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News - page 1303

Apple might enlist Swatch to give iWatch fun faces

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(an iWatch concept design)
(an iWatch concept design)

We’ve been waiting all year for Apple to finally reveal its long-rumored wearable creation, but if the big iWatch event ever does happen this year, we might be getting a lot more smartwatches than expected.

Swatch and other watch makers will supposedly team up with Apple to bring a variety of stylish iWatches to consumers, according to a rumor from VentureBeat, that claims Cupertino wants to partner with companies in the watch business to expand the smart watches’ appeal.

Apple’s mobile payments solution could arrive in the iPhone 6 this fall

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Photo: Apple

Apple’s big plan for mobile payments could debut as early as the iPhone 6 this fall, according to a new report from The Information. While the company has been in talks with major players in the payments industry for a while, its efforts haven’t made it into the light of day yet.

The mobile “wallet” would allow the user to pay in the real world using just their iPhone, and Apple already has the security feature in place to make it all work seamlessly.

Take control of your data (and wallet) with these iOS tips

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When surfing the web or using one of your favorite applications, chances are your iPhone is burning through mobile data. Unless you have unlimited data on your wireless plan, this can quickly become a costly habit. Luckily, it’s easy to control your data on iOS no matter who your carrier is.

In today’s video, we show you how to manage data on your device so you can avoid a hefty bill.

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

Apple’s $425 million spike in R&D spending points to new products in pipeline

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$1 trillion value
Apple is heading toward a $1 trillion market cap. But could Amazon get there first?
Photo: Pierre Marcel/Flickr CC

Eddy Cue thinks 2014 will be the best product pipeline Apple’s had in 25 years, and according to the company’s latest filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Cupertino is certainly pouring enough money into R&D to back him up.

Apple increased spending in research and development 36 percent year-over-year in Q3, with an extra $425 million being funneled into R&D in the last quarter alone.

Sony invests $345 million to capitalize on selfie demand

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The most important camera upgrade on the iPhone 6 won’t be on in the back, it’ll be the front-facing selfie-cam, and Sony says it’s ready to spend $345 million to make sure it has enough image sensors for future iPhones, iPads, and other tablets and smartphones.

Sony, Apple’s image sensor supplier for the iPhone and iPad, announced today that it is increasing its production capabilities of image sensors for smartphones and tablets by completing work on a factory it purchased from Renesas Electronics in northwestern Japan.

Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff gets a Comic-Con-themed update

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Just in time for Comic-Con International, iOS game Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff is rolling out an appropriately themed update, adding a whole new storyline and cameos from a bevy of geek-chic celebrities.

The new plot line concerns (surprise, surprise!) a comic convention that comes to Quahog. Chaos naturally ensues, and Stewie somehow gets transformed into the evil octopus monster seen in the above picture. To fight him, Quahog enlists the help of an all-star celeb cast including Patrick Stewart, Bryan Cranston, Stan Lee, Ron Perlman, George Takei, Felicia Day and Nathan Fillion.

With their help, the Griffins and supporting characters are turned into real superheroes, who can use their new-found powers to save the day and restore order to the town.

Apple is bringing its OS X Yosemite beta to the public tomorrow

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Yosemite

Listen up, Mac users! Apple is gearing up to release its first public beta of OS X Yosemite tomorrow, July 24, giving those without a developer account the opportunity to get their hands on it for the first time. Only the first 1 million people who sign up will gain access to the pre-release software, however, so if you haven’t already, submit your details today.

Zelda-like RPG toots its own Oceanhorn with ‘Game of the Year’ update trailer

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The console-quality, Zelda-inspired game Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas was one of the best original games in ages when it hit iOS late last year.

Based on the amazing feedback that game deservedly scooped up, developers FDG Entertainment and Cornfox & Bros. have just dropped a brand new victory lap trailer hyping what looks to be an epic “Game of the Year Edition” update the team is currently working on.

Apple posts support document on alleged iOS security backdoors

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The FBI director is none too happy about iOS 8's new security measures.
The FBI director is none too happy about iOS 8's new security measures.
Photo:

Earlier this week, forensic data scientist Jonathan Zdziarski made a bold claim: iOS may be vulnerable to government snooping by design. According to Zdziarski, iOS had multiple backdoors installed that made any device running the OS “almost always at risk of spilling all data,” which in turn made for some “tasty attack points for .gov and criminals.”

Apple, of course, denied having ever worked with the government to install any backdoors. But that didn’t change the fact that these unsecured services do exist, and worse, have gone entirely undocumented. But thankfully, Apple has rectified at least that last problem, penning a new support document that explains what each of Zdziarski’s snoopsome services actually does.

Booking Apple’s in-store training sessions is now easier than ever

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Picture: Apple
Picture: Apple

One of the best things Apple offers for newbie customers is the ability to go into brick-and-mortar retail stores for training sessions.

Looking to improve this service — or at least to speed up the ability for users to make the appropriate reservations — Apple has made changes to its “Learn” webpage, adding an interactive map of its stores along with revised session details.

The changes also integrate workshops such as Youth Programs and One to One training into the existing Concierge reservation system.

