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iPhone 6 will run on all major Chinese networks

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Pretty much everyone already knows that the iPhone 6 is coming out next month, but one of Apple’s carrier partners in China just couldn’t hold onto the secret anymore, and announced to customers on Weibo that it will sell an unlocked iPhone 6.

The ad was quickly deleted, however, it did reveal that Apple plans to release a single version of the iPhone 6 that supports all the wireless networks in the China for the first time ever.

Gritty Automata trailer makes the robot uprising seem inevitable

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Gabe Ibañez directs and Antonio Banderas stars in this gritty, realistic near-future sci-fi flick, Automata.

The premise is that, in 2004, robots have found a way to circumvent built-in Protocols against harming human beings or self-altering their own physical form.

The award-winning film looks to be a fantastic take on the robots-gone-wild sub-genre, and it’s got Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men) as a rogue killer robot and Melanie Griffith as a scheming politician; what’s not to like?

Apple adds 16 new countries to Volume Purchase Program

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The App Store just experienced its worst security breach ever.
The App Store just experienced its worst security breach ever.
Photo: Apple

Apple has added 16 new countries and regions to the App Store’s Volume Purchasing Program today that allows businesses and schools to purchase mass quantities of a single app in just one purchase, and distribute it among multiple students or employees.

The list of new countries joining the program include Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, and the UAE.

The addition of the new countries was announced by the App Store team via the following email:

Apple won’t start assembling iWatch until September

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iPhone 6 and iWatch. Perfect companions.  iPhoto: Martin Hajek
Photo: Martin Hajek

Apple’s expected to announce its first foray into wearables this October, but a new report out of China is adding to fanboy fears that the iWatch launch won’t take place until 2015, with claims that suppliers won’t even start delivering components until September at the earliest.

And then it’s going to take months just to assemble a few million units.

Foxconn factory leaks exact dimensions of iPhone 6

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Foxconn factory employees have leaked the complete dimensions of the iPhone 6, according to iGen.fr, which posted photos of what appears to be Foxconn’s internal software listing the full dimensions for both the 5.5-inch and 4.7-inch iPhone 6.

The two new phones, code named N56 and N61, are expected to be announced next month, and if the leaked specs are right, not only will the 5.5-inch iPhone have more screen than your iPhone 5s, it will also be 60% heavier.

iPhone 6 production hits snag as Apple makes last-minute tweak

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Apple is expected to reveal the iPhone in nearly three weeks, but according to a Reuters report, production has hit a snag, sending suppliers scrambling to get enough parts in time, thanks to a last minute design change.

To make the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 thinner than ever, Apple planned to shrink the backlight assembly by using a single layer of film — instead of the two used on the iPhone 5s display — but after running into some last minute problems with production, Apple decided to redesign the key component.

Crystal Baller: iPhone 6 gets NFC and 7 other crazy Apple rumors

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The iPhone 6’s official unveiling is less than a month away, and even though we pretty much know what it’s going to look like, the rumor mill hasn’t let up on new details that could make their way into the iPhone 6.

Once again, we’re donning our finest gypsy apparel and stepping behind the crystal ball to divine the truth behind this week’s most plausible and impossible rumors to see if NFC really is coming to the iPhone, whether the iPad Air 2 will get a RAM upgrade, and if it’s true that iWatch is too hopelessly behind to launch in 2014.

Come stare into our crystal ball to see past the rumors and into the future…


How a dev doubled his revenue with an April Fools’ joke

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This previously free app is making its developer some decent cash. Photo: Rob LeFebvre
This previously free book-cataloging app now makes its developer decent cash, thanks to some shrewd pricing moves. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

San Francisco-based developer Giacomo Balli doubled his take on his iPhone apps thanks to an April Fools’ Day joke. When he ratcheted up the price to an eye-popping $4.99 for an app that catalogs books, he got downloads instead of complaints.

The App Store lets devs change the sale price of their apps pretty much any time they like, but most folks take conventional routes: cutting prices during sales or dropping prices to free. Balli made his previously free apps premium with just a toggle.

