John Brownlee - page 11

One of the big questions we’re looking forward to Apple answering at tomorrow’s Apple Watch event is actually a relatively simple one: Can Apple Watch users add their own custom watch faces to the device?

The answer to that question might seem obvious, but Apple has not gone on record saying you can add new faces to the Apple Watch. Instead, the official website details just nine faces for the Apple Watch.

But if we had to bet on whether the Apple Watch will allow you to add custom faces, we’d guess yes. In fact, I bet we’ll see a lot more about this tomorrow. Here’s why.

For the 18 karat gold Apple Watch Edition, Jony Ive told The Financial Times on Friday that Apple had created a process to place molecules in Apple gold closer together, consequently making it harder than standard gold.

But there’s more to it than that, with a metallurgist now explaining that Apple’s more densely packed gold atoms could reduce the amount of gold it needs to use per watch by a lot.

Mac users have had it pretty good when compared to Windows users, at least on the adware and nuisanceware front. Even Oracle, who has bundled the Ask.com search toolbar with Java for Windows for years, has abstained from infecting its Mac users with adware.

Sadly, though, that era now seems to be an end, with Oracle opting to bundle its most recent versions of Java for Mac with the Ask.com search toolbar.

Oh god. What else is there to say? The first Apple Watch fart app is already in development.

Every wearable maker out there right now is trying to figure out how they’re going to compete with the Apple Watch once it lands. Leave it to adult website Pornhub to actually figure it out: It’s just unveiled a tongue-in-cheek concept for a wearable band that would allow you to charge your other gadgets using the power of masturbation.

Apple’s customer service is tops. Go into any Apple Store, and a Genius will be happy to assist you with even the most trivial of technical support problems.

I bet the guy on the other end of a call from an alleged Microsoft tech support guru wished he was talking to an Apple Genius instead. The “support” guy turned out to be a scammer, and when the victim called him out on it, the fake Microsoft agent actually threatened to murder him.

Many of us have been eagerly awaiting a new version of Tweetbot for iPad for quite a while now, as well as an updated version of Tweetbot for Mac. The wait seems like it’s drawing to a close though. Today, developer Tapbots shared some updates, giving us a roadmap for the next updates to both Tweetbots for Mac and Tweetbot for iOS.

The iPad might be the king of tablets when it comes to quality, but it is no longer the king when it comes to sales.

A new report from research firm Strategy Analytics says that the iPad is now being outsold by so-called Brand X tablets: generic tablets sold under any brand name that isn’t Apple or Samsung.

It’s not often that Google incontrovertibly one-ups Apple on anything but search, but the company just scored a small but sizable advantage over Cupertino in at least one regard: music storage space.

Google expanded its Google Play Music service Wednesday to match, store and stream 50,000 tracks, twice what Apple allows iTunes Match paid users. Even better for listeners with large libraries? Google Play Music is free.

Intel’s Broadwell chips are late. The 14-nanometer wafers, which are believed to be integral to the much-rumored Retina MacBook Air, are due soon, but still not here.

But Intel’s already looking forward. At this week’s 2015 International Solid-State Circuits Conference, the chipmaker will announce a switch to a 10-nanometer process by early 2017 and to 7-nanometer chips shortly thereafter … a transition that means your Mac’s guts will soon no longer be made out of silicon, but another material entirely.

Many of us have had AOL accounts throughout the years, but if you’re still using your AOL account to log into iTunes, you’re soon to be S-O-L: Apple has just announced that customers who use an AOL username to sign-in to iTunes will need to convert to an Apple ID before March 31st.

Late last week, we reported on the newest leak from Edward Snowden, indicating that the NSA had hacked the SIM cards of pretty much every smartphone on Earth. iPhones included.

It looked bad. The hack allowed the NSA to tap into your phone without a court order. But today, the Dutch company responsible for 2 billion SIM cards released a statement, saying that as far as they can tell, fears of a massive NSA invasion are overblown.

