Cult of Mac

Instagram announced two new features Monday that gives users more privacy controls while letting them be spontaneous with only the followers they choose.

Live Video will be added to Instagram Stores to let users connect in the moment with a live story that disappears from the the app after your broadcast. Instagram also is giving users the ability to send photos and videos that disappear from your friends’ inboxes after they have seen them – and you will be alerted when a user sees it or takes a screen shot.

Apple is sending a message of unity this Christmas season with a new ad that features an unexpected guest: Frankenstein’s monster.

The heartwarming ad starts with Frankie in his little cabin in the mountains, recording music on his iPhone. Then the misunderstood monster makes his way down to a little village to unleash a surprise none of the locals were expecting.

Check it out:

Our iDevices depend on Lightning cables to stay charged and up to date. Unfortunately, those cables are super fragile, prone to fraying and breaking. That makes having backup a must, and this is your opportunity to get three extra-long Lightning cables for less than the price of one. Right now, you can pick up three MFi-certified Lightning cables for $21.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Publisher Pierre Le Govic turned his mission into the company name. Out of the Phone seeks to liberate the beautiful photographs being made today by smartphones.

His Paris publishing house has produced coffee table-worthy books of some of the best photographers documenting the world with their phones. Now Out of the Phone wants to make it easy for everyone to preserve their work with a tangible book.

Apple has disbanded the division dedicated to developing its Airport wireless routers, claims a new report.

The product line — which spawned the AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and AirPort Time capsule, which Apple continues to sell — hasn’t been updated since 2013.

Canadian rap star and Apple fanboy Drake gives us a glimpse at his comical side in the company’s latest Apple Music ad by singing along to Taylor Swift while getting beaten by the bench press.

The ad is part of Apple Music’s ongoing “distractingly good” campaign, which has previously featured Swift herself.

Apple is offering to replace the batteries of faulty iPhone 6s handsets, produced between September and October 2015.

In a new page on its official website, Apple notes that it, “has determined that a very small number of iPhone 6s devices may unexpectedly shut down. This is not a safety issue and only affects devices within a limited serial number range.”

Jony Ive certainly can’t be accused of not applying his minimalist mantra to every aspect of life.

Having previously been announced as the co-designer (with BFF Marc Newson) of the Christmas tree at London’s famous Claridge’s hotel, Ive’s creation was unveiled over the weekend, and — surprise — it’s a plain tree with no decorations, set on a white background.

Really, were we expecting anything different?

Looking for some app recommendations to get you through this chilly November Sunday? Want to know which apps have been occupying our Macs and iOS devices this week — and why? Then you’ve come to the right place for our weekly roundup.

Whether you’re looking for an entertaining puzzle game or a great update for a fun fitness app, check out our recommendations below. You won’t regret it!

When you need extra hard drive capacity for your MacBook, the obvious options aren’t very attractive. Either add a bulky external drive to your computer bag, or go through the inconvenience and steep expense of getting a higher-capacity drive installed.

Nifty MiniDrive offers a third option, an invisible but significant expansion of storage capacity. And right now you can pick up a Nifty MiniDrive adapter for just $32.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

The tech industry appears to be nice and clean, but it has a long and toxic history of environmental damage. Silicon Valley is home to the most Superfund cleanup sites in the country.

A new film, Death by Design, takes a sobering look at the electronics industry and its toxic environmental legacy — both in the United States and in China. The film offers a behind-the-scenes look at the cost of the devices we consume in some measure of ignorance.

Apple features heavily in the film, though it’s not the only tech company implicated.

This week on Kahney’s Korner, I talk to the documentary’s director, Sue Wiliams, about Apple, pollution and Silicon Valley.

If you’ve been looking to add the significant layer of VPN protection to your online life, today’s your lucky day. Hotspot Shield Elite is a top notch VPN provider that’s great for hiding your IP address, browsing securely, bypassing content restrictions, and today an already great discount gets dropped even further. As of today, you can get a lifetime subscription to Hotspot Shield Elite VPN for $39.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

This week on The CultCast: The reviews are in! We’ll tell you what praises and complaints reviewers have about new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. Plus: The one Touch Bar feature you’ll absolutely covet; why the new Designed by Apple in California book is an artifact Apple fans will love; Apple quietly rebuilds a library of its gadgets long past; how to get the best Black Friday deals; and we review the hawt new Mavic Pro drone by DJI, then crash it into a cliff.

