The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are shattering all kinds of sales records, and that knock-on effect is starting to be felt elsewhere: The overwhelming interest in Apple’s next-generation handsets pushed iTunes App Store downloads to new heights last month.
How much of an increase are we talking about? In October, the top 200 free iOS apps hit a collective 7.8 million app downloads per day, according to new research from Fiksu, a Boston-based marketing firm.
It’s been pretty much a year since ground was broken on the “spaceship” Apple Campus 2, and things are progressing at a rate of knots.
In a new photo provided by Apple, and posted by the city of Cupertino, the company’s $5 billion campus can be seen taking shape. The image is a reminder of just how big the campus is set to be, since it will house a massive 13,000 employees — or the equivalent of 35 fully-filled Boeing 747s. Tim Cook has called the campus Apple’s “home for innovation and creativity for decades to come.”
The city of Cupertino’s website makes note of a schedule for the project, noting that earthwork is set to continue until the middle of next year, while construction on the building itself will be completed by late 2016.
Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay on Steve Jobs has been in a seemingly perpetual state of flux for months. Multiple A-list actors and directors passed on the project, with Christian Bale most recently bowing out of the leading role after being all but confirmed by Sorkin himself.
Then the studio financing the movie, Sony, put it up for sale—a good sign that a project isn’t going smoothly in Hollywood. Luckily, Universal has swooped in to save the day.
Apple packed the biggest display it’s ever made onto the iPhone 6 Plus, and while its 1920×1080 resolution is great for streaming 1080p videos, it turns out that Apple also secretly added 4K video support without telling anyone.
The iPad Air 2, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus all support 4K video playback out of the box, thanks to the new A8 processor added this year. Apple doesn’t list 4K video playback as one of the A8 chips features, but the discovery was made by the developers behind WALTR, who posted proof of 4K video playback on the iPhone 6 this weekend.
The fourth movie in the Jurassic Park series is slated to terrorize movie screens a full year from now. In order to drum up some excitement for Jurassic World, then, Universal has created this tiny trailer to advertise yet another trailer for the upcoming blockbuster.
The new trailer for a trailer shows very little, with some dinosaurs, a bubble car, an inquisitive Bryce Dallas Howard, and megastar Chris Pratt looking determined. Check it out.
Americans are four days away showing how grateful they are for the biggest shopping day of the year, and to draw in more upgrades than ever, Apple is giving away $50 iTunes gift cards with the purchase of every iPhone and iPad.
Continuing its huge (RED) promotion announced yesterday, Apple will dole out (RED) iTunes gift cards in varying amounts to shoppers who pick something up on Black Friday. The deals aren’t much more impressive than last year’s meager offerings, but for the first time ever, Apple is including the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in the deal.
You can also get an iTunes gift card for buying a Mac, iPod, Apple TV, or Beats product. Here’s how much iTunes cash you’ll get for each:
NFC payments might be easy, but up until now it’s fairly safe to say that they’ve never been cool in the conventional sense. Hoping to change that perspective is a new TV spot by Chase bank, which shows Apple Pay being used by super-cool indie band Bleachers.
The ad shows the indie band travelling around Los Angeles, buying items with their iPhones. In a sense, it’s a bit similar to Eddy Cue’s recent Apple Pay demo, except instead of being a middle-aged man buying Frozen toys, it’s a rockin’ pop band buying custom guitars, cool haircuts and nachos.
Check out the ad after the jump.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is one of the most reliable analysts out there as relates to upcoming Apple products. Having called various things correctly in the run-up to the iPhone 6’s release (such as Apple’s sapphire manufacturing issues), he’s now forecasting numbers for the handsets over the holiday season — And they’re big!
In a new report to investors, Kuo predicts that Apple will sell a giant 71.5 million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus units over the 3-month holiday period. By comparison, one year ago the company sold 51 million iPhones during that same period.
Kuo’s research note also touches on several other topics, including the future of the iPhone 4s and 5c, as well as early speculation about the iPhone 7.
Apple has announced plans for its “biggest fundraising push yet” for this year’s World AIDS Day on December 1 — with a dedicated new section of the App Store, and plans to donate a portion of all sales on two of the year’s busiest shopping days.
“Apple is a proud supporter of (RED) because we believe the gift of life is the most important gift anyone can give,” Tim Cook said in a statement. “For eight years, our customers have been helping fight AIDS in Africa by funding life-saving treatments which are having a profoundly positive impact.”
“This year we are launching our biggest fundraising push yet with the participation of Apple’s retail and online stores, and some of the brightest minds in the App Store are lending their talents to the effort as well.”
So how can you help?
If you’ve installed a third-party keyboard on your iPhone or iPad running iOS 8, you might have noticed a strange omission: While you can communicate in animated GIFs or Klingon, you can’t dictate into any keyboard not made by Apple.
Reddit user 11011 sums up the puzzling situation nicely: “I can’t get myself to stick to alternate keyboards because I use dictation way too much and switching keyboards is a hassle.”
This week: the next iPhone might feature a massively improved camera; Uber’s super bro culture gets bad press, but we want to party with their brogrammers; why we’re not so jazzed on Apple Watch apps; Steve Jobs drowns the first iPod prototype to prove a point; and finally, what we like and don’t about the gadgets and Apple accessories we’re reviewing—it’s an all-new Under Review.
Chuckle your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the chuckles begin.
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Click on for the show notes.
With packages of dirty emoji filed under group headings like Teen Dream and Fetish 101, the artistically perverted designers at Flirtmoji are ready to help the masses up their sexting game.
