News - page 1178

Apple poached talent from fashion brands leading up to the Apple Watch launch, but the tables turned this week as Donna Karan International revealed it has sniped some talent from the tech giant.

Casey Neistat showed us a brilliant way to turn your cheapo Apple Watch into a luxurious gold Edition, but if you’d like to make your fake Edition look just like the real thing, you can now get it gold plated for a fraction of the cost of Katy Perry’s.

Microsoft has gone from shunning Apple products to making the world’s best iOS apps quicker than Jony Ive can say aluminum. This morning at the company’s Build conference for developers, Microsoft revealed its plan to make you fall back in love with Office: Extensions.

Spotlight can do a lot of things, but did you know that it can search hashtags on Twitter?

The feature, which many are just now discovering, could be only the beginning of how Apple and Twitter will work together in the future.

As Apple prepares to relaunch Beats Music at WWDC, another tech giant is throwing its name in the music ring: Instagram, which has just launched a new @Music account designed to capitalize on its popularity among music fans.

The newly-opened account will share music-related photos, lyrics, and videos, relating to both established artists and new acts you haven’t heard of.

Chris Hawker does his best thinking when he sees someone doing something awkward. Watching people struggle with everyday tools guides the designer to invent things that solve everyday problems, from peeling a cucumber to powering our growing number of electronic devices.

So when Hawker found himself in an uncomfortable stretch between his couch and the nearest outlet, trying to charge his phone and talk on it at the same time, he wished for a plug-in near his leg.

Hawker came up with Couchlet, a thin, dual-USB port that tucks in between couch cushions or wedges beneath a mattress. On Indiegogo for just three days, the Couchlet attracted more than 1,600 funders and surpassed a $30,000 goal.

The Apple Watch is such a stunningly gorgeous piece of engineering that throwing it down on your nightstand at the end of a hard day — as if it were a common-as-dirt Android Wear device — is borderline insulting.

What you need is an equally attractive charging stand to proudly display your new wearable as it’s refreshed for the following day.

But which one to choose? Follow Cult of Mac’s suggestions and you’ll be keeping your Watch battery fully-juiced in style.

Several dozen American Airlines flights were delayed overnight, after the pilots’ iPads — used for providing information to flight crews — failed prior to takeoff, leaving pilots without a flight plan.

Most early reviews of the Apple Watch didn’t do it justice. It’s fine, they said, but not for everybody.

Come on! COME ON!!!!

The Apple Watch is the most exciting gadget for years. Its ambition is huge. It does a ton of stuff. It’s not some silly smartwatch — it’s a computer for your wrist. And I’m loving it.

Yeah, it has its quirks, and it’s far from perfect, but it’s a great vision, and it’s only going to get better!

It’s a ton of fun, and it works great — except when it doesn’t.

More Apple Watch owners with wrist tattoos are reporting problems using the device. The light sensors that enable the Watch to determine if it’s being worn apparently get confused by tattooed skin.

The problem — let’s call it “Tattoogate” — is possibly the result of metallic pigments used for the inking process, although nobody knows for sure. While the glitch affects only a small number of users, it’s definitely mauling the buzz of some frustrated Apple Watch early adopters.

Cult of Mac reader Michael Lovell spoke with us about his disappointing experiences with the Apple Watch, and even sent in a video demonstrating the problem. Check it out below!

A “test model” iPad was stolen in a home robbery earlier this month along with other valuables. Suspects have been arrested, but the stolen goods have not been found.

Getting direction from a computer sucks, but that could soon change based on a new patent filed by Apple for “Humanized Navigation Instructions for Mapping Applications.

Rather than receiving instructions from an emotion-less robot, Apple’s new patent would make Siri’s turn-by-turn directions sound more like they’re coming from your buddy in the passenger seat by mixing in references to restaurants and landmarks.

Here’s some examples you might here, instead of just being told “in 500 feet, turn right”:

Apple Watch is the most personal device you’ll ever use, and it’s not just because you wear it all day.

This is the most customizable Apple product we’ve ever seen. Everything from clock faces to the app homescreen can be tweaked to your personal tastes. Early Apple Watch owners have already come up with a myriad of different ways to change the app homescreen so that it’s just not a giant blob of randomness. Some are a bit crazy, while others are down right brilliant.

