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This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Why we’re convinced we’ll see an iPad Pro come fall, and what we expect from Apple’s giant shield tablet of power. Plus: The iPhone 6s back gets a bend test, and the results are surprising; and Apple leases a secret facility to test its autonomous car.

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Apple might be unfairly painted as an aging company run by middle-aged white dudes with “dad dancing” moves, but it’s certainly not shying away from controversial characters.

Cupertino’s roster today includes employees like Dr. Dre — a man who was the epitome of gangsta rap before becoming “hip-hop’s first billionaire” — and Trent Reznor, aka the singer who once made public his desire to, erm, sleep with you in an animalistic fashion.

It’s a safe bet that Apple wants to be down with the kids, but this controversy-seeking behavior comes with a fair share of risk. And it’s only going to be a matter of time before Apple is hit by it.

Apple’s Marc Newson is one of the best designers in the industry. His plane-inspired Lockheed Lounge chair was reflective, smooth and looked incredibly uncomfortable. And we’re still enjoying the look and feel of our Apple Watches, even if the other night a drunk girl at a bar made fun of me for wearing mine in public. And that was hurtful.

But Newson isn’t just about shiny devices and even shinier chairs. He’s recently teamed up with luxury accessory designer Montblanc to create the Montblanc M, a classic fountain pen that looks like it came from the future.

“I guess I’m known as that firmware-poking guy,” says Hamza Sood, the young hacker who most recently found a way to create and add custom watch faces to Apple Watch.

Cult of Mac chatted with the London-based 19-year-old via email to find out more about what makes him tick.

Taking iPhone video is usually a pretty manual affair. You try to hold your hands steady, but eventually some shudder creeps in. Trying to maintain a steady focal point can be tricky, especially if you’re filming a larger scene, like a concert or play.

You could use a tripod, but they’re big, bulky and require some setup. You don’t want to move around with a tripod.

Monopods, however, offer the stability and easy-panning joy of a tripod without all the fuss. Manfrotto’s monopod (the aptly-named 562B-1) is a solid, tall, adjustable, simply fantastic accessory to make all your videos, iPhone or otherwise, look much more professional.

If you’ve been using Google’s Chrome browser on Mac, you’ve been missing out on some serious performance gains made by Apple with its Safari browser: Not only is Cupertino’s favorite browser faster than Chrome, it also saves battery power.

But Chrome is looking to catch up with a coming update that some Mac users are raving about.

Sometimes trademarks are about defending brand names you’ve spent years and millions of dollars building up. Other times they’re meant as jealous, petty ways of striking back at people who are doing better than you.

Guess which category Swatch’s decision to trademark Steve Jobs’ iconic “One more thing” signature phrase falls under.

While some are writing the eulogy for email, Erik Lukas has worked for the last two years trying to make it relevant again.

His mobile app, Geronimo, takes its first public leap Aug. 27 for iPhone and the Apple Watch with an interface that involves gestures and uses the four corners of an iPhone screen for quick and easy management of your email.

Responding to the existential threat posed by Apple Music and Spotify, old-school streaming music service Rhapsody has completely overhauled its mobile app. The revamped Rhapsody comes with a fresh design and new features to take things up a notch — although some of these things look mighty familiar.

Will this redesign be enough to take on the newcomers that are eating Rhapsody’s lunch? Check out what Rhapsody brings to the table and see for yourself.

Apple Music cranked up the volume on music streaming, turning an insider topic into water-cooler fodder as musicians, industry bigwigs and tech analysts weighed in with questions about the future of the music industry.

Seemingly everybody is suddenly talking about Apple Music subscription numbers and the chances of competitors like Spotify and Pandora. But in all the media buzz about who’s winning and who’s losing, almost everyone is disregarding another major player — Rhapsody, the streaming music service that just happened to spark the streaming revolution.

The confetti from Apple’s splashy launch of its music streaming service has barely finished falling. Now comes startup Geekin Radio, with a streaming service that debuts today. It seems like odd timing.

How will it ever emerge from the shadows of Apple Music? CEO Gavin McCulley is aware of his timing and likes his company’s chances because Geekin Radio’s mobile app is the only streaming service that is an actual social network, offering a shared listening experience, perfectly synced, with back-and-forth chatting in real time.

Closed captioning is useful to those with a hearing impairment to make the audio of videos accessible. Subtitles help those who speak a different language understand what’s going on in a film not in their original language.

