Cult of Mac

If you’re coming up against the hardware limitations of your Mac, or just can’t afford one that performs at the level you need, you could always just build the machine you need. Spend a little bit of time on Newegg, and you’ll see that there’s basically no component they don’t carry, and no machine you can imagine that can’t be built. Getting the best parts for your personal computer can be costly, but with the Newegg $1000 Gift Card Giveaway even the highest-performing machine suddenly seems within reach.

In an effort to shake off its shady image, BitTorrent is launching a new streaming service that will bring a number of live channels to Apple TV, iOS, and Mac.

The service is called BitTorrent Live, and it will initially offer news, sport, music, and more.

Tim Cook doesn’t get much downtime to enjoy being the king of all things Apple, does he?

Recently he was troubleshooting in China, and now Apple’s CEO has landed for a week-long stay in India, with five other senior Apple execs, during which time they will meet with top execs and politicians in the country, visit the location of Apple’s new tech development center, and much more.

Apple has reportedly added Wistron as a supplier for its upcoming next-gen iPhone 7 Plus: the 5.5-inch handset we’re expecting to arrive this September.

Although the companies in question haven’t officially confirmed it, Wistron and Foxconn are said to be sharing orders for the plus-sized phone, while Pegatron and Foxconn will split orders for the smaller-size 4.7-inch iPhone 7.

Never let it be said that Apple doesn’t go above and beyond the call of duty in troubleshooting problems for its users in the name of achieving customer satisfaction.

After James Pinkstone, director of design service Vellum, posted a terrifying story on his company blog claiming that iTunes Match stole his files, Apple sprang into action — sending two engineers to his house to troubleshoot the problem.

The power of bad publicity, eh?

The fourth generation Apple TV experienced the largest increase in unit sales last year among streaming media players but it hasn’t been good enough to supplant Roku as the top streamer in the U.S. 

Apple TV’s biggest weakness appears to be its price point. New research shows that smaller stick streamers made up half of last year’s sales and Apple’s competition reaped the rewards.

If you haven’t already updated your 9.7-inch iPad Pro to iOS 9.3.2, then you might want to wait. Some users are being plagued by a mysterious error that renders their device completely unusable after installing Apple’s latest software.

Could the iPhone 7 be Apple’s first with wireless charging? Some reports have claimed the feature is coming, and it looks even more likely now that Apple has added a number of wireless charging experts to its ranks.

When Apple CEO Tim Cook announced Apple Pay in October 2014, only about 2.7 percent of retailers that accepted credit cards had the technology to compatible with the mobile wallet. In 2015, only 0.2 percent of sales were made with mobile wallets, according to survey by research firm eMarketer. However, that same research firm predicts that by the end of 2016, nearly one in five smartphone users will use mobile payments.

After several years of various mobile wallets trying to gain momentum, three factors — all are related to the switch most retailers made last October to accept chip cards (also called EMV) — are predicted to drive a big shift towards mobile wallets. Updates at retailers to accept EMV cards also often include compatibility for near field communication (NFC), the tap-to-pay technology used by many mobile wallets.

Apple CEO Tim Cook will probably never win a Grammy for his erhu skills but he can say that he got to have an erhu jam battle with one of Asia’s biggest popstars.

During his star-studded tour of China, Tim Cook met up with JJ Lin to play a new song on the new Garageband app that’s been updated to celebrate China’s musical history with over 300 musical samples, and new instruments like Chinese percussions, pipa and erhu.

Checkout Cook playing JJ Lin’s new song “The Key” on his iPad:

Apple suppliers in Taiwan are already taking on new recruits in preparation for the iPhone 7. Local sources say that the design of this year’s device is more complex to build than previous models, so manufacturers are getting to work early.

If identity thieves and data snooping have you feeling uneasy when you get online, you should consider logging on with a virtual private network. By distributing your traffic among a set of globally distributed, secure servers, Celo’s VPN service anonymizes and encrypts your online activity in a way that adds significant security to your browsing, even on public Wi-Fi networks. And right now you can get a lifetime subscription to Celo’s VPN service for only $29.

Apple is preparing to team up with Intel for the upcoming iPhone 7, according to sources familiar with its plans. The chip maker is expected to supply up to 50 percent of Apple’s LTE modems for the new device.

I’ve seen the future of Wi-Fi. It’s called Eero. It comes in a pack of three, costs an arm and a leg, but boy is it worth it.

Eero is a slick system of mesh-connected routers that blanket your whole house in Wi-Fi. Eero promises to eliminate dead spots, make restarts redundant, and offer blazing speeds from the basement to the attic.

In my tests, Eero performs as advertised. After years of Wi-Fiheadaches, and an Apple Time Capsule that barely worked, we now have fast and reliable Wi-Fi all over the house.

Chinese authorities are scrutinizing Apple devices before allowing them to be sold in the country, claims a new report.

The reviews involve Chinese officials requiring executives of foreign tech companies to answer questions in person, with the concern being that companies like Apple may be forced to trade trade secrets for market access.

Android handsets crash far more regularly than iPhones, a new study by the Blanco Technology Group claims.

Measuring the number of failures of Android phones and iPhones during the first three months of 2016, devices running Google’s mobile platform were found to have a failure rate of 44 percent, compared to 25 percent for the iPhone.

Have companies not yet worked out that trying to go against Apple rarely seems to work out? If not, they may be learning quickly — with Apple Pay rival CurrentC reportedly delaying its arrival yet again, while laying off 30 of its staff.

Hardly a ringing endorsement, is it?

Tim Cook’s in China right now, and what better way to showcase Apple’s dedication to growing its Chinese customer base than by updating GarageBand for Mac and iOS with new instruments intended to, “celebrate the rich history of Chinese music?”

The update adds 300 new Chinese musical loops including guzheng, dizi, yangqin and Peking Opera samples, as well as a plethora of Chinese musical instruments such as the pipa, erhu, and Chinese percussion.

Don’t you just hate it when you compose the perfect tweet and then insert a link that takes it over the 140 character limit? Well, that could soon become a thing of the past.

According to sources familiar with Twitter’s plans, the company will soon stop counting the URLs and photos inserted into your tweets.

This post is brought to you by VMware AirWatch.

Let’s face it: Asking a person to carry around two devices all the time, one for work and one for play, is just inefficient. When organizations implement overbearing management or ignore privacy concerns, they almost force users to carry a device for work and a device for personal use.

While a few employees may enjoy the air-gap separation of church and state, most people buckle under the stress of having two separate devices to potentially forget in a cab or leave on the airport bathroom sink (true story!).

Apple CEO Tim Cook will have a lot to talk about with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi when Cook touches down in the country later this week.

The iPhone-maker is ready to make a big push into India, and according to a new report, that will include investing in India’s start-up scene with an incubator focused on helping companies in the country that build iOS apps.

El Capitan users can now download the latest OS X 10.11.5 update from the Mac App Store. The release promises to improve stability and security, and it’s recommended for all users.

Using iTunes just got slightly less crappy.

Apple has pushed out iTunes 12.4 to the public bringing some minor design tweaks that makes Apple’s most contorted and bloated app ever a little bit easier to navigate.

Oh, and it might not destroy your music library anymore either.

Apple Watch wearers received a new software update today in the form of watchOS 2.2.1 that has been made available to the public after two beta versions were tested by developers.

After more than a month of beta testing, Apple is now rolling out iOS 9.3.2 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The update brings a bunch of big bug fixes, and the ability to use Night Shift while Low Power Mode is activated.