After switching to a Taptic Touch ID sensor for the iPhone 7, Apple is strongly rumored to be eliminating a physical “Home” button altogether for next year’s iPhone 8 — and instead integrating Touch ID fingerprint sensors into the main display.

Now a newly-published patent appears to back up that rumor, with the stated goal of expanding screen real estate by avoiding, “assigning valuable surface space exclusively to a component that may only be used briefly during the process of identifying the user.”

A free software update for Ultimate Ears’ popular Boom and Megaboom speakers lets you connect dozens of the Bluetooth devices to create a massive wall of sound.

The over-the-air update, coming today to the “life-proof” speaker line, enables a new feature called PartyUp that can connect “more than 50” of UE’s popular tube-shaped speakers. “More than 50” is the party line, but UE product manager Jim Saraco said his team connected 130 of the speakers at the company’s HQ.

“In reality, we’re still trying to find a cap,” Saraco told Cult of Mac.

We may not yet have sapphire glass on our iPhone screens, but Apple has been claiming to use the ultra-hard material for its iPhone camera lens since 2013’s iPhone 5s.

However, those claims are being called into question by a new durability test carried out by YouTuber JerryRigEverything, who compares the hardness of the iPhone 7 camera lens with the sapphire display of a Tissot sapphire watch — and finds that the iPhone camera lens scratches far more easily.

Check the video out below.

Apple Pay has arrived in a new country, with Apple’s mobile payment service launching in Russia on Tuesday — although right now it’s only available with one bank and card.

“Sberbank clients – MasterCard cardholders – can now use Apple Pay, which will allow them to make contactless payments online safely and comfortably,” a press release from Sberbank of Russia, which is the largest bank in Russia and Eastern Europe, stated.

The new features on the Apple Watch Series 2 will not be enough to boost overall sales of the wearable, claims KGI Securities analyst Ming Chi Kuo.

Even though the original Apple Watch was only on sale for eight months in 2015, Kuo’s supply chain sources indicate that sales will decline compared to last year.

The twin phones Google will launch Tuesday will show the company is finally serious about tackling the iPhone head-on. And they couldn’t be arriving at a better time.

With iPhone demand falling and many fans disappointed with the improvements Apple has made with the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, it’s a perfect opportunity for Google to prove it can out-innovate its biggest rival in the smartphone industry.

The Microsoft Band may have just met its demise.

Microsoft’s online store has officially stopped selling the Band 2 which was positioned as a competitor to the Apple Watch. The company also revealed today that it will not release a new Microsoft Band 3 this year.

The third beta builds of macOS Sierra 10.12.1 was seeded to developers today, less than a week after Apple released the second build that contained a number of bug fixes.

Developers can pick up the new beta directly form the Apple Developer Center, or install it via the Mac App Store’s software update option if the previous beta build is already installed on your Mac.

Finding tickets to the next concert, sporting event or comedy show you want to go to is now as easy as watching TV, thanks to the new StubHub app for Apple TV.

StubHub’s new offering is the first-ever ticketing app for the Apple TV, only instead of just making their popular mobile app TV-sized, the company focused the experience on browsing upcoming events in your area.

After being shuttered for all of 2016, Apple’s flagship Regent Street store in London will reopen on Saturday, October 15, Apple has announced.

Working with Foster & Partners, the architectural firm responsible for London’s Gherkin skyscraper, Apple’s renovations plans called for it to update what it calls the “tired and outdated” look of the store front.

What are we expecting instead? Some more Jony Ive minimalism and a whole lot of indoor trees.

If you’re using Apple products, you’re well acquainted with the plain white Lightning cable. Frequently not long enough, prone to tearing and fraying and generally going kaput, it’s a good idea to have a backup. Or three. That’s what this pack offers, along with a lot of extra length (10 feet!), all for around the price of a single standard cable from Apple. Right now, you can get this 3-pack of 10′ Lightning cables for $22 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Apple has entered into a partnership agreement with Denmark’s University of Aarhus to investigate bio-gas research and how sustainable energy can be obtained from agriculture.

The R&D partnership is part of “billion-kroner” (read: hundreds of millions of dollars) partnership, according to Denmark’s foreign minister, Kristin Jensen.

