News - page 1304

In many places around the world, around the first 50 people in line waiting for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus last week appeared to be resellers — looking to make a quick (and relatively easy) buck selling Apple’s next generation iPhone on the gray/black market.

While we definitely noticed the phenomenon, YouTube filmmaker Casey Neistat took his camera out on the streets of New York to interview and film the crowds gathered waiting for the new handsets at various Apple Stores around the city.

“Gone are the spirit and excitement from years past,” Neistat observes. “These lines are now about something else entirely.”

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t really like it when people buy new iPhones just to destroy them on camera. It’s extraordinarily wasteful, not just of money but of the craftsmanship Apple puts into every device.

That said, even I have to admit this iPhone 6 torture test is awesome. Dude took an iPhone 6, froze it with liquid nitrogen, and then disintegrated it with a sledgehammer, like some cryogenic Thor.

Following on from a great weekend for its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus handsets, Apple has been named the coolest brand in Britain for the third year running.

The CoolBrands list is voted for by 2,000 consumers, alongside a panel of 37 people described as “key influencers” — including models Sophie Dahl and Jodie Kidd, and the fashion designer Julien Macdonald.

Voters are asked to consider a brand’s style, innovation, originality, authenticity, desirability and uniqueness when making their choices.

We just saw how incredibly far the iPhone’s display has come in seven short years. But if you think that’s impressive, check out how far the actual speed of the iPhone has come from the iPhone 2G to iPhone 6 Plus.

The iPhone has come a long way since its original 3.5-inch, 480 x 320 display. Now the iPhone 6 Plus ships with a massive 5.5-inch, 1920 x 1080 “Retina HD” display with individual pixels that are basically indiscernible to the human eye.

The above screenshot shows an original iPhone screenshot inside a 6 Plus screenshot. It doesn’t even fill a fourth of the new resolution.

Steve Jobs once said that iTunes on Windows was like giving someone ice water in hell. Now Windows users are getting the latest version of iCloud before the Mac faithful.

Apple has already rolled out iCloud Drive, its new cloud filesystem for iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, on Windows. Mac users won’t get iCloud Drive until Yosemite’s rumored launch in October.

One of the cons of owning an iPhone on Verizon has been the inability to make a call and use data at the same time. The old restriction is finally going away with the introduction of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) in the Verizon iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

With every new iPhone purchase, it’s important to weigh the cost of repairs against the value of Apple’s extended warranty. This year, Apple has raised repair costs for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Here’s the complete cost breakdown for out-of-warranty repairs:

The reviews are in! We’ll tell you what people love and don’t about the iPhone 6… Then, RIP, iPod Classic. We remember the humble beginnings of the device that built the new Apple. And finally, Apple announced a base price of $349 for the Apple Watch, sure, but the prices for the other editions might make even Rolex envious. All that plus the lesser known features of iOS 8; how to get U2 out of your iTunes; and a new social video app has us taking more selfies than ever.

Titter 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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It’s like the whole world has iPhone fever today, with folks everywhere standing in one line or another just to get their mitts on a shiny new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus.

Were you not able to get hold of one? Are you waiting for your shiny new pre-ordered iPhone 6 to arrive at your door? Why not find out what to expect when you get that pristine iPhone 6 Plus box in your hands with our sexy unboxing videos.

We’ve got not just one, but two new videos to get you a peek at the hot new units – click above to see the iPhone 6 Plus with its gloriously large 5.5-inch screen, or below to see the still bigger than big iPhone 6 come out of its box.

You could read about the evolution of the iPhone in one of our features, looks at a spec chart, or learn about it an infographic, But none of those is nearly as fun as seeing the original iPhone morph into the iPhone 6 in one GIF.

The folks at GadgetLove have made another great evolution GIF that shows the subtle design changes Apple’s made to the iPhone over the last seven years, with shrinking bezels, thinner form factors, moving buttons and more.

Before you toss away your worthless iPhone 5s, take 3 seconds to appreciate the road to the iPhone 6, and try not to get hypnotized by Jony Ive’s changes.

Source: GadgetLove

The iPhone 6 has been out for less than a day and already would-be hackers are suggesting that its Touch ID fingerprint sensor can be tricked — thanks to a lifted fingerprint and some latex.

The video, posted to YouTube by Security Research Labs, comes with a description noting that, “Although it was shown immediately that the previous iPhone model’s Touch ID could not stand up to rudimentary attacks, the same technology has been included again in the iPhone 6 without any improvement whatsoever.”

The crazy iPhone 6 launch lines around the world are finally shortening up as the first wave of customers take their shiny new devices home. We’re back at the Cult of Mac Headquarters getting intimate with our big and bigger iPhones, but we were curious which iPhone 6 model you bought.

Many of us here went with the 6 Plus – because bigger is definitely better – but a few staffers are loving their smaller iPhone 6 screens. Vote in the poll above and then tell us why you made your choice in the comments.

Joan Rivers was officially declared dead nearly two weeks ago, but the late comedian isn’t quite ready to stop promoting products in the land of the living.

