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50% of U.S. smartphones activated last quarter were iPhones

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The iPhone 6 dominated 2014. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
The iPhone 6 dominated 2014. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple enjoyed historic sales this holiday season, and while the company won’t reveal its official earnings until January 27th, based on the latest smartphone activation report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, Apple dominated the holiday shopping season and accounted for 50% of all smartphone activations in Q4 2014.

Tim Cook is likely to announce another record breaking quarter as Apple nearly doubled the number of activations of its closest competitor Samsung, which accounted for a modest 26% of the market.

Check out the surprising graph below:

If you punch a time card, you’ll love Shifts

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Shifts is a scheduling app for time card punchers. Photo: Shifts
Shifts is a scheduling app for time card punchers. Photo: Shifts

Not all of us work 9 to 5’s. My wife, for example, works all sorts of shifts, working around her school schedule: 8:30 – 5:30 one day, then 1:30 to 9:30 the next. And as a guy who spends the better part of each day glued to a computer just two rooms away from his bed, it can be pretty hard to keep track just when she’s working, and when I can next expect to see her.

Shifts is an app that solves all that. A calendar app specifically designed for people who either work retail jobs, or otherwise have constantly shifting work schedules, it’s an ingenious little app that makes managing your weekly shifts -— and keeping your partner informed of them — a snap.

China will screen all Apple products for NSA backdoor

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Apple is ready to explode in China. Photo: Apple
Apple is ready to explode in China. Photo: Apple

Apple has agreed to accept the Chinese government’s demands to run network safety evaluations on all Apple products before they can be imported into the country.

Tim Cook met with the country’s Internet and Information office last December to discuss Apple’s plans in China, and has since consented to the government’s demands that they be allowed screen products for the fabled NSA backdoor. According to a spokesperson who was also present at the meeting, Cook has assured Chinese officials that Apple will fully cooperate with the governments wishes to have products inspected for security concerns.

The states with the most iPhone users will surprise you

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Ericsson wants to stop Apple selling iPhones in the United States. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
How many iPhone users are in your state? Photo: Jim Merithew

Do you think your state has a lot of iPhone users? You might be surprised to learn that you’re right – if you live in Alaska, Montana, or Vermont.

This surprising result comes from a survey conducted by mobile advertising firm Chitika, who wanted to quantify the level of iPhone usage on a state-by-state basis.

While the data doesn’t show much correlation with geographic or raw population figures, the survey did figure out that the three states had the highest percentage of iPhone users, with 65, 60 and 59 percent respectively.

You can now use WhatsApp on your Mac, but there’s a catch

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You can now use WhatsApp on your Mac, but there's a catch. Photo: Cult of Mac
You can now use WhatsApp on your Mac, but there's a catch. Photo: Cult of Mac

WhatsApp is a great alternative to iMessage, except in one regard: iMessage lets you send messages from your Mac. That means if you hate tapping in text messages on a touchscreen, you can use your keyboard instead.

But that’s changed. The long-awaited ability to use WhatsApp on your Mac has finally arrived. But there’s a caveat: It only works if you don’t have an iPhone.

Is there an iPhone storage crunch coming? These stats say yes.

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There's an iPhone storage crunch coming. Chart: Give Me Ice Cream
There's an iPhone storage crunch coming. Chart: I Love IceCream

Apple’s refusal to upgrade the cheapest iPhone to 16GB could be leading to a crisis, and these stats just might prove it.

When the iPhone 6 came out, Apple (un)pleasantly surprised everyone by only upgrading two of the three storage options: While the baseline iPhone 6 stayed at a meager 16GB of storage, the middle and high-end storage options were upgraded to 64GB and 128GB respectively.

Blind get sight on demand with new iPhone app

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A blind person gets assistance from a sighted volunteer to check the expiration date on milk. Photo: Be My Eyes
A blind person gets assistance from a sighted volunteer to check the expiration date on milk. Photo: Be My Eyes

Karen Koch Rasmussen navigates life just fine without sight. Developing systems to identify the tangibles in life come to her naturally, from how to stock her canned goods to labeling her music collection so she can listen to which ever genre strikes her.

She even has a strategy for when there’s a glitch in her systems, like when a canned item goes in the wrong place. If she grabs tomatoes instead of beans, she may adjust her recipe and roll with the inconvenience.

So when an iPhone app to assist the blind came into her life, thus offering a solution to those occasional challenges, Rasmussen, 26, didn’t quite know how to use a set of eyes that were easily at her disposal.