Our thanks to Harry’s for supporting this episode. Harry’s super-sharp, German-made razors ship free right to your door and for way less than the drugstore razors. Learn more at Harrys.com and score a free shave set with code CultCast at checkout.

With the launch of a GPS watch, and a renewed Nike partnership, Apple is getting serious about targeting runners. So is Apple Watch Series 2 the perfect running partner that Cupertino promises?

As an avid runner myself, I was keen to find out. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been training for the TCS New York City Marathon, and I took my Apple Watch Series 2 with me every step of the way — right up to the finish line in Central Park last week. Here’s how it measured up.

New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance wants the Trump administration to help create federal legislation requiring Apple and Google to remove default encryption from their smartphones.

The recommendation comes from the DA office’s second report on Smartphone Encryption and Public Safety, presented by Vance at the opening of the Manhattan DA’s new cyberlab. New York County is currently sitting on 423 iPhones it can’t break into, even with a warrant, so the DA’s office is pushing for change.

Apple’s HomeKit platform is set to power an entire community currently under construction in San Jose.

Real estate development firm KB Home revealed today that its new community, Promenade at Communications Hill, will be the first ever in the US to have HomeKit technology built-in, providing a seamless experience from the foundation up.

Apple has finished unveiling its product lineup for 2016, and yet again it appears to have forgotten about the Mac Pro. The high-end desktop will be three years old next month, and although it might look pretty on the outside, it’s way past its best on the inside.

Apple won’t tell us why the Mac Pro isn’t a priority anymore, but its focus is clearly elsewhere. This is a problem for creative professionals who rely on the extra power the machine provides. For some, the iMac just isn’t beefy enough.

Some believe Apple should license macOS to third-party computer makers that are willing to cater to the pros Apple is ignoring. It’s a move Apple would never make, but is it a good idea?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we battle it out over whether Apple should let rival PC vendors build macOS machines!

Extensions can be very useful on Safari for Mac, adding functionality, and — in Apple’s words — letting users, “explore the web the way you want.” But how do you get rid of them once they’re installed?

If you have issues with extensions causing crashes, glitches, or you just don’t plain want them anymore, here’s our easy guide to removing them.

For many ugly years, manufacturers considered industrial design an afterthought. They would outsource the task to a contractor or neglect it altogether, in an effort to get products out quickly and cheaply.

The result: hideous-looking products that didn’t work well or proved difficult to use.

Nowadays, companies like Apple are changing the game when it comes to incorporating industrial design and user experience into product engineering.

On this episode of Kahney’s Korner, I talk with Oliver Seil, senior design director with Belkin International’s Innovation and Design Group. Seil is Belkin’s Jony Ive, the top designer who overseas the company’s diverse array of products.

Belkin specializes in mobile accessories, from power packs and iPhone cases to WeMo home automation products

The iPhone 7 has barely been out for two months but the first concept designs of next year’s iPhone are ready to get you hyped for a future without bezels.

Early rumors for the 2017 iPhone have claimed Apple plans to make some major changes. The home button and bezels at the top and bottom could get the boot. And with a curved OLED display, Apple’s next phone may be the most beautiful one ever.

Take a closer look:

A bug in macOS Sierra is incorrectly telling some users that their MacBook Pro just got a nice graphics upgrade.

Some 15-inch units are packing Intel Iris Pro 580 graphics, according to the built-in System Information report. But in actual fact, they have Intel Iris Pro 530 graphics instead.

These days, having a mixed storage strategy is the only sensible way to consider your data ‘backed up’. The cloud needs to be part of the equation, and if the high cost of secure cloud storage has kept your storage on the ground, we’ve got good news. As of today, Zoolz is offering a terabyte of secure cloud storage for life at 10 bucks less off an already massive discount. Right now you can get a lifetime of Zoolz for just $29 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Earlier this week, Apple debuted its pricey $200-$300 Designed by Apple in California coffee table book — and, boy, has it already garnered a ton of publicity. Not all of it favorable.

In a fake ad which debuted on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the Apple book is ridiculed for, well, basically being an insanely expensive book.

Check it out below.

Apple has hired a former Wall Street Journal correspondent from China to assume the post of PR Director for its Shanghai office.

Given that Apple shows such a mastery of the press, it’s no surprise to hear that it’s used to picking the cream of the tech-reporting media crop to work in its PR roster. Wei Gu falls into this category — even if her new role comes at a challenging time for Apple in China.

Apple has finally responded to the “touch disease” issue plaguing older iPhone 6 Plus units. The company this week launched a new repair program that gives users the option to get their handset fixed for a flat fee of $149.