Lewis Wallace - page 27

Apple Music becomes an official part of the Sonos ecosystem Wednesday after months of beta testing on the wireless speakers.

“The feedback from Apple Music members on Sonos during the beta period has been great,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of internet software and services, in a press release. “Sonos plus Apple Music provides an amazing listening experience at home — and we’re excited to offer it to all Sonos customers starting tomorrow.”

David Bowie’s uncanny vision of the future didn’t stop with songs about holographic TVs or astronauts adrift in space.

More than a decade ago, the dynamic entertainer — who died Sunday at age 69 after an 18-month battle with cancer — predicted the music biz would look a lot like it does in the time of Apple Music.

The Cult of Mac Watch Store just opened for business, offering a carefully curated selection of Apple Watch accessories — just in time for all your holiday shopping needs.

Whether you’re looking for luxe leather and steel bands or clutter-killing stands, our shiny new online store showcases nothing but the best Apple Watch accessories. You’ll find quality goods that let you put your personal stamp on your Apple Watch, all at fair prices.

LAS VEGAS — You know your product’s hot when Chinese ripoff artists start selling knockoffs before your first unit rolls off the production line.

That’s the “flattering” situation the makers of Stikbox, the world’s “first” selfie stick case for iPhone and Samsung, find themselves in as they demo their only aluminum prototype on the CES show floor here. Stikbox’s Kickstarter campaign launched just two weeks ago, and the unique case hasn’t even been officially manufactured, yet already dozens of clones have popped up online.

“It just goes on,” Stikbox founder Yekutiel Sherman said as he scrolled through listing after listing of Chinese manufacturers selling Stikbox clones on Taobao, an e-commerce site owned by Alibaba Group. “Endless, endless,” he said, a mix of shock and dismay in his voice.

LAS VEGAS — The makers of a tiny new device called the TarDisk Pear promise to permanently double your MacBook’s hard drive space in a matter of moments.

Simply slide the Pear into your MacBook’s SD card slot, run a quick setup (called “pearing”), and your hard-drive capacity will be permanently doubled.

“Pear is a one-click option for upgrading,” TarDisk’s Pierce Schiller told Cult of Mac at CES 2016.

LAS VEGAS — The makers of a powerful new battery pack called the iTron claim it can be fully charged to 9,000 mAh in an astonishing 18 minutes. Even better, in just three short minutes, it slurps up enough power to recharge an iPhone 6.

To make the package even more enticing, the quick-juicing battery pack charges on a dock that offers three USB ports, so it can become a full-blown charging station for multiple devices.

LAS VEGAS — The makers of Gogoro, the electric smart scooter that wowed CES last year, have two unassuming tools for gaining traction beyond their launch city of Taipei.

The first is a charger for their 20-pound battery packs; the second is a website that lets wannabe owners nominate their hometowns to become Gogoro hubs.

LAS VEGAS — For all Sony’s talk about high-definition audio and video during its CES press conference, the company’s most intriguing new product is a weird glass speaker with LED lights that looks something like a tubular hurricane lamp.

Called the Glass Sound Speaker, it’s a refreshing twist on the ordinary Bluetooth speaker that is certain to add a unique ambiance to any room. I’m not sure how it sounds, but its soothing, candle-like glow practically screams sophistication.

While the Apple Watch is still waiting for its “killer app,” plenty of great apps already exist for the new wearable. They ease us through common tasks, add value to awesome iPhone apps, or delight us with subtle functions that we didn’t necessarily know we needed (but now practically can’t live without).

These apps might not be homicidal, but they make us want to strap on an Apple Watch each and every day. These are our favorite Apple Watch apps of 2015.

2015 was a bold year for Apple. The company jumped into new product categories, polished its existing hardware and software lines, and wowed us repeatedly.

Apple also made most of us throw up in our mouths a little bit now and then, due to some questionable (and some undeniably bad) choices.

These are Apple’s biggest wins and most epic fails of the past year, as remembered — fondly and otherwise — by Cult of Mac staffers.

The makers of a tiny (but badass!) new LED flashlight say they took inspiration from the 9mm bullet, but Apple’s incessant drive toward miniaturization seems at least as much of an influence.

You can almost hear the dulcet tones of Jony Ive’s voice in the description of the Bullet, which its maker calls “the tiniest flashlight on Kickstarter.”

As an Apple fan, there’s a great gift you can bestow upon your friends and family this holiday season. The amazing part is, it’s free.

