John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
If you love Dropbox, you'd better upgrade your Mac. Photo: Dropbox
If you’re a Dropbox user (and you should be!) you might want to take a look at your ‘About this Mac’ info box: the popular cloud syncing app will drop support for OS X Leopard and earlier on May 15th.
The Spaceship Campus is progressing nicely. Photo: Apple
Apple has provided the official City of Cupertino website with a new photo, showing progress on the new, so-called “Spaceship” campus. And it’s starting to look like a thing of a beauty.
Devs need to update their apps for 64-bit and iOS 8 now. Photo: Cult of Mac
If you’re a developer, listen up: it’s time to make sure your apps can support iOS 8 and Apple’s 64-bit ARM processors. Otherwise, you won’t be able to submit them to the App Store anymore.
White Album turns your iPhone into a disposable camera. Photo: HypeBeast Photo: HypeBeast
I think we can all agree that the iPhone and other smartphone cameras have been a boon for photography. For the first time in history, the vast majority of people have an incredibly powerful camera in their pockets at all time. Because of this, our age will be the most well-documented age in history. And that’s awesome. But some critics claim that because we can take as many pictures as we want now, we give a lot less thought to what they shoot, and how, than they did when they had to measure out each and every shot.
That’s why I love this new app for iOS, White Album. It basically makes a disposable camera out of your iPhone. But don’t worry, you don’t have to throw your iPhone away when you stop using the app.
Steve Jobs tests Apple I motherboards in his Los Altos garage in 1976. Photo: Steve Wozniak
After a number of delays in production, and a seemingly endless search for a leading man, Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming biopic about Steve Jobs has finally started shooting, at the garage where Jobs and Wozniak founded Apple back in 1976.
The crisis in the Crimean Peninsula has caused Apple to terminate developer accounts in the region. Photo: Apple
In a curious example of international geopolitics influencing the App Store, developers who have registered iTunes accounts in the Crimea are being told to stop using all Apple software, and destroy any materials related to it. Why? It all has to do with the United States imposing sanctions against Russia.
Could the iPad Pro come with a stylus. Photo: Xstylus
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is usually dead right with his predictions on upcoming Apple products. But lately, his predictions have been whoppers. First, Kuo predicted that Apple would ditch Intel chips in the Mac for ARM by 2016, and now, he’s predicting that the upcoming 12.9-inch iPad Pro will be the first to ship with a stylus. If true, Steve Jobs might just roll over in his grave.
Rumors that Apple might ditch Intel chips in the Mac for ARM-based chips of their own design are nothing new. Back in 2012, we reported that Apple would soon be dropping Intel chips from all their Macs. And earlier this year, ex-Apple-executive Jean-Louis Gassée claimed that he thought Apple would soon ditch Intel too. Heck, even Intel has said in the past it considered Apple switching to ARM on the desktop to be a very real and scary threat. Yet it still hasn’t happened. So far, it’s the rumor equivalent of the Apple HDTV: even though it endlessly comes up in the news cycle, it still hasn’t happened.
Even so, when usually accurate analyst Ming-Chi Kuo from KGI Securities issued a note last week saying that Apple would fully switch from Intel to ARM by 2016, it caused a ruckus. People took the rumor more seriously than most, just based on Kuo’s amazing track record. But according to Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, he’s not worried. But he’s also not denying it’s a possibility.
The Retina iMac is a sweet, sweet machine, but starting at $2,499, it’s one of the most expensive Macs you can buy, short of the new Mac Pro. But if you’re tempted to buy one, here’s a cheaper way to do so: the Retina iMac has finally been added to Apple’s online Refurbished store.
The AMBER Alert network in your area is about to get more effective.
Social networking giant Facebook announced today that it would be teaming up with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to provide AMBER Alerts through its official iOS app, as well as through its official website.
(Credit: Benjamin Feenstra) Photo: Benjamin Feenstra
After almost four years of fighting a court case, Apple and three other large tech companies have finally reached a deal to end the class action lawsuit against them for the anti-poaching agreements that established with one another.
Could this be our first look at the iPhone 6s's sapphire display? Photo: Desay
Due to its failed relationship with GT Advanced, Apple missed out on releasing the iPhone 6 with the rock hard, all sapphire display that was initially rumored.
