Leander Kahney likes Apple's use of magnets. So what happened with the new MacBook? Photo: Cult of Mac
Leander is having a bit of a moment. One of his favorite features of Apple product design is missing on his shiny new MacBook.
Jony Ive, what have you done with the magnet?
You can commiserate with our Editor and Publisher over the loss of the magnet that secured the cable to the charging port in the latest Kahney’s Korner video.
Swiss watchmakers have one more reason not to like the Apple Watch. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FSWI) has announced today that for the first time since 2009 exports of traditional timepieces are down, and it looks like Apple Watch is to blame.
Your iMac might be in need of a hard drive replacement. Photo: Apple
Apple has launched a replacement program for certain iMac models with 3TB hard drives. If you bought a 27-inch iMac with a 3TB hard drive between December 2012 and September 2013, you might be eligible for a free replacement hard drive.
Jimmy Iovine talks up Apple Music at WWDC 2015. Photo: Apple
An Apple spokesperson claims that the company will not remove artists who decline to sign up for Apple Music from the iTunes Store.
This is the latest development in the tense negotiations leading up to the streaming service’s launch on June 30, with indie musicians and labels claiming that Apple is trying to bully and coerce them into putting their music on the new platform.
Former Apple engineer Scott Goodson is now at Pinterest Photo: Pinterest
Pinterest is looking for fresh blood to inject some more life into it’s mobile experience this year, so the company announced that it has nabbed Scott Goodson, a former Apple and Facebook engineer, to come in and improve the app’s performance across various platforms.
Google I/O and WWDC have been and gone, and Google and Apple have laid out the plans for their next major platform updates — Android M and iOS 9.
Now that we’ve had a chance to let those announcements sink in, it’s time for Cult of Android and Cult of Mac to battle over which is best in another Friday Night Fight. Let us help you decide which one will reign supreme when they roll out to the public this fall.
Apple stops selling its last non-Retina iOS device. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
The last iPad with a non-Retina display was sent to the grave today, almost three years after its debut.
Apple quietly pulled the iPad mini from its online store, leaving just the iPad mini 2 and 3 behind to go with the iPad Air 2. In doing this, Apple made a significant milestone stone: the Apple Store no longer sells non-Retina iOS devices.
iPads have taken over this New York school. Photo: Gail Robinson
A New York elementary school has taken the bold move of upgrading 75 percent of its third and fourth curriculum to iPad, meaning that students spend three-quarters of each day using their Apple tablets.
Jackson Avenue School is currently in its fifth year of a district initiative providing all students in grades 3-9 with iPads for digital learning.
You know what we need on a Friday? A celebrity Apple Watch review.
“Did you hear what Newt Gingrich said about the Apple Watch?” sounds like the opening line to a Stephen Colbert joke. In fact, it’s a genuine question, since the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and “keen observer of technology” just published his first review for Mashable — offering his thoughts on Apple’s debut wearable device.
Testing out an Apple Watch Sport, Gingrich recounts a day spent on airplanes and in McDonald’s restaurants (yes, really!), before giving his final verdict on Cupertino’s first crack at a smartwatch.
This is the simplest, most elegant app for checking your iPhone's battery on your Apple Watch. Photo: Thientam Beck
We all know that the Apple Watch doesn’t exactly have great battery life. At best, it’ll get you through the day. But, of course, one of the big sells of the Apple Watch is that it’ll save your iPhone battery life, because you don’t have to pull it out as much.
Of course, then you end up in a Catch-22. Your Apple Watch depends on your iPhone to work properly, but without pulling out your iPhone, you can’t tell how much battery you have left, therefore risking both your Apple Watch and your iPhone crapping out on you in the middle of the day. If only the Apple Watch could tell you your iPhone’s battery level.
It can’t, but luckily, there’s an app for that. And it might be the loveliest one yet.
Red Stripes tells color blind users what color they're looking at. Photo: Cult of Mac
Color blindness is an extremely prevalent disability, especially amongst men: according to official statistics, 1 in 12 men are color blind (although women fare better, at a rate of only 1 in 200). These rates of color blindness are part of the reason why Google places such importance in their Material Design guidelines on designing with color blindness in mind. For example, by not relying on color alone to relay critical information within an app.
But no matter how well programmed an app is, it’s not going to help someone who is color blind see colors… or is it? Red Stripe is a new app by developer Michel Fortin that aims to do just that.
Apple's focus on accessibility isn't going unrecognized. Photo: Apple
Apple has been rewarded for its work in making technology accessible to blind users with a Helen Keller Achievement Award, given at an New York event yesterday evening.
Organized by the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), Apple was specifically praised for VoiceOver, the iOS feature which reads out descriptions of everything happening on a device’s display.
In fact, according to a document leaked to WikiLeaks as part of last year’s Sony Pictures hack, Apple has been testing and licensing select 4K content from Sony since at least 2013.
