Making neon signs is a sadly dying craft, but there’s no better way to learn about the beauty of the art than this video, showing a master neon craftsman create a replica of our favorite shape on Earth: the Apple logo!
Update: Uber and Spotify have confirmed a partnership that will let Spotify Premium subscribers become backseat DJs in Uber cars in 10 cities. The service starts Friday in London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Nashville, New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney and Toronto.
“The integration couldn’t be easier,” the companies said in a press release. “Simply connect your Spotify account via the Uber app, request a ride, and when you get matched up with a Spotify-enabled Uber, select music that suits your mood. Your tunes will be playing when your Uber arrives, and you can change it up at any time.”
Ever since Apple bought Beats for $3 billion back in May, Cupertino has slowly but surely been integrating the headphone maker’s products and services into the official Apple portfolio. It’s added Beats Music to the Apple TV, officially listed it as an Apple app on the App Store, and rolled out a Beats by Dre section at Apple Stores.
Now it looks like Beats by Dre headphones will officially be an Apple product in the biggest way that counts: You’ll soon be able to get them repaired or replaced at your local Genius Bar.
Apple has announced that its China App Store, the second biggest in the world, is now accepting UnionPay as a payment option for customers.
As the most popular payment card in China — with over 4.5 billion cards issued to date — the move will make it simpler and more convenient for Apple users in China to purchase apps, since customers can now easily link their Apple ID with a UnionPay debit or credit card.
“The ability to buy apps and make purchases using UnionPay cards has been one of the most requested features from our customers in China,” Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, is quoted as saying in Apple’s statement. “China is already our second largest market for app downloads, and now we’re providing users with an incredibly convenient way to purchase their favorite apps with just one-tap.”
With a cutesy, one-eyed protagonist named Zak and colorful graphics aplenty, upcoming game Flyhunter Origins looks like it could be a big-screen animated movie.
That’s not too shocking, since the game was developed by Steel Wool Games, a San Francisco Bay Area-based startup composed of Pixar employees past and present. But while the story of a space janitor who becomes wrapped up in an intergalactic insect-catching adventure sounds like it could come from the next Brad Bird movie, what the team has crafted is a compelling 2-D platformer that owes as much to Super Mario Bros. as it does to Toy Story.
“What we admired about those early games is what they did with very limited technology,” says Andrew Dayton, a 20-year veteran of computer visual effects, whose day job sees him working as senior technical director at Pixar. “Back then you couldn’t hide bad gameplay with pretty pictures. Playability was everything for us.”
Although it’s never been in either Apple or Nintendo’s graces, GBA4iOS has long been one of our favorite apps on iOS. An excellent Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance emulator for the iPhone and iPad, GBA4iOS was long available to install on iOS 7 and above, no jailbreak required.
That all changed with iOS 8.1, though. To install itself without going through the App Store, GBA4iOS required users to set back their date by at least one day, but Apple patched it out. It was a huge bummer, but guess what? GBA4iOS is back, it works on iOS 8.1, and there’s still no jailbreak required!
When the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were announced, many Android fans laughed at the “pitiful” 1GB of RAM of Apple’s flagship smartphone, when Android flagships tended to ship with 2GB and sometimes more.
But specs don’t always — or even most of the time — tell the whole story. As it turns out, an iPhone 6 with 1GB of RAM runs much faster than a similarly specced Android smartphone with 2GB of RAM. And it all has to do with the fundamental difference in the way iOS and Android handle apps.
Between Pirates of Silicon Valley and Jobs, there have already been two Steve Jobs biopics. How is Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming joint going to be able to differentiate itself from them? Apparently, by casting Steve Jobs’ estranged daughter as the film’s protagonist.
This week: Huge news in the fight for an open Internet; YouTube’s music service confuses us; Apple Pay is, like, the payment method of the future, man; big Black Friday deals on Apple’s newest gadgets; the go-to apps we keep on our home screens, and sooooo much more.
Hem and haw 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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Show notes ahead!
Aaron Sorkin parodies have been doing the rounds since The West Wing started, but this one from Late Night with Seth Meyers is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Somewhat bizarrely it also does the best job of anything I’ve watched so far convincing me exactly why Sorkin is the perfect (and possibly the only) person who should be bringing a Steve Jobs movie to the big screen.
From the fast-speaking walk and talks, to the angry rants, to the sentimental, rousing speeches, not only are all of Sorkin’s tropes perfectly lampooned here — but they also fit perfectly with what most of us are hoping for from a Jobs movie.
Sorkin had said that his Jobs movie will take place as three 30-minute scenes, each depicting the backstage goings-on at an Apple product announcement at different stages in Jobs’ career. I can’t wait to see it!
Let’s just hope they get a new actor locked in place soon.
“So, what do you cosplay as?” asks this geek girl in the comic book shop. “Slutty Hawkeye? Slutty Thor? Slutty Iron Man?”
The video below is one of those “funny because it’s true” situations, as many women who love superheroes and comics hear the same kinds of questions and face the same sort of dismissive candor from geeky men who can’t seem to realize that everyone loves comics and superhero movies.
Check it out and see how annoying it would be to face this kind of discrimination.
Retailers and consumers alike love Black Friday for all it represents: pure, unadulterated consumerism. Gamers love sitting on their couches all day, playing video games. Lucky for both groups, you can have it all next weekend.
