Cult of Mac

Apple is set to unleash its newest iPhones on the world in just a couple weeks and based on the rumors, these will be the most lust-worthy phones to ever come out of Cupertino.

Not only will the 2018 iPhone lineup include the biggest iPhone display Apple’s ever made, it will also be more colorful and more expensive than ever. We’ve been keeping our pulse on all the rumors leading up to Apple’s big September 12 unveiling and have a pretty solid idea on what’s coming through the pipeline.

This is what the 2018 iPhone lineup will look like:

A hot topic of debate among Apple analysts is the prices for the three iPhone models expected next week. And there have been some leaks suggesting prices for the 2018 models. Thing is, none of these agree.

At this point, there’s enough disparity between what the rumors say and the various analysts’ predictions to question whether there’s a point of paying attention to any of them.  

As I write this, there’s a truck outside my window using its crane to shovel molten blacktop onto the street. Its diesel engine is revving hard, and has been for the last half hour. For the past two years, there’s been an apartment building under construction across the street from my office. Starting at (and often before) 7 a.m., six days a week, I’ve enjoyed a symphony of pumped cement, circular saws screeching through thin metal sheets, over-revved forklifts, and drilling into reinforced concrete.

I mention this to tell you that I know a thing or two about writing in a noisy spot. I also know how to stop it driving you nuts.

Kids love Minecraft and iPad. Teachers love applications that turning learning into a game. All of these come together with an iPad version of Minecraft: Education Edition. 

After being announced last month, this application just debuted in the iOS App Store.

It’s happened often enough now that it’s a thing: A celebrity is paid to gush about how much they love an Android device but they make their Twitter posts from an iPhone.

It’s a black eye for Android because it makes it clear which phone the celebrity really likes.

Apple Pay’s latest promotion to celebrate the new football season is live, giving shoppers 10 percent off workout gear from Under Armor.

Simply use Apple Pay at checkout (in the U.S.) before September 12 to qualify for the discount.

Accessory maker Satechi has been around for years, offering a wide range of charging solutions, headphones, dongles, and computer peripherals for both Mac and PC. Their newest Mac accessories, the Aluminum Bluetooth keyboard and Aluminum USB keyboard offer Apple-inspired design at a fraction of Apple’s keyboard prices.

The European Union has given its official stamp of approval to Apple’s acquisition of UK-based music discovery app Shazam.

While the deal was announced way back in December, it has been held up until now by an EU antitrust investigation, based on the popularity of Shazam and the amount of data it holds. This investigation was requested by seven European countries, including France, Italy, Spain and Sweden.

This spring, Logitech introduced an active stylus for iPad. People were excited that this was half the price of an Apple Pencil, but frustrated that the Logitech Crayon could only be purchased by schools.

Turns out both of those are about to change. This digital pencil will go on sale to the general public beginning September 12. And the price is going up.

It’s not exactly breaking news that Steve Jobs was a great salesman. But a hilarious anecdote from Adam Fisher’s recent oral history of Silicon Valley, Valley of Genius, gives a great example of Jobs’ next-level skills.

Want to know how Jobs persuaded a product marketing expert from Microsoft to join his company NeXT? It turns out it involved little more than a bit of patented Steve Jobs charm — and a helping hand from a local Italian restaurant menu.

Digital cameras sure have come a long way, but they’re limited by the realities of glass and plastic. So if you want to capture far-off subjects, you need a telephoto lens. If you want to photograph something close up, you get a macro lens.

If you want to get really close, you want a microscope.

The more affordable 6.1-inch iPhone expected to launch this year won’t be as exciting as its pricier siblings, but it seems Apple has some tricks up its sleeve to make it more appealing.

New photos reveal some of the fancier color options buyers will be able to choose from, including red and blue.

Apple employs a broad range of people, from software developers to retail staff. And soon, at least one neuroscientist.

The company is seeking an expert in sensory perception, suggesting the scientist will be employed developing its mysterious augmented reality glasses.