Apple Music will boast over 30 million songs when it launches at the end of June, but Taylor Swift has decided to leave a blank space where her 1989 album would’ve been.
Left: Old 'n' busted. Right: New hotness. Photo: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac
Apple’s rolled out some much-needed changes to how Apple Watch preview screens look in the App Store.
Have you looked at those shots lately? They look weird. And depending on which version of iOS you’re currently running, that could mean “horrible” or “way better than before, holy crap.”
The Apple (pocket)Watch Photo: TheChicGeek/Instagram
Tom Ford unveiled his Spring 2016 collection this week in London, and while the fashion designer’s newest fanciful dinner jackets drew in a flock of celebrity, the Apple Watch made a surprise appearance in the ready-to-wear collection.
Rather than designing a fashionable Apple Watch band, the forward-thinking designer bridged Apple’s timekeeping accessory to the past by turning it into a pocket watch attached to a chain.
Wear two watches at once with the Duo band Photo: Original Grain
Traditional watch manufacturers are struggling to find a solution to take on Apple Watch, but Original Grain has taken the ‘if you can’t beat em, join em’ cliche a bit too literal with its newest watch collection.
The company launched a new Kickstarter today for its new traditional watch, The Barrel, that comes with a very non-traditional feature called The Duo Connection clasp that lets you wear you Apple Watch on the same wrist.
The Apple Watch has only just landed in Apple Stores, and already a bevy of Apple Watch 2 rumors are basically rendering it outdated.
According to a new report, not only is a second-generation Apple Watch coming next year, but it will boast an added FaceTime camera, greater levels of iPhone independence, and extra high-end $1000+ models.
The DxO ONE Camera attaches to your iPhone to beef up image quality. Photo: DxO
We rely on our iPhone for so many facets of our life, but as a camera it has become a disruptive force in the photography world. The “Shot with an iPhone 6” advertising campaign is likely making traditional camera companies shutter – pun intended – as sales of consumer cameras continue to fall.
It’s a go-to tool for professional photographers, who have done everything from publish books with iPhone photography to shoot commercials for corporate clients. But there are limitations and sometimes it would be nice to supplement a smartphone’s camera with the punch of a DSLR camera.
DxO, the makers of sophisticated imaging software, may have the ONE camera to do this. The ONE is a palm-sized camera that plugs into your iPhone with functions and optics that have the potential to deliver greater image quality.
Jeff Williams handles his Walt Mossberg grilling with class. And some dishy scoops. Photo: Re/code
If you weren’t in the crowd at Re/code’s recent Code Conference, you can now check out the video of Apple Operations guru Jeff Williams’ interview with Walt Mossberg from the comfort of your home.
In a wide-reaching half-hour conversation, Williams touches on everything from Apple’s plans to disrupt the car industry, to Foxconn suicides, to Williams’ own wish for a Star Trek-style tricorder in future iPhones.
The Scopitone was a kind of video jukebox that had a brief life in the United States 17 years before music videos were the rage. Photo: Walker Art Center
Cable boxes couldn’t be hooked up fast enough in August of 1981. People said I want my MTV.
Music videos blew our minds as we watched for hours on end a steady rotation of our favorite rock and pop stars who not only sang their music, but became characters in an elaborate, often hyper-sexualized narrative with a backdrop of visual effects and exotic locations.
But a version of what became the music video craze nearly seduced Americans in the 1960s with the Scopitone, a jukebox topped with a large screen that played short Technicolor films of singers performing on a crazy set that often included bikini-clad dancers.
The nuclear holocaust has never been so adorable. Photo: Bethesda
For years, King.com’s Candy Crush Saga has been one of the App Store’s top earners. The addictive match-3 game was considered the crowning success of the freemium app genre, and although the growth of Candy Crush Saga has been slowing over time, it still dominated the App Store’s ranking charts.
But there’s a new king in town. A post-apocalyptic king. Fallout Shelter, Bethesda’s adorable nuclear bunker sim, has dethroned Candy Crush Saga as the App Store freemium game to beat.
Don't stray into the wrong lane. Photo: Inside Higher Ed
You know mobile devices have hit a certain critical mass when universities start adding walking lanes designed to stop texters from accidentally colliding with non-texters.
That’s exactly what happened to a staircase at Utah Valley University’s Student Life and Wellness Centre, with one staircase being home to dividing lines splitting students into “walking,” “running” and “texting” lanes.
Y'argh, me mateys. Talk about a true Apple fan. Photo: Geoff Grubb
Many babies these days have to wear an eyepatch to correct vision problems. That’s why the two-year old girl above, Layla Grubb, is wearing the best eyepatch ever: an ’80’s style Apple logo, pasted over her left eye. Talk about a Pirate of Silicon Valley!