News - page 1211

iOS 8.2 hasn’t even been released to the public yet, but Apple is already moving on to the next version. The first beta build of iOS 8.3 was seeded to developers this morning while iOS 8.2 beta 5 is still being tested.

The software update was made available today in the iOS Dev Center. Along with iOS 8.3, Apple has also released a beta build of Xcode 6.3 that includes Swift 1.2. The release notes don’t mention any new features, but we’ll tell you about all the goodies we find as soon as it’s installed on our iPhones.

In the meantime, here are the direct download links:

Apple is sitting on more cash than King Midas could dream of, but instead of bringing that money back to the U.S. to fund stock buybacks, Apple is reportedly looking to exploit Switzerland’s low interest rates with a Swiss Franc bond sale.

Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse have been hired to manage the potential sale, reports the Wall Street Journal, which says the new bond sale could come as soon as Tuesday.

Things couldn’t be going better for Apple on the iPhone front. The company just posted the most profitable quarter ever in the history of corporations thanks to strong iPhone sales. And according to the latest report from Cannacord, Apple is basically the only company in the world making money off smartphones.

Apple accounted for 93% of smartphone profits in Q4 2014 reports Canaccord Genuity’s Mike Walkley who has also raised his target price on AAPL shares up to $145. That’s bad news for LG, Samsung, HTC and anyone else that makes smartphones, and to make it even worse, Cannacord estimates one third of all smartphone users will own an iPhone by the end of 2018.

See the full breakdown of profits per company below:

New app Cloe is a dutiful concierge service you can text to request a good jazz club or microbrewery and get an informed, cheery response in a minute or less. Think of the mad research skills of Siri with the personality of Samantha, the AI operating system from the movie Her.

Need a tailor? Cloe may ask if you need a custom shirt made or just a button sewn on a jacket before she sends you a recommendation based on where you are standing at that very moment.

Dr. Dre became one of the most iconic figures in tech last year when Apple acquired his company, Beats Electronics. But before the doctor was making billions off overpriced headphones, he started a revolution in the music world with his pals Ice Cube, M.C. Ren and Eazy-E. Now there’s a movie coming out to tell his story.

Biopic Straight Outta Compton follows the meteoric rise and fall of N.W.A. in the mid-1980s. The film was produced by Ice Cube and Dr. Dre and is set to premiere August 14. To celebrate the upcoming film, Dre and Cube got together to ride around Compton and reminisce about the music they created before introducing their movie’s first NSFW trailer.

Watch the full red-band trailer below:

I’m a total sucker for ads which jump back in time to show how things have changed over the years, and that’s exactly what American Express has done with its latest commercial for Apple Pay: showing how Apple’s mobile payment technology is, in fact, just the latest in a long line of innovations used for making financial transactions easier.

The ad features archival appearances by famous AmEx cardholders ranging from Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Henson to Tina Fey, for a mashup ad that is more fun than you’d ever expect from a credit card company.

It’s also another triumph for Apple Pay, which has now been promoted in ads by Capital One, MasterCard, Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, among others. Check out AmEx’s ad after the jump:

If you’re a creative director, designer, or just enjoy using your Mac for graphics editing, you may want to check out the new Photoshop rival, Affinity Photo.

Currently available as a public beta, this pro-level photo software and graphics editor boasts some pretty impressive features — with an emphasis on real-time editing, meaning no previews, “apply” buttons, or hanging around to wait for an effect to render.

You can read up on more details after the jump. Best of all? Unlike the subscription-only Photoshop, you can currently download Affinity Photo for free.

Knowing how much is at stake, things can get pretty vicious when you’re a manufacturer with a shot at providing Apple with vital components for its next generation iPhone.

We’ve known for some time that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung have been battling it out over who gets picked by Apple to make its forthcoming A9 processors — with Samsung apparently having the advantage currently, due to offering Apple a better deal financially.

TSMC isn’t taking this lying down, however. In fact, the company is currently suing an ex-employee who allegedly leaked R&D secrets to Samsung; thereby allowing it to both catch up in the chip fabrication business.

When it comes to buying Apple products, you should make sure a deal isn’t too good to be true when you sign up for it.

A U.K. man who purchased a MacBook on eBay for a bargain price was surprised by what arrived in the mail — not a laptop but a black-and-white photograph of a MacBook.

Ahead of last night’s 57th annual Grammy Awards, Apple debuted a brand new iPad commercial called “Change,” showing just how easy it is to record music on the iPad.

I have very few complaints about iOS 8, and based on casual conversations I’ve had with friends plus the high percentage of users who have upgraded to Apple’s latest mobile OS, I’d suggest the same thing is true across the board.

One part of iOS I use very rarely, however, is Notification Center, which aims to be a one-stop-shop for all the information you need to know, but instead looks like a strangely un-Apple mass of informational overload.

Apparently Stockholm-based MobileCreative designers Petter Andersson, Friðgeir Torfi Ásgeirsson and Jonas Jerlström feel the same way, because they’ve come up with a concept video showing a new possible notification interface for iOS. And you know what? I kind of love it.

I can’t wait to get my hands on an Apple Watch, but there are a few people out there who are less than excited by the prospect of a miniature computer you can wear on your wrist. Case in point: exam moderators.

