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How to restore Mac startup chimes on 2016 MacBook Pro

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We don't have the new MacBook Pro yet, and already we're missing the startup chimes.
Photo: Apple

By now, you’ve probably heard that the new MacBook Pro doesn’t automatically play Apple’s iconic startup chord when you power it on.

While not met with the same hostility as the removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack on iPhone 7, the change definitely upset some people. Especially since the sound serves a useful purpose: It indicates that diagnostic tests have been successfully run and your Mac is working as it should.

With that in mind, nobody would blame you for wanting to restore the iconic audio cue on your new MacBook Pro. But how do you do it? Follow our simple steps to find out.

Why Apple needs to design its own MacBook chips

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A10 Fusion
The Mac needs an Apple processor.
Photo: Apple

Apple is getting a lot of stick for failing to give users a 32GB RAM option onthe latest MacBook Pro — but there’s a good reason why 16GB is the most you can get.

It’s also the reason Apple needs to start designing its own processors for the MacBook family.

These earbuds plug right into your Lightning jack [Deals]

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Upgrade your iPhone 7's headphones with these top-rated Lightning cable headphones
Upgrade your iPhone 7's headphones with these top-rated Lightning cable headphones
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

With the new iPhone, Apple have decreed that the day of the headphone jack is behind us. But that doesn’t mean you have to suddenly embrace battery-draining Bluetooth. The HOCO L1 Lightning Cable Headphones connect to your phone via its Lightning port so you can upgrade your phone and carry on listening like you’re used to. Named among the Top 10 Best Lightning Headphones for iPhone 7 by Heavy, you can get these headphones for $21.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Apple Music might be about to get a big price drop

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AppleMusic
Apple could cut $2 off its regular monthly subscription cost.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Forget $9.99 per month — Apple might slash the price of Apple Music subscriptions to better compete with streaming music rivals, most notably Amazon.

According to a new report, Apple could drop monthly subscription prices by as much as 20 percent. The Apple Music price drop would mean a regular subscription would cost users around $7.99 per month, while a family package would go for $12.99.

MacBook Pro teardown reveals why you can forget about upgrading

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macbook
We wouldn't mind a piece of the new MacBook Pro. Or even a whole laptop if possible.
Photo: iFixit

A teardown of the new entry-level MacBook Pro reveals it to be one of Apple’s least upgradeable laptops.

The good news? Even the Touch Bar-free model includes some nifty upgrades. The bad? From proprietary pentalobe screws that make opening the case unnecessarily difficult to the RAM soldered to the logic board, this isn’t a laptop you’ll be able to upgrade easily.

New book paints intimate portrait of Steve Jobs at work [Review]

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To Pixar and Beyond by Lawrence Levy
In To Pixar and Beyond, Lawrence Levy offers an insider look at Steve Jobs' early struggles at the animation studio.
Photo: Lyle Kahney/Cult of Mac

After his death, Steve Jobs became mythic. He’s remembered as an asshole and a technology seer: a Tony Stark-like figure who could uniquely divine the sci-fi future, conjuring magical products from whole cloth almost single-handedly.

He’s also seen as infallible: a business and technology genius with powers of divination beyond those of us mere mortals.

But To Pixar and Beyond, a new book by Lawrence Levy, the former CFO of Pixar, paints a very different picture.

First iOS 10.2 and tvOS 10.1 betas arrive for developers

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News and Music ios10
New beta software for iPhone is here.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Developers received a big batch of beta software updates from Apple today.

New betas for iOS, tvOS, watchOS and macOS are now available, bringing a host of bug fixes and performance updates just one week after Apple released iOS 10.1 with support for Portrait Mode on the iPhone 7 Plus.

Awesome Aluminum Apple Watch bands, world’s smartest earphones and more [Crowdfund Roundup]

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Crowdfund Roundup
Help turn these awesome ideas into reality!
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

You can find some incredible new gadgets on Kickstarter and Indiegogo that often go unnoticed. We’re rounding up some of the best every week to help them get the funding they need to become a reality.

This week, we’ve chosen a stunning aluminum band for Apple Watch, the “world’s smartest” wireless earphones, a smart clock that displays your notifications, and an incredibly intelligent bottle that can rid your water of contaminants.

Sharp exec confirms next iPhone will have OLED display

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iOS and Android are killing off the competition.
Samsung is already using OLED in its phones.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The next iPhone will get upgraded to an amazing OLED display, according to a Sharp executive who confirmed the long-standing rumor while speaking at Tatung University.

Sharp President Tai Jeng-wu, who is also an executive at Foxconn, told students that if Apple doesn’t switch to OLED iPhone, there won’t be any innovation.

Apple’s spaceship campus nears completion in new drone videos

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Apple is set to move in next year.
Apple is set to move in next year.
Photo: Duncan Sinfield

Construction on Apple’s spaceship campus is finally coming closer to an end. The latest batch of drone videos reveal the construction site now has fewer cranes and a lot more trees.

Apple pushed back the move in date to mid-2017 and it looks like there’s still some serious work to be done. The main spaceship building still isn’t completed and the tunnel to the garage still needs to be covered in dirt.

Take a look at all the new details:

Pocket-size light packs studio power for your iPhone shoot

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Palm-size studio lighting by Lume Cube just got smaller with the new Life Lite.
Palm-size studio lighting by Lume Cube just got smaller with the new Life Lite.
Photo: Lume Cube

For all the magical powers coded and wired into the iPhone camera, it can’t rise to every challenge. You still need light to make a decent photograph and good light can be as fleeting as the moments you are trying to capture.

But what if you could put good light into your pocket and pull it out when you need it?

The makers of the popular Lume Cube have created a nifty but powerful light called Life Lite, ideal for mobile photographers who want to keep shooting even as darkness closes in.

2016 MacBook Pro loses the iconic startup chime

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The "chime" sound effect has long been part of macOS.
Photo: Apple

Physical function keys on the Mac and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the iPhone aren’t the only casualties of 2016. According to eagle-eyed (eagle-eared?) reporters, the new MacBook Pro jettisons the iconic F-sharp sound Apple uses to show a Mac is booting up.

The reason does, we admit, make sense — but it’s still sad to see a piece of Apple history join that great Mac museum in the sky.

This app will transform your tedious daily routine [Deals]

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Pagico transforms the way you manage tasks and projects by organizing them into an interactive flowchart.
Pagico transforms the way you manage tasks and projects by organizing them into an interactive flowchart.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Try as we might, staying on top of the many daily tasks and long term projects can be a serious challenge. Some might chalk it up to the number of distractions that come with the internet age, but it could just be a matter of visualizing differently. Pagico 8 adopts a unique and surprisingly effective approach to managing tasks and notes, arranging everything into pleasant, interactive flowcharts. And right now you can get a copy of Pagico 8 for just $19 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Jony Ive: Thinking different is easy

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Jony Ive
Jony Ive sheds (a bit of) light on the new MacBook Pro's creation story.
Photo: Vanity Fair/YouTube

A new interview with Jony Ive sheds light on his team’s thought process as they created the new MacBook Pro and its innovative Touch Bar.

Ive addresses the history of the Touch Bar project, touches on his rationale for ruling out a touchscreen Mac, and explains why thinking different is easy — but doing so is only a small part of the innovation battle.

Is the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar a touchscreen replacement? [Friday Night Fights]

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fnf
Would you prefer a touchscreen?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple’s new MacBook Pro has arrived with its exciting OLED Touch Bar, giving users a brand new way to interact with macOS. It’s the closest we’ll get to a touchscreen on a Mac — at least for the foreseeable future — but is it a suitable replacement?

Friday Night Fights bugThe Touch Bar is already supported by all of Apple’s own apps, and the company says developers are quickly adapting their own software for it. It’s only going to get more useful over time, but would a Mac touchscreen be even better?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we battle it out over the Touch Bar and whether it can help macOS users forget all about touchscreen computers.

PinOut, Civilization VI and other awesome apps of the week

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

With Apple’s earnings call and Thursday’s Mac event, there was plenty of serious business in the world of Apple this week. That’s why we’re choosing an all-game lineup for this “Awesome Apps of the Week” installment.

Plus, when the titles are this good, it’s hard to ignore them! Check out our picks below.

Get personal soundtracks created by AI and more [Week’s Newest Deals]

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Let an AI compose music specifically designed to help you work, relax or sleep.
Let an AI compose music specifically designed to help you work, relax or sleep.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Every week brings us closer to the future (don’t think too hard about that), and this week it shows in the Cult of Mac Store. Topping the bill of our latest deals is a service that uses artificial intelligence to generate a personal soundtrack for productivity and rest, complemented by a pair of top notch headphones, and all of that on top of a 2 year VPN subscription for protected, anonymous browsing. Read on for more details:

Get a sensible smartwatch, a versatile VPN and more [Week’s Best Deals]

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Get App notifications, track your phone's location and more with this next-level watch
Get App notifications, track your phone's location and more with this next-level watch
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

With the new week comes a new shipment of deals on awesome gear and gadgets at the Cult of Mac Store. This round, we’ve got a super sensible take on the smartwatch, a versatile virtual assistant, an easy-to-use VPN client, and over a day’s worth of lessons in web development. Each is worth checking out and discounted by well over half off — read on for more details:

The pros and cons of Apple’s new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, this week on The CultCast

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The reviews are in on Apple's new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar...
The reviews are in on Apple's new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar...
Photo: @YSR50

This week on The CultCast: Happy? Disappointed? Downright pissed off? Don’t miss our “Hello Again” Mac event reactions! Plus: Pros and cons of Apple’s new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar; and the two big omissions in Apple TV’s new TV app.

Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. It’s simple to accept Apple Pay and sell your wares with your very own Squarespace.com website. Enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10% off any hosting plan.

Why freemium apps suck for everyone (and how Apple is killing paid apps)

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Only one of the top 200 grossing apps is a paid app
Paid apps are an endangered species: Only one of the 200 top-grossing apps on the App Store is a paid download.
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

I work on an iPhone app called Reps & Sets as a hobby project in my spare time. This week, my partner and I came to the conclusion that there is no future for our app as a paid download, so we have reluctantly decided to make it free.

This was an incredibly tough call, because we have invested literally thousands of hours in developing our app over the years. Giving all that hard work away for free is heartbreaking. But we didn’t feel we had much choice.

Pull my finger: Some joker made a fart app for MacBook Pro’s new Touch Bar

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Touch Bar apps might get weird.
Touch Bar apps might get weird.
Photo: Apple

Apple’s magical new MacBook Pro hasn’t even shipped yet, but that hasn’t stopped one developer from creating the first Touch Bar fart app.

iOS developer Hung Truong churned out his new app, TouchFart, just hours after Apple released a new build of Xcode needed to make apps that support the new Touch Bar. Even though he hasn’t gotten to test it in a real-world scenario, you can watch TouchFart in action in a simulator.