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News - page 1090

Your iPhone is the key to this smart padlock

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The LockSmart has no key or combo. Just be sure to have the proper app on your smartphone before you lock up your things.
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.

OS X 10.11.2 beta 4 is now available to developers and public testers

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OS X El Capitan Safari Notes
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.

Apple’s making its own Apple Watch charging dock

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This official Apple Watch dock is coming soon.
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.

Take a look:

Surprise! iPad mini 4 destroys iPad Pro in display shootout

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iPad mini
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.

The astonishing rise of iPhone sales in one amazing chart

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Apple raked in the cash last quarter.
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 is bullish on growing its enterprise business in India

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India
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 goes live in Canada, coming soon to Australia

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Apple in talks to bring Apple Pay to Israel
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.

Apple could sell an updated iPhone 5s with better internals

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iphone 5s
Apple's next handset?
Photo: Apple

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.

So long language! An emoji is named ‘Word of the Year’

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This keyboard from EmojiWorks is a quicker way to express your feelings via emoji.
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.

Future Siri could switch user profiles based on voice

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Play classic arcade games right on your Apple TV.
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.

This cool touchscreen tech can tell the angle your finger is pointing

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FingerAngle could change the way we interact with touchscreens.
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.

Check out the full demo:

This spliff-holding iPhone case is anything but half-baked

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This iPhone case does doobie duty with a slide-out compartment for your stash.
This iPhone case does doobie duty with a slide-out compartment for your stash.
Photo: Richard Williams/YouTube

A good iPhone case protects your handset from the blunt force of a fall. Then there’s the case that protects the force of your blunts.

The iHit is a case for the iPhone 6 and 6s with a slide out odor-free compartment that can stash up to five pre-rolled marijuana cigarettes. It is the latest evolution of the iHit case, which started with a case for the iPhone 5 that had a spring-loaded chamber for a single joint.

Germany investigating Apple’s audiobook deal with Amazon

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Apple raked in the cash last quarter.
Apple has another antitrust investigation underway.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple’s just gotten to the end of its long and convoluted eBooks antitrust case, and now Germany’s Federal Cartel Office is reportedly investigating the company’s agreement with Amazon for purchasing audiobooks.

Apple and Amazon are said to have a long-term agreement in place for purchasing audio books from Amazon’s Audible company to distribute via the iTunes store. The terms of the deal haven’t been made clear.

Yo, Tim Cook hates the idea of a Mac/iPad hybrid

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Tim Cook
Tim Cook was an outspoken Hillary supporter.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

If you feel like it’s a matter of time before the iPad and MacBook become one and the same device, similar to the Microsoft Surface, there’s at least one person in the know who will tell you you’re wrong: Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Wozniak: I don’t like being trapped in Apple’s ecosystem

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The Woz tells it like it is.
Woz remains as independent as ever.
Photo: Universal Pictures

Despite still technically being an Apple employee, Steve Wozniak isn’t known for voicing the Cupertino official line when asked about recent iDevelopments.

Speaking at a recent conference, hosted by enterprise software firm New Relic, Woz chimed in about his thoughts on the Apple ecosystem, Tim Cook’s belief that the iPad Pro could replace your need for a MacBook, and the Apple Watch — which he’s previously expressed his skepticism of.

4-inch iPhone 6c tipped for release in mid-2016

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Is the 4-inch iPhone coming or not?
Is the 4-inch iPhone 6c ever coming? Hopefully so.
Photo: ModMyI

A 4-inch iPhone 6c is rapidly becoming the iPhone equivalent to the Sasquatch — something much discussed, but never actually witnessed.

However, according to China’s IHS Technology Research Director Kevin Wang, we should keep faith because this mythical device is really on the way — and will be with customers by the middle of next year.

Firefox for iOS, YouTube Music, and other awesome apps of the week

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appsoftheweek_1024
Having an 'appy weekend?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The weekend may be halfway over, but you know what isn’t? The imagination of app developers.

This week’s collection of awesome apps encompasses everything from new web browsers for your iOS device, to a great new music app, to two spectacular games. Check below for our picks of the most noteworthy downloadables of the past seven days.

You won’t regret it for a second!

How to fix the Watch Sport in version 2 (Hint: GPS and Nike integration)

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Concept mockup: will Apple Watch 2 focus on runners needs?
Concept mockup: will Apple Watch 2 focus on runners needs?
Photo: Graham Bower / Cult of Mac

Rumor has it that Apple Watch will get an update next year. There is already plenty of speculation about what cool new features Cupertino will add.

Personally, I’m hoping that the new watch will focus on fitness, so I’ve created a mockup concept to show what I’d like to see in the next generation of Apple Watch. I call it the Apple Watch GPS, Nike edition.