple’s unreleased HomePod.
Code for Apple’s leaky smart speaker reveals that the new Apple TV might finally gain 4K support and it will support two of the biggest formats for super high def video.
Imagination Technologies, the company behind the PowerVR graphics technology used in iPhone and iPad, has unleashed its powerful new Furion architecture.
It’s the first major upgrade since the introduction of Rogue, the architecture currently used in iPhone 7, and it’s capable of powering 4K smartphone and tablet displays with four times the resolution of 1080p.
The iPhone 7 display may be the new device’s most underrated feature, based on an in-depth analysis by display experts.
Apple’s new LCD display was rated as “visually indistinguishable from perfect” when it comes to image contrast and intensity. The tiniest amount of color variation, seen when viewing the screen from an angle, also yielded top marks.
Apple’s upcoming iPhone 7 series will deliver even greater 4K video recording at 60 frames-per-second, according to a new report. Both devices are also expected to offer Force Touch home buttons and new SIM trays designed to block out water.
Have you been waiting for years for Apple to finally update its Thunderbolt Display lineup with a sexy 4K or even 5K screen?
The wait might finally be over.
Buying a smaller iPhone doesn’t have to mean settling for disappointing specifications anymore. With its new iPhone SE, Apple is packing its latest features and technologies into a compact shell to provide those who prefer smaller screens with the very best it has to offer.
Apple is less than a year away from moving into its shiny new campus, but Tim Cook’s beautiful pile of dirt still looms large at the construction site in the latest 4K drone video that shows the progress on the spaceship.
The video shows Apple’s progress installing the largest piece of curved glass ever made, as well as the large white canopies that sprout out of the sides of the glass and metal facade. It also appears that the roof over the auditorium in the heart of campus has been installed.
Check it out:
iPhone 6s is a mirror image of its predecessor at first glance, but thanks to improved internals and innovative new technology, it’s very much a different beast.
With Apple’s latest A9 processor, a new 12-megapixel iSight camera, Live Photos, and 3D Touch, this is much, much more than just an “incremental” iPhone upgrade. It’s the iPhone that will change the way you use your iPhone. It’s Apple most exciting smartphone in years.
Merry iPhone 6s-mas!
Today’s the day Apple’s latest smartphones go on sale in 12 markets around the world, and thanks to some threats I made to the local UPS man last week, my shiny new handset arrived before I’d even had chance to make myself a coffee this morning.
After putting it through its paces for a few hours, here are my first impressions on all that’s new. It’s super-fast, Live Photos are tons of fun, and 3D Touch is a must-have.
If you want to record the smoothest 4K video with an iPhone, skip the 6s and go with the 6s Plus.
The two new iPhones appear to be identical in almost every way except screen size, but in a new 4K video comparing the digital stabilization of the iPhone 6s against the optical/digital stabilization on the iPhone 6s Plus, the new camera on Apple’s bigger-than-big iPhone is clearly superior.
Check it out for yourself:
Disappointed the new Apple TV doesn’t support 4K? Then get Amazon’s new Fire TV instead.
Two new versions of the device — Fire TV and Fire TV Gaming Edition — are here with updated internals that make them 75 percent faster than their predecessor, plus Alexa, Amazon’s own virtual assistant that is the brains behind the Echo speaker.
There’s also a new Fire TV Stick that promises the best Wi-Fi performance in a media-streaming dongle.
Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.
Apple was reminded of this after its keynote on Wednesday when rivals Samsung and Sony took to Twitter to mock the length of its presentation — and its new iPhone 6s.
LAS VEGAS — The first full day of CES if starting to wrap up and if there’s one trend starting to emerge, it’s that there are no trends. Nowhere was this more apparent than Samsung’s keynote, where the company threw everything and the kitchen sink into its announcement of new home appliances, a vacuum, a Virtual Reality service called Milk, a cute portable SSD, and of course, one of the craziest TVs we’ve ever seen.
Dropping ridiculous TVs has become something of a tradition for Samsung at CES, and this year is no different with the SUHD S9W TV that’s touted as ‘the most seductive TV ever made.’ It’s just too bad you’ll never get to use their beautiful gimmick.
Yesterday, Amazon announced that they would begin streaming Amazon Prime movies in 4K Ultra HD, free of charge. This follows an announcement by Netflix in March that they would allow subscribers to stream 4K shows in Ultra HD for a small additional charge every month.
Of course, neither the iPhone, iPad, or the Apple TV support 4K video… but the new iMacs with Retina Display do. Yet despite this, Netflix and Amazon don’t actually stream 4K video to the Retina iMac. The best you can get is plain old 1080p.
What’s the deal? The same as it ever is. DRM.
This week: Gobble gobble y’aall! Ever wonder what a Thanksgiving meal with Tim Cook might be like? Ok, probably not, but come imagine it with us anyway. Then: why Apple quietly included 4K support in iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2; Amazon is building an ad-supported Netflix streaming competitor; plus stay tuned for our favorite products of the year in the CultCast gifts-we’d-love-to-get gift guide.
Heartily guffaw your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the chuckles begin.
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Not even Apple’s new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus support super-sharp 4K video recording out of the box, but they do have the necessary hardware to support it. Vizzywig 4K, a new iOS app that was just approved by Apple, brings this functionality to the iPhone 5s — but it costs a whopping $999.99.
After months of beta testing Apple has finally made OS X 10.9.3 available for public release.
The update is light on new features but does pave the way for 4K to come to the iMac in the future thanks to new support for a full range of Retina scaling modes for 4K monitors, allowing users to juice their extra pixels to make things crisper instead of just smaller.
The new Sony A7S is a mirrorless full-frame camera which shoots 4K video and has a top ISO of 102,400, expandable to 409,600.
Remember back in 2006 when Palm CEO Ed Colligan said this, about Apple and the iPhone:
PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.
If you switched Apple for Sony (those gadget guys) or Fujifilm ("film guys), and Palm for Nikon and Canon, then the same thing is happening today.