“There weren’t any app updates, either,” he told Cult of Mac over the phone. “Just the price.”

Product Hunt is like Reddit for the hottest new apps and tech

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Product Hunt is the hottest startup in the Silicon Valley tech bubble right now, which is fitting because all it does is promote other startups.

Think of it like Reddit for the best new apps and services. Users can up-vote products they like and submit their own for consideration by the community. It’s a site for the geekiest of tech enthusiasts who are early adopters and care about how things are made.

The official Product Hunt iPhone app was released today, and it’s currently getting featured on the front page of the App Store.

Apple met with top health insurance providers about HealthKit partnership

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New IBM cloud has the potential to take Health data to the next level. Photo: Apple
New IBM cloud has the potential to take Health data to the next level. Photo: Apple

Apple is nearly ready to become the go-to place for healthcare providers to get all your personal fitness data, and along with meeting with hospitals to talk about the benefits of HealthKit, Apple has been talking to the countries biggest health insurance providers about partnering with its health initiatives.

Soon you’ll be able to stick iBeacons on anything

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Estimote makes iBeacons in little polygon shapes with cool colors and custom designs. Designed to communicate over low-energy Bluetooth, Estimote Beacons can be used to alert nearby smartphones of a specific deal when they enter a shop, for example.

But what if different items for sale in that shop had their own iBeacons? That’s the vision behind what Estimote is calling Stickers, small adhesive sensors that can be put just about anywhere. As more and more companies adopt iBeacon technology, expect to start seeing these kinds of little beacons everywhere you go.

Tim Cook visits veterans hospital where the iPad is lending a hand

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The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been under fire all year for being run pretty much the exact opposite way as Apple. Needing all the help they can get, Tim Cook payed a visit to the local Veterans Hospital in Palo Alto this afternoon.

Tim tweeted that he met with doctors and veterans at the VA Palo Alto with Congresswoman. Anna G. Eshoo. The hospital now uses iPads to help treat vets and families, and you can bet Tim did a little campaigning for HealthKit and iOS 8 while pulling out his best Patch Adams impersonations.

The iPad program at VA Palo Alto was initiated at the beginning of 2013 and now claims shorter-than-average wait times for both primary and specialty care appointments. Newly confirmed secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Robert McDonald, also visited the Palo Alto VA yesterday and said it sets the standard within the troubled health care system, calling it the “crown jewel.”

Quicken 2015 for Mac arrives with new design and mobile app to track your finances

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It has been seven years since Intuit has released a new version of Quicken for Mac. Like Windows XP, the finance management suite has remained a shining beacon of how ancient software can look after a few years.

Now it’s 2014, and Quicken is back with a big 2015 release and companion mobile app. There are some new features, and certain features from Quicken 2007 are missing in the launch version. The design has been completely revamped, and cloud sync keeps your finances up to date on the Mac and Money Management iPhone app.

From geniuses to designers, chart reveals Apple salaries

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Other than getting to #humblebrag to all your friends that Dr. Dre is your colleague at the top tech company in the world, working for Apple has some serious benefits in the form of cash money.

Apple makes sure to compensate most of its corporate employees enough to at least afford a Tesla. But if you’ve ever been curious how much each position at Apple earns a year, the folks at BusinessVibes created the graph based on data from GlassDoor that ranks over 20 jobs at Apple based on pay from the lowly Mac Genius to Jony Ive’s industrial designers.

The good news for coders ready for a career switch is even software quality assurance engineers start around $92k a year, but of course Apple places the most value on industrial designers who bring home nearly $30k more a year than the 2nd highest paid employees – hardware engineers.

 

Steve Jobs’ inspirational commencement speech is hidden in Pages for Mac

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One of the most famous speeches by Steve Jobs is the commencement address he gave at Stanford University in 2005. The 22-minute speech is definitely worth watching if you’re an Apple fan.

