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Skateboard scooters, smart wallets, and more [Crowdfund Roundup]

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Scooterboard
The skateboard that's also a scooter.
Photo: Scooterboard

Crowdfund Roundup bugThe skateboarding experience doesn’t have to come with grazed knees and broken teeth. With Scooterboard, you get the same ride with the stability of a scooter — and a built-in motor that means you don’t have to do all the work.

It’s just one of the awesome ideas in this week’s Crowdfund Roundup. We also have the world’s most powerful smart wallet, a dongle that turns your iPad into a wireless secondary display for your Mac, and more!

Feed Hawk hunts down YouTube channel RSS feeds for you

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feed hawk
Feed Hawk makes subscribing to your favorite sites super easy.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Are you still using RSS? If you are (and you should be, as we’ll see in a moment), then you should use the Feed Hawk app on your iPhone and iPad. Feed Hawk puts itself in your iOS Share Sheet and locates the RSS feed(s) from any website you visit. If you want, it can automatically subscribe you to the RSS feed in your RSS reader of choice.

The latest version of Feed Hawk can even find feeds for YouTube channels. That, in case you’re wondering, is huge.

Apple’s September 12 keynote is all but confirmed

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Tim Cook
Tim Cook and Co. are ready to take the wraps off the next great iPhone.
Photo: Apple

It’s looking increasingly likely that Apple’s next big iPhone unveiling will happen on September 12.

Following a rumor last week that circled the second Tuesday of September as the date for the big iPhone 8 keynote, two more reports from reliable sources have practically confirmed that the next Apple smartphone will be revealed in just two weeks.

How to defeat Google AMP with 3D Touch on iPhone

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google amp iphone
Google AMP is bad for the web, and Apple is fixing it so you don't have to.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Google’s web-hostile AMP scheme makes copies of web pages, shrinks them, and serves them instead of the original when you click on a Google search result. It renders your content in non-standard HTML, and removes the original link to the article’s source. Whenever you share the page you’re reading, it forces you to share a the Google AMP URL instead of the original.

Unless you’re using an iPhone, that is. In iOS 11, Mobile Safari strips AMP from any links you share. And iPhones running iOS 10 will load the non-AMP version (i.e. the original version) of a page if you press a link with 3D Touch.

Samsung’s next stab at Apple Watch lands Wednesday

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Samsung Gear S3
Samsung's fight against Apple Watch won't end.
Photo: Samsung

Samsung will take a new stab at Apple Watch on Wednesday.

The South Korean company has scheduled an event in Berlin on August 30, where it will unwrap a brand new wearable. A teaser animation posted on Twitter backs up recent rumors that have claimed health and fitness will be its primary focus.

Leaked iPhone 7s dimensions are bad news for your wallet

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iPhone 7s dimensions
iPhone 7s is taller, wider, and thicker than iPhone 7.
Photo: TechnoBuffalo

iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus might be more affordable than the swankier iPhone 8, but it certainly won’t be cheap upgrades. If you were hoping to hold onto all the accessories you have already purchased for iPhone 7, you can think again.

Leaked schematics for both devices suggest all your existing cases might not fit.

Grab these top iPhone accessories for less than $20 [Deals]

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collage-2017-08-22 (1)
From rugged mobile mounts to keychain Lightning chargers, these are some of the top iPhone accessories for under $20.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

iPhones are great, but to get the most out of them you’ve got to have the right accessories. But when you’ve already dropped coin for a new phone, it’s hard to think about shelling out even more cash. So we’ve rounded up some of the best iPhone peripherals you can get for under 20 bucks. That includes a tough but flexible mini tripod, and a set of keychain-sized Lightning cables. Plus, we have a set of premium Bluetooth earbuds, and a device to turn any iPhone into a universal remote. Read on for more details:

Amazon matches Apple Music on subscription fees for students

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Amazon Music
Amazon's music service has competed with Apple since day one.
Photo: Amazon

If you’re a student in the U.S., you can now get Amazon’s Music Unlimited service for the same subscription price as Apple Music — thanks to Amazon slicing its fees.

Students who aren’t subscribed to Amazon Prime can get Amazon Music Unlimited for $4.99, the same amount that Apple charges. For Prime subscribing students, a six month subscription meanwhile costs just $6!

Apple’s not giving up on button-free Touch ID just yet

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Touch ID
Apple's new patent involves acoustic-based Touch ID.
Photo: Apple

Apple may have ditched plans to embed Touch ID sensors in iPhone displays in favor of facial recognition, but that doesn’t mean it’s no longer interested in improving its fingerprint sensing capabilities.

In a newly-granted patent, Apple describes a type of acoustic-based fingerprint imaging technology that could replace the current Touch ID Home button with special ultrasonic transducers under the display of its devices.

Tim Cook says Apple has ‘moral responsibility’ to U.S. economy

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Tim Cook
Oh, and he won't be running for office any time soon!
Photo: Apple

Tim Cook says Apple bears a “moral responsibility” to help grow the U.S. economy. And he harbors no current plans to run for president of the United States.

Those are two takeaways from an interview Cook gave to The New York Times as part of his trip to Austin, Texas, where he laid out plans to expand Apple’s Swift curriculum to new community colleges.

Raindrop.io is a slick new bookmark-organizing app for iOS

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raindrop ipad app
Raindrop's web page looks way better than its iOS app.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Raindrop.io is a new bookmarking service for Mac and iOS, and the web, and Android. It lets you save your bookmarks into folders, known as Groups, and those bookmarks are then available from anywhere. The main selling point of Raindrop.io seems to be the slick interface, and the myriad beautiful ways you can arrange the bookmarks therein.

