One week before Earth Day, Apple has changed its iconic one color logo to a green-leafed one at select Apple Stores — echoing Apple’s goal under Tim Cook of leaving the world a better place.
Retail staff will also be rocking special green shirts for the week — celebrating the fact that select brick-and-mortar retail stores belonging to Apple now run on renewable energy.
Snapseed is a free image editing app from Google that has some fantastic editing tools to make any photo even better.
The killer feature here is the set of Tune Image tools that let you take a good photo and turn it into a great photo, right on your iPad, with very little effort.
Here’s a quick intro to these fantastic tools and how to make them tune your photos to best effect.
How many years do you use your iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Mac before shutting it down for the last time and sending it to the big Apple Store in the sky?
While Apple products are typically far more solid and long-lasting than those made by rivals, the company offers a clue in a newly released document concerning Apple and its commitment to the environment.
If this whole computer and smartwatch thing doesn’t work out, Apple could have a prosperous future in iPhone recycling.
The company released its annual environmental report today, which covers 2015. While the whole thing is pretty interesting, we really started paying attention at the part where the company shared how much material its recycling initiative had recovered from collected iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and anything else people sent in.
Apple says it recovered over 61 million pounds of stuff, and at today’s prices, it’s worth well over $50 million.
Apple seems to be looking to improve the way people find apps in the App Store. According to unnamed sources, paid search is one way Apple might both improve discoverability as well as make some money off the feature, like Google does on its own Google Play store.
Paid search would let developers pay Apple to more prominently display their apps in the App Store.
A Michigan woman is suing Apple and Nike for a combined $5 billion over claims that the two companies stole her concept for a device called a “Detachable Beeper Disc Digital Gym Shoe with Sensor.” She states that she filed a patent for her invention 20 years ago, well before the companies came up with their own, similar products — namely, the Apple Watch and the Nike+ smart running system.
While she’s seeking $3 billion from Nike, she’s only looking for $2 billion from Apple, so Cupertino’s getting off relatively light on this one.
The striking thing about Motor Trend‘s piece on the rumored Apple car is all the talk of the “user experience.”
The various auto designers and experts interviewed by Motor Trend speculate that Apple will try to redefine the car “experience.” They talk about stuff like acoustics, and look and feel, rather than specs like miles per gallon or engine torque.
They predict that Apple will bring a better “user experience” to the car of the future, not just a better physical product.
This reminded me of interviewing Apple’s designers for my Jony Ive book. They explained that the design group takes exactly this approach when thinking about new Apple products. Instead of starting with chip speeds or screen resolutions, they begin by asking each other how the new product should make the user feel.
And thinking about this made me realize why Jony Ive has a chauffeur. It’s not because he’s a one percenter. It’s about Project Titan, Apple’s future car.
You can think of iTunes like the biggest content candy store in the world, a mother lode of albums, apps, games, movies and TV shows, and on and on. If you’ve ever wondered what it’d be like to go into iTunes with a huge bag to fill as you please, today could be your lucky day. Right now you can enter to win a $1,000 iTunes gift card, no strings attached.
Let me say this up front: Space Box is a fantastic game. It’s challenging, fun, and has some really great mechanics and art. And if you have a set of virtual-reality goggles to plunk your iPhone into, you can even play it hands-free in 3-D using head-tracking controls.
And that’s where it runs into some trouble, but you shouldn’t let it ruin the game for you.
Apple has announced that it is dropping its iTunes Allowance feature, which allowed users to limit the amount of money that could be spent by their kids (or themselves!) on iTunes games, apps, movies and music.
Imagine a photo of a young child, blowing bubbles into a gentle breeze. Wouldn’t it be an even better photo if there were more than one bubble in it? Because man, that kid is cute, but she sure can’t blow bubbles very well.
With Pixelmator, a fantastic photo editor on iOS and Mac, you can do just that with the clone tool.
Using it, though, as in any complex photo editing program, can be a little unintuitive. Here’s how to add more of a good thing to your photos with Pixelmator on the iPad.
Even if Apple is not furiously trying to figure out how to make an Apple Car, the rest of the world is furiously trying to figure out what the Apple Car would look like.
And, perhaps more importantly, what the Apple Car would do.
The departure of veteran Apple industrial designer Daniel Coster is significant because, like the Mafia, no one ever leaves Jony Ive’s design studio.
Coster, a core member of Apple’s design team for more than 20 years, is perhaps only the third member of Ive’s tight-knit industrial design group to leave in almost two decades. And one of the others died.
I lose my car fairly regularly. Whenever I park in a lot larger than my driveway, I never seem to quite remember where I parked. It’s especially true in bigger venues that I haven’t visited before.
The folks over at Tile think they have a solution to find my parked car, though.