“I’ve been blind since birth so you learn to get along without seeing,” said Rasmussen, a graduate student in political science in Aarhus, Denmark. “I’m not use to having the opportunity so I would forget there is a solution.”

Astounding GIF shows just how far the iPhone has come in 8 years

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The iPhone recently celebrated its eighth birthday, and what better way to mark the occasion than with a mesmerizing animated GIF — showing the evolution of Apple’s mobile handset from the revolutionary but (now) small and slightly bulky device Steve Jobs unveiled in 2007, to the landmark iPhone 6 which racked up more than 10 million sales in its first weekend alone?

If you’re a long-time iPhone fan, or a relatively new user, it’s an astounding glimpse at just how far we’ve come in just a handful of iPhone iterations. To paraphrase The Simpsons, it’s hypnotic… almost like watching a lava lamp.

This app turns your iPhone into a disposable camera

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More than a trillion photos were captured in 2015.
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.

RIP Apple: Analyst predicts doom after Apple Watch

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Apple hell. Like a hot Samsung retail store. Photo: GDS-Productions/Flickr
Up in flames: Is this what Apple will look like by the end of 2015? Photo: GDS-Productions/Flickr

You know that scene in a horror movie where everything seems to be good, but things are just a bit too quiet?

Well, according to analyst Abhey Lamba of Mizuho Securities, Apple is there right now. With the company coming off its most profitable iPhone launch ever, exciting new devices on the horizon and a stock price that recently hit an all-time high, what else is there for the self-respecting analyst to do but predict that doom is right around the corner?

What is the metaphorical monster ready to leap out of a cupboard and savage Apple to bloody death, so soon after it hits its glorious peak? Why, the Apple Watch of course.

And according to Lamba, it could cost Apple big.

How Apple could hide a gaming joystick in future iPhones

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Coming soon to your iPhone Home button? Photo: Duncan C/Flickr CC
Coming soon to your iPhone Home button? Photo: Duncan C/Flickr CC

I’ve written on numerous occasions before about how we’re currently living through a golden age of iOS games, and apparently Apple agrees with me.

According to a new patent application published today, Apple may be investigating the possibility of building in a miniature joystick inside the Home button of future iOS devices.

Read on to find out how it could work.

Meet the artist who creates surreal masterpieces with his iPhone

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A brilliant white lightning bolt strikes the Eiffel Tower in Paris. In Venice, Italy, a whale splashes joyfully through a street system made up of canals. In New York, an elephant is lifted high into the sky by a mass of colored helium balloons.

These may sound like the most fanciful of cheese dreams, but they are, in fact, the work of a fantastic artist double-act: German-born Robert Jahns and his iPhone.

Using his iPhone to assemble his surreal masterpieces, and then posting the resulting pictures to Instagram under the name nois7, Jahns is taking the art world by storm. And like many contemporary artists, he couldn’t have done it without his trusty Apple device.

BlackBerry gets caught tweeting from an iPhone

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blackberry
Even Blackberry prefers iPhone. Photo: The Verge

BlackBerry isn’t quite dead yet, but don’t tell that to the person running their Twitter account.

The classic BlackBerry keyboard is great for pounding out 140-character tweets, yet whoever is tweeting from @BlackBerry was spotted using an iPhone to implore the brand’s few faithful remaining fans to keep up with the BlackBerry conversation on Twitter.

Apple just patented a wearable camera that’s better than GoPro

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gopro
GoPro shares have dropped 42 percent since hitting an all-time high in October. Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

Shares of GoPro stock plummeted as much as 15% this afternoon after it was announced that Apple was awarded a patent that could put the wearable camera company in serious trouble.

Apple was granted a series of 34 patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today relating to a camera system that can be mounted to helmets and scuba masks and controlled remotely. That patent specifically mentions weaknesses in GoPro’s system, which has sent investors worrying that Apple is aiming to crush the sports camera giant.

Here’s how Apple should reinvent the address book

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There's got to be a better way. Photo: Frank Costa
There's got to be a better way. Photo: Frank Costa

The address book is outdated. On the iPhone, while most of my contacts reside in the Contacts app, I rarely go in there. Instead, I connect with people on Facebook, via SnapChat, WhatsApp and more.

Product designer Frank Costa feels the same way, but he went one step further than simply banishing the Contacts app to an unused folder on his Home screen and designed this address book replacement concept, something he calls an Invisible Address Book.

While having a list of phone numbers might be silly, he says, there is benefit to having information about the people we contact frequently in one place.

“Therefore, as a design exercise,” writes Costa on Medium, “I elaborated on a couple of ideas to turn that seemingly static list of people into a slightly more ambitious project.”