How to see which apps are wasting your iPhone battery

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iPhone battery
Which apps are running riot on your iPhone's battery?
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Sometimes an app gets out of control and eats up your battery, even while it doesn’t seem to be active. Once, I had an iPad drained almost completely by a runaway instance of Skype. Or you may have an app that is supposed to run in the background — a synthesizer, or another music app, for example — and you forget you left it running, draining your iPhone battery.

Or perhaps you just want to see how much battery your various apps use. In any of these cases, you can open up a Settings screen that will report which apps have used how much battery, and for how long, over the past day or week. It’s a very handy screen indeed.

iPhone 8 inductive charging may be a wee bit slow

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iPhone 8 wireless charging
This is what will bring wireless charging to iPhone 8.
Photo: Weibo

One of the biggest new features on Apple’s next-generation iPhone might be a bit of disappointment to buyers.

According to the latest rumor out of Asia, Apple will use an older standard for its inductive charging feature which means recharging could take longer than expected.

New betas nudge iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra closer to launch

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iPhone 7 iOS 11
Grab the new iOS 11 beta now!
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Developers received a big batch of beta updates from Apple today, bringing iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra one step closer to public launch ahead of Apple’s huge keynote next month.

The seventh beta builds for iOS 11, macOS High Sierra, watchOS 4 and tvOS 11 were all seeded to developers. While previous betas have added a host of changes, the new builds focus mostly on bug fixes and under-the-hood improvements which could mean Apple’s nearly done fine-tuning the new software updates.

NYPD will scrap 36,000 Windows Phones for iPhones

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5 tips to fix an unresponsive iPhone screen
New York cops will soon own iPhones.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The New York Police Department will scrap the 36,000 Windows Phones it bought for cops over the past two years and replace them with iPhones, a new report claims.

The first iPhones will be introduced just two months after the last Windows Phone was handed out, the New York Post reports. The Windows Phones were introduced as part of a $160 million initiative that Mayor Bill de Blasio referred to as “a huge step into the 21st century.”

Apple Watch will soon track a whole lot more activities

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Apple Watch
Some of the new activities your Apple Watch will soon track.
Photo: iHelp BR

Apple is planning to add a number of new exercises to its Apple Watch Workouts app this fall, according to new icons and titles uncovered in the latest iOS 11 beta.

Activities will include the addition of badminton, barre, baseball, bowling, boxing climbing, core training, cricket, curling, dance, equestrian sports, fencing, fishing, flexibility, functional training, golf, gymnastics, jump rope, kickboxing, lacrosse, paddle sports, pilates, “play,” sailing, skating, skiing and other snow sports, step training, strength training and surfing.

You can now donate to Hurricane Harvey relief efforts via iTunes

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Hurricane Harvey
1,000+ people have so far been displaced due to Hurricane Harvey.
Photo: Apple

Apple has updated its iTunes desktop and mobile storefronts to start accepting American Red Cross donations for the Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. Tim Cook asked users to join the relief effort in a post made on Twitter over the weekend.

Apple is giving users the option of donating to the cause in $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, or $200 increments.

Death Point, ZCast, and other awesome apps of the week

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Awesome Apps
'Appy weekend everyone!
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

A great premium top-down stealth shooter that’s sure to appeal to any Hitman or Metal Gear Solid fans out there is just one of the apps we’ve picked for this week’s “Awesome Apps” roundup.

We’ve also got new reminders integration for a superb email client for Mac, a podcast recording app for iOS, and a massive update to one of my absolute favorite games of 2017. Check out our picks below.

Calling all coders: Now’s the time to learn iOS 11 [Deals]

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The Complete iOS 11 & Swift Developer Course- Build 20 Apps
iOS 11 is almost here, so all you coders better get studying.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

iOS 11 is ready to mark yet another major overhaul for Apple users and developers both. Apple has said that iOS 11 will mark the new standard for the operating system, with sweeping tweaks and changes. Whether you’re new to coding or a seasoned pro, it’s time to get studying.

Face value: 7 thoughts about biometrics and the iPhone 8

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Apple will undoubtedly play it smart when it comes to bringing facial recognition to the iPhone 8.
Apple will undoubtedly play it smart when it comes to bringing facial recognition to the iPhone 8.
Photo: Jeshoots/Pixabay CC

By Joey Pritikin

Over the last five years, biometrics has evolved from the stuff of crime scene investigation and science fiction movies to a broad set of technologies that make our lives easier, more personal, and more secure. Starting with the Touch ID sensor in the iPhone 5s, Apple led the way in the acceptance and adoption of biometrics.

The latest indications are that Apple is embracing a face-recognition approach that goes beyond a standard 2D, visible-light sensor. When used in a situation where there are only a handful of approved users, like a consumer mobile device, the promise is great.

Top-shelf writing apps, iPhone mounts and more [Week’s Best Deals]

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This week's best deals include a streamlined writing platform, a double sided iPhone mount, and more.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

With every new week come great new deals at the Cult of Mac Store. This go-round, we’ve got a simple but powerful writing platform for Mac, and a super versatile, double-sided phone mount. Also in are comprehensive lessons in social media marketing, and a powerful VPN for enhanced online privacy and security. Plus everything is discounted by at least 25 percent, and as much as 97 percent. Read on for more details.