The new Beats L.A. campus is pimpin’, yo!

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Beats employees, presumably chilling till the next episode. Picture: Fast Company

Beats may have been acquired by Apple for $3 billion earlier this year, but that doesn’t mean that the trendy headphone maker is ready to adopt the white Jony Ive-favored minimalism of Apple just yet.

While Apple continues to work on its Cupertino “Mothership” headquarters, an article from Fast Company sheds some light on the new Beats campus being renovated from two industrial buildings in Culver City, Los Angeles.

Featuring reception areas, conference rooms, and offices in one building, and a cafeteria, gym, and double-height workshop for R&D in the other, the article describes the design as featuring “architectural gestures that go from pop to cinematic to downright arty.”

One thing it’s not, though, is reminiscent of Apple.

Why iPad art is more than a passing fad — though you soon might smell it

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Jeff Hebert made this with Sketchbook Pro.
Jeff Hebert made this with Sketchbook Pro.

Early doodles on the iPad looked a lot like this generation’s Etch-a-Sketch.

But in just a few years, after celebrated artists such as David Hockney have shown their iPad works in galleries, Apple’s revolutionary device has come into its own as a canvas.

The eclectic group of works above are finalists in the second annual Mobile Digital Art Exhibition (aka MDAC Summit 2014), an upcoming art-packed weekend of workshops and a celebration of digital art in Palo Alto, a stone’s throw from Apple headquarters. Take a gander and vote on them by July 31 for the People’s Choice Award.

Blizzard releases first Hearthstone expansion

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Released earlier this year, Blizzard’s Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft manages to do what many would have thought impossible: out MtG Magic: The Gathering.

An astonishingly addictive collectible card game, Hearthstone‘s only failing, if you could call it that, is it was for all intents and purposes multiplayer-only. But today, Blizzard has rectified that by releasing its highly anticipated Curse of Naxxramas expansion for the game on both Mac and iPad.

Best of all? It’s free. Or, at least, the first taste is.

Apple faces class-action suit over alleged labor violations

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busy-Apple-Store

A group of former retail and corporate Apple employees are suing the iPhone-maker for alleged violations of the California Labor Code, claiming Apple never granted timely meal or rest breaks, and failed to promptly send out final paychecks as well.

The case was just bumped up to class-action status yesterday, opening it up to a trial by jury as the case expands to include over 20,000 current and former Apple employees in the state who could be affected by the ruling.

See OS X Yosemite’s latest tweaks in action in beta 4

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The latest OS X Yosemite beta, pushed to developers Monday, brings a few more tweaks to Apple’s upcoming Mac operating system.

In today’s video you’ll get a quick look at the updates in OS X Yosemite beta 4, including changes to Dark Mode, a new calculator and a refreshed iTunes. With the public beta of OS X Yosemite rumored to be just around the corner, Mac fans should be getting excited about the operating system’s great looks and many functional upgrades.

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

Trust the magic pipeline and other key takeaways from Apple’s Q3 earnings call

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Last quarter was bright but the future's even brighter, according to Apple.
Last quarter was bright but the future's even brighter, according to Apple.

Even Apple execs sounded pleasantly surprised as they revealed last quarter’s mostly higher-than-expected numbers Tuesday. But in what’s become something of a refrain in Cupertino, they couldn’t stop themselves from vague and knowing references to the incredible products waiting in the magical Apple pipeline.

Trust us, they seemed to say: Last quarter’s net profit of $7.7 billion — fueled by robust sales of iPhones, MacBooks and a surprisingly strong showing in the iTunes Software and Services category — was totally great, but wait till you see what we’ve got up our sleeves.

“We’re expecting a very busy fall,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s chief financial officer. “We’re very excited about what’s in the pipeline.”

What else did Apple executives have to say during Tuesday’s Q3 earnings call? Here’s our take on everything you need to know from the latest numbers talk.

iPhone sales climb steadily, iPad sinks, but Apple still rakes in $7.7 billion in Q3 profit

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iPad mini retina display. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
iPad mini retina display. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple fell just shy of Wall Street’s third-quarter revenue predictions but came in well within its own guidance, bringing in $37.4 billion gross and $7.7 billion in profit for Q3 2014.

iPhone sales were modest at best, but that’s probably because everyone is waiting for the iPhone 6 in September.

Apple sold 35 million iPhones, 13.2 million iPads and 4.4 million Macs in the just-ended quarter, the company announced Tuesday just prior to its Q3 earning call. That’s decent for what’s traditionally the company’s slowest quarter of the year, but they’re not numbers to sing about—which is why Apple is steering everyone’s attention to what it has planned for the coming months.

Liveblog: Hard facts and cheap shots from Apple’s Q3 2014 earnings call

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Time Cook onstage at WWDC 2014.
CEO Tim Cook will tell investors why Apple is still numero uno in today's Q3 earnings call. Photo: Roberto Baldwin/The Next Web
Photo: Roberto Baldwin/The Next Web

Tim Cook and newly-apointed CFO Luca Maestri are getting ready for Apple’s Q3 2014 earnings call with investors. The call will reveal just how much cash the company raked in over the past three months and what they should expect later this year. We’ll be right here, liveblogging the whole thing.

