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.
Nyne's new boombox is the biggest Bluetooth speaker we've ever seen. It's called -- what else? -- the Rock! Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
As a teenager in the 80s, I love a good boombox. The bigger, the better, like Radio Raheem’s.
That’s why I was keen to check out Nyne’s new Bluetooth Boombox, called — what else — the Rock. It’s the biggest Bluetooth speaker I’ve ever seen, promising to put out 65 watts of raw music power.
Apple is not quite done tinkering with OS X 10.11.4 before its public release.
The company seeded the seventh beta of OS X 10.11.4 to developers this morning, a little over a week after Apple released the last beta for the desktop operating system.
"Leaked" iPhone 7 with Smart Connector (left) and iPhone 6s. Photo: Bastille Post
The iPhone 7 may come with a Smart Connector if photos of what appears to be an early iPhone 7 Plus unit can be believed.
Photos of the alleged iPhone 7, leaked by a Chinese website, show Apple integrating a dual-lens camera into the design of the rear case. If the case is accurate, it looks like Apple won’t be ditching its protruding camera lens this year.
A great way to track your movie watching. Photo: Letterboxd
If you’re a movie fan, you may well have visited the website Letterboxd at some point — giving you a fun way of tracking your movie-watching, built around a neat social network premise.
Today Letterboxd finally got around to launching its official mobile app, bringing the service to iPhones everywhere. Trust us, if you’re a cinema lover, this is a “must download!”
Samsung's Galaxy S7 mini could be pretty special. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of AndroidSamsung’s Galaxy S7 mini could be pretty special. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android
Samsung is already developing a Galaxy S7 mini that will go head-to-head with Apple’s upcoming iPhone SE, according to a new report — and it won’t be a disappointing version of its latest flagship like previous iterations of the Galaxy S mini series have been.
Instead, the new device is expected to pack exactly the same processor — and exactly the same punch — as its bigger brother.
Get a sweet bundle of killer Mac apps for less than $25. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
Macs come out of the box with a ton of apps and functionality, but that’s just the beginning of what you can get it to do for your productivity. From hard drive maintenance to running Windows apps and doing deeper searches than Spotlight allows, this bundle of 11 top-rated apps has something useful for everybody. For a short time, you can get the whole thing for $24.99.
Apple Music is taking a big leap forward. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
If you’re a fan of EDM (that’s “electronic dance music” for the older Cult of Mac readers out there!), Apple Music is about to become your best option for streaming music — courtesy of a new deal Apple has signed that will let it bring thousands of rare DJ mash-ups, remixes, and mixtapes to its subscription music service.
At $17k, the Apple Watch Edition is currently the most expensive product Apple sells.
But according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, that record is likely to be obliterated when the Apple Car finally ships — since his projected price tag of “around $75,000” would put it at around four-and-a-half times the cost of Apple’s high-end wearable. Or the equivalent of 100 brand new iPhones 6s handsets.
Apple's tax investigations are continuing. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple will join multinationals Google, McDonald’s and IKEA in defending its European tax deals against E.U. lawmakers this Wednesday.
The hearing concerns whether or not giants like Apple are receiving illegally favorable tax deals, which give them an unfair advantage over local businesses.