Here’s how to make sure you or I never lose our car again.
Apple hasn’t shown much enthusiasm for diving into virtual reality in the past, but all signs are pointing to a renewed interest. With Tim Cook mentioning VR in the latest Apple earnings call, I got to thinking more about it — as I’ve never personally given it a go.
Being immersed in a 3-D world that tracks your head movements is becoming a mainstream reality. At the moment, VR is heading full-steam toward gamers in particular — the user is immersed in a virtual world where they can look around without the 16:9 constrictions of a standard TV or monitor.
So in this video I’m looking at a $30 VR headset and seeing how well it works. Or, if it just sucks. Check out the video after the break.
We all know a Mac is the best computer. It’s the most reliable, the least fuss and usually the most snappy. But, as with all computers, the trusty Macintosh can also become sluggish after a while.
In today’s Cult of Mac video, we’re going to show you eight easy, useful tips to speed up your Mac.
From Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle to Mark Millar’s Superman comic Red Son, I’ve always been a massive fan of alternative history stories.
Now, upcoming first-person-shooter game Homefront: The Revolution asks a question as intriguing as any: What would have happened if a technological genius like Steve Jobs came out of North Korea instead of California?
The answer? A trillion-dollar company called APeX, apparently.
If you’re anything like me, you knew that the new 4th-generation Apple TV supported Bluetooth devices like the Siri Remote, game controllers, and even keyboards, but you didn’t twig to the fact that it might also let you use Bluetooth headphones, too.
In point of fact, though, it does support them, letting you watch Netflix or game on your Apple TV without the sound of your activities waking the baby or a sleeping partner. How great is that?
Here’s how to set it up.
I recall at WWDC 2011 when Steve Jobs introduced iCloud he talked about how up until that point, managing and syncing content across devices was driving everybody nuts. You’d take one photo on one device and would have to plug it in and sync it to another device, which would then offer up some of its own photos and meanwhile none of them are even on the third device yet. It truly was an insane world. But in 2016, the new Circle with Disney aims to solve a surprisingly similar problem.
Managing content across devices has gotten much easier, yet managing the people who use those devices has not. Circle is a brand-new product from Disney that wants to unify your family’s entire online experience. It allows you to set time limits for individual family members, block websites based on your child’s age, and even pause Internet access entirely when it’s time to log off.
We haven’t heard too much about Apple’s “Project Titan” electric car project since its project lead quit the company, and Jony Ive reportedly put a hiring freeze in place after deciding things weren’t on the right track.
But a new report claims that Apple’s car investigations are continuing to progress — as Apple buys up and leases various buildings in Sunnyvale, with documents filed with the city suggesting that these will be used for automotive R&D.
If you’ve ever ordered anything online, you’ve probably experienced delayed dissatisfaction. You wait for the product, it finally arrives, you rip it open — and it’s nothing like the picture you saw on Amazon, eBay or whatever. The item is smaller, the color is crappier, the quality’s just not there.
The new woven-nylon Apple Watch bands are similar — but opposite! They look even better than they do on the Apple website. And, despite what you might think about nylon as a watchband material, Apple’s latest accessories pack a premium punch.
This week on The CultCast: We look into the past at some of the most pivotal moments in Apple’s 40-year history. Plus: Why the iPhone 7 Plus may be your only choice for dual cameras; what it’s like downsizing from the iPhone 6s to the SE; and we pitch our favorite new tech and vote on which is best in an all-new Faves N Raves!
Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode of Cult of Mac’s weekly podcast. It’s simple to build a website that looks beautiful on any device that visits at Squarespace.com. Enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10 percent off.
The FBI dropped its case against Apple to hack the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, but the Department of Justice filed a new letter today demanding Apple help it unlock a different iPhone.
The iPhone in question belonged to meth deal Jun Feng in New York. Federal authorities believe the device may contain critical evidence and plan to appeal a ruling made by a magistrate judge in Brooklyn who decided the government can’t force Apple to hack its own device.
In its letter of appeal, the DoJ argues that because Apple helped prosecutors unlock at least 70 iPhones in the past, the company should do it again.
I’m a sucker for hearing ex-Apple employees talk about the company’s early days. In particular, it’s fascinating to find out more about the development of innovations like MacPaint and the Mac graphical interface, as well as speculate over who was really responsible for the Macintosh’s creation.
On this week’s episode of the Triangulation podcast, tech broadcaster Leo Laporte interviews Bill Atkinson about his 1978 to 1990 stint at Apple.
Check it out below:
Here in 2016, Apple may be at odds with the FBI on the subject of iPhone unlocking — but things weren’t always that way!
According to a new report, when the FBI first asked Apple to help it unlock an iPhone, way back in 2008, Apple didn’t just comply with the order; it actually helped prosecutors to draft the court order.