The days of iPhone sales growing year after year could be over with the iPhone 6s, claims an investment advisor for KGI — citing a stalling smartphone market in China and an underwhelming Force Touch feature as the handset’s big selling point.
The unnamed KGI analyst — who is more than likely Ming-Chi Kuo — says that Apple is likely to sell between 65 and 75 million iPhones in the last quarter of 2015, which would signal either zero or possibly even negative growth for the company.
iPhone owners are 50 percent dirtier than Android users, according to a new study commissioned by the U.K.-based online retailer Brighthouse.
Brighthouse tested 170 items as part of its study, including game controllers, remote controls, laptop computers and 38 different phones — with 24 being iPhones and 14 being unspecified Android devices.
Spotify is planning to introduce a new “gated access” model that will make its free streaming plan a lot less attractive, according to a new report. Those who choose to opt out of paying for the service could see it become extremely limited, with access to just one or two songs from big album releases.
Apple Metal, introduced at last year’s WWDC, gives developers low-level access to the GPU to maximize the graphics and performance potential of their games. Now Android gamers are going to get a taste of that, too.
No, Apple isn’t bringing Metal to Android — but Google is adopting an alternative called Vulkan.
Disappearing photo and video sharing app, Snapchat, has just updated to include a couple of great new features, including a data-reducing Travel Mode, an emoji button called Sticker Picker, and a way to see who’s viewing your posts, called Stories, in the app itself.
Google just dropped a bombshell announcement that the operating structure of the company is getting seriously shaken up. To start, co-founder Larry Page broke the news of Alphabet: a new holding company which Google will operate under moving forward. Page will operate as the CEO with Sergey Brin as President effective immediately.
The original developers behind the controversial Mac cleaning/scam software MacKeeper at ZeoBIT have entered into a settlement with customers, after losing class-action lawsuit filed against the company in May of 2014.
Customers who bought MacKeeper before July 8th are eligible to receive a refund for purchasing the security and performance program, as long as they file a claim for reimbursement before November 30th.
Computer engineer Hunter Scott wrote a Python script to enter virtually every Twitter contest started over the span of nine months. The bot ended up entering him in about 165,000 different “RT to win” contests and more importantly, he won close to 1,000. On average, he won four contests per day every day.
Jay Blahnik has been one of Apple’s key hires in getting the Apple Watch and now in one of his first extensive interviews since joining the company, Apple’s fitness guru has revealed how his teams of experts tried to differentiate the Apple Watch in the hugely competitive new wearables market.
When it came down to making Apple Watch, it wasn’t just about making something that looks good that also tracks your steps and calories. Blahnik tells Outside that Apple’s goal was to silence the noise by ignoring the fitness trends and focusing in on the three things that mattered the most.
Here are seven key things we learned from the interview:
Apple isn’t going to repeat its Bendgate error for a second year, according to a video posted by Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy, aka the man who famously bent an iPhone 6 Plus with his bare hands.
Hilsenteger got hold of an iPhone 6s backplate, courtesy of renowned Apple leaker Sonny Dickson, and compared it to the original iPhone 6. As he points out, Apple has made key changes to the iPhone design with the aim of learning from its past mistakes.
Check out his video below:
Your iPhone can help you find a good brunch place, with reviews on Yelp that indicate a restaurant’s best dishes. But there really isn’t any real-time help, except maybe calling or taking your chances and just showing up, to find out if you and your friends can get a table at a local hot spot.
A company called Density has developed a door-frame sensor that monitors the coming and going of people and then reports to an iPhone app whether your favorite place is full. It collects data on people’s movement at various hours of the day and recommends windows of time when you can get right in.
American Express has announced that it is first major credit card company to allow corporate card holders to pay using Apple Pay.
Describing it as a way to help companies to “streamline their payments systems and simplify their processes,” the announcement means that AmEx card users can now add eligible corporate cards to Apply Pay.
A new video showing what appears to be an assembled display component for the upcoming iPhone 6s once again hints at the arrival of Force Touch for the next-gen handset.
Posted by European repair firm MacManiack, the video shows the iPhone 6s having a front-facing FaceTime camera and proximity sensor in the same place as the current iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. However, a few changes have been made — and MacManiack thinks they may relate to Apple’s next pressure-sensitive iPhone technology.