Why couldn’t you type the F-word on the iPhone? Why did Steve Jobs make weird eye movements during demos? What kind of manager was Scott Forstall?

These and other questions are answered in a new book by Ken Kocienda, a former iPhone programmer who spent 15 years at Apple helping to develop the first iPhone, iPad and Safari web browser.

Published this week, Creative Selection, Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs, is a fascinating account of Kocienda’s career that focuses on how Apple makes great software. (read our review here)

Here are some of the most interesting things we learned from the book.

Apple is supposedly cooling its plans to bring Apple Pay to India, despite having discussions with leading banks and the National Payments Corporation of India.

Eddy Cue previously said that Apple hoped to bring Apple Pay to India sooner rather than later. “It is great that all of these payment mechanisms are coming out in India because it empowers people to be able to pay,” Cue said last year. “What Apple Pay does is make that process easy, integrated and safe. We absolutely want to bring Apple Pay to the market here.”

Apple may be commissioning its own TV shows, but it’s also picking up finished productions, too. With that goal in mind, Apple is sending some of its top production names to the Toronto International Film Festival this week to try and acquire new content.

According to trade magazine Variety, at least one of Apple’s top entertainment programming execs, Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, will be in attendance at the festival — and they’ll have “checkbooks in hand.”

Back in 1996, Steve Jobs’ sister, Mona Simpson, wrote a novel about a Silicon Valley tycoon who has a difficult and distant relationship with his oldest daughter. He even denies her paternity altogether, and then hands out meager amounts of child support to look after her and her mom.

At the time, Jobs denied that the protagonist in A Regular Guy was closely based on him. Others thought differently, however. More than 20 years later, Lisa Brennan-Jobs’ new memoir describes just how accurate Simpson’s novel was. And what she thought of it.

A new study tries to determine which companies are the most creative. The method used is open to dispute, especially as Apple is way back at eleventh place while its chief rival Samsung is in second.

Putting aside questions about methodology, the results are reflective of an attitude many people have about which of these two rivals is more innovative. This is the result of very different ways the two companies design their products. And it’s more than a bit unfair to Apple.

The bigger display on the Apple Watch Series 4 will allow wearers to view more data at a glance and thanks to some new leaks, we now know the exact screen resolution it will come with.

Check out the difference:

With most of the specifications of the 2018 iPhones already known, the largest remaining question is price. Possibly answering that burning question is a report coming out of Europe that indicates that the three upcoming iOS models will cost just the same Apple’s three most recent offerings.

Third-party hardware manufacturers have finally been given the green light from Apple to start making USB-C to Lightning cables.

The new Made For iPhone (MFi) certification should open the door for a bunch of faster-charging solutions to come out for iPhone owners, but according to the report out of Asia, the new cables will be a little bit more expensive.

We’ve already head reports that Apple is going to ditch the “Plus” description for its larger iPhones. Now there’s word that the replacement term could be “Max.”

If true, this means that the company will announce a week from today the iPhone Xs with a 5.8-inch display and the iPhone Xs Max with a 6.5-inch one.

The main reason the iPhone 9 is hotly anticipated is because it’s rumored to boast a large display but a relatively low price tag. However, some analysts are predicting that this 6.1-inch model will instead cost more than the iPhone 8.

They say Apple can do this because the one feature that consumers want more than anything else: larger screens. And we’re willing to pay more for them.

Update: A separate report coming from Europe indicates that the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone will cost exactly the same as the iPhone 8.

NBA players have rocked Beats by Dre before games for years but now the company is about to have an even larger presence in the world of basketball.

Beats by Dre revealed today that it has struck a deal that will make it the official headphone, wireless speaker and audio partner of the NBA, WNBA, NBA G League and USA Basketball starting when the preseason tips off in October.

Apple’s video offerings could soon rival the biggest streaming service in the game, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley.

Katy Huberty, who has a reputation as one of the best Apple analysts in the industry, thinks video services will be a huge driver of growth for Apple over the next few years. The company’s potential is so huge that Huberty predicts it will rival Netflix by 2025.