Google I/O and WWDC have been and gone, and Google and Apple have laid out the plans for their next major platform updates — Android M and iOS 9.
Now that we’ve had a chance to let those announcements sink in, it’s time for Cult of Android and Cult of Mac to battle over which is best in another Friday Night Fight. Let us help you decide which one will reign supreme when they roll out to the public this fall.
Samsung is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to cut more money off the $930 million Apple won in a patent lawsuit. The company is arguing that the appeals court’s earlier ruling is still unfair, even after successfully convincing the panel to chop off $382 million already.
Ever imagined what it would be like if Sony, not Apple, had delivered the first truly modern smartphone? If the Walkman had never gone out of style, just evolved with the times?
KGI Securities analyst Ming Chi Kuo has become the most accurate Apple seer around. Photo: Digitmes
Over the past several years, one analyst has risen above the rest to become the most reliable voice on all things Apple. His name is Ming-Chi Kuo, and his ability to accurately prophesy Apple’s future product plans is unparalleled. Fittingly, he is also incredibly mysterious.
Kuo is back in the news with a report that the iPhone 6s — due in the fall — will have a new stronger case to make it less ‘bendable.’ The iPhone 6s will be made from the same tough-but-light 7000 series aluminum used in the Apple Watch (it’s also used to make bikes and planes). Kuo also predicts the 6s will come Rose Gold and a darker space grey, again, matching the near-black Apple Watch.
Last month, Kuo reported a long list of features coming to the 6s, including a better, faster A9 processor, a Force Touch screen, a 12-megapixel camera, better Touch ID, new gestures and more.
Researchers cracked iCloud Keychain and bypassed App Store approval processes. Photo: Faris Algosaibi/Flickr CC
A group of six university researchers claim to have successfully bypassed Apple’s tight App Store approval processes to publish Mac and iOS malware apps. According to the report, the team presented the zero-day vulnerability to Apple back in October 2014 and were told to keep quiet about it for at least six months.
Luyi Xing, a security researcher who helped expose the zero day vulnerability, still has yet to hear back from Apple on a possible fix.
Apple is guilty of setting iPhone prices. Photo: Jim Merithew
Many of Apple’s manufacturers may be based in Taiwan, but that hasn’t stopped a Taiwanese court from finding the company guilty of engaging in anti-competitive practices.
Apple’s crime? Making its telecom partners in Taiwan run their pricing plans past Apple prior to making then available to the public.
“Apple limited telecoms from setting contract price for its 4, 4s, 5 and 5s models, which is against the law,” says a spokesperson for Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission.
Apple is allegedly banning Monster from making official iPhone accessories for suing Beats. Photo: Gadget Mac/Flickr CC
Apple is accused of corporate bullying after reportedly booting rival headphone maker Monster from its “Made for iPhone” accessory program.
Monster claims the move is in retaliation for an ongoing lawsuit against Beats, which is now owned by Apple. Monster was the original contract manufacturer of Beats-branded headphones. The move could seriously impact Monster’s headphone business.
Considering the headphone market is a $2 billion industry in the United States, there’s plenty of money to be lost without Apple’s support.
The iPhone photograph to beat this year. Photo: Michał Koralewski
Thanks to its constant improvements and the fact that we carry it around virtually everywhere we go, the iPhone has become our de facto camera over the past few years.
But while most of us use our iOS devices for little more than taking Facebook snaps, the annual IPP (iPhone Photography) Awards are a reminder of just how gorgeous our mobile pics can look.
A Bluetooth-enabled button lets you shoot pictures or record video. Photo: Grip Dat
Trying to hold your iPhone like you once did a camera can feel awkward. It’s not designed to fit the hands the same way. A selfie stick can free your hands, but can also get you thrown out of a lot of places.
A photographer has come up with a simple device to give you the grip you need with the shooting range of a selfie stick with no danger of impaling others around you.
Grip Dat is a handle with a tilting smartphone bracket. On the grip’s thumb rest is a Bluetooth-enabled shutter release. The gripper can take a quick selfie or detach the base from the grip to take in more of the scene to snap pictures or record video from as far away as 30 feet.
You can now turn your iPad keyboard into a trackpad. Photo: Apple
Apple unleashed a ton of new software features for iPad on developers this week with the release of iOS 9’s first beta, but not all the features were covered during the two hour keynote that kicked off WWDC, including the news that the iPad’s awesome new two finger trackpad gesture is also coming to iPhones too.
The new gesture allows iOS users to turn their keyboard into a trackpad by simply tapping it with two fingers. It’s going to make working on the iPad way easier, and let you move the cursor on the iPhone too.
Apple supplier Foxconn has come under fire over the last few years for its factories’ working conditions in China, but the company is now making plans to open up a new Apple plant in one of the world’s other booming nations: India.
Phil Schiller answers some of our biggest questions about Apple products. Photo: Apple
Why does the latest iPhone still ship with just 16GB of storage as standard? Why does the new MacBook have only one USB port? Why does Apple make devices thinner and thinner rather than adding bigger batteries?