Apple is set to debut a trifecta of new iPad Pro models in Q1 2017, according to a new report, citing “well-placed sources” of the Japanese Apple blog Mac Okatara.

If the report is to be believed, Apple will release a new 12.9-inch iPad Pro, a slightly larger version of its 9.7-inch iPad with 10.1-inch display, and a 7.9-inch iPad Pro upgrade of Apple’s iPad mini lineup.

Hidden among the updates to the Messages app, Apple Music and everything else we’ve all heard so much about, there are a handful of new iOS 10 features you may not have stumbled across.

Check out the video below to see the top ten iOS 10 features that currently rank as iOS’s best-kept secrets.

The iPhone 7 battery might be larger than its predecessor, but that’s still not enough for it to catch up with other leading flagship smartphones, as per a new consumer testing report.

According to the U.K.-based Which?, the iPhone 7 performs far behind the Samsung Galaxy S7, LG G5 and HTC 10 when it comes to call and internet time.

From a great app to make your email experience more efficient to a uniquely superb narrative-driven game, we’ve sifted through the most exciting new apps to bring you the ones you’ll want to download this weekend.

Check out our picks below. Trust us, this is the way you want to spend Sunday!

With the new week comes a raft of new deals, and this week has some good ones. We’ve got a set of wireless earbuds that are way less obnoxious looking than the latest from Apple, a set of powerful photo editing tools, a lifetime VPN subscription, and a pair of certification courses in mobile photography and video. Sound enticing? Read on:

This week on The CultCast: reports point to a big Mac event coming in October! We’ll tell you why we expect more than just overhauled MacBook Pros… Plus: we remember Steve Jobs, and what made him so damned good; why the jet black iPhone 7 is impossible to find; and stay tuned for drone chat, where we discuss the super cool new drones hitting the market.

This episode is supported by Dollar Shave Club, delivering amazing razors right to your door for a third of the price of what the greedy razor corporations charge. Get your first month free at DollarShaveClub.com/CultCast.

This week’s best deals are your opportunity to upgrade your digital workspace without downgrading your checking account. We’re looking at more than a dozen award-winning productivity apps for whatever you’re willing to pay, a charging hub that does double duty as a device organizer, a terabyte secure cloud storage, and a keyboard shortcut app that can vastly improve efficiency on your Mac. It’s all going for cut-rate prices, read on for more details:

The top grossing app in the iMessage App Store is about to be officially banned by Apple for allowing users to send “prank” blue message bubbles that put words in your friend’s mouth.

If you’re an early iPhone 7 adopter, you’re already getting accustomed to life without a headphone jack. But what if it started to disappear from other devices you use everyday, such as your iPad or MacBook?

With a MacBook Pro refresh on the horizon, fans fear it will be the next device in Apple’s lineup to see its headphone jack disappear. The move could allow Apple to make its most powerful portable even slimmer, but would it be worth it?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we discuss whether the MacBook Pro should lose its headphone jack this year, or whether Apple should give consumers and the industry time to adapt to other standards.

If you thought Apple’s new spaceship campus looks impressive during the day, just wait until you see it at night.

Apple’s stunning new HQ looks like it’s glowing in the latest drone videos that show construction is nearing completion. Landscaping is now underway on the campus with new trees popping up all over, along with walking trails for employees.

Check it out:

Apple plans to put an OLED display in the next generation iPhone and according to a new report it is close to striking a deal with Sharp to supply the screens.

The speakers in our iPhones and iPads keep getting better and better, but they’re not close to replacing Bluetooth speakers just yet. If you’ve just splashed out hard-earned dollars for a new iPhone 7 or 7 Plus, a low-priced, quality speaker may come as a welcome relief.

There are a few rare finds out there that deliver good bang for buck, and the $60 DKnight Big MagicBox is one of them.

Check out the full video review below.

Remember Hissgate, the short-lived (but, for a few days, massive) story about how some iPhone 7 Plus owners were experiencing strange hissing sounds when their handsets were performing processor-intensive tasks?

Well, the guy who first reported it has written a blog post about his experience after the video blew up on YouTube, racking up more than 1 million hits. And it actually makes pretty interesting reading.