If your iPhone feels a little sluggish, here are 4 easy tips to help speed it up again! Photo: Ally Kazmucha/The App Factor
Is your iPhone slow? Whether you’ve just updated iOS or you’ve been experiencing performance issues for a while, there are several things you can do to get things humming again. Regardless why your iPhone is slow, here are my top four tips to help you speed it up again.
See ya, Safari! Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android
Googlebot, the giant webcrawler that Google uses to scan webpages and update its index, is ditching its iPhone disguise to become an Android.
Rather ironically, the tool has been masquerading as an Apple device running iOS 8.3 for years, but it will soon become a Nexus 5X running Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow to become more efficient.
143 million customers in the U.S. may have been impacted by the attack. Photo: Colin / Wikimedia Commons
Researchers have just discovered a new malware threat for iOS devices that uses Apple’s own FairPlay DRM system as a delivery vector.
Dubbed “AceDeciever” by the researchers, the malware in question can technically infect any type of iOS device, jailbroken or not, if a user downloads a third-party app.
Protesters in San Francisco line up with pro-privacy signs outside the downtown Apple Store in 2016. Photo: Traci Dauphin/Cult of Mac
The FBI will be greeted by protestors when it faces off against Apple at the U.S. District Courthouse in Riverside, CA on March 22nd.
Fight for the Future — the same group that rallied at Apple Stores across the country last month — is organizing another protest against the FBI’s federal court order compelling Apple to weaken security in iOS so the government can hack the San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone 5c.
Use LastPass with even fewer actual codes. Photo: LastPassMaking two-factor authentication a little simpler. Photo: LastPass
Two-factor authentication is super secure, but incredibly annoying when you’re in a hurry. LastPass, one of the front-runners in password managers on desktop and mobile, might have the solution with a new mobile app that will simplify the login process to LastPass, which can then manage your many web accounts with ease.
Instead of entering a passcode to get into LastPass, you can have its new mobile Authenticator app send a simple verify button that will let you sign in with one tap. Here’s a quick video to see how it works.
iPhone 7 Plus will pack tons of storage despite being super thin. Photo: Yasser Farahi
The iPhone 7 Plus may boast more storage than any smartphone Apple’s ever created, if the company uses a tiny new chip by SanDisk that packs 256GB of flash storage.
Photos of the new chip destined for smartphones surfaced on an Italian tech blog comparing them to the old 64GB NAND flash chip SanDisk made for Apple in the past.
Check out how little the new chip is next to the old 64GB model:
Colorful as all heck with brightness controls that actually work for reading. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
Best List: Yeelight by ipegtop
Most smartbulbs I’ve tried only let me use my iPhone to change the color of the bulb and to turn it off and on. I’ve never found one bright enough to read by, either, making me wonder if it’s even possible with the current technology.
The Yeelight is my answer: It’s a fantastic, app-controlled, touch-enabled smartlamp that’s colorful enough to set a fun mood while also being bright enough to use for my before-bed reading ritual.
Drive Genius 4 is used by Apple Store geniuses to diagnose and address hard drive issues. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
If your hard drive takes a dive, it takes your computer along with it. Drive Genius 4 is an ideal and easy way to make sure your hard is running at peak performance, spotting potential problems early and even bringing it back from the dead in the event of a crash. Today you can get it for just $39.99.
The company’s forthcoming Kardia Band is an Apple Watch accessory which will augment the wearable’s existing heart monitor with the addition of an FDA-approved, voice-activated electrocardiogram that can analyze your heart rate and email it directly to your physician.
iPhone SE will be the star of Apple's March 21 keynote. Photo: Martin Hajek
The invites are out and the rumors are in. Apple’s first event of 2016 is going down March 21, when the company will loop fans in on some shiny new products coming soon to Apple Stores.
Apple is expected to introduce a new 4-inch iPhone aimed at budget customers and people who want to be able to hold their smartphone with one hand, but a new 9.7-inch iPad that’s every bit as impressive as the iPad Pro could steal the show (along with some other new goodies).
The iPhone’s prominent (and, dare we say it, somewhat ugly) antenna bands have been a staple of Apple’s handsets for a few years now. However, a new photo — allegedly leaked by Apple device maker Foxconn — shows off Cupertino’s more minimal approach with the upcoming iPhone 7.
Apple claims it doesn't receive favorable tax deals in Ireland. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Apple has spoken up about the European Union investigation into its Irish tax affairs, telling a panel of E.U. investigators that it pays “every cent of tax” it owes in the country, and that it gets no advantage whatsoever compared with other companies.
Apple is making iCloud more secure than ever. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Apple is doubling down on its beliefs about user privacy, by working on a new encryption method that will mean it can no longer decode user information stored in iCloud.
Man who hacked iCloud accounts of numerous Hollywood celebrities has been arrested. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
Almost 19 months after the mass leaking of naked celeb photos known as “The Fappening,” a man has been arrested for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act — and faces up to five years in prison as a result.