If you’re looking to save big bucks on hotly anticipated holiday gifts, you’re going to have to get out into the feeding frenzy the day after Thanksgiving and elbow your way to the front to grab some of these amazing gamer-centric deals.
Best Buy, Toys R Us, Walmart and Target have some great upcoming deals for Black Friday, including some fine Sony PlayStation 4, Nintendo Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS hotness.
The iPhone 6 is outselling the iPhone 6 Plus by a margin of 3-to-1 in the U.S., but that’s no knock on Apple’s giant-sized handset, according to a new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.
The research firm’s sales breakdown looked at the first 30 days the iPhone 6 family of handsets were available to buy. It concluded that the iPhone 6 represented 68% of iPhone sales, with the iPhone 6 Plus making up 23-24%.
Combined, this means that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus represented a massive 91-92% of iPhones sold in the United States. The remaining iPhones were previous generation iPhone 5s and 5c units. This figure is even more impressive when you consider that last year the then-new iPhones represented a smaller 84% of iPhone sales after the first month.
Marc Newson is tag-teaming design at Apple now with Jony Ive, but that’s not stopping him from working part-time on some incredible part-time projects. We saw Newson redesign the beer keg, now he’s taking aim at redesigning Berretta’s classic shotgun.
Berretta unveiled Newson’s redesign of its 486 shotgun at an event last night in London. The boomstick has been updated with a 21st century design, adding a new opening lever design to go with the intricate engravings.
Take a look:
AAPL shares closed at an all-time high yesterday, putting the company’s market cap at $663.2 billion. Never before has Apple been so profitable. In fact, Apple makes so much money, it’s now worth more than the entire Russian stock market.
Check out the chart below:
We get slammed 24/7 with new Apple rumors. Some are accurate, most are not. To give you a clue about what’s really coming out of Cupertino in the future, we’re busting out our rumor debunker each week to blow up the nonsense.
The Apple rumor mill is going into hibernation mode over the winter, but that’s not stopping a few juicy bits from leaking out. This week we’ve got rumors of Apple Maps coming to the web, the giant iPad facing production problems, and the first batch of Apple Watch orders.
Step up to our crystal ball and see which rumors are likely to come true in 2015.
Although many — including Apple — would argue that Bendgate is overblown, and the iPhone 6 is no more prone to bending when treated right than any other smartphone, there’s a small but vocal minority that disagrees. If you’re one of them, there’s now a resource to track Apple Stores that will be sympathetic to your plight.
Do you want a new iPad Air or iPad mini, but can’t afford $399 or $499 to start? Well, thanks to Sprint, you can now lease an iPad Mini 3 starting at just $17.00 a month, or iPad Air 2 for just $20.
Anyone who travels a lot internationally has likely been stung by roaming Internet charges at some point in other. While it is possible to buy or rent a local SIM card when you’re abroad, this requires that your iPhone be either unlocked or jailbroken — and also limits users to just one mobile carrier in each country.
Trying to solve this problem is a nifty Kickstarter project which aims to build a its multi-carrier, virtual SIM-equipped iPhone case that means travelers get affordable data roaming in 100+ countries for just $2 a day.
Another week, another full docket of great stories at Cult of Mac, so we’ve put together yet another special Newsstand issue just for you, with all of the best news stories and features compiled in one place to easily read on your iPad or iPhone. This week we’ve got some great stuff: Jony Ive’s design secrets, some sexy slim cases for your iPhone 6, quick tips for OS X Yosemite, the best Black Friday deals (so far), and a hot tutorial on making GIFS on your Mac. All that and more, like we do, in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine.
Dig into Cult of Mac Magazine November 14 Edition, Free on iTunes
For us old farts, T9 texting still has a sort of nostalgic allure. Now a new iPhone keyboard allows you to text message your friends like it’s 1999 all over again.
These days, the closest most iPhone owners come to experiencing what it’s like to take a picture on a Polaroid instant camera is loading up the Instagram app. But a new startup is hoping to bring a built-in instant printer to your iPhone by way of a Polaroid style case, with a little dash of augmented reality on top
Following the discovery of the serious iOS vulnerability known as Masque Attack, Apple has issued a statement to iMore, claiming that it is not aware of users experiencing this problem, but that users should be aware of online malware that circumvents Apple’s existing security measures.
“We designed OS X and iOS with built-in security safeguards to help protect customers and warn them before installing potentially malicious software,” said an Apple spokesperson. “We’re not aware of any customers that have actually been affected by this attack. We encourage customers to only download from trusted sources like the App Store and to pay attention to any warnings as they download apps. Enterprise users installing custom apps should install apps from their company’s secure website.”
One thing that makes iPhones so great is how each one can be so different, thanks to all the applications available, the many different ways to organize your home screen and all the other customization options that help you make Apple’s smartphone your own.
In today’s Cult of Mac video, I’ll show you what’s on my iPhone 6. You’ll find out how I keeps my iPhone organized, which apps I use most and more.
Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV for all our latest videos.
Remember when you’d hang out with your pals all night long, scheming and swearing and stabbing each other in the back as you played board games like Monopoly, Axis & Allies or Risk for hours on end?
The developers of upcoming mobile strategy game Subterfuge want to recapture that competitive and fun gaming magic on the iOS era’s platform of choice.
“We started with the idea of making a game that would give you a shared, epic experience with your friends,” designer Noel Llopis told Cult of Mac. “We’re hoping Subterfuge provides something like that,” Llopis says, “but in a way that meshes with people’s real lives.”