News - page 1156

We’ve been promised jetpacks since the 1950s and dreaming about them even longer. Just hang on a couple more years.

Plenty of time to save the $150,000 it will cost to buy the Martin Jetpack, which promises to be the first practical jetpack ready for vertical liftoff.

The Martin Aircraft Company has been conducting research and development on personal jet packs for a couple of decades. Even before it became a privately funded company, its founder Glenn Martin had been tinkering with the idea of something that can fly longer than 30 seconds since the early 1980s.

Apple Music makes its big debut tomorrow, June 30, at 8 a.m. PST. It’s going to be a very big day for the music industry, and for us listeners. It’s the day streaming goes truly mainstream. From tomorrow on, it’s officially the streaming era.

But how does it work? What artists are going to be available? You probably have a lot of questions about what Apple Music’s launch means for you — and we’ve got answers.

There’s good news and bad news for Beats Music and future Apple Music users alike. Apple has confirmed that the new music service will arrive for Sonos apps and speakers, but unfortunately not right away. It turns out integration won’t be ready in time for the big launch tomorrow, June 30, but the two companies are working together to bring Apple Music to Sonos as soon as possible.

If you’ve ever taken a ride on an unfamiliar city’s subway or transit system, you know how confusing it can be to know which specific exit to use to find the right above ground location you need to get to where you’re going.

In the upcoming iOS 9, Apple Maps aims to help you out with a subtle yet extremely useful feature: it will tell you which exit to take when you’re using the Transit option, also new to iOS 9.

Learning to code is like learning a second language: it’s best done fully immersed and with expert guidance. Unlike learning a new language, there’s nothing like the nation of “Code-topia” to visit (yet) where you can learn among the native speakers. And unless you’re already in school for coding, it’s largely up to you to find your own teachers and classes. Luckily, BaseRails Ruby on Rails Training offers a comprehensive education in one of the top programming languages on the web, Ruby on Rails, straight to your computer (who knows what kind of virus shots you’d need to visit Code-topia anyway).

With one day to go until Apple Music officially launches with iOS 8.4, Eddy Cue has revealed that Music’s iTunes Match integration will soon let users upload 100,000 of their own songs to iCloud for streaming at any time.

Geography doesn’t have to get in the way of the band coming together.

A startup company by the name of Soundtrap Monday rolled out what it calls the first online music and audio recording studio, allowing musicians to collaborate remotely in real time using any operating system.

It will likely directly compete with Garageband, Apple’s popular software used to create music and podcasts that first launched in 2004.

The original iPhone first went on sale eight years ago today, on June 29, 2007 — a simpler time when Pixar released the movie Ratatouille, the NFL shut down its European league, Rihanna’s “Umbrella” topped the music charts, and Apple stock sold for a measly $17.43.

If only we knew then what we know today!

Back in 2008, when Apple was selling roughly a tenth of the number of iPhones it sells today, the company produced a limited number of giant-sized display iPhones with built-in 30-inch Cinema Displays to show off its new line of smartphones.

Most of them were destroyed after the promotion was finished, but thanks to the wonderful world of the Internet, we can see that at least one made it out alive — and has now been converted by Reddit user 92JMFL into possibly the world’s sweetest Mac display.

Check out more photos below.

Samsung is reportedly making a bid to steal away Toshiba’s job of producing the flash memory chips for the iPhone 6s — something which would help out the South Korean tech giant at a time when its own mobile business is struggling.

The news follows not long after reports that the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus is looking to add faster TLC-based NAND flash storage for the next-gen handsets, possibly en route to ditching the largely-useless 16GB entry level storage option in current iPhones.

Apple was out in force yesterday as Tim Cook and 8,000 Apple employees participated in Sunday’s 43rd Annual Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco, following last week’s historic Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage across the U.S.

Apple employees carried LGBT rainbow flags as they took to the streets — considerably outnumbering the hundreds of employees from other tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Uber, and others.

Apple Music is set to launch at 11am ET/8am PT tomorrow alongside the release of iOS 8.4 One hour later at 12pm ET/9am PT, the inaugural Beats 1 radio broadcast will take place presented by DJ Zane Lowe.

While we previously knew that Apple’s new streaming music service would by launching June 30, it was left to Ian Rogers, Apple’s senior director of Apple Music to announce an exact time, which he did over the weekend.

This week: the cool features in the new iOS 9 and El Capitan betas; Taylor Swift starts a royalty battle with Apple; the ridiculously low payouts artists get from music streaming; the new Macbook’s big missing feature; and the magic of Apple advertising.

Our thanks to Bushel for supporting this episode, the simple-to-use cloud-based tool that anyone can leverage to manage the Apple devices in their workplace. Get Bushel for free for up to 3 devices when you sign up at Bushel.com/cultofmac.

Show notes after the jump.