5 new iOS games you should play right now

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You'll want to take a break from work with these amazing iOS games. Photo: Stephen Smith
You'll want to take a break from work with these amazing iOS games. Photo: Stephen Smith

There are tons of new games out every week, and it’s hard to decide which ones to purchase, let alone which free games to download. We’re here to take some of the guesswork out of your decision, though, as we’ve scoured the best games that have come out so far this year.

From time wasters to deep strategic gems, this list will have you gaming in no time. Grab your copy of these five great –and brand-spankin’ new — gaming experiences today and you can thank us later.

An idiot’s guide to smuggling iPhones into China

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Customs officials in China caught this man trying to smuggle 94 iPhones into the country. Photo: Sina News
Customs officials in China caught this man trying to smuggle 94 iPhones into the country. Photo: Sina News

You don’t need a smartphone app to tell you that taping dozens of iPhones to your body might set off alarms.

So it’s hard to know what a Hong Kong man was thinking when he tried to walk through a metal detector at Fultan Port in China with 94 iPhones taped to his chest, stomach and legs.

Actually, customs officials were suspicious before he got to the metal detector. After a check of two plastic shopping bags he was carrying, officers directed him towards and metal detector and noticed his “weird walking posture, joint stiffness (and) muscle tension.”

Wireless flash brings iPhone photography out of dark ages

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Knog video light. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Knog's nine-LED Expose remote flash will light up your iPhone photos and video. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Photo:

LAS VEGAS — The iPhone is the most popular camera in the world. But it still sucks at flash photography.

Cult_of_Mac_CES_2015 Knog, the Austrialian company that makes those kickass bike lights, wants to make your nighttime iPhone pics a little bit better this year: Its newest lighting revelation is called Expose, and it’s a super-handy iPhone flash that’s also super-bright.

Expose is bright in more ways than one. Its accompanying iPhone app lets users blast light in photo and video modes, with flash, strobe or continuous settings. You can adjust the white balance and brightness, and the device weighs so little you’ll barely notice it’s in your pocket.

Steve Jobs gave the iPhone its grand unveiling 8 years ago today

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Photo of Steve Jobs holding an iPhone in front of an Apple logo during the first iPhone demo on January 9, 2007.
Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone 8 years ago today.
Photo: Apple

The iPhone has become such a major part of our existence, a piece of technology that we almost take for granted, that it’s difficult to remember a time when we were instead tapping away at our Moto Q, Palm Treo and Nokia E62 handsets.

But while the iPhone has gone on to revolutionize our lives (and Apple’s business) it’s not that long ago — eight years today — that Steve Jobs stood on stage at MacWorld 2007, and told the world that Apple had created a touchscreen iPod, a cell phone, and a breakthrough Internet device all-in-one.

Coming off its most profitable holiday season ever, and a record-breaking week for the App Store, it’s worth taking a moment to rewatch Jobs’ first iPhone presentation: both to see an iconic moment in tech history, and to be reminded of how far we’ve come since then!

Check it out after the jump:

Yes, there is such a thing as iPhone separation anxiety

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iPhone camera
Do you feel nervous when you're away from your iPhone? Photo: Cult of Mac
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

With the exception that most of us don’t routinely change our wives or husbands every couple of years for a newer, slimmer model, owning an iPhone can be a lot like being in a relationship.

And just like any relationship, time apart can lead to separation anxiety and other negative psychological effects.

A new study carried out by researchers from the University of Missouri suggests that iPhone users should avoid being parted from their iPhones during daily situations requiring large amounts of attention — such as taking tests, sitting in meetings, or carrying out important work assignments.

Apple’s next iPhones could have all-new OLED displays

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Foxconn
Foxconn's relationship with Apple may be set to become even closer. Photo: Apple
Photo: Apple

Foxconn’s new $2.6 billion factory dedicated to building displays exclusively for Apple will supply OLED panels for future iPhones and wearables, according to a report from leading Japanese newspaper Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun.

Long-time Apple manufacturer Foxconn is supposedly working with touch panel company InnoLux to put together an ecosystem, allowing it to produce sixth-gen low temperature poly-silicon films, aimed at entering mass production in 2016.

No one on The Price Is Right knows what an iPhone costs

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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.

Apple increases Dev Program membership prices in Europe

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You now have to pay more to become an App Store developer. Photo: Apple
You now have to pay more to become an App Store developer. Photo: Apple

Apple has today increased the annual subscription cost of its Mac and iOS Developer Programs in several countries across Europe. While the prices remain the same at $99 in the U.S., Europeans can now expect to pay anything from $96 to $121, depending on where they live.