Rivers’ Facebook and Instagram accounts joined the iPhone 6 upgrade madness this morning by posting a picture of her “badass” iPhone 4 that’s supposedly getting “replaced by an iPhone 6 (not the fat one).” #iPhone6 #YAY!

The post was taken down within minutes, but not before TMZ grabbed a shot of it. Joan died a few days before the iPhone 6 was revealed on September 9th, so unless Steve Jobs’ also has a Apple Store in heaven, I imagine some social media intern will be looking for a new job to go with their iPhone 6.

Apple’s insistence on secretive behavior is well known. When it came to entering mobile payments with Apple Pay, that veil of secrecy didn’t drop for a second — with Apple insisting on some pretty stringent security measures, despite dealing with some of the giants of finance.

The code-name it chose for one of its partners on the project might strike you as a bit familiar, however — since it was later re-used as the name for Apple’s latest iteration of OS X.

“Our first code-name was Yosemite,” Barry McCarthy, president of Financial Services at FirstData, told me in an interview. “Later on when we found out that was also the name Apple had selected for its new OS, we changed it to Project Acadia, after another U.S. national park. We weren’t allowed to use or even say the name of the technology company we were working with — which was of course Apple.”

SAN FRANCISCO — Since Apple won’t be selling the iPhone 6 in China for some time, early buyers of the smartphone have an opportunity to make a quick profit by reselling the hot handset on the gray market.

The first 50 people in line at Apple’s San Francisco store this morning appeared to be iPhone resellers — a pattern that seems to be  have been repeated worldwide on the first day of iPhone 6 sales.

Thousands of people around the world lined up at their local Apple stores this morning for new iPhones, but only a select few got a meet-and-greet with the company’s CEO.

Tim Cook was at the Apple Store in Palo Alto, California, at 8 a.m. to welcome those waiting in line for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Naturally, the Apple fans couldn’t resist shooting some selfies. See some of the best pictures and videos from Cook’s surprise appearance below.

There are always going to be debates about who came up with an idea as transformative to Apple’s business as the iTunes and the iPod, but here’s one you may not have heard before: Richard Branson.

In a new interview with the i paper, the Virgin head honcho claims the concept behind Apple’s turnaround duo of inventions was originally made by him as a joke — only for Steve Jobs to take it seriously, and later go on to put it into action.

Apple fans across the U.S. are eagerly awaiting their chance to caress the biggest iPhone screens ever made, but America’s #1 fanboy and late-night show host Stephen Colbert got his iPhone 6 delivery a little early.

Colbert immediately dismissed his iPhone 5s as “worse than useless” after pulling out the iPhone 6, but Steve’s unit came pre-loaded with a little extra suprise: nude photos of U2 frontman Bono.

Watch the funny segment below:

In addition to the long lines of iPhone 6 customers, Apple Stores across the United States are going to see another group of people gathering today: protesting security workers.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is planning to stage protests at more than 20 different Apple Store in the U.S., pushing Apple to provide full-time work benefits for for its security officers.

“We are asking tech companies like Apple to support good jobs for workers who contribute to their success,” SEIU spokesman Alfredo Fletes told SFGate.

Apple’s new iPhones are finally here, and judging by stock levels in Apple retail stores and reports on Twitter, it’s the iPhone 6 Plus that people are most excited for. Mine arrived about four hours ago, and I’ve hardly put it down since I snatched it out of the hands of the UPS delivery guy.

Having played with many of its features and stared at it lovingly for far too long, I decided to bring you my first impressions of Apple’s first “phablet.” So while you’re sitting beside your door waiting for yours to arrive, or standing outside an Apple Store somewhere with achy legs, you can enjoy a glimpse of what you have to look forward to.

You can use iCloud or iTunes to transfer your entire mobile system from your old iPhone to your new one. It’s a clumsy, one-way process, though, and can be time consuming.

The folks over at DigiDNA iMazing (formerly DiskAid) have a secure solution that works a bit differently, giving you complete control over how you backup and restore your data, letting you create a complete snapshot of your iPhone before you head to upgrade to iOS 8 or a new iPhone 6.

Here’s how.

When you’re a company with the kind of bank that Apple has, it’s no wonder that you’d be a target for patent trolls.

Well, it seems that the trolls are out from under their bridge again, because Secure Web Conference Corporation based out of Melville, New York has filed a new patent infringement lawsuit against Apple, claiming that its FaceTime technology (and the hardware it’s currently running on) infringes on an earlier patent.

Just 11 percent of respondees to a survey about new Apple products plan to buy an Apple Watch, according to 6,000 people quizzed by Canadian investment bank, RBC Capital Markets.

A further 24 percent said they were uncertain. Given that Apple Watch is Apple’s first major new product category since the iPad this is bad news if it carries through to the tech-buying customer base at large.

While it’s far from good for Apple, however, it’s also not entirely unsurprising. The smart watch/wearables industry has remained relatively niche up until now, with other rival products like the Samsung Galaxy Gear proving to be flops in the market place.