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News - page 1026

Instagram thinks it knows which pictures you want to see

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iPhone home screen instagram facebook twitter by LoboStudioHamburg
Instagram is getting even cozier with Twitter and Facebook.
Photo: LoboStudioHamburg/Pixabay. Licensed under CC0 1.0

The latest Internet outrage upon us: Instagram is killing chronological order.

The photo-sharing platform announced the change today in a blog post and says that the update will let you users “see the moments they care about first.” Reaction to the news is predictably negative, considering that time has served us well as a measurement of change so far, and users don’t see any compelling reason to change that now.

Ive says Apple Watch is a fashion system, not a product

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Apple Watch is a killer device, even without a
Apple Watch is a killer device, even without a "killer app."
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple Watch was never designed to be a singular product, according to Jony Ive, but a whole fashionable system in its own right. Not just in a functional sense, either, as part of an Apple tech ecosystem.

In an interview with Mashable’s Christina Warren, Ive points out the form that enriches the Apple Watch function.

“I think we found that by being able to change the strap,” said Ive, “not just change the color but the design — and the designs change profoundly — that we could start to introduce a new look in combination with different watch faces and user interfaces.”

Apple accuses FBI of using All Writs Act like ‘magic wand’

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Bruce Sewell
Apple's legal team has lobbed its latest response at FBI.
Photo: House Committee on the Judiciary Hearings

Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell said the FBI threw “all decorum to the winds” in its latest federal court filing, but in the company’s official response today it has vowed it does not “intend to response in kind.”

The iPhone-maker says in its latest filing that the FBI’s claim that it exhausted all viable investigative alternatives is false because it improperly reset the iCloud password before consulting Apple. The company also admits that it didn’t take a public stance on privacy and encryption until the release of iOS 8.

Google is pushing to encrypt more of its services

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google-is-pushing-to-encrypt-more-of-its-services-image-cultofandroidcomwp-contentuploads201511star-wars-humour-the-droids-were-looking-for-stormtroopers-use-google-search-jpg
Google is finding increasingly effective ways to keep its data secure.
Photo: David J. Roger

The latest Google Transparency Report shows that since January 23, 77 percent of all requests to its servers have used encrypted connections.

The numbers on the new report are current as of February 27, and the company says it’s “working hard” to achieve full encryption across all of its services.

14 weird and wonderful gowns from Apple’s fashion exhibit

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This 3D printed dress will be part of Apple's Manus x Machina exhibition.
This 3D printed dress will be part of Apple's Manus x Machina exhibition.
Photo: Nicholas Alan Cope/The Met

Apple’s upcoming fashion exhibition at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art is set to open in May, but if you can’t make it to the Big Apple to see which designer pieces Jony Ive and Co. hand-picked as examples for how technological advancements have altered fashion, the museum has given a sneak peek at some of the weird and wonderful gowns that will be on display.

The exhibit will feature over 100 pieces made from the 1880’s up to 2015, including gowns from icons like Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Dior, Miuccia Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, and more.

Take a look at some of the pieces coming to the Manus x Machina exhibit:

Ex-NSA lawyer uses tacky metaphor to slam Apple

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iPhone rain by Dariusz-Sankowski
Ex-NSA counsel Stewart Baker rained on Apple at SXSW this week.
Photo: Dariusz Sanksowski/Pixabay. Licensed via CC0 1.0.

Commentary on the encryption battle between Apple and the U.S. government might have received its strangest metaphor yet.

Stewart Baker, who used to serve as a counsel for the National Security Agency, appeared on a panel at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin this week. During the discussion, he said that Apple’s current, outspoken position in favor of privacy is a recent development and compared it to the sort of PR-driven whitewashing that Hollywood studios have used to promote actresses as “innocent” and “pure.”

“Who remembers Tim Cook before he was a virgin?” Baker said, paraphrasing composer Oscar Levant’s barb at ’60s everygirl Doris Day.

It got a little less polite from there.