Apple hasn’t released a new product this quarter, but investors on Wall Street are still bullish about the future of AAPL, sending the company’s stock price surging 26% since its last earnings report.

Whether Apple was able to beat expectations of $38.4 billion in revenue without an explosion of new sales will finally be known today at 2 p.m. Pacific, and we’ll be ready to dish out all the news and juicy tidbits Tim and the team tell investors.

So keep this page open for the full scoop on how ridiculously profitable Apple was last quarter, as well as what’s to come its “most exciting product pipeline in 25 years.”

iPad decimates rivals when it comes to Web browsing

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iPad Air
The 2013 iPad Air was an obvious design influence on the iPhone 6.
Photo: Apple

With a great quarter behind Apple and massive refreshes of both iOS and OS X in the near future (along with a little something called the iPhone 6) Tim Cook is unlikely to have a lack of things to crow about during today’s earnings call.

If he is, however, maybe he can bring up the fact that — despite increased competition — the iPad is still driving a massive majority of tablet web usage, as measured through ad impressions.

The data was collected by research firm Chitika Insights, who sampled tens of millions of U.S. and Canadian ad impressions between July 1 and 7 this year. They found that the iPad accounts for 78.0% of all tablet ad impressions — up from the 77.2% the iPad represented back in April, and one of the largest quarter-over-quarter increases for any tablet brand.

Ay, caramba! Simpsons World will put every episode at your fingertips

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Get thee to Simpsons World!
Get thee to Simpsons World!

Imagine a world in which you can watch, search, and share anything from every The Simpsons episode, ever. If you were Homer Simpson, the dim-witted but lovable (and alcoholic child-strangler) father on the 25-year-old animated sitcom created by Matt Groening, you might drool at the prospect.

For the rest of us, though, we might explode with glee with the upcoming Simpsons World, an app and service that will indeed contain every single episode of The Simpsons, ever, in a searchable and share-able format. Now you can finally use official clips to add meaning and cultural relevance to every one of your reddit comment threads with ease.

Kobe Bryant says making an iPhone isn’t too different than developing your hoops game

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kobe

Facing the end of his long, dominant NBA career, Kobe Bryant is branching out into the business world with Kobe Inc., and while he’s picked the brains of people like Oprah, Hillary Swank and Arianna Huffington, it was a meeting with Jony Ive at Apple Campus earlier this summer that caught the web’s attention.

What could one of the greatest basketball players of all-time learn from the world’s most famous designer? According to an interview with Bloomberg, the Black Mamba simply wanted to know how Ive approaches design and how he manages to see the world differently than everyone that makes hardware.

An NBA superstar reaching out to the world’s tech designer for help sounds like an odd fit, but Bryant says building an iPhone isn’t too different from developing a world-class basketball game because like building products, you approach both sequentially, piece by piece, to make it unstoppable.

Here’s the full interview:

MacBook Air update solves issues with sleep and blasting fans

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Grab a great deal on a refurbished MacBook Pro Ivy i5 Dual 13
Grab a great deal on a refurbished MacBook Pro Ivy i5 Dual 13" Laptop.
Photo: Cult of Mac

If you have a MacBook Air from mid-2011, you may have noticed intermittent issues where your laptop has a harder time waking up from sleep mode than it normally would have done, and when it does, the fans might loudly blast as if the whole laptop were on fire.

Although rare, these issues have been afflicting customers for at least the last couple of years. But it seems like Apple has finally figured out what’s wrong, as a new update today specifically for mid-2011 MacBook Air owners fixes the longstanding issues.

App Watch: Hot photo apps, cool cricket temps and Pinboard for the Mac

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Aperture Exporter is a free tool for those fleeing Aperture after Apple shut it down. It’s a beta, but that’s cool because you can still use Aperture for now while you wait for the final version. Aperture Exporter will mirror your collections as folders, save the original files with XMP metadata sidecar files, and even retain your ratings, comments and other metadata. What you won’t get is your image edits, but that’s because Lightroom and Aperture are so different. Free

Aperture Exporter is a free tool for those fleeing Aperture after Apple shut it down. It’s a beta, but that’s cool because you can still use Aperture for now while you wait for the final version. Aperture Exporter will mirror your collections as folders, save the original files with XMP metadata sidecar files, and even retain your ratings, comments and other metadata. What you won’t get is your image edits, but that’s because Lightroom and Aperture are so different. Free


Sketchy rumor suggests iPad mini 3 will be 30% thinner

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ipadpro_C
A pair of new rumors suggest that the next iPad mini will be 30 percent thinner, and that Apple is hard at work on a 12.9-inch iPad for 2015.

A pretty sketchy rumor coming out of China claims that the new model iPad mini 3 might borrow the “Air” moniker of its bigger brother, and be a whopping 30 percent thinner than its predecessor.

The report also claims that this new iPad mini Air will rely on the as-yet-unnannounced A8 processor currently manufactured by TSMC.