Apple has made small and subtle references to Jobs in its software before, and now another easter egg has been discovered in Pages for Mac. Jobs’ entire commencement speech is hidden within a text file in Pages, and it’s easy to pull up.

iPad Air 2 Wi-Fi and GPS antennas leak ahead of fall production

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Alleged iPad Air 2 components (from left to right) Wi-Fi module, microphone, and LTE antenna

iPhone 6 leaks have stolen most our attention lately ahead of next month’s big reveal, but a new set of leaked images may have just given us our first look at some of the iPad Air 2’s internal components.

Other leaks have shown the next-gen iPad Air’s rear shell and front display, but alleged images of the iPAd Air 2’s Wi-Fi module, GPS antenna, and microphone were posted today by Chinese Apple blogger Xiaolong Cahakan, indicating full production on Apple’s next tablet is about to get underway.

Apple wants to teach Siri how to find your car

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Find My iPhone has been invaluable at recovering lost Apple devices, but if you’re anything like me, keeping track of where you parked the car amid a sea of concrete and sedans is even harder than remembering where you dropped your selfie machine.

Apple’s latest patent filings reveal it has been working to solve those lost car disasters with an ingenious system that could be included in the future iPhones to guide you back to your vehicle, and it doesn’t even need an LTE or GPS signal.

Fix the iPhone’s most common problems in 60 seconds

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Our iPhones are trusty sidekicks helping us save the day with every task we perform with them, but sometimes they meet their weaknesses. While our devices can’t be perfect all the time, periodically home buttons become unresponsive and other common errors can occur with them.

In today’s video, take a look at how you can fix an array of different iPhone problems in just 60 quick seconds. Find out the best way to fix an unresponsive home button, a water damaged iPhone and even clogged headphone/charging ports.

Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to catch all our latest videos.

Side-by-side: The iPhone 6 vs. the Samsung Galaxy Alpha

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Like most of Samsung’s products, the upcoming Galaxy Alpha is already getting a lot of flack amongst Apple fans for being a ripoff of Apple’s upcoming iPhone 6.

Armed with his super-realistic 3-D render of what we believe the next iPhone will look like, our favorite Apple-obsessed conceptual modeler decided to put a render of the iPhone 6 next to a render of the Galaxy Alpha and see how similar they really were.

And how similar are they? You can judge for yourself after the jump, but in my opinion, up until now, the only thing Samsung hadn’t stolen from Apple for its Galaxy smartphones was the quality of materials used to manufacture them. Looks like even that’s not true anymore.

Hate new words like ‘adorbs’ all you want, but language is always changing

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If you’re freaking out about the new words added to OxfordDictionaries.com — like “adorbs,” “listicle,” “hate-watch” and “acquihire” — you’re not alone.

Most folks learn their vocabularies while growing up. Adding new words or changing the meaning of existing ones can be confusing to the human mind. Many of us pass judgment on these new words, upset about how technology is “dumbing down” the language.

This type of linguistic change — and the inevitable backlash to it — is nothing new, says Roy Mitchell, assistant professor of anthropology at University of Alaska Anchorage. “All living languages are always changing,” he told Cult of Mac over the phone. “Even some dead ones change,” he added, noting that Neo-Latin is simply the addition of Greek roots to a long-dead Roman lexicon.

You don’t have to like it. You just have to accept that it’s happening. And that there’s nothing you can do about it.

9 awesome comic books ready to blow up your TV set

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Preacher, based on the ultra-violent and incredibly profane comic book series from Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon at Vertigo, is a not-so-safe bet. That’s why we’re super-glad that AMC (The Walking Dead) has picked up this amazing look at American culture and its obsession with big guns, Christianity and hyper-masculinity, all filtered through a Texas setting. The show reportedly will debut in 2015.

Preacher, based on the ultra-violent and incredibly profane comic book series from Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon at Vertigo, is a not-so-safe bet. That’s why we’re super-glad that AMC (The Walking Dead) has picked up this amazing look at American culture and its obsession with big guns, Christianity and hyper-masculinity, all filtered through a Texas setting. The show reportedly will debut in 2015.