Instagram is getting even cozier with Twitter and Facebook. Photo: LoboStudioHamburg/Pixabay. Licensed under CC0 1.0
The latest Internet outrage upon us: Instagram is killing chronological order.
The photo-sharing platform announced the change today in a blog post and says that the update will let you users “see the moments they care about first.” Reaction to the news is predictably negative, considering that time has served us well as a measurement of change so far, and users don’t see any compelling reason to change that now.
Apple Watch is a killer device, even without a "killer app." Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Apple Watch was never designed to be a singular product, according to Jony Ive, but a whole fashionable system in its own right. Not just in a functional sense, either, as part of an Apple tech ecosystem.
In an interview with Mashable’s Christina Warren, Ive points out the form that enriches the Apple Watch function.
“I think we found that by being able to change the strap,” said Ive, “not just change the color but the design — and the designs change profoundly — that we could start to introduce a new look in combination with different watch faces and user interfaces.”
Apple's legal team has lobbed its latest response at FBI. Photo: House Committee on the Judiciary Hearings
Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell said the FBI threw “all decorum to the winds” in its latest federal court filing, but in the company’s official response today it has vowed it does not “intend to response in kind.”
The iPhone-maker says in its latest filing that the FBI’s claim that it exhausted all viable investigative alternatives is false because it improperly reset the iCloud password before consulting Apple. The company also admits that it didn’t take a public stance on privacy and encryption until the release of iOS 8.
Google is finding increasingly effective ways to keep its data secure. Photo: David J. Roger
The latest Google Transparency Report shows that since January 23, 77 percent of all requests to its servers have used encrypted connections.
The numbers on the new report are current as of February 27, and the company says it’s “working hard” to achieve full encryption across all of its services.
This 3D printed dress will be part of Apple's Manus x Machina exhibition. Photo: Nicholas Alan Cope/The Met
Apple’s upcoming fashion exhibition at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art is set to open in May, but if you can’t make it to the Big Apple to see which designer pieces Jony Ive and Co. hand-picked as examples for how technological advancements have altered fashion, the museum has given a sneak peek at some of the weird and wonderful gowns that will be on display.
The exhibit will feature over 100 pieces made from the 1880’s up to 2015, including gowns from icons like Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Dior, Miuccia Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, and more.
Take a look at some of the pieces coming to the Manus x Machina exhibit:
Ex-NSA counsel Stewart Baker rained on Apple at SXSW this week. Photo: Dariusz Sanksowski/Pixabay. Licensed via CC0 1.0.
Commentary on the encryption battle between Apple and the U.S. government might have received its strangest metaphor yet.
Stewart Baker, who used to serve as a counsel for the National Security Agency, appeared on a panel at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin this week. During the discussion, he said that Apple’s current, outspoken position in favor of privacy is a recent development and compared it to the sort of PR-driven whitewashing that Hollywood studios have used to promote actresses as “innocent” and “pure.”
“Who remembers Tim Cook before he was a virgin?” Baker said, paraphrasing composer Oscar Levant’s barb at ’60s everygirl Doris Day.
Want even faster access to your most-used Google Drive files? Let Launch Center Pro do the heavy lifting! Photo: Ally Kazmucha/The App Factor
Launch Center Pro has solved many workflow problems for me over the years. Most recently it’s been an immense time-saver when it comes to accessing Google Drive files I need often. While the Google Drive app itself is decent enough, it only acts as a hub to Google’s other apps, which is somewhat annoying.
That’s why I started using Launch Center Pro to speed up the process. Here’s how you can, too.
Plenty of jobs nowadays involve creating visual aids for clients, bosses and co-workers, from project flowcharts and building schematics to medical diagrams, you name it. But getting a BA typically doesn’t teach digital draftsmanship, which is why apps that make it easy to create compelling, clear graphics and illustrations have become so popular.
SmartDraw is an intuitive, powerful and fun app that’s become a contender against the big legacy software brands. More than half of the Fortune 500 and over 250,000 public and private enterprises of all sizes use SmartDraw now. But until today, SmartDraw has been available only on Windows machines. That changes with the release of SmartDraw Cloud, which lets Mac users get in on the action.
Woz has the magic touch with computers. Photo: Reddit
Before Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple Computers, he was just a super-nerdy kid who loved to operate HAM radios. In a new video interview detailing the most formative moments in his totally geeky life, Woz explains how he went from tinkering with electronics to teaching himself binary by 5th grade, and then made a machine that played tic-tac-toe in 6th grade.
Woz eventually got so good with machines that he could design a mini-computer in two days. Those skills led to his creation of the Apple II computer, which put his and Steve Jobs’ fledgling company on the map.
Watch as Woz recounts his childhood obsession with computers, during the humble beginnings of Silicon Valley, below:
More of your Android apps are going to look like this. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of MacMore of your Android apps are going to look like this. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
Your Android apps are going to get an iOS-style makeover soon, thanks to new design guidelines from Google.
Mostly concerned with the bottom of Android apps, Google is looking to have its developers place a bar across the bottom of their apps that will let users navigate between different sections of the app, just like iOS currently does.