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iPhone 7 finally loses in speed test against Android rival

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iPhone 7 in hand
iPhone 7 isn't top dog anymore.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Thanks to Apple’s engineering magic, the iPhone has long outpaced its Android-powered rivals.

In real-world speed tests, the iPhone can blaze past high-end competitors from the likes of Google, Samsung and LG, despite slower processors and less RAM. But not anymore. We finally have an Android device that packs more power than the iPhone 7 — and that’s the OnePlus 5.

Qualcomm has the tech to put Touch ID in an iPhone display

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Touch ID
Embedding Touch ID under the iPhone 8's display is one of the big rumors for this year's handset.
Photo: Apple

Whether Apple will be able to deliver on the rumor that it will be embedding its Touch ID fingerprint sensor beneath the display of the iPhone 8 remains to be seen.

However, a new demo coming out of the currently-happening Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2017 demonstrates that it is indeed possible — with Qualcomm showing off ultrasonic technology that allows fingerprint unlocking even through OLED displays.

China’s black market can build an iPhone from scratch

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iPhone black market China
China's black market looks like "an iPhone factory has thrown up all over itself."
Photo: Brian Merchant/Wired

iPhone-turns-10-1You don’t have to visit a Foxconn factory to see an iPhone built from scratch.

Visit China’s black market and you’ll meet traders with the components, tools, and know-how to build you a working handset for a fraction of the price you would pay Apple. The whole process is complete by the time you’ve finished your coffee.

2017 App Store revenue crushes Apple’s entire 2007 earnings

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App Store icon
Business is booming for the App Store.
Photo: PhotoAtelier/Flickr

Apple is making more revenue off the App Store alone in 2017 than it did in all of 2007, according to a new study that analyzed Apple’s money-printing app empire.

When the iPhone launched in 2007, Steve Jobs absolutely refused to let third-party apps on his beloved device. Fast forward ten years later and not it’s not just hard to imagine the iPhone without the App Store. It’s hard to imagine Apple being as profitable without it.

Cult of Mac teams up with Wired UK for 10 years of iPhone

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Qualcomm patents
A lot has changed since the iPhone made its debut in 2007.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

iPhone turns 10 The iPhone is turning 10 years old this week and we’re ready to celebrate with more coverage and insight than any Apple fanboy could ever want. Every day through June 29, we’ll be publishing a batch of stories focused on the greatest device Apple’s ever made.

Cult of Mac is collaborating with Wired UK for the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. We’ll run down some of the device’s biggest innovations, failures and what’s in store for the future.

Check out what we’ve written so far:

Watch new Star Wars trailer re-created on an Apple IIc

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Star Wars on Apple IIc
You've never seen a Star Wars trailer like this.
Photo: Pinot Ichwandardi/Instagram

Apple’s retro IIc computer that was released in 1984 has been obsolete for 30 years, but an NYC-based illustrator has just proven that it is still capable of creating amazing stuff, if you’re willing to put in the time.

Animator Wahyu Ichwandardi unveiled his Apple IIc masterpiece on Twitter by re-creating the latest Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer in using software from the early 80’s.

Prepare to be blown away:

5 predictions of what iPhone will look like in 10 years

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Original iPhone running iOS 1
A lot has change since 2007.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

iPhone turns 10 As the iPhone turns 10 years old this week, the Apple’s long streak of dominance makes it seem like iPhone will rule the tech world for the forseeable future. Nothing last forever though, so what could the iPhone look like in 2027 when technology is more seamlessly embedded in our lives?

Cult of Mac is collaborating with Wired U.K. all this week for an in-depth look at the iPhone’s lasting impact and possible future. Tech experts that Wired talked to are pretty optimistic that the iPhone will still exist in some form 10 years from now. But interacting with it will be completely different.

Greenpeace pushes Apple to make products anyone can fix

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Greenpeace
Greenpeace wants Apple to make its products more repairable.
Photo: Greenpeace

Greenpeace has launched a new campaign, seeking signatures to push Apple and other device makers to make more repairable, longer-lasting products to cut down on electronic waste.

In partnership with our friends over at iFixit, the campaign casts a critical eye over 40 different devices made between 2015 and 2017, and then assesses them according to how repairable each one is.

iPhone collection makes perfect birthday gift for Apple-loving CEO

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iPhones at MacPaw museum
A collection of iPhones, presented as a 30th birthday present to MacPaw CEO Oleksandr Kosovan, fills a critical hole in his private Apple museum.
Photo: MacPaw

iPhone turns 10 Buying a birthday present for your boss can seem impossible. But the friends and co-workers of MacPaw CEO Oleksandr Kosovan — a diehard Apple fan — saw an opening after he bought a treasure trove of vintage Macs to create a museum at his company’s headquarters.

MacPaw’s mini Apple museum, filled with vintage gear auctioned off by fabled Apple repair shop Tekserve, contained no iPhones. Leaving out the smartphone that changed the world seemed like a glaring hole in a collection that otherwise did a good job of showing Apple’s role in revolutionizing personal computing.

Buy a refurbished Apple Pencil to save a few bucks

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iPad Pro drawing Apple Pencil
Apple Pencil can't beat a mouse at many things.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple has begun selling refurbished models of the Apple Pencil at a discount. iPad Pro owners in the United States can save a pretty penny when picking up the best stylus available for their tablet — but it’s still not the most affordable.

Apple tore apart 100 rival devices to build its perfect phone

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Fadell
Tony Fadell spills the beans on the original iPhone's creation.
Photo: Nest

iPhone turns 10 As Apple scrambled to create the first iPhone, the company’s engineers tore apart literally dozens of rival products to work out what made them tick, according to a new interview with former Apple exec Tony Fadell.