At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco this week, marketing chief Phil Schiller sat down with The Talk Show to address some of these questions.
New features and improvements are coming to iOS 9. Photo: Apple
If you’re curious about the new changes coming to iOS 9 and you’ve got an Apple Developer account, you can head over and get the latest operating system for Apple’s mobile devices (iPhone and iPad) from the developer website.
You’ll need to register your iPhone or iPad with the Developer website, first, then download the new iOS 9 beta and install it. Here’s the breakdown of getting iOS 9 onto your iPhone or iPad, which is required if you want to try and install watchOS 2 beta for your Apple Watch.
New titles and responsibilities in management could reshape Apple. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
This week: We’ll tell you why the 2015 Worldwide Developers Conference may be one of the most mundane on record. Plus, Apple pretty much confirms Apple TV will be your home’s digital hub; Facebook’s an impenetrable fortress with too much power; and the tale of a Bay Area woman who unknowingly junked her $200,000 Apple-1 computer … whoopsie!
Our thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode. Learn virtually any application at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.
Apple's delay may mean no Pebble Time for iPhone users. Photo: Pebble
Pebble Watch fans have been absolutely freaking out on Twitter the last few days due to a delay with the Pebble Time app for iOS getting delayed in the App Store approval process.
After sitting in ‘pending approval’ since May 22nd, Pebble fans rallied around the #FreeOurPebbleTime hashtag to get their voices heard by Apple, but everyone can stop their whining, because the Pebble Time app for iPhone is finally available for download.
Apple's delay may mean no Pebble Time for iPhone users. Photo: Pebble
Pebble Time, the new smartwatch from the Kickstarter superstar, might be headed to wrists soon, but if you own an iPhone, you might be out of luck.
According to an email sent out to Time backers on Kickstarter, the version of the Pebble iOS software needed to connect and use Pebble’s newest iteration is still sitting in the gray no-man’s land of Apple approval; it’s been there for 43 days with no end in sight.
Will Beats redesign be ready for WWDC? Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
The redesign and relaunch of Beats Music is one of the most anticipated announcements Apple fans are expecting to hear about next week at WWDC. Apple spent $3 billion on Beats in an effort to take on the likes of Spotify and Pandora, but according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, all that effort won’t make Apple a ton of money.
Beats currently has about 300,000 paid subscribers while Spotify has 15 million. According to Munster’s math, even if Apple matched Spotify’s subscriber base the profits will be weak.
HBO made a splash with its streaming service HBO Now, and now its cheaper rival Showtime is ready to get in on the action too with its own streaming service that’s also launching exclusively with Apple.
Starting in July, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV users will be able to purchase a stand-alone subscription to Showtime through the Showtime app to stream all of the company’s original programming. It’s just like HBO Now, only a little bit cheaper.
Tim Cook meeting an iPhone manufacturer in China. Photo: Apple
Being an Apple manufacturer is a pretty lucrative market if you can get in on it, which is why it’s no surprise to hear that Apple’s existing partners are constantly fending off challenges from upstarts promising to do whatever they can do — only cheaper and better.
According to a new report, Japanese manufacturers are currently making a concerted effort to secure more orders from Apple, which currently deals mainly with companies based in Taiwan and China.
If the Japan-based companies do manage to muscle-in on the Apple supply chain, it could result in iPhone manufacturing becoming even more of an international affair than it already is, while also having a potentially massive impact on existing Chinese iPhone makers.
Apple has become the most valuable company in the world thanks to the incredible success of the iPhone. Over half a billion iPhones have been sold since the original was released in 2007, but do you ever wonder what the smartphone would look like had Apple made it back in 1984?
Pierre Cerveau reimagined Apple’s flagship product in his neat “Macintosh Phone Concept” that takes inspiration from one of Apple’s other killer products — the Macintosh 512k.
I can’t wait for the virtual reality future to finally go mainstream, but with company’s like Oculus talking about charging people over $1,500 for an entire Rift package, VR is virtually out of my price-range. Thankfully, Google is coming up with an easy-to-use VR solution that’s not only as cheap as a piece of cardboard, it works on Android and iOS too.
As one of the best Photoshop competitors on Mac and iPad, the superb photo editing tool Pixelmator is finally available for iPhone.
Promising to be more powerful than other iPhone image editing apps, Pixelmator’s universal app boasts support for layers, in-depth color adjustments, pro-level photo retouching, real-time photo warping, and even digital painting.
Evan likes to send malicious Unicode to co-workers. Screen: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac
Apple has confirmed the existence of the “Unicode of Death” security exploit in iMessages.
“We are aware of an iMessage issue caused by a specific series of unicode characters and we will make a fix available in a software update,” an Apple rep said today in an e-mail to Reuters.
Shoot super-crisp video at 60 FPS with your iPhone. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Clear, high definition video is all about a frame rate of 60 frames per second (fps).
Luckily, your iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus can shoot in this high-speed format that will smooth out your videos as well as make the results of your slo-motion editing a much more watchable experience.
If you want to set your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus up to shoot 60 fps video, here’s how to do it.
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