I’m not talking about the free tech support you’ll inevitably dole out to befuddled relatives (Cult of Mac’s how-to section can help with that, BTW). I’m talking about evangelizing for two of Apple’s least-loved products — and this gracious act will also goose the greater good.

Poor Jeb Bush. He can’t even discuss the Apple Watch and its shortcomings without coming off as overly exasperated.

“It’s not as intuitive as the other Apple products,” he said in a recent video interview with Business Insider. “The battery gives out too quick,” he continued, exhibiting the kind of head-bobbing body language he usually reserves for queries about his flailing presidential bid or Donald Trump’s oversimplified answers to complex questions.

My truck’s getting up in years and lacks many of the conveniences of a late-model vehicle. Forget about an in-dash touchscreen monitor — it doesn’t even have a USB port.

That means I’m stuck using a cigarette lighter adapter to charge my iPhone (which serves as my GPS on many trips). I’ve tried and enjoyed Gosin’s four-port charger, which is awesome for those rare times I’ve got a handful of devices to juice up, but that portly wonder juts out fairly far into the truck’s cabin. Like my truck itself, it is functional but slightly unsightly.

And then there’s the svelte Scosche reVolt dual car charger. Its disarming good looks have ruined me.

Travel mug by Zojirushi

There’s unquestionable power in an object that does one thing and does it well. Consider the lowly travel mug — it’s a common commodity among the world’s coffee-swilling commuters, and yet the standard design lets us down repeatedly.

How does it fail us? It doesn’t keep our coffee hot for long. And, worse, it’s got a tendency to drip, spill and even spurt lukewarm java onto our clothes and car interiors. Many of my shirts bear depressing coffee stains, the marks of a road warrior using an inferior travel mug.

SAN FRANCISCO — A slick new feature coming to Ultimate Ears’ Bluetooth speakers will let you stream your friends’ music from the palm of your hand.

Called Block Party, it lets up to three friends connect to the same UE speaker. Then the self-appointed DJ can pick and choose from each person’s tunes, pulled from streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify. The DJ can skip songs and jump from playlist to playlist, and it’s all shockingly smooth and simple.

With just days to go before free Apple Music trials start to expire, Cupertino is finally getting serious about explaining exactly how its streaming music service works.

A new wave of “guided tour” videos demystifies Apple Music’s functionality and features — but will this marketing and educational push be too little, too late to stop a wave of defectors from leaving the fledgeling service at a critical time?

An Apple exec reportedly working on the company’s secret car project might be playing mind games with the Apple Kremlinologists searching for clues.

Is it the tech world’s biggest insider joke, or a sly hint that Apple’s automotive ambitions are real?

SAN FRANCISCO — Ultimate Ears could have borrowed the iPhone 6s tag line to market its new UE Boom 2 Bluetooth speakers.

Like Apple’s latest smartphones, which Cupertino hypes with the clever catchphrase “the only thing that’s changed is everything,” UE’s second-generation Bluetooth speaker is almost indistinguishable from its tubular predecessor — at least on the outside. But upgraded specs and a few pleasant surprises give the Boom 2 a welcome boost.

“There’s something magic about this design,” said Diego Gabathuler, head of brand and global marketing for Ultimate Ears, as he showed off the Boom 2 during a demo at the Cult of Mac offices. “It would have been a shame to take that magic away.”

SAN FRANCISCO — You’d think stylus maker Adonit would be terrified by rumors that Apple is about to release a plus-size iPad Pro with its very own writing accessory, but nothing could be further from the truth.

According to Ian Shirey, Adonit’s chief strategy officer, facing competition from Apple would be the sweetest vindication of all for his company’s devices. “For Apple to tell the world a stylus is OK would be great,” Shirey said during a visit to the Cult of Mac offices to show off Adonit’s latest creation, the Jot Dash, an midrange stylus that works with iOS and Android devices.

SAN FRANCISCO — Just how big is Apple’s next product reveal going to be? All signs point to it being a massive blowout of an event — far bigger than the standard iPhone “s” upgrade the world is expecting.

There are a million reasons to hate group selfies, but now there’s a new one: Pose with the wrong person and you could wind up with head lice.

With the Apple TV ready for a radical refresh, it’s time to start thinking about what you’ll do with your old set-top box once you upgrade to the latest and greatest model.

You’ll find cool projects for your old Apple TV in this week’s issue of Cult of Mac Magazine for iPhone and iPad. You’ll also get updates on new iMacs and an opinion piece on why the end of smartphone subsidies is actually good for Apple.