Cult of Mac

This week on The CultCast: Alex Jones and free speech, Part 2. Plus: Ming-Chi Kuo says the Apple Car is real, and you might drive it off the lot in 2023! And stay tuned for our most-loved tech! We’ll discuss the gadgets and apps we can’t go without.

Beats 1 Radio host Zane Lowe says he’s excited that Apple Music’s competitors are starting to rip off his live streaming radio show.

Lowe, who left the BBC’s Radio 1 to lead Beats 1 Radio, said in a recent interview that he still questions how his radio show fits in with the music scene. In the age of social media where artists can interact directly with fans, radio hosts don’t seem like a necessity, but Spotify and YouTube Music are planning to launch radio shows of their own and Lowe is ready to welcome them to the league.

When Apple wants to show off the camera quality of its latest iPhone, it mines social media for user photos by searching the hashtag “Shot on iPhone.” Apple then has plenty of actual iPhone images it then licenses for advertising.

But when Samsung tried to tout the camera of the Galaxy A8 in a recent Twitter campaign, it used stock photos most likely shot with DSLR cameras.

Google is planning to take on Amazon with its own screen-equipped smart speaker, a new report claims.

Amazon introduced its Amazon Echo Show in June 2017, followed by the smaller, cuter Amazon Echo Spot alarm clock a few months later in September 2017.

If you’re a Prince fan and an Apple Music subscriber, today is your lucky day! That’s because the Prince Estate and Sony’s Legacy Recordings have released 23 of the Purple One’s albums, covering the latter half of his career, on streaming services.

The perfect cocktail can compliment nearly any moment in life. Whether it’s celebratory event, a social drink, or a work function, the blend of flavors in a quality drink can be icing on the cake. Highball makes saving or sharing your favorite drink recipes easy and beautiful. Best of all, you’ll never have to guess whether the perfect cosmo has 1oz of cranberry juice, or 2.

Being online means finding content that you’ll want to read later or share with friends. But depending on the device used, browser plugins, and other factors determine whether it’ll load correctly, or at all. Luckily there’s an easy way to make sure that never happens.

Apple could introduce three new iPhones, two new iPads and an entry-level MacBook at its September event, according to a new report based on supply chain info.

In addition to new details about the fall product lineup, the report also offers up a surprising prediction about Apple’s long-awaited AirPower wireless charger,

Don’t be jealous of the 10Gbps Ethernet port in the iMac Pro. OWC introduced an adapter for your MacBook’s Thunderbolt 3 port to connect to networks at the same massive speeds.

Just be warned, the OWC Thunderbolt 3 10G Ethernet Adapter isn’t an accessory for the casual user. It’ll set you back $187.99.

Apple has reassured customers that none of their private data was compromised after a 16-year-old teenager plead guilty to hacking into the company’s servers.

An Apple spokesperson said that, “[We] want to assure our customers that at no point during this incident was their personal data compromised.” The hacker in question managed to download 90 gigabytes of secure files.

Despite protests, Twitter made changes today that break some features of popular third-party apps. The company’s CEO explains that all Twitter is doing is finally enforcing a 9-year-old policy.

Rob Johnson says the company will no longer devote resources to apps it didn’t want built in the first place. The situation is a bit more complex that that, though.

There are probably good reasons to block a website on your own iPhone or iPad, but really, why not just avoid typing its URL? It’s far more likely that you’ll want to block a website on somebody else’s device, probably a child’s. Or perhaps you don’t want your kids to accidentally hit all your bookmarks to porn and gambling sites when they use your iPhone.

Whatever your reasons, here’s how to block any website on your iPhone or iPad.

Apple takes a firm stance on iPhone privacy, with strict rules. Nevertheless, many people remain nervous that their phone is spying on them.

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel, on his eponymous TV show, pokes fun at this fear in a newly-released video. Watch it now:

iPhone owners in Turkey are taking to the streets to smash their iPhones in protest against the country’s strained relationship with the United States.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Turks to boycott U.S. products — specifically the iPhone made by Apple in California. Multiple videos have been posted online showing iPhone owners using hammers, rocks and even fire to destroy their iPhones.

Watch one of the demonstrators greet some iPhones with a sledgehammer!

Cycle is both a musical instrument and a meditation device. The app, for iPhone and iPad, is something called a “time lag accumulator.” You play notes on its simple keyboard, and these notes are repeated over and over, slowly fading after time. The result is hypnotic, relaxing and creative, all at the same time.

The wait for a new pre-release version of iOS 12 is over: the sixth beta can be downloaded now by anyone who wants to try it.

The markup tools have been greatly enhanced. Sadly, the other major change is the removal of Group FaceTime.

Apple CEO Tim Cook’s tweet mourning the death of soul singer Aretha Franklin was among countless remembrances flooding social media this morning after news of her passing began to spread.

Cook’s heartfelt message included a black-and-white photo of the Queen of Soul belting out a song during a recording session.

In just a few weeks, Apple looks set to unveil the biggest upgrade yet to its popular wearable.
While the external appearance of Apple Watch has not changed much since its launch, recent leaks suggest we can expect a new form factor with a larger screen when Apple Watch Series 4 lands.

In the Photoshop mockup above, I’ve shown how Apple’s next watch might look if it slimmed down and added a larger screen (as the rumormongers predict). That would be pretty cool, but there are plenty of other potential upgrades I’m excited about.

Here’s my top 10 wish list for Apple Watch Series 4 new features.

Both of this year’s OLED iPhones will support the Apple Pencil, a new report suggests, citing “industry insiders.”

If true, this would represent the first time in Apple history in which the iPhone used a stylus, something that Steve Jobs was adamantly opposed to. Samsung’s iPhone rival, the Galaxy Note, has long shipped with a stylus called the S Pen.

Almost anyone has use for a personal or professional website. But building and hosting a site can be expensive, so deal hunting pays off. But if you think you’re getting the best deal with Squarespace, think again.

The Roseville Police Department in California has released a photo of two of the thieves who robbed a local Apple Store this week.

The crooks stole 20 iPhones, two MacBook Pros, and one iPad mini. Fortunately no-one was hurt during the robbery, which involved no weapons.

An Australian teenager who repeatedly broke into Apple’s computer system is facing criminal charges after Apple contacted the FBI.

The teenager, who hasn’t been named for legal reasons, reportedly downloaded 90GB of secure files and accessed customer accounts. The information was uncovered in a raid on his family home in Melbourne, found in a computer folder called “Hacky hack hack.”

In case you hadn’t noticed, Apple’s enormous Apple Park HQ is a pretty architecturally ambitious place — and it’s continuing to underscore that point.

Accompanied by a message titled “Lunchtime at Apple Park just got a whole lot more exciting,” CEO Tim Cook has shared a time-lapse video of the giant motorized doors which have apparently just been unveiled at the Apple Park cafeteria. They’re pretty darn stunning!

Apple is very secretive about its data centers. For good reason: They’re at risk from criminals, foreign spy agencies, terrorists and more. But the company gave a local newspaper a look inside its Arizona server farm.

This 1.3 million-square-foot facility in Mesa houses Apple’s global data command center.

For the second time this year, Apple is being investigated by the Japanese Fair Trade Commission. This time, it may have forced Yahoo to scale back a web-only gaming platform that competes with the App Store.

Apple Japan seems to play hardball. This summer, the FTC made it stop forcing Japanese carriers to put subsidies on iOS handsets.