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.
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.
The world had never seen anything like the iPhone when Apple launched the device on June 29, 2007. But the touchscreen device that blew everyone’s minds immediately didn’t come about so easily.
The iPhone was the result of years of arduous work by Apple’s industrial designers. They labored over a long string of prototypes and CAD designs in their quest to produce the ultimate smartphone.
Apple’s first iPhone SE units manufactured in India are now on sale in the country.
“Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in India,” reads the tagline on the back. Despite being made locally, the devices cost exactly the same as those shipped from China.
Not convinced about how augmented reality has the opportunity to improve our apps? Then check out a couple of neat demos of Apple’s ARKit, the AR toolkit Apple showed off at WWDC to allow “fast and stable motion tracking” for augmented reality apps.
Between them, they depict how you’ll soon be able to use your iPhone as a tape measure by pointing your device at an object or scene, tapping two points on it, and then accurately measuring the distance between them.
Scott Forstall and others chip in to tell their iPhone war stories. Photo: WSJ
If you hadn’t heard by now, this week marks the tenth anniversary of a little device called the iPhone going on sale. To celebrate, the Wall Street Journal has created a new mini-documentary, entitled Behind the Glass, detailing the making of Apple’s breakthrough smartphone.
Courtesy of interviews with former Apple execs Tony Fadell, Scott Forstall and Greg Christie, here are the top factoids we learned from it.
The iPhone sure has changed over the years. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
The iPhone packed a lot into its first astonishing decade. Not only has the device itself evolved significantly since its promising-but-by-no-means-perfect beginnings, but it’s transformed Apple’s business — and many of our very lives — in the process.
All this week, Cult of Mac’s “iPhone Turns 10” series will look at the innovative device’s massive impact on worldwide culture. The iPhone, which launched on June 29, 2007, truly changed the world.
What iPhone milestones have passed since Steve Jobs introduced this stunning hybrid device, which combined a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device? Check out our handy guide to 10 years of iPhone history.
A great deal on a great smart speaker. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Now is the perfect time to enter into the wonderful world of smart speakers. Amazon has slashed $50 off its impressive Echo for one day only, making it more affordable than it has ever been since it launched in November 2014.
'Appy weekend everyone! Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
SEGA unleashed some of its classic games for free on iOS this week, bringing a plethora of games from the Genesis era to the iPhone and iPad as part of its SEGA Forever series.
That’s just one of the picks we’ve highlighted for this week’s “Awesome Apps” roundup. We’ve also got a great Slack alternative, a nifty WhatsApp upgrade, and a puzzle game that’s sure to appeal to anyone who loves Tetris. Check out our choices below.
Anna Katrina Shedletsky is a former Apple product design engineer who is using her experience to build AI that helps companies streamline manufacturing. Photo: Instrumental
On this week’s Apple Chat (the podcast formerly known as Kahney’s Korner): I talk with former Apple product design engineer Anna-Katrina Shedletsky about her take on modern manufacturing and how AI will revolutionize factories. She introduces us to her new company, Instrumental, which is using machine learning to help manufacturers identify and fix problems on their assembly lines.
Using her hard-earned experience at Apple overseeing the production of the first Apple Watch and several generations of the iPod, Shedletsky says machine learning is coming fast to manufacturing. Amazingly, almost all consumer electronics products are still assembled by hand — including hundreds of millions of iPhones.
But that’s changing. Manufacturing is undergoing a huge sea change with the advance of robotics and AI.
HEIF is the still-image version of the HVEC video format. Its main advantage for you and me is that photos saved in HEIF are roughly half the size of JPEGs, and of better quality. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, we’re going to tell you everything you need to know about HEIF (High Efficiency Image File Format), Apple’s new photo format to replace JPEGs. Discover the many advantages HEIF has over JPEG.
Discover all the great ways to watch streaming soccer this summer on Apple TV with our handy list. Learn how to easily save lots of iMessage pictures and movies all at once toCult of Macthe iPhone Photos app.
This week we'll tell you about iOS 11's best lesser-known features. Photo: Apple
This week on The CultCast: More of the powerful new iOS 11 features you’ve never heard of! Plus: The talented app that will harnesses the power of Apple’s new augmented reality features; Scott Forstall is back, and he’s sharing the bizarre story of how the original iPhone really came to be; and everything you need to know about HEIF, the JPEG-killing format Apple is adopting.