Check out out some of the best custom layouts below:

Attack on Titan, the cult-hit in ink (manga) and on the small screen (anime), is getting a live-action treatment this summer. The good news is that the feature film is hitting Japan on August 1 and Australia and New Zealand later this same year. The bad news is that we have no details on a U.S. release, though both the manga and anime are still available in this country.

The film is the first of two planned parts, with the second flick, Attack on Titan: End of the World, headed to Japan this coming September.

There are all kinds of Apple Watch apps, from the really cool ones to the totally weird.

But what about third-party apps that tell the time? Such a use case would seem pretty obvious for the Watch, but Apple isn’t having it.

With a variety of bands, and price tags ranging all the way from $349 – $17,000, there’s an Apple Watch for everyone. Except, possibly, the heavily tattooed.

That’s according to a new thread on Reddit which claims that several tattoo-sporting Apple Watch customers are having trouble using the device, because the wearable’s wrist-detection feature gets confused by the way in which tattoos reflect the green and infrared light emitted by the Watch.

The result? People with tattoos don’t get notifications, unless they move the Watch to an un-tattooed area, or turn off wrist detection. Not exactly ideal for those with full sleeves!

Remember Knock? Released last year, it was an iPhone app that allowed you to unlock your Mac without entering a password, just by tapping on your smartphone’s screen. Now you don’t even need your iPhone handy to use Knock: It’s the latest app to get the inevitable Apple Watch support.

This is the best Apple Watch unboxing video ever. Watch an Apple Watch unbox itself!

One of the neat features of the Apple Watch is the ability to quickly and drastically change its appearance by sliding different straps on and off the body of the device.

Achieved by way of a cunning three-contact mechanism, it’s undoubtedly a cool solution and — to paraphrase Steve Jobs — boy, has Apple patented it!

Siri’s the O.G. (Original Gangsta) personal assistant, and she doesn’t like it when you confuse her with upstart rivals from Google or Microsoft.

The revelation was discovered by Twitter user and tech writer Danny Sullivan, who found that spurring his Apple Watch into action by saying “OK, Google” garnered the sarcastic response, “Very funny. I mean, not funny ‘ha-ha,’ but funny.”

Last week, researchers at Slice Intelligence claimed that Apple had taken orders for as many as 957,000 Apple Watches in the first 24 hours that it was available on Apple.com. And that was in the U.S. alone.

Now Slice is back, with new numbers suggesting that demand for the Apple Watch is far, far exceeding supply. According to Slice, in fact, Apple may have sold as many as 1.7 million Apple Watches since pre-orders began.

And if your Apple Watch still hasn’t shipped, you’re not alone: 78% of all Apple Watch buyers are in the same boat.

Michael Bromwich, the court-appointed antitrust monitor who infamously handed Apple an “unprecedented” legal bill of $138,432 for his first two weeks’ work, is back — and his latest eyebrow-raising offence is charging Apple to “review relevant media articles.”

What does that mean, you might ask? In layman’s terms it refers to the fact that he’s billing Apple for reading the newspaper.

Foxconn’s CEO Terry Gou is no fan of Samsung. In fact, according to a new report, he’s been trying to use his influence as Apple’s biggest manufacturing partner to get Apple to lessen its dependency on Samsung — while a giving a shot to other companies.

The reason? He thinks Taiwanese manufacturers need to work together to overcome the growing threat of the South Korean tech giant, which could potentially swallow all of their jobs.

The iPhone 6 is a monster hit, China is now bigger than US for iPhone sales, and Tim Cook is delighted with the world’s response to the Apple Watch. And those are just some of the key insights from today’s Apple earnings call.

Here are the top 11 takeaways about Cupertino’s blockbuster second quarter, which once again set financial records.

Along with revealing last quarters monstrous profits, Tim Cook has announced that Apple is increasing its capital buyback program to the tune of $140 billion.

Apple’s Board of Directors have authorized an increase of more than 50 percent to the company’s program to return capital to shareholders. Under the new plans, Apple will give a total of $200 billion in cash back to stock holders by the end of March 2017.

“We believe Apple has a bright future ahead, and the unprecedented size of our capital return program reflects that strong confidence,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “While most of our program will focus on buying back shares, we know that the dividend is very important to many of our investors, so we’re raising it for the third time in less than three years.”

You can read the full press release below: