iOS 9 adoption is starting to slow down. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
What does my performance in the gym have in common with iOS 9 adoption? Apparently the fact that both start strong, get a bit overconfident, and then run out of steam far too quickly.
That’s according to Apple’s latest developer figures, at least, which show that roughly 67 percent of eligible iOS users are currently upgraded to the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system.
Summary: Current-gen iPad mini with a $125 gift card, iPhone 6s and $250 gift card for $0, and more. Just avoid the Apple Store.
Despite Apple turning in bland Black Friday offerings year after year, the company’s products do see some crazy-good discounts this season. We’ve combed through all the available ads and hand-selected the very best of what you can expect to find this month.
If you are going to brave the store to try and get these deals, be warned: Apple deals disappear fast, so don’t get distracted. Once you’re inside or online, head straight to the Apple section.
Chicago could be about to get the most stunning Apple Store yet. Photo: Foster + Partners
Stunning new renderings, depicting the rumored Chicago Apple Store at the gateway to the city’s North Michigan Avenue shopping district, have appeared online, obtained by the Chicago Tribune.
Apple Pencil has been one of the most-praised features of the iPad Pro. Photo: iPad
Given that Apple Pencil critics love to whip out Steve Jobs’ quote about how, “If you see a stylus [on the iPad], they blew it,” it was always going to take a require a good reason for Apple to adopt the stylus, as it did for the iPad Pro.
In a new interview for design journal Wallpaper, Jony Ive lays out some of his thought process on the decision — which, from the sound of things, Apple didn’t exactly take lightly.
Point your phone at a LifePrint print and watch the moment in motion. Photo: LifePrint
The newspaper that covers the wizarding world of Harry Potter publishes photos that move on the page. For us Muggles, there’s LifePrint, a pocket-sized printer that brings a similar magical to our still photos.
The LifePrint device lets you embed a video inside a printed photograph, using augmented reality and requiring the viewer to point their smartphone at the picture to bring it to life.
Your new Apple product can show up in as little as two hours. Photo: Simone Lovati/Flickr CC
You’re just so excited for your new Apple TV that you can’t wait until tomorrow to get it, can you? That’s why Apple has teamed up with Postmates to bring same-day delivery of its wide range of products and accessories to a new market: New York City.
Hopefully email will start to suck less on more devices. Photo: Readdle
Readdle’s beloved Spark email app for iPhone and Apple Watch is also coming to the iPad and Mac. A spokesperson for the company confirmed that development is underway for the apps in an email to Cult of Mac. The iPad version will likely make its debut next month in December, while a Mac version is a little further down in the pipeline since it’s only currently in the planning stages.
TL:DR: Whatever you do, don’t shop the Apple Store sale.
While some Apple fans may think the only way to purchase iDevices is at full price, the truth is that the majority of Apple products will see various discounts, especially on Black Friday.
The trick is knowing where to look. In previous years, Apple authorized resellers have undercut Apple on Black Friday by as much as 13%, and this year will be no different. So before you spend a dime at the Apple Store, check out our Black Friday predictions to find out how you can get Cupertino’s tech at a fraction of the cost this year.
The Kanga Hoodie contains the biggest pocket you've ever seen. Photo: KickShark
The appropriately named Kanga Hoodie drops the recent trend of fitting as many little pockets as we can into everything in favor of one huge pocket that goes all the way around your body.
The project is looking for some cash from crowdfunding site Kickstarter to finish production, and it’s looking to do some good in the process.
The attendees of the Glance conference are interested in what makes the Apple Watch tick. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
An upcoming summit aims to get to the bottom of what is going on with the Apple Watch.
The Glance conference, which describes itself as “the first conference on the business of Apple Watch” is going down in San Francisco next month. It will bring venture capitalists and industry insiders together to try to figure out the wearable.
Apple TV might get exclusive TV shows. Photo: Apple
The new Apple TV is all about apps and games, so it makes sense that there are five new ads from Apple on its YouTube channel that are all about specific games and apps.
Check out the videos below for streaming media apps like Netflix and HBO, along with a trio of gaming titles, including Apple TV ads for Asphalt 8 from Gameloft, mega-hit casual Crossy Road from Hipster Whale, and Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition: Star Wars from the House of Mouse.
The LockSmart has no key or combo. Just be sure to have the proper app on your smartphone before you lock up your things. Photo: Dog & Bone
Buy a shiny new padlock and hold in your hand something that hasn’t changed much since the Romans used them 500 years before Christ. The ubiquitous lock has a u-shaped shackle that connects to a body containing a mechanism that locks and unlocks with a key or combination wheel.
Keys get lost and combination codes forgotten so the company Dog & Bone put its own stamp on the padlock, or actually, your stamp, by creating a smart lock that is controlled by an app on your smartphone.
El Capitan's latest beta has arrived. Photo: Apple
Apple has seeded the fourth beta of OS X El Capitan 10.11.2 to developers and public beta testers today.
The new beta build 15C47a comes one week after the previous beta was released, which could signify that Apple’s close to completing a final version of the update, after releasing its last OS X update (10.11.1) to the public a month ago.