Anatomically correct emoji, plus classic icons of the sexual revolution such as the rainbow flag and a banana wearing a condom, will make it easy for you to make yourself perfectly clear.
When it comes to Black Friday shopping online, no one does it bigger than Amazon. Starting today, Amazon’s Black Friday hub will be featuring new deals literally every 10 minutes, which is probably too much for the feeble human brain to handle.
There will be limited-time Lightning Deals, Deals of the Day, and a slew of discounts for everything from 4K TVs to Rubik’s cubes. And of course Amazon Prime customers will be treated like royalty with free shipping and the ability to get deals before everyone else.
Microsoft has assaulted Siri with a wave of ads pitting the popular digital assistant against Windows Phone’s Cortana, and while Siri repeatedly gets topped in areas like traffic alerts and reminders, she’s got some secret rhyming skills Cortana can’t top.
To showcase Siri’s mad ability to flow like lava, hip-hop producer Skeewiff featured her skills on his latest track “Know How.” Turns out Siri had the busiest rhymes ever made by man after all, and she’s got some harsh words for Cortana and Google Now.
Check the rhymes below the break:
What’s better than goats? Goats you can control in a weird physics-simulator, of course.
What’s better than that? A full-on massively multiplayer online version of the goat sim. Duh.
The hilarious developers at Coffee Stain Studios (Sanctum, Sanctum 2) just offered up a free patch to all current owners (via Steam, not iOS) of the game, turning a wacky game jam cult hit into an MMO with various classes, like the Tank, or Magician.
Shit just goat serious, guys. Check out the sweet trailer below.
If you’ve been alive in the past fifty years or so, you’ve played a video game. It’s a primarily visual art form that uses current-day technologies to provide ever-evolving gaming experiences across generations.
This new series of short, ten-minute videos written and produced by Stuart Brown aim to take a closer look at the evolution of video game graphics, from the simple monochromatic lines of Pong to the incredibly rich and detailed photo realism of today’s games like Crysis, Destiny, and Far Cry 4.
“Graphics are absolutely important,” says Brown in the fifth and final video. “They are an essential part of video games. A window into another world and a prime indicator of the technology that powers it.”
Check out the first two installments below.
The launch of Apple Pay last month was seen by many as a possible deathblow to Square’s mobile payments service, but CEO Jack Dorsey told CNN today that he doesn’t view Apple Pay as a competitor at all. In fact, Dorsey says his company is open to all forms of payment methods, and they plan to start accepting Apple Pay next year.
Depending on whether or not you can fulfil what is asked of you, being an Apple supplier sounds like it’s either the best or worst experience imaginable.
In the wake of the crashing and burning of Apple’s former sapphire supplier GT Advanced Technologies, some of Cupertino’s other contractors have pitched in with their take; filling the Wall Street Journal in on a few of the lessons they’ve learned along their roller coaster rides with Apple.
The two biggest take-homes? Don’t make promises you can’t keep, and don’t rely too much on Cupertino.
The Rumor: Arch-rival Samsung will remain Apple's top chip supplier.
The Verdict: Most likely. Apple's been trying to reduce its dependency on Samsung components and manufacturing for years, but the problem is there's just not another company that can compete with Samsung's chipmaking biz. TSMC tried but they're still not able to handle as much of the load as Apple would like, so Apple's stuck with Samsung, for better or worse.
Hey, guess what? It’s yet another fantastic round up of great stories from Cult of Mac, so time for another special Newsstand issue just for you!
We’ve got all of the best news stories and features compiled in one place to easily read on your iPad or iPhone, like: New innovations in gaming include hot upcoming game Subterfuge, currently available MOBA Vainglory, and a new ex-Pixar-employee-led studio, plus news on the Apple Watch, some amazing gift guides, and a Black Friday special report that you won’t want to miss.
Dig into Cult of Mac Magazine November 21 Edition, Free on iTunes
Last night, Ursula K. Leguin, the author of seminal fantasy and science-fiction books like The Left Hand of Darkess and the Earthsea series, won a National Book Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
During her speech, she made an impassioned defense of fantasy books, saying we needed such literature because “hard times are coming” when novels that can transport the mind will have actual social value.
It sounds like Apple might have been listening, because they are currently promoting the winners of the National Book Award, past and present, on the iBooks Store.
When Apple first released iOS 8 to the general public, more than a few people with older devices such as the iPhone 4S, iPad 2, and iPad mini noticed that it slowed their devices down to a crawl.
When Apple released iOS 8.1.1, they promised that the update would fix some of the speed issues that iOS 8 had on older devices.
So how’d it work out? iOS 8.1.1 is sometimes an improvement. Sometimes, but not always. And even then, it’s not a huge leap.
The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have been one of the hardest iPhones to date to pick up in store, and since launch, shipping times have stayed high. But as we approach the holidays, that seems like it’s finally starting to change.
Tired of looking at the world from the same old perspective? Need a fresh take on things? A new point of view?
Well, you have less than two weeks to get your hands on an EYEteleporter, an outlandish, periscope-style device that will give you a unique perspective on the world.
George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is one of my favorite dystopian sci-fi novels, and according to Hollywood magazine Deadline, it’s about to be brought to the screen courtesy of the Jason Bourne movies’ director Paul Greengrass.
For those who are unfamiliar with it, Nineteen Eighty-Four tells the story of a surveillance heavy future (well, technically the past at this point) in which an everyman named Winston Smith rebels against an all-knowing government in an age of omnipresent surveillance and perpetual war.