Ahead of the Apple Watch going on sale, universities in the U.K. are beginning to issue blanket bans on students wearing any kind of watch in the exam hall — based on the fact that those teachers charged with overseeing exams aren’t able to discern the difference between a smartwatch, which could be potentially used to help cheat, and a regular, dumb, tells-the-time watch.

Sometimes it seems like there have been a lot of plane crashes lately. Between Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/a>, and Transasia Airways Flight 235, it sometimes feels like there’s never been a worse time to fly.

Of course, that’s not true at all. There’s statistically almost zero chance at all of you dying in a plane crash, no matter how often you fly. And now there’s an app, specifically dedicated to assuaging your fears of dying in an aircraft.

It’s no secret that iPad sales are stalling. After an incredible start, iPad sales have continued to decline, year over year. Tim Cook has characterized it as just a speed bump, a statistical aberration more to do with how fast the iPad grew than customers losing interest in the line, even as Cupertino otherwise readies a stylus-boasting 12.9-inch iPad Pro to help boost sales.

But will the iPad Pro be enough? Not according to reputable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who says we can expect iPad sales to decline by as much as 30% in 2015.

What me, worry? Not Corning. The Gorilla Glass maker has just unveiled a new type of glass which they say is just as hard (and therefore unscratchable) as sapphire. They’re calling it Project Phire. Go figure.

This week: A curiously equipped mystery van has us wondering if Apple’s working on self-driving autos. Plus, we review everything that Apple Watch apps can’t do, Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs biopic gets a cast and not everyone is thrilled, Apple’s plans for a global “data command center,” and Macho Man Randy Savage helps us answer listener questions in an all-new Get to Know Your Cultist.

Our thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode. Learn virtually any application at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.

Full show notes ahead!

Dish’s new Sling TV service has been dubbed as a cord-cutters dream. It finally gives non-cable subscribers the ability to tune into ESPN and other premium channels for just $20 a monthly, but the company just revealed its new channel packages that will nearly double your monthly deal.

Sling TV opened up early access to users today and announced that along with the channels that come in the standard $20 Sling TV package, Sling TV will also offer three other additional channel packages priced at an extra $5 per month a piece. The extras include more channels for sports fans, kids, and the news.

Sling TV is offering the first subscribers a free 7-day trial period with access to the $20 per month “Best of Live TV” package that includes ESPN, ESPN 2, TNT, TBS, the Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, ABC Family, and CNN.

For an extra $15 here’s what else you can get:

Silicon Valley, HBO’s half-hour comedy series about a bunch of nerds trying to change the world with code, is headed back to your television screen in April. HBO posted a trailer for the hotly anticipated Season 2 premiere on its Facebook page Friday to let everyone know.

Check it out below for a ton of slow-motion shots of all your favorite characters with the whole geeky gang back for another run.

Jimmy Fallon is backed by the best band on late night TV, but when it came time for the Tonight Show host to get funky performing a hip-hop classic with Will Smith, Jimmy ditched The Roots and busted out his iPad once again.

Fallon has been no stranger to kicking out tasty jams with music legends on an iPad. He created an phenomenal doo-wop number last year with Billy Joel, but with the Fresh Prince in his guest chair, Jimmy decided to kick it old school and created an beatbox version of “It Takes Too” on the spot.

Check out the duo’s awesome beatboxing in the video below:

Apple’s promise to bring more racially diverse emojis to iOS and OS X has been nearly a year in the making, but in yesterday’s OS X 10.10.3 beta the company snuck in some code that finally paves the way for the emojis of the future.

While everyone else was playing with the new Photos beta, Sachin Patel noticed Apple made some big changes to the “Emoji & Symbols” palette that can be accessed from the Edit menu in most apps or by pressing Control + Command + Space. Along with renaming the Special Characters menu option Apple also added a new drop down arrow on all the human emojis that lets you select between five different skin tones.

Devilishly bonkers new game Saints Row: Gat out of Hell features a final boss fight against the Prince of Darkness himself. That’s pretty satisfying, despite the fact that this version of Satan possesses a beautiful singing voice.

But not all video-game devils have redeeming qualities. Here are four demonic bad guys so devious, difficult and/or annoying that it’s not enough to defeat them in the game — you will wish you could rip them out of your screen and smack them until they can’t damn straight.

In my experience, Apple Store employees are some of the hardest-working, most reasonable and (despite the fact they’re employed to sell you things) trustworthy people in retail. According to Manhattan district attorney, however, that description isn’t universal.

The DA is indicting four former Apple Store employees, plus a dental office receptionist, for an Apple-related scam that ultimately defrauded Barclays Bank of $700,000, using ill-gotten Apple gift cards.

Here’s how it happened.

It’s time for another weekly dose of all the great stuff from our intrepid news hounds and reporters within the digital confines of Cult of Mac Magazine.

Buster has the lowdown on eight of the hot new features in Apple’s upcoming Photos for Mac, and he also takes a good long look at the mysterious vans owned by Apple that have been spotted around the San Francisco area. If you need to protect your precious new iPhone, Stephen drops a video spotlight on five cases you’ll want to consider for your fancy Apple smartphone. Rob digs deep into a new digital comic — companion to the Midnight Star video game — and how the award-winning team brings the game world to life. Jim drops in on a hip retro gaming shop in Portland, too, coming back with some stunning pictures of this old boys (and girls!) club.

All that and more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine – check out our top stories below, and then click on through to get your own copy for free.