This week has been one of the most miraculous weeks we’ve seen in recent history. We’ve seen a 25 year-old country girl bend the will of a bunch of rich ass middle-aged white men in Silicon Valley. 150 after their defeat, in the Civil War, Confederacy loyalist are lowering the stars and bars. And you can finally marry anyone you want in any state you want in America, regardless if a bunch of religious people aren’t cool with it.

Celebrations have been ringing out across the country in light of the Supreme Court’s decision that same-sex marriage is right. Silicon Valley execs tweeted their approval of the decision this morning, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, who had the Pride Flag raised at Apple HQ in celebration.

Here’s a better look:

Another week flying by here at Cult of Mac headquarters, and we’ve got a ton of great stories to share with you in the latest issue of Cult of Mac Magazine.

Taylor Swift made waves with her calling out the Cupertino company’s plans to not pay artists for music streamed during upcoming Apple Music free trial period, and we’ve got all the details within. Plus, we take a look at Amazon’s new home hub, the Echo, spend some time trawling the patent office for new Apple gear coming our way, and take a quick tour of the latest iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan betas for developers.

All that and more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine. Be sure to download and subscribe to check it all out on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

One of the main complaints Apple Watch naysayers have is that the advertised 18-hour battery life of the wearable is kind of crappy. An expensive, upcoming accessory aims to address that issue, but we’re not sure that the look appeals to us much.

The new band is called the Reserve Strap, and while it definitely sounds useful, its price and appearance leave our pointers well clear of the pre-order button.

Apple is gearing up to introduce its smarthome platform HomeKit alongside the launch of iOS 9 this fall. It will let users control smart devices like lights, door locks, and thermostats from their phones. You’ll also be able to issue voice commands to digital assistant Siri, and the company has updated the list of things you can say to get things done around your house.

But when we looked at the list of commands, we noticed that Apple is making some strange assumptions about how people might be using the new automation features. Here are some of the examples Apple gives and why they have us scratching our heads.

Apple fans with their ear to the rumor mill have known for months that Apple is probably going to add Force Touch to the next iPhone. Now, we’ve got confirmation from one of the most respected sources in journalism that it’s almost definitely happening.

The highest court in the land has spoken. Gay marriage is now legal and much of Facebook is celebrating Friday’s historic day with messages, memes and pictures.

Facebook will help you celebrate pride by letting you add a rainbow filter to your profile picture.

The steps are simple. I volunteered my profile picture above to demonstrate how easy it is to show your colors.

The Apple Watch is the best watch I’ve ever owned. It’s also the first watch I’ve owned in over a decade but amazing features like the heart rate monitor, responding to texts from my wrist, and being able to see what time it is without pulling out my iPhone have totally won me over.

Not everyone is keen on the future of smartwatches though, and if you need any further proof, just look at the Kickstarter page for The Mason Watch. It’s dumb, ugly, and lacks all the features you could want for in a modern watch, but the project is absolutely killing it on Kickstarter, and passed its funding goal in the first week.

Check out how huge this thing looks on your wrist:

As Apple fans in seven countries line up today to grab their new Apple Watches as the new wearable becomes available, we’re looking ahead to see which other nations will be sporting the smartwatches by the end of the year.

We don’t have dates for all of them just yet, but Apple has confirmed that they’re on the way.

To succeed in tech, you must be a master of innovation. No two companies understand this better than Apple and Google, which have become kings of the industry thanks to a string of incredible ideas that have shaped the technology we rely on today.

But which company is continuing to innovate in 2015? Is it Apple, with its fitness-focused Apple Watch, Apple Pay, and a new streaming service that hopes to save the music industry? Or is it Google, with Google Glass, self-driving cars, and secret robots?

Join us as we take it to a debate in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac.

It’s no surprise that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 5s are significantly faster than the iPhone 5c. Yet, even with iOS 9’s Low Power Mode turned on, the newer phones still manage to make long strides over that plastic (yet colorful) contraption.

Geekbench released an update to its app today, adding support for iOS 9. Even though iOS 9 is still in beta, the new tools have already revealed some surprising facts about the iPhone 6. Upon running benchmarks on an iPhone 5c and iPhone 6 in low power mode, the tools show that the iPhone 6 is still more powerful that the 5c.

I want to spare you some of the pain that recently greeted me after a night out with friends. I returned to my car to find the rear window smashed out and my backpack gone. It contained my brand new MacBook and iPad.

The worry, of course, was whether my backpack was in the hands of tech-savvy crooks, so I prepared for the worst.

What I learned over a long weekend about my own approach to security is the subject of this week’s Kahney’s Korner.

If you’re thinking about taking a trip to Walt Disney’s wonderfully whimsical theme parks this year, make sure to leave your selfie stick at home.

Disney announced this morning that it’s placing a ban on all selfie sticks starting next week, due to safety concerns.