This official Apple Watch dock is coming soon. Photo: Grobgebloggt
Apple is getting ready to release an official Apple Watch dock, according two leaks that have revealed the upcoming device’s packaging and design.
Pictures of the new dock published by a German Apple fan site reveal Apple’s charging solution will simply be called the “Magnetic Charging Dock.” It is circular in shape, comes with two different charging orientation, and features tons of Apple simplicity.
The new iPad mini is more affordable when you sell your old one. Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac
Apple slapped the Pro tag on the gigantic new iPad Pro, which should mean it packs the best display ever, but it turns out that the company’s smallest tablet display is actually the most impressive.
DisplayMate Technologies put the iPad Pro, iPad mini 4, and iPad Air 2 through their extensive lab testing measurements. All three iPad displays were rated ‘unrivaled’ by the firm, but the iPad mini 4 came away triumphant in nearly all of the tests.
There's money to be made in iPhones. In case you didn't know. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Ever wanted to see a chart depicting Apple’s perilous decline from the moment Tim Cook took over as CEO until now? Well, you’ll just have to keep on looking, because this particular infographic shows nothing of the sort.
Instead, this spectacular infographic visualizes the year-on-year growth of Apple’s iPhone business, from a “puny” 1.36 million units in 2007 to a whopping 231.22 million this year. Check it out below.
Apple wants to move its Indian business way beyond iPhones. Photo: Tim Cook/Twitter
Apple is targeting the corporate world in India in an effort to try and grow its business there, according to a new report.
With a population of 1.252 billion, it’s no secret that Tim Cook and Apple why desperately love to get a foothold in the country. This year alone, Tim Cook has met with the Indian prime minister, and come to an arrangement about official Apple Stores in India, alongside launching the Apple Watch and iPhone 6s.
However, getting into businesses in India would be another string to Apple’s bow.
Apple Pay is continuing its worldwide rollout. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Apple Pay launches in Canada today — making the country of Tim Hortons, hockey and maple syrup the third place in the world to receive Apple’s mobile payments technology, following the U.S. and United Kingdom.
Apple has also announced that the service is set to launch in Australia later this week, although a specific day has not been confirmed.
There have been plenty of reports about a possible new 4-inch iPhone in the works. A new report, however, claims that the device is essentially an “iPhone 5s Mark II,” and even runs through the supposed internal components of the handset.
Best of all, it’s reportedly ready for production and can be shipped any time from now.
The emoji on letter "H" is your word of the year. Seriously. Photo: EmojiWorks
Oxford Dictionaries has named its pick for Word of the Year — and it’s less a pick than a pic. That’s right: out of all the newly popular “words” to capture the “ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015,” the winning choice is 😂, a.k.a. the “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji. However, while some emojis dominate online conversations, others are barely ever used. If you’ve ever wondered what is the most unused emoji, there’s data that reveals which ones are at the bottom of the popularity list.
Sign of the changing times, or a desperate attempt for Oxford Dictionaries to stay relevant? You decide.
Apple Pay is growing rapidly in the U.K. Photo: Apple
Two more banks in the U.K. have hopped on the Apple Pay bandwagon, just in time for the holiday shopping season — with both TSB and Tesco Bank confirming that they now offer Apple Pay support for their payment cards.
Siri's ability to recognize different voices could be big for technology like Apple TV. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
As Apple rolls out Siri beyond the iPhone and into shared devices like the iPad and, most recently, Apple TV, Cupertino’s engineers have been working on a way of letting its voice activation technology pick up individual users, and offer them customized options based on their past preferences.
Published today as the patent “User profiling for voice input processing,” the technology would allow Apple to make better use of Siri (and voice recognition in general) as it moves into new fields like home automation and vehicles.
Surreal and menacing, the best of PKD. Photo: Californium Game
Californium is an upcoming first-person game inspired by science fiction author Philip K. Dick. It seems to be about a writer who “slips” between different realities as his life falls apart.
It looks amazing, and more than a bit creepy. Check it out:
Apple Maps and Foursquare have teamed up. Photo: Apple
Foursquare is now contributing “business listings data” to Apple Maps. Since the launch of Maps, Apple vowed to collect data from multiple sources to improve the service over time, and is living up to that promise with this new addition.
FingerAngle could change the way we interact with touchscreens. Photo: Qeexo
Your iPhone can now distinguish between a light tap and a hard press thanks to 3D Touch, but the geniuses at a Carnegie Mellon University spinoff called Qeexo have found a way to one-up the iPhone 6s display with some new software that can determine the exact angle of your finger as you tap.
Qeexo’s researchers created ‘FingerAngle’ by using a new algorithm that estimates the direction your finger is pointing along with the angle as it makes contact. FingerAngle also keeps track of the rotation of your finger while it’s making contact.
The new tech could especially useful on small smartwatch touchscreens where pinching and pulling on the display isn’t really practical. Best of all, it doesn’t require any extra hardware and could implemented on Android and iOS with a software update.