Woz reveals formative moment that turned him into a geek

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wozniak
Woz has the magic touch with computers.
Photo: Reddit

Before Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple Computers, he was just a super-nerdy kid who loved to operate HAM radios. In a new video interview detailing the most formative moments in his totally geeky life, Woz explains how he went from tinkering with electronics to teaching himself binary by 5th grade, and then made a machine that played tic-tac-toe in 6th grade.

Woz eventually got so good with machines that he could design a mini-computer in two days. Those skills led to his creation of the Apple II computer, which put his and Steve Jobs’ fledgling company on the map.

Watch as Woz recounts his childhood obsession with computers, during the humble beginnings of Silicon Valley, below:

New Android app design guidelines ripped from iOS playbook

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More of your Android apps are going to look like this.
More of your Android apps are going to look like this.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
More of your Android apps are going to look like this. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
More of your Android apps are going to look like this. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Your Android apps are going to get an iOS-style makeover soon, thanks to new design guidelines from Google.

Mostly concerned with the bottom of Android apps, Google is looking to have its developers place a bar across the bottom of their apps that will let users navigate between different sections of the app, just like iOS currently does.

The seventh OS X 10.11.4 beta is here

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el-capitan-beta
New El Capitan beta is here.
Photo: Apple

Apple is not quite done tinkering with OS X 10.11.4 before its public release.

The company seeded the seventh beta of OS X 10.11.4 to developers this morning, a little over a week after Apple released the last beta for the desktop operating system.

This could be our first look at the iPhone 7

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"Leaked" iPhone 7 with Smart Connector (left) and iPhone 6s.
Photo: Bastille Post

The iPhone 7 may come with a Smart Connector if photos of what appears to be an early iPhone 7 Plus unit can be believed.

Photos of the alleged iPhone 7, leaked by a Chinese website, show Apple integrating a dual-lens camera into the design of the rear case. If the case is accurate, it looks like Apple won’t be ditching its protruding camera lens this year.

Letterboxd app turns movie tracking into a social network

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letterboxd-app
A great way to track your movie watching.
Photo: Letterboxd

If you’re a movie fan, you may well have visited the website Letterboxd at some point — giving you a fun way of tracking your movie-watching, built around a neat social network premise.

Today Letterboxd finally got around to launching its official mobile app, bringing the service to iPhones everywhere. Trust us, if you’re a cinema lover, this is a “must download!”

Samsung’s answer to iPhone SE to be just as powerful as Galaxy S7

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samsungs-answer-to-iphone-se-to-be-just-as-powerful-as-galaxy-s7-image-cultofandroidcomwp-contentuploads201603Galaxy-S7-close-up-front-jpg
Samsung's Galaxy S7 mini could be pretty special.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android
Galaxy S7 gold front
Samsung’s Galaxy S7 mini could be pretty special. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android

Samsung is already developing a Galaxy S7 mini that will go head-to-head with Apple’s upcoming iPhone SE, according to a new report — and it won’t be a disappointing version of its latest flagship like previous iterations of the Galaxy S mini series have been.

Instead, the new device is expected to pack exactly the same processor — and exactly the same punch — as its bigger brother.

Apple Music is about to become the music service for EDM fans

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Tired of Apple Music's playlists? Try something even more indie.
Apple Music is taking a big leap forward.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

If you’re a fan of EDM (that’s “electronic dance music” for the older Cult of Mac readers out there!), Apple Music is about to become your best option for streaming music — courtesy of a new deal Apple has signed that will let it bring thousands of rare DJ mash-ups, remixes, and mixtapes to its subscription music service.

Apple Car may ship in 2021, with a price tag of $75,000

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Apple car concept art shows what Cupertino might put on the road.
Coming soon?
Photo: Aristomenis Tsirbas/Freelancer

At $17k, the Apple Watch Edition is currently the most expensive product Apple sells.