New graphic novel Steve Jobs: Insanely Great recounts the late Apple leader’s life through 225 pages of gorgeously geeky illustrations, taking readers through his work at Apple, Pixar and NeXT as well as his time away from business.
Apple debuted the latest ad in its “If it’s not an iPhone, it’s not an iPhone” series over the weekend — showing off the iPhone’s superior ability to both take still images and record video.
Check it out below:
The iPad mini 3 was disappointing in its lack of improvements, but according to a leaked CAD drawing from the usually reliable @OnLeaks, the iPad mini 4 is going to take a step in the right direction by offering a radically thinner design.
Check out a video showing a mock-up of the new device below:
With the Apple TV ready for a radical refresh, it’s time to start thinking about what you’ll do with your old set-top box once you upgrade to the latest and greatest model.
You’ll find cool projects for your old Apple TV in this week’s issue of Cult of Mac Magazine for iPhone and iPad. You’ll also get updates on new iMacs and an opinion piece on why the end of smartphone subsidies is actually good for Apple.
It’s the weekend, which means (we hope) taking a day off from the usual grind to relax, mow your lawn, have a lie-in, and check out the hottest apps to hit the App Store over the past seven days.
And, man, have we got some good picks this week — from Apple Watch email clients to excellent comedic weather apps!
Check them out below:
As a fitness tracker, Apple Watch is currently little more than a fancy pedometer. It only tracks distance and calories — the quantity, not the quality, of your movement. That’s a problem because fitness is about more than burning calories.
However, an interesting patent from Apple — plus a new technology claimed to be “Siri for understanding human movement” — suggests that Apple Watch could soon be adding weightlifting to its repertoire. Which would be good news for gym-goers and CrossFitters everywhere.
iPhone 6s rumor season is in full swing, but we won’t have to wait much longer until Apple reveals the real deal.
A fall iPhone 6s launch event is being planned for September 9, according to a new report that also reveals other products that will share the stage with Apple’s new smartphone.
For better or worse and depending on your political leanings, Donald Trump is said to have won Thursday night’s debate for the Republican presidential nomination.
Trump also scored a bit of a victory on social media. Whether celebrated or reviled, he was talked about more than the other candidates. Compare the buzz to the professional wrestling term known as heat. Heat can mean cheers for the heroes, but also represent the boos for the heels. Heat in any form is the measure of popularity.
Is it the kind of heat you can warm to or is it just hot air? Either way, the commentary on Twitter and Instagram is entertaining and with a record 24 million viewers watching the debate, the Teflon Don will take all the heat he can get.
After the discovery of several dangerous flaws in a few short weeks, Android’s security — or lack thereof — has been big news. Google has acted quickly to eliminate the Stagefright flaw that left 95% of Android devices vulnerable to attack, but others have since wormed their way out of the woodwork.
Now fans are asking how these flaws made their way into public Android releases, compromising the security of more than 1 billion users worldwide. Could Google be doing more to prevent it? And are its hardware partners doing all they can to patch holes in their own software?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we fight it out over these questions and more!
Cult of Mac’s Photo Famous series introduces you to the groundbreaking photographers featured in Apple’s “Shot on iPhone 6” ad campaign.
Mobile photography’s most mobile photographer was on the Skeleton Coast in Namibia and didn’t want to be weighted down.
Jen Pollack Bianco traveled with her usual DSLR equipment — all 26 pounds of it — but when the time came to go on an elephant safari, she left the heavy gear behind. This was a bold choice, considering such encounters rarely happen more than once in a lifetime.
The travel blogger carried her new iPhone 6 and the camera inside proved it could handle a charging elephant.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Looks like the radically improved Apple TV we’ve be waiting for lands in September — we’ll tell you what to expect. Plus: Apple is not going to be your next wireless carrier; more Beats Radio stations are in the works; and don’t miss our picks for the “best of the worst” Apple accessories.
Could Apple carry its Apple Music human curation obsession over to its much-rumored Apple TV refresh?
During Jimmy Iovine’s new interview with Wired about Apple Music, Iovine — unprompted — chose television as another example of a place Apple could incorporate its belief in humans trumping algorithms when it comes to recommendations.
Iovine said that: