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Apple acquires German company that may hold key to AR future

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SensoMotoric Instruments
SensoMotoric Instruments eye-tracking glasses.
Photo: SensoMotoric Instruments

Apple may have just made a key acquisition that could help the company create a truly revolutionary augmented reality headset. According to a new report, German eye-tracking company SensoMotoric Instruments has been purchased by an Apple shell company, giving the iPhone-maker access the company’s trove of patents related to eye-tracking glasses and other systems.

iOS 11 Dock makes Handoff worth using again

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iOS 11 handoff
Handoff apps appear in the Dock's rightmost spot.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Handoff is one of those iOS/Mac features that seems great, but is limited in use. However, a simple tweak has made Handoff waaaay better in iOS 11. Now, instead of having a tiny app icon appear in the corner of your lock screen, Handoff apps show up right there in the new iOS 11 Dock.

This simple change has gotten me using Handoff again, instead of ignoring it like I have for the past however many years.

Money to burn? Buy an original iPhone for $20,000

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2G iPhone on eBay
A 2G iPhone never opened and under glass. How much would you pay?
Photo: Discount Depot/eBay

iPhone-turns-10 When the iPhone launched in 2007, the tech world went into conniptions about the device’s price tag. At a time when carriers offered most cellphones for free, the iPhone’s $500 starting price seemed downright crazy.

Well, guess how much an original iPhone costs now?

10 times Apple learned from massive iPhone mistakes

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iPhone 7 red
iPhone 8 rumors haven't had an impact yet, either.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

iPhone turns 10 It might be the most successful smartphone on the planet, but the iPhone didn’t become what it is today without some failures along the way.

Even before the device made its much-anticipated debut in 2007, Apple overcame big missteps and mistakes. It tried putting iTunes on other phones. It believed we didn’t need native apps. It entered into embarrassing partnerships with big bands.

As Cult of Mac looks back over the iPhone’s history to celebrate the device’s 10th anniversary, in collaboration with Wired UK, 10 big failures stick out like a sore thumb.

‘Apple should pull the plug’: 10 iPhone predictions from 2007

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iPhone predictions from 2007
They must have been holding their crystal balls wrong.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

iPhone turns 10 Predicting the future is tough, even for the experts. That’s the only lesson we can learn from looking back at these horribly misguided iPhone predictions that greeted the device at its launch 10 years ago.

Before most people had even wrapped their fingers around Apple’s first-gen smartphone, tech pundits, analysts and competing CEOs were already writing off the iPhone as a disaster similar to Apple’s previous excursions into video game consoles and the like.

Here are just a few of the laughable reactions that greeted the iPhone in 2007.

Apple seeds revised betas of iOS 11 and tvOS 11

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iOS 11 Control Center
A new version of iOS 11 beta 2 is out.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Revised beta builds of iOS 11 beta 2 and tvOS 11 beta 2 have been seeded to developers by Apple this morning, just five days after the previous versions of the betas were made available.

Along with the new updated betas for iOS 11 and tvOS 11, Apple also dropped a new Apple Watch beta in the form of watchOS 3.2.3 beta 4.

Steve Jobs Theater lights up in new Apple Park drone video

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Steve Jobs Theater
It's nearly showtime at Steve Jobs Theater.
Photo: Duncan Sinfield

The lobby of the Steve Jobs Theater at the new Apple Park campus looks nearly ready to host Apple events. Crews are working around the clock to finish the new Apple headquarters and the entire site is finally starting to come together now that landscaping is almost done.

A new drone video reveals there’s still some work to go on the theater and the main spaceship building, but road striping and landscaping are well underway. The video includes an incredible shot of the theater lit up at night with Apple Park in the background.

Check it out:

Birth of the iPhone: How Apple turned clunky prototypes into a truly magical device

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iPhone 2G prototype
iPhone 2G prototype
Photo: Jim Abeles/Flickr CC

iPhone turns 10 The world had never seen anything like the iPhone when Apple launched the device on June 29, 2007. But the touchscreen device that blew everyone’s minds immediately didn’t come about so easily.

The iPhone was the result of years of arduous work by Apple’s industrial designers. They labored over a long string of prototypes and CAD designs in their quest to produce the ultimate smartphone.

This excerpt from my book Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products offers an inside account of the iPhone’s birth.

First ‘Assembled in India’ iPhones go on sale

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iPhone assembled in India
Coming soon with a 2?
Photo: Indian Express

Apple’s first iPhone SE units manufactured in India are now on sale in the country.

“Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in India,” reads the tagline on the back. Despite being made locally, the devices cost exactly the same as those shipped from China.

Earn ninja-level Excel skills with these certified courses [Deals]

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Microsoft Excel Specialist Certification Bundle
This pair of courses is for anybody who wants to master the Microsoft Office staple, Excel.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

If you work in an office, you probably work with Microsoft Office. Their productivity software suite has become a staple of work environments around the world. Learning Word or PowerPoint is useful for any professional. But few are as useful to master as Excel, which is one of the most widely used professional applications.

AR demos show how iPhone can be transformed into a working tape measure

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AR Measure
Flashy? No. Useful? You bet!
Photo: AR Measure

Not convinced about how augmented reality has the opportunity to improve our apps? Then check out a couple of neat demos of Apple’s ARKit, the AR toolkit Apple showed off at WWDC to allow “fast and stable motion tracking” for augmented reality apps.

Between them, they depict how you’ll soon be able to use your iPhone as a tape measure by pointing your device at an object or scene, tapping two points on it, and then accurately measuring the distance between them.

Check them out below.

6 things we learned from the creation of iPhone documentary

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iPhone doc
Scott Forstall and others chip in to tell their iPhone war stories.
Photo: WSJ

If you hadn’t heard by now, this week marks the tenth anniversary of a little device called the iPhone going on sale. To celebrate, the Wall Street Journal has created a new mini-documentary, entitled Behind the Glass, detailing the making of Apple’s breakthrough smartphone.

Courtesy of interviews with former Apple execs Tony Fadell, Scott Forstall and Greg Christie, here are the top factoids we learned from it.

Relive 10 years of amazing iPhone innovation

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iPhone evolution GIF
The iPhone sure has changed over the years.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

iPhone turns 10 The iPhone packed a lot into its first astonishing decade. Not only has the device itself evolved significantly since its promising-but-by-no-means-perfect beginnings, but it’s transformed Apple’s business — and many of our very lives — in the process.

All this week, Cult of Mac’s “iPhone Turns 10” series will look at the innovative device’s massive impact on worldwide culture. The iPhone, which launched on June 29, 2007, truly changed the world.

What iPhone milestones have passed since Steve Jobs introduced this stunning hybrid device, which combined a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device? Check out our handy guide to 10 years of iPhone history.

Write a business plan the right way [Deals]

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CoM - Bizplan Premium
Building a proper business plan is never easy, which is why it pays to have help.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Today’s entrepreneurial environment is always changing, and there’s just no way forward without a solid business plan. Whatever your idea, it has to be framed with an eye to what investors really expect.

SEGA Forever, Twist, and awesome apps of the week

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

SEGA unleashed some of its classic games for free on iOS this week, bringing a plethora of games from the Genesis era to the iPhone and iPad as part of its SEGA Forever series.

That’s just one of the picks we’ve highlighted for this week’s “Awesome Apps” roundup. We’ve also got a great Slack alternative, a nifty WhatsApp upgrade, and a puzzle game that’s sure to appeal to anyone who loves Tetris. Check out our choices below.

Former Apple product design engineer reveals how Apple runs its factories

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Instrumental CEO Anna-Katrina Shedletsky
Anna Katrina Shedletsky is a former Apple product design engineer who is using her experience to build AI that helps companies streamline manufacturing.
Photo: Instrumental

On this week’s Apple Chat (the podcast formerly known as Kahney’s Korner): I talk with former Apple product design engineer Anna-Katrina Shedletsky about her take on modern manufacturing and how AI will revolutionize factories. She introduces us to her new company, Instrumental, which is using machine learning to help manufacturers identify and fix problems on their assembly lines.

Using her hard-earned experience at Apple overseeing the production of the first Apple Watch and several generations of the iPod, Shedletsky says machine learning is coming fast to manufacturing. Amazingly, almost all consumer electronics products are still assembled by hand — including hundreds of millions of iPhones.

But that’s changing. Manufacturing is undergoing a huge sea change with the advance of robotics and AI.

Invincible iPhone cases, unlosable backup batteries, and more [Week’s Best Deals]

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collage-2017-06-20
Get great new gear for mobile devices, digital photography, and Mac productivity.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Summer’s finally here! Along with the warm weather has come bunch of hot new deals in the Cult of Mac Store. This round, we’ve got a bundle of top shelf Mac apps that you can name your price for. There’s also a universal mount and grip for any mobile camera, and an iPhone case that can survive almost any fall. We’ve even got a powerful backup battery that you’ll never lose thanks to a built-in Bluetooth tracker.

Cult of Mac Magazine: Everything you need to know about HEIF, iOS 11 brings 5 different types of tap, and more!

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Cult of Mac Magazine
HEIF is the still-image version of the HVEC video format. Its main advantage for you and me is that photos saved in HEIF are roughly half the size of JPEGs, and of better quality.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, we’re going to tell you everything you need to know about HEIF (High Efficiency Image File Format), Apple’s new photo format to replace JPEGs. Discover the many advantages HEIF has over JPEG.

Discover all the great ways to watch streaming soccer this summer on Apple TV with our handy list. Learn how to easily save lots of iMessage pictures and movies all at once toCult of Macthe iPhone Photos app.

And, save 20 percent off Dubai-based Ullu’s luxury Apple Watch bands only for the month of June! Check out lots of new arrivals in our Watch Store!

Click iTunes for a free subscription to Cult of Mac Magazine. Here are this week’s top stories.

The powerful iOS 11 features you haven’t heard of, this week on The CultCast

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iOS 11 WWDC Hero
This week we'll tell you about iOS 11's best lesser-known features.
Photo: Apple

This week on The CultCast: More of the powerful new iOS 11 features you’ve never heard of! Plus: The talented app that will harnesses the power of Apple’s new augmented reality features; Scott Forstall is back, and he’s sharing the bizarre story of how the original iPhone really came to be; and everything you need to know about HEIF, the JPEG-killing format Apple is adopting.

Our thanks to Blue Apron for supporting this episode. Blue Apron makes it easy to cook delicious meals at home. Get your first three meals free at BlueApron.com/CultCast.

Leaked dummy unit provides new look at iPhone 8

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iPhone 8 dummy
Is this our best look yet at the iPhone 8?
Photo: Benjamin Geskin

An iPhone 8 “dummy unit” made from leaked parts give us an early glimpse at what Apple’s next big upgrade might look like.

Its form is similar to that of recent handsets like the iPhone 7, but with a larger edge-to-edge display that will help it compete with rivals like the Galaxy S8.