Cult of Mac

Each week, we get a boatload of gadgets and gear at great discounts. Of course there are always some deals that stand out, and this week is no exception — this round, we’ve got a seamless storage upgrade for your Macbook, a year’s access to one of the largest libraries of streaming content anywhere, an iPhone case that’ll also charge your device, and a lifetime of VPN protection, all at slashed prices. Take a gander:

Apple CEO Tim Cook is taking advantage of the monstrous bonus he unlocked on his fifth anniversary at the helm of Apple by selling 334,000 shares for a big payday.

Scoring an exclusive album deal with Apple Music can be highly lucrative for artists looking for independence, but it might come with some serious payback from Spotify, which is reportedly punishing musicians that sign such deals.

Musicians have been dragged into the fight between Apple and Spotify, according to new reports saying Apple’s rival is threatening to bury artists in its search results. Meanwhile, Spotify has denied the accusations, which come from anonymous sources cited by Bloomberg and The New York Times.

Apple’s next big venture could be to go head-to-head with Snapchat and similar content-sharing services. The company is expected to integrate new video features into iOS that would be developed by the engineers behind Final Cut and iMovie.

But is this a good idea? Apple failed miserably when it tried to take on social networks before, and some would argue that many of its products already suffer as a result of its expansion into new areas.

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we battle it out over whether Apple is wasting its time trying to fight Snapchat.

The next iPhone you buy might have Intel inside, if the company is able to succeed in its new plans to overthrow Apple’s long-time partner, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

Intel, the world’s-largest chipmaker, is reportedly looking to make a big splash in mobile chips and has already started talking to Apple about taking over orders to make the ARM processors used in the iPad and iPhone.

One week after surprising us with the seventh beta of iOS 10, Apple is back with yet another beta build of its upcoming software update for iPhones and iPads.

Getting your hands on the iPhone 7 Plus and its amazing dual-lens camera right after launch might be a tough task, claims the latest rumor out of Asia.

Apple’s part suppliers are supposedly contending with a number of low-yield issues related to the waterproof speaker and the new dual-lens camera that still haven’t been fixed, both of which are expected to be the marquee features of this year’s update.

Apple is expected to unveil its next big update for the iPhone in the next couple weeks, but a majority of people don’t think it will be a major improvement, according to a new survey that reveals iPhone owners are split on whether the new model will be a big deal.

Cupping your hand around the iPhone speaker just isn’t cutting it anymore. If you’re looking to get a groove from your mobile devices while keeping them mobile, your best bet is a portable Bluetooth speaker like the Double Spot by Soundfreaq. It’s slim, sounds great, goes anywhere, and right now you can get one for just $79.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

As Apple secures exclusive after exclusive with the hottest names in music, Spotify is beginning to feel the heat. According to Troy Carter, global head of creator services at Spotify, these deals are “bad for artists, bad for consumers, and bad for the whole industry.”

Apple has announced that it will create an extra 1,000 jobs to its Hollyhill site in County Cork, Ireland over the next 18 months — substantially increasing on the 5,000 employees the company currently has in Ireland.

The move is broadly in line with Apple’s overall workforce expansion, which has increased 25 percent over the past year.

Apple is planning to adopt a new tap-to-pay standard that will be integrated into future iPhones specifically for customers in Japan, according to a new report. The FeliCa standard, originally developed by Sony, will allow users to store public bus and train passes in Apple Wallet.

In an interview for Good Morning Britain, global diva Barbra Streisand has revealed how she once called up Steve Jobs to ask him for computer advice.

“I couldn’t figure out something on my computer and nobody could figure it out, no IT guy, so I said, ‘Can you get Steve Jobs on the phone?’” she recalled. As it turns out, she could. But even Jobs was unable to offer a solution.

With the announcement of a new iPhone (and who knows what else) barely two weeks away, Apple deals are a little scarce this week, but we still found some good ones. Get apps at the best prices we’ve ever seen, $25 off a brand new MacBook Air and more.

Apple, Amazon and Google are all in a battle to create the next great breakthrough with microphones in order to make their digital assistants more powerful.

While machine learning and artificial intelligence are getting all the hype lately, few industry analysts say microphone technology will play just as key a role in taking Siri and Alexa to a new level.

Bidding for the extremely rare “Celebration Apple I” being auctioned by CharityBuzz closed today and while the lot failed to break the record for the most amount paid for an Apple I computer, the winning bid nearly topped $1 million dollars.

Apple today rolled out yet another surprise update to iOS 9 ahead of iOS 10’s public debut this fall. iOS 9.3.5 beefs up security once again and promise performance improvements.

iOS is generally considered more stable and more secure than Android, but boy how the tables have turned.

According to new data, the failure rate of Apple’s platform rose significantly during the second quarter of 2016, making it more unstable than Google’s for the first time ever.

iCloud Drive previously worked a bit like Dropbox, asking users to drag and drop files into a special folder in order to access them across multiple devices. That changes in macOS Sierra, which allows you to enjoy the benefits of iCloud with the added bonus that your files can stay exactly where they are.

Here’s how to use this useful new feature in Apple’s new Mac operating system, which is currently in public beta and will be released this fall.

Astronauts and pilots are set to get their own emoji characters if Apple has its way.

The iPhone-maker recently submitted a request to the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee to add five more professions (artist, astronaut, firefighter, judge, and pilot) to the Emoji 4.0 update that is set to bring support for gendered emoji, a rainbow flag, and more.

Take a look at Apple’s proposed designs:

When James Savage and John Leake uploaded the first episode of their RetroMacCast, they were thrilled with the number of downloads: 18.

Not exactly a meteoric start, but considering neither host ever had that many people at one time interested in hearing them talk about old Apple computers, this was a pretty big deal.

Who even has a video library anymore? With streaming services offering any media you can imagine, there’s no reason to film up your house with what’s just a click away anyway. It’s easy to think that flagship services like Netflix and Hulu boast the biggest media-bearing clouds, but SelectTV offers both cable and web-based streaming backed up by the deepest media coffers around. And right now you can get a full year of access for just $19, or get three years for $49.

Samsung has finally begun beta testing a Gear Manager app for iOS that will allow its Gear smartwatches to communicate with the iPhone. The test, which will conclude on September 19, hints that a public launch is now close.

Everyone points and laughs when dimwitted thieves got caught after taking identifying selfies with stolen iPhones or iPads.

However, in its quest to help crack down on Apple-related crime, Apple may go even further by using its Touch ID fingerprint sensor to record the fingerprints of would-be iOS thieves — at least according to a newly-published patent application update.

Having apparently caught up with its rivals on artificial intelligence, Apple is now looking to catch up on social networks, too — with a new report claiming that Apple is in the process of developing its own Snapchat rival.