Our thanks to Blue Apron for supporting this episode. Blue Apron makes it easy to cook delicious meals at home. Get your first three meals free at BlueApron.com/CultCast.
Is this our best look yet at the iPhone 8? Photo: Benjamin Geskin
An iPhone 8 “dummy unit” made from leaked parts give us an early glimpse at what Apple’s next big upgrade might look like.
Its form is similar to that of recent handsets like the iPhone 7, but with a larger edge-to-edge display that will help it compete with rivals like the Galaxy S8.
View all your messages individually if you prefer. Photo: Google
Google is going to stop scanning your Gmail messages for ad personlization, it has confirmed today.
You will still see ads when you use Gmail on your phone or in a web browser, but they will no longer be based on information Google has pulled from your emails.
You’ll need a new iPhone if you can’t update to iOS 8 or later. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
Everyone’s using WhatsApp these days, which makes it an ideal platform for quickly sharing files with friends and colleagues. And it just got even better at doing that, because you can now use WhatsApp to share any file type.
Elon Musk wants his cars to come with their own streaming music service. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Tesla is considering launching its own streaming music service, and it’s already in talks with players in the music industry about doing so.
According to a new report, Tesla has held conversations with all the major music labels about launching its service — which would come bundled with its cars, as opposed to being a standalone service like Apple Music.
The Indian government wants reassurances that Apple's serious about India. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
The Indian government has reportedly asked Apple for more in-depth details about what it offers in terms of job creation and investment, in exchange for the government offering it additional tax concessions within the country.
Apple’s been seeking tax concessions to set manufacturing facilities in India for some time, but has been rebuffed. Now that one of Apple’s suppliers, Wistron, is officially building iPhones in the country, it seems the Indian government is ready to reconsider. Maybe.
Following the recent Grenfell Tower tragedy in London, Apple has updated its U.K. homepage to make it easy for people to contribute toward fundraising, by purchasing the charity single or making a direct donation.
The Grenfell Tower fire started on June 14, with the 24-storey residential tower block being engulfed in flame in the deadliest fire in Great Britain since those caused by the air raids during World War II. Up to 79 people died as a result of the blaze.
But don't expect to get your hands on it just yet! Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
The iOS 11 beta has only been available for a few weeks, but already it’s been cracked by some enterprising jailbreakers — although don’t expect to be able to get your hands on it just yet.
The iOS 11 beta 2 jailbreak was shown off by security researchers at the recent Mobile Security Conference (MOSEC) 2017 in Shanghai, China. Photos of the demo were posted online by Min Zheng, Senior Security Engineer at Alibaba.
Apple's massive HQ has come a long way in the past two years. Photo: Apple
Apple’s enormous $5 billion Apple Park campus has come a long way in the past two years, as a new video makes clear.
Taken by Planet Labs, a company with the goal of selling high-resolution satellite imaging, it depicts construction on the new headquarters from September 2015 through the present day. Check it out below.
Never get lost in an airport or a mall ever again. Photo: Cult of Mac
As promised at the WWDC 2017 Keynote, Apple has started rolling out airport maps and shopping mall maps. If you’re running iOS 11 beta, then you can visit airports in San Jose and Philadelphia, as well as shopping malls in San Jose and San Francisco. The new view shows indoor maps of these locations, with a new tappable info section that lets you find the exact terminal or donut store you’re looking for.
Full details on the new iMac Pro still haven’t be unveiled by Apple even though it showed the machine off at WWDC 2017, but according to a new report, Apple’s desktop beast may pack a surprising server-grade processor from Intel to make it unbelievably fast.
The new Apple Store in Chicago. Photo: DNAinfo/David Matthews]
Construction on Apple’s new flagship store in Chicago is nearing completion this week as crews were spotted adding a finishing touch to the roof that wasn’t in the original plans.
Early renderings of the metallic roof for the Michigan Ave store showed a pretty plain looking roof, but a new Apple logo has been added to the top and it makes the entire roof look like a giant MacBook.