But according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, that record is likely to be obliterated when the Apple Car finally ships — since his projected price tag of “around $75,000” would put it at around four-and-a-half times the cost of Apple’s high-end wearable. Or the equivalent of 100 brand new iPhones 6s handsets.

Apple will defend its tax deals against E.U. this week

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money
Apple's tax investigations are continuing.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple will join multinationals Google, McDonald’s and IKEA in defending its European tax deals against E.U. lawmakers this Wednesday.

The hearing concerns whether or not giants like Apple are receiving illegally favorable tax deals, which give them an unfair advantage over local businesses.

Apple Watch knows a heart attack when it sees one

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Apple Watch by fancycrave1
Nobody's made a "You Are Dying" app yet, so we'll have to keep checking manually.
Photo: fancycrave1/Pixabay. Licensed through CC0 1.0

If you’re not feeling great, it may not hurt to take a quick look at your Apple Watch. In fact, it saved one builder’s life.

62-year-old Dennis Anselmo was working last August when he suddenly “felt all over the place.” While taking a break, he checked his heart rate on his recently purchased wearable and got some pretty alarming news.

Photos of alleged iPhone 7 dual-lens camera sensor leak

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Got a new iPhone? Set it up right.
iPhone 7 might have to cameras in the back
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

The first images of what could be the iPhone 7’s dual-lens camera leaked online today, giving fans a possible sneak peek at the future of iPhotography.

Apple is rumored to be including a dual-lens camera sensor on at least the iPhone 7 Plus. If the leaked sensor shown below is the real deal, it appears that one lens will be wider than the other to provide optical zooming.

Check it out:

Apple seeds yet another iOS 9.3 beta

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ios-9-3-notes
IOS 9.3.2 beta 2 is here.
Photo: Apple

It seems like iOS 9.3 has been in beta for years now, but Apple isn’t quite done fine-tuning its biggest software update of the year.

Apple released iOS 9.3 beta 7 to developers this afternoon, exactly a week after the last version was seeded to devs and public testers. iOS 9.3 adds new features such as Night Shift mode, multiple Apple Watch pairings on one iPhone, improved Apple News and Apple Music apps, and some great education features for iPad.

Developers can grab the new beta directly from the Apple Developer Center portal or via an over-the-air update if you have the previous beta installed.

Here’s a roundup of the new features to expect:

Counterterrorism expert says FBI isn’t being honest about iPhone hacking

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Your iPhone will always need to be recharged everyday.
The FBI isn't really trying to unlock the San Bernardino terrorist's iPhone.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The guy that warned George Bush about an imminent al-Qaida attack before 9/11 is taking Apple’s side in the company’s fight against the FBI over whether it can be compelled to break into the San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone.

Richard Clarke, who served as the senior counterterrorism official in the US for nine years, sat down for an interview this morning regarding encryption and the FBI’s efforts to hack the iPhone. Despite FBI Director James Comey’s insistence that the FBI has tried everything, Clarke says all it would take to hack the device is a call to Fort Meade.

Make your app look badass with free trial of Adobe XD

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Get prototyping right on your Mac, for free.
Get prototyping right on your Mac, for free.
Photo: Adobe

If you’ve been itching to design the next big app in your spare time, Adobe’s just made it easier with a free trial of its user interface (UI) design tool, Experience Design (XD) CC for Mac.

Previously known as Project Comet, Adobe XD is a full-fledged design tool that lets you prototype mobile or web apps fast, and you can download a free preview right now.

Jony Ive talks Steve Jobs, design and how Apple can stay hungry

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Jony Ive holds court.
Photo: Charlie Rose

Charlie Rose has become Apple’s go-to guy when it comes to mainstream media interviews, and he recently scored an exclusive conversation with none other than Apple’s design god, Jony Ive.

In a leisurely chat lasting more than half an hour, Rose asks about Ive’s relationship with Steve Jobs, the qualities Apple looks for in a would-be designer, the reason Ive doesn’t fear Apple losing its edge, and much, much more.

Check it out below.