You can enable these features on your Apple TV, but it’s not super-intuitive — there’s no single button to make it happen.

However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t easy. Here’s how to turn on Apple TV subtitles, even if you just want to watch a scary movie at night and have the sound turned down.

Have you ever noticed that the MacBooks are positioned at a slightly awkward angle whenever you visit an Apple Store?

As it turns out, there’s method to Apple’s madness — and it’s all about getting customers to adjust the screens, thereby giving them a taste of just how gorgeously tactile the company’s MacBooks really are.

There are thousands of colors an App Store icon can be … so why does it so often look like developers only had half a box of crayons to choose from when we look at our iPhones?

But App Store iconography may be more colorful than it seems at first. Don’t believe me? These color wheels show exactly how dominant certain colors are in the icons of the most successful apps.

What the hell, internet? Apple Music, for all its growing pains and glitches, is a fantastic music streaming service.

It’s free unlimited music now, cheaper unlimited music later, and Apple Music is undoubtedly going to get better, especially if you’re already tied into Apple’s ecosystem.

If you take off before the trial period ends, you’re gonna miss out.

WhatsApp is a pretty popular messaging app that went from 200 million daily active users in April of 2013 to 800 million of them as of April 2015.

Unlike competitor SnapChat, however, WhatsApp will save every photo and video file sent to you to your Camera Roll. This could make for some embarrassing moments when you’re swiping through your photos to show mom your latest cat pictures.

It could also start to clog up your iPhone, really, with all that racy video your friends keep sending you.

To avoid these situations, you can disable the “feature.” Here’s how.

We love our photo filter apps, especially the ones that deliver the look and quality of classic film stock. These filters will never replicate the rich tonality and texture of film, but given the cost and hassles of using it, the average person probably feels they’re not missing much.

Deepak Mantena believes we’re missing out. The creator of digital studio Stay Kids has developed an iOS photo app called Base that lets you pick from 14 different film styles before you start making pictures.

Suckers slowly pop the cork on a bottle of champagne. Pros saber it off, exploding bubbly everywhere. But what do you do when you don’t have a sword? You pull out your iPhone.

Apple has announced the lineup for its upcoming Apple Music Festival, which will feature performances by Pharrell Williams, One Direction, Florence + The Machine and others.

The concerts take place in London over 10 days from September 19 to September 28.

Ever try to go from home to the gym to the office to the party in the same day? If you have, you’ll know that move requires a lot of carrying capacity, typically across several bags.

Now try to do all that as an eco-warrior on a bicycle. You’ll want one big, waterproof bag that can hold your work stuff, your gym clothes and maybe a rain coat in case it gets wet out there. Stylish and useful, the Vitesse from WaterField Designs is a lovely, waxed-canvas messenger bag that will fit all that stuff.

Some stars are just too big for the 18-karat gold Apple Watch Edition. One of them is rapper and The Fast and the Furious actor Ludacris, who rocked up at the Teen Choice Awards on Sunday night sporting a custom Apple Watch studded with diamonds.

We all know Apple has more money than a dozen Scrooge McDucks. But exactly how do the massive Apple cash reserves translate into real-world terms?

To help put this astonishing pile of cash into perspective, we crafted this handy video guide.

This week on The Cultcast: Ever wonder what it’s like to have companies pay you to travel the world snapping their Instagram photos? Professional Instagrammer Cory Staudacher shares his workflows and favorite iOS photo apps — and you won’t believe how much some companies will pay you to make them look cool.

Plus: Neat new features coming to iOS 9; Apple quietly beefs up the iPhone 6s to prevent another #Bendgate; and don’t miss our list of new favorite apps.

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Catch our favorite new apps in the show notes below.

If you compare the Apple Watch to dedicated fitness tracking devices, it comes up short, and the forthcoming watchOS 2 will do little to address these limitations. Instead, with this update Apple is focusing on helping improve third-party fitness apps.

That’s because Apple sees its wearable as the main component of a fitness platform, with the Activity app as hub. While the built-in Workout app is mostly for beginners, third-party apps will provide the missing features for hardcore users.

Yesterday’s iTunes update brought a few improvements to Apple Music as it lives on the Mac and PC. The minor tweaks and bug fixes are always welcome, but Apple Music still has a long way to go before the experience is where it should be, particularly in iTunes.