But what about the iPhone 6s? It’s still unknown, but an Apple supplier, Desay, has just announced their own smartphone with an “unbreakable” sapphire display.
Apple has been feeling the #jesuischarlie solidarity lately. After publicly supporting the movement protesting the terrorist attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices last week, Apple has approved a Je Suis Charlie app for sale on the App Store, just anhour after the developers emailed CEO Tim Cook.
One of the great things about iMessage and FaceTime is that it encrypts your messages automatically, making it very, very difficult for hackers to spy on the messages you send.
But guess what? If U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron gets his way, iMessage and FaceTime encryption might soon be a thing of the past.
Chrome can now control your Mac from your iPhone. Photo: Cult of Mac
If you’ve always wanted a way to control your desktop from your iPhone or iPad, but didn’t want to lay out, good news: Google’s now got you covered for free.
Play with an Apple Watch ahead of release with this emulator! Photo: Cult of Mac
Can’t wait to get your hands on the Apple Watch? Well, tough, you’ll have to. But if you’d just like to play around with the interface, we can help you out, thanks to this new online Apple Watch simulator.
If you’re a long time Mac fan like I am, you probably remember a time in the 90’s when you would have paid anything to watch then Microsoft CEO eat shit and die.
Of course, since leaving Microsoft, Bill Gates has become quite the humanitarian… one who is especially concerned with the problem of getting clean drinking water to the rest of the world. So these days, I have no interest in seeing him eat shit and die.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, or the EFF, fights the good fight. An international non-profit digital rights group, the nonprofit is famous for standing up against big companies who think they can use baseless legal threats or intimidation to deny users their rights. But now they are setting their sights on Apple. Who is right?
Do you live in the European Union? Canada? Norway? Russia? Bad news, friends. Your App Store prices are about to shoot up. But hey, if you live in Iceland, great news: your app prices are going down!
This might not be coming to your Apple Watch after all. Photo: Tapsense.
Remember when just a couple days ago, mobile marketing firm TapSense said at CES they would release a service for the Apple Watch that allowed developers to push ads to your wrist?
Well, it turns out it’s not as bad as all that. Yes, you’ll probably have ads on the Apple Watch in one way or another. But they’ll be super limited.
Will the iPad rebound in 2015? Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Apple did amazing things in 2014, but when it comes to growth, the iPad wasn’t exactly a blockbuster success. In fact, they’ve been slumping. Although Cook views slowing iPad growth as a “speed bump,” iPad upgrades are inarguably closer to the upgrade rate of laptops than smartphones.
Cook’s optimistic. “Because we’ve only been in the market for four years, we don’t know how long the upgrade cycle will be for people,” Cook said during the October earnings call. “So that’s a difficult thing to call.”
So what does 2015 hold for the iPad? Sadly, it’s not clear.
Is the 4-inch iPhone coming or not? Photo: ModMyI Photo: ModMyI
Throughout December, we heard a lot of rumors that said Apple might be bringing back the 4-inch iPhone form factor. My colleague Luke categorized these rumors as “unlikely,” and yet they continued, perhaps buoyed by the crossed-fingers of women and the tiny-handed. But now a new report says they were unlikely after all.
Unlocked, SIM-free iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models are finally on sale! Photo: Cult of Mac Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Want to buy an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus without a SIM card, or locked to a specific carrier? You finally have your chance: unlocked iPhones have just gone on sale through Apple’s brick-and-mortar and online stores for the very first time.
Would you buy this iPod Classic cover for the iPhone? Photo: Claudio Gomboli
Usually, we tell you what we think about things that come down the Mac and iOS news pipeline. But this time, we want your opinion: what do you think of this iPod Classic smart cover for iPhone that turns your handset into a vintage iPod, like the day of yore?
Quick: How much does an iPhone 6 cost? If you read this blog at all, you probably know that answer can range wildly depending on a variety of factors: how much storage it’s got, whether it’s subsidized, what carrier it’s on and what coverage you’ve got. Even so, would you ever guess that an iPhone 6 costs $7,500? Well, that’s just what two contestants on The Price Is Right did on a recent episode of the show.