He may be best known today as the founder of Nest, but Fadell was one of the fathers of the iPhone — which, if you haven’t heard, celebrates its 10th birthday this week. Fadell reveals more about Apple’s reverse engineering efforts in an interview with Wired U.K..

Cult of Mac is collaborating with Wired U.K. all this week for an in-depth look at the iPhone’s first decade — and the device’s lasting impact.

How the iPhone revolutionized photography

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iPhone photo shoot
Fashion photographer Georges Antoni uses the iPhone 7 Plus on Portrait mode to photograph Margaret Zhang for the June cover story of Elle Australia.
Photo: Bauer Media Australia/YouTube

iPhone turns 10When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, no one imagined that in 10 short years it would become the world’s most popular camera and herald a new era of visual communication.

Yet we are witnessing the death of point-and-shoots, the explosion of massive social networks devoted to pics and videos, and the rise of perhaps the most popular photo style of all time — the selfie.

Just consider that we are expected to take 1 trillion pictures this year alone. That’s a million million photos.

Here’s a brief overview of some of the ways the iPhone was transformed photography forever.

Tim Cook meets Indian PM to talk local Apple stores

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India Apple Stores
The closest thing India currently has to an Apple Store.
Photo: Lawrence Sinclair/Flickr CC

Tim Cook met with the prime minister of India over the weekend, concerning permission to open official Apple stores in the country.

This is something Apple has been chasing for some time now, but has yet to get off the ground. However, with Apple now officially selling iPhones that have been made in India, the hope is that it has sufficient leverage to get permission to open retail stores.

iPhone 8’s new display could hold back launch sales

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iPhone leak
iPhone 8's OLED display is reportedly causing Apple headaches.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

iPhone 8 production has reportedly hit another roadblock, with the problem this time being the OLED panels Apple is using for its next-gen handsets.

The use of OLED panels, instead of the LCD screens used on current iPhones, has been heavily rumored as one of the biggest selling points of the new iPhone for quite some time. A report earlier this year claimed that Apple will snap up 14 percent of all OLED panels produced in 2017 for the iPhone 8.

Antitrust investigators slam Google with $2.7 billion fine

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Google
The E.U. regulators are hitting out at Google.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Google has been fined 2.4 billion euros ($2.7 billion) by European Union regulators for reportedly skewing its search results in a way that hurts smaller shopping search services.

In addition to the massive fine, Google has been told that if it doesn’t stop its “illegal” suppression of rival price comparison services within 90 days, the European Commission will fine it up to 5 percent of its daily revenue.

Apple acquires German company that may hold key to AR future

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SensoMotoric Instruments
SensoMotoric Instruments eye-tracking glasses.
Photo: SensoMotoric Instruments

Apple may have just made a key acquisition that could help the company create a truly revolutionary augmented reality headset. According to a new report, German eye-tracking company SensoMotoric Instruments has been purchased by an Apple shell company, giving the iPhone-maker access the company’s trove of patents related to eye-tracking glasses and other systems.

Money to burn? Buy an original iPhone for $20,000

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2G iPhone on eBay
A 2G iPhone never opened and under glass. How much would you pay?
Photo: Discount Depot/eBay

iPhone-turns-10 When the iPhone launched in 2007, the tech world went into conniptions about the device’s price tag. At a time when carriers offered most cellphones for free, the iPhone’s $500 starting price seemed downright crazy.

Well, guess how much an original iPhone costs now?

10 times Apple learned from massive iPhone mistakes

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iPhone 7 red
iPhone 8 rumors haven't had an impact yet, either.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

iPhone turns 10 It might be the most successful smartphone on the planet, but the iPhone didn’t become what it is today without some failures along the way.

Even before the device made its much-anticipated debut in 2007, Apple overcame big missteps and mistakes. It tried putting iTunes on other phones. It believed we didn’t need native apps. It entered into embarrassing partnerships with big bands.

As Cult of Mac looks back over the iPhone’s history to celebrate the device’s 10th anniversary, in collaboration with Wired UK, 10 big failures stick out like a sore thumb.

‘Apple should pull the plug’: 10 iPhone predictions from 2007

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iPhone predictions from 2007
They must have been holding their crystal balls wrong.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

iPhone turns 10 Predicting the future is tough, even for the experts. That’s the only lesson we can learn from looking back at these horribly misguided iPhone predictions that greeted the device at its launch 10 years ago.

Before most people had even wrapped their fingers around Apple’s first-gen smartphone, tech pundits, analysts and competing CEOs were already writing off the iPhone as a disaster similar to Apple’s previous excursions into video game consoles and the like.

Here are just a few of the laughable reactions that greeted the iPhone in 2007.

Apple seeds revised betas of iOS 11 and tvOS 11

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iOS 11 Control Center
A new version of iOS 11 beta 2 is out.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Revised beta builds of iOS 11 beta 2 and tvOS 11 beta 2 have been seeded to developers by Apple this morning, just five days after the previous versions of the betas were made available.

Along with the new updated betas for iOS 11 and tvOS 11, Apple also dropped a new Apple Watch beta in the form of watchOS 3.2.3 beta 4.

Steve Jobs Theater lights up in new Apple Park drone video

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Steve Jobs Theater
It's nearly showtime at Steve Jobs Theater.
Photo: Duncan Sinfield

The lobby of the Steve Jobs Theater at the new Apple Park campus looks nearly ready to host Apple events. Crews are working around the clock to finish the new Apple headquarters and the entire site is finally starting to come together now that landscaping is almost done.

A new drone video reveals there’s still some work to go on the theater and the main spaceship building, but road striping and landscaping are well underway. The video includes an incredible shot of the theater lit up at night with Apple Park in the background.

Check it out: