If you work with a lot of digital media, professionally or just for fun, you know the critical importance of a versatile and reliable converter. You’ve also probably well aware of Toast Titanium, the top name in media conversion. The latest version of Toast is also the greatest, slathered with new features for maximizing any digital media workflow. And right now, you can get Toast Titanium 15 for just $49 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Siri may have celebrated five years since its iPhone 4s debut this week, but Apple didn’t rush to acquire Viv, the follow-up AI assistant created by Siri’s makers.

Instead, Samsung snapped up Viv for an undisclosed amount.

Given that it’s currently the world’s most valuable brand, few people would suggest that Apple should give up its name in favor of something a bit more, well, geeky.

But that wasn’t the case when the company launched, as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak recently revealed.

The epic scale of Apple’s Campus 2 “spaceship” awed many people when it was first announced — with impressive stats like the fact that it is wider than the Empire State Building is tall, and that it will house 13,000 Apple employees — or the equivalent of 35 fully-stocked Boeing 747 jetliners’ worth of people.

But according to a new report, Apple’s new HQ will now house considerably more than that number of staffers, as Apple aims to bring as many teams under one roof in the name of collaboration.

Foxconn, a company Apple heavily relies upon for iPhone production, plans to start selling its own smartphones in Japan.

It’s a bold move into one of Apple’s hottest markets by the Taiwanese electronics company, which employs around 1.3 million people and 40,000 robots.

Best List: Udoq universal charging stand

There’s a constant war in our house for charging bricks and cables. I like to keep chargers in certain places so I know where they are — beside the bed for example. But they constantly disappear, thanks to my light-fingered kids.

It drives me bananas, which is why I like the Udoq, a universal charging stand that neatly organizes and charges between two and eight devices. It can’t be easily half-inched.

The doors of Apple’s first-ever iOS developer academy in Italy are set to open to students tomorrow, but according to a new report, getting through the doors is harder than getting into Harvard.

The Apple Watch and new AirPods may seam like silly side projects to fans, but some analysts on Wall Street believe the company is using the two new products to lay the groundwork for the next era of personal technology.

While Silicon Valley is obssessed with virtual reality headsets, Apple is obsessed with making gadgetry less visible. UBS analysts Steven Milunovich and Benjamin Wilson told clients that while many firms see a lot of downside for Apple, the company’s “ambient paradigm” could be a huge money maker.

Discounts on not-new laptops and tablets continue to shine this week, with Apple itself offering its legendary factory-refurbished MacBook Pros, and eBay offering an open-box 10-inch iPad Pro. You’ll find these deals and more in this week’s roundup of best Apple deals.

Southwest Airlines was forced to evacuate a flight from Louisville to Baltimore this morning before it hit the runway, thanks to a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone that caught fire.

Explosive Note 7 units have been reported around the globe thanks to faulty lithium-ion batteries. In this instance though, the Galaxy Note 7 in question was a replacement unit that the owner received after Samsung issued its global recall.

Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL may pack the fastest smartphone camera, but when it comes to raw processing power the iPhone 7 leaves the new handsets in the dust.

Early benchmarks for the Pixel have already leaked for the device, which was unveiled Tuesday. And according to the tests, Google’s phone can’t even top the performance of the iPhone 6s and iPhone SE.

After decades of showing us the best ways to interact with computers, Apple is lagging on the UI of the future — voice controls powered by smart, conversational AI.

Google, on the other hand, is placing artificial intelligence, in the form of Google Assistant, at the center of its new Pixel smartphones and Google Home smart speaker.

Cupertino’s mastery of the user interface is legendary: Macs, iPods and iPhones made the GUI, the mouse, the scroll wheel and multitouch mainstream. But Apple needs to get into the AI conversation if it’s serious about securing a place in our gabby future.

Two of the biggest names at Apple made it onto Vanity Fair‘s 2016 ‘New Establishment’ list that ranks the top names in Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Wall Street. But instead of including designer Jony Ive, the fashion mag bumped him for ugly-shirt-lovin Eddy Cue.

Omar Johnson, the Beats by Dre chief marketing officer that helped transform the headphone company from a gimmick to one of the most iconic brands in pop culture, is leaving the company next month.

During his time at Beats, Johnson and his marketing team created unique ads by collaborating with the world’s top athletes in every major sport to tell their real stories. Johnson didn’t give a reason for his departure, but Apple has confirmed he’s stepping down on November 1st.

Apple has quietly discontinued selling the old third-gen Apple TV on its online store, although it has committed to fulfilling all existing orders for the device.

As products go, the third-gen Apple TV had a reasonable lifespan, having first been introduced in 2012. Its software was last updated with minor security fixes back in February.

Thanks to a software feature on the iPhone 7 camera, Apple fans are getting familiar with a term once heard in a language only spoken by photographers – bokeh.

It’s a Japanese word that means blur and the bokeh in a photograph refers to the areas that are not in focus. Creamy and dream are the effects when perfectly executed, especially with portraits, where a tack-sharp face pops against a background swirled in colors, light and distorted shapes

Before there was even an iPhone, the art optics company Lensbaby was producing lenses that gave photographers an affordable option to bring maximum bokeh to their work. On Wednesday, Lensbaby introduced a 3-in-1 lens for mirrorless cameras.

Things are changing fast these days, but one thing that’s remained constant is the value of skills in coding and web development. Learning to code can sound like an imposing and expensive task, and it’s hard to know where to start. But right now is your opportunity to wave off both concerns at once, because for a limited time you can name your price for the massive Learn to Code Bundle 2016 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Ever the early riser, Tim Cook tweeted an early morning message today commemorating the life of Steve Jobs, who passed away five years ago today.

“Remembering Steve and the many ways he changed our world,” Cook wrote.

Thanks to its first annual revenue decline since 2003, many people sure like to do the whole “sky is falling” routine when it comes to Apple.

Fortunately, it seems that brand consultancy Interbrand isn’t among them — since it just named Apple the world’s most valuable brand for an impressive fourth year in a row.

iOS 10 has only been available to the public for a few weeks, but developers are already receiving updates for iOS 10.1 beta 2. Along with bug fixes and a beta version of Portrait Mode for the iPhone 7 Plus, beta 2 offers a few new minor improvements and features.

Check them out in action in our video below.

Apple’s pro-encryption privacy standoff with the FBI may not have been in the news too much as of late, but Apple’s strong stance in favor of encryption continues to ruffle feathers among authorities.

Today. U.K. prime minister Theresa May gave a speech at the Tory party conference, in which she took what many are calling a veiled dig against Apple by referring to a “household name” that is refusing to work with officials to fight terrorism.

Apple supplier Foxconn has installed a massive 40,000 robots for handling manufacturing jobs at a number of its factories in China, claims a new report.

The industrial robots — named “Foxbots” — are currently being rolled out at factories in Zhengzhou, Kunshan, Jiashanm and a “tablet plant” in Chengdu, where Apple is known to produce iPads. Foxconn’s future robot production is expected to hit around 10,000 units per year.

Google’s new Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones are ready to do battle with the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus and based on the first hands-on reviews, Apple could learn a few things from the new devices.

Apple’s shadow loomed large during today’s Google event. Exec from the search engine giant threw plenty of shade at the iPhone-maker for its lack of a headphone jack and storage limitations. Even though Google’s new devices look like total iPhone ripoffs the initial reaction has been mostly positive.

We’ll have to test Pixel in the wild before making our final judgement but here are some of the first reactions to the device from people that got to play with it:

Our Apple devices are designed, in part, to make our lives easier. But the chargers they come with add a burden. Tangled cords and bulk become nuisance cargo in our bags and that’s if you don’t lose track of one of your chargers.

The Dutch company ZENS has prided itself for the last five years on cutting our cords and its latest wireless power bank offers an Apple MFi certified one-stop charging solution for the Apple Watch and the iPhone or iPad.

After undergoing successful chemotherapy treatment for cancer, Apple’s fitness gadgets helped me turn my life around and get fit in middle age. So I know from personal experience just how important they can be. That’s why I focus on fitness for Cult of Mac, and it’s why I’ve written The Cult of Mac Fitness Handbook: Get in Shape With iPhone and Apple Watch.

Today, I’m in the best shape of my life, and I rely on my iPhone and Apple Watch to help keep me that way.

They are powerful tools for getting fit and losing weight — if you know how to use them.