In his breathtaking profile of Jony Ive in the latest issue of The New Yorker, Ian Parker drops a bombshell. You know that crossguard lightsaber in J.J. Abrams’ new Star Wars movie? The gnarly, rough-around-the-edges one seen in the latest trailer? You can give Ive credit for inspiring it.

That got Martin Hajek thinking. The Dutch CGI modeler, who always loves rendering potential Ive designs, wondered what it would look like if Apple produced a lightsaber. Not something rough and spitty, but just as refined as any other Apple product. And so, the iSaber was born.

If you want to switch over to Virgin Mobile from your existing network for its low prices, you’ll have to go Windows Phone or Android: Sprint’s pre-paid subsidiary seems to have stopped selling the iPhone.

After hints that a broader international rollout was imminent, Apple Maps Connect has officially come to Germany, France and Canada.

Attention all Mac developers! You know how when your city changes its trash-collection policies it leads to months of confusion? That’s about to happen on the Mac App Store: If you want to continue selling apps there, you’ll have to switch how you collect your garbage.

Ahead of tonight’s Academy Awards, Apple released a new video celebrating how iOS devices can help filmmakers.

Apple often uses the word “magical” to describe the iPad. That’s usually dismissed as hyperbole, but watch this magician’s appearance on Ellen, and you might change your mind: He’s able to pull actual objects from his iPad’s screen!

With all the talk of the Titan project, it’s easy to forget that when it hits in 2020, it will hardly be the first Apple vehicle to take to the road. There have been predecessors, after all.

For example? The Behemoth, a 105-speed bike from 1991 that was powered by a hacked Macintosh computer!

That iPhone in your hands? It’s been compromised by the National Security Agency through its SIM card, and government spies can access your phone through a backdoor installed on it without even needing a court order.

Sound scary? It is, and it’s the latest bombshell to be dropped by American whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Despite attracting the absolute best talent, the Aliens franchise has been on a bit of a rough patch for the last, oh, 30 years or so.

Ridley Scott’s Prometheus prequel? It sucked. Alien: Resurrection, a joint written by Joss Whedon and filmed by the director of City of Lost Children? It blew. Alien 3, directed by multiple Academy Award winner David Fincher? Well, I’ve personally always thought it got a bum rap, but the general consensus is: It’s terrible.

Now Neil Blomkamp, the talented South African director behind District 9 and the upcoming Chappie, has been hired to film the next Alien movie. And thanks to Blomkamp, we have a pretty good idea what the movie will be about.

Here’s a small detail you might have missed about the Apple Watch. In pictures for the Apple Watch Edition, the 18-karat solid gold version of Cupertino’s upcoming wearable, the Digital Crown has a small dot at the end that matches the color of the watch strap. But here’s a question for you: Is Apple going to allow users to customize the Digital Crown as easily as they can swap out Apple Watch wristbands?

In Ian Parker’s excellent New Yorker profile of Apple’s Jony Ive, the Apple design maestro is mentioned to be disparaging of an unnamed competitor who allows customers to make their devices into “whatever you want.”

Apparently, Motorola thinks the comment was about them, and Motorola CEO Rick Osterloh is now firing back, calling Apple’s pricing “outrageous” and taking issue with Ive’s comments.

Under openly gay CEO Tim Cook, Apple has done a lot to forward gay rights. A year ago, the company stood up against homophobic legislation going through Arizona and organized a company-wide march in San Francisco’s annual gay pride parade.

All in all, Apple’s one of the most gay-friendly companies you can work for. So here’s a shocker for you: When Apple figured out it had accidentally hired someone with a history of anti-gay activities, it quickly severed contact.

If you’ve been interested in trying out Apple’s iWork suite of productivity apps for yourself, but don’t have an Apple device to try them on, you’re in luck: Anyone can now create an Apple ID and sign into the iCloud Beta website to use Pages, Numbers and Keynote for free.