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Apple could face class-action lawsuit over ‘Error 53’

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touchid
Unauthorized repairs could brick your iPhone.
Photo: Apple

A U.S. law firm is considering filing a class-action lawsuit against Apple for the “Error 53” security measure that permanently disables iPhones that have been fixed by unauthorized repair shops instead of Apple’s Genius Bar.

Controversy surrounding the Error 53 message erupted last week after it was found that repairs involving Touch ID can potentially brick iPhones without any warning. Apple insists Error 53 is a feature of iOS, but many have pointed out that the company appears to be using it as a tool to keep iPhone users from getting their devices repaired by anyone but Apple Stores.

Putin’s Internet czar wants more taxes from Apple

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German Klimenko wants Apple and other U.S. tech companies to pay more taxes.
German Klimenko wants Apple and other U.S. tech companies to pay more taxes.
Photo: iPhones.ru

Russia’s new internet czar loves his Apple devices. Google the name German Klimenko and up pops a series of pictures, many of him either at a MacBook or using an iPhone.

But that doesn’t stop the tough-talking, Cold War-minded Klimenko from wanting to suck more tax-generated revenue out of Cupertino and other American technology companies.

iPad magician celebrates Year of the Monkey by annoying chimps

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Ipad magic chimps
I've heard of chimps eating people's faces for less than this.
Photo: Simon Pierro

Simon Pierro, the “iPad magician,” thought he should find an appropriate way to ring in the Chinese New Year. And it’s the Year of the Monkey, so the obvious call was to perform his feats of tech-assisted illusion for a bunch of increasingly aggravated chimpanzees, even though they aren’t actually monkeys?

Alright, so they don’t really get that mad, considering Pierro has the intelligence and sense of self-preservation to actually give them some peanuts after cruelly magic-ing them away. But the tension is real.

Check out the full video below.

Duplicate-zapping app will shape up your contacts list

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Finding and merging duplicate contacts has never been this easy.
Finding and merging duplicate contacts has never been this easy.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

If you want to clean up your contacts list so you can better utilize the power of keeping track of people’s contact info on your iPhone, you’ll need to clean it up.

My contacts list has always been a mess. I’ve kept a running list, saved to various services and such, since my first iPhone in 2007.

It’s annoying enough that I went looking for an app that will destroy all the crazy duplicates I have on my iPhone. When I found an app called Cleanup Duplicate Contacts, I took it for a spin and found out how easy it really is.

Here’s how it works.

The force is strong with Rick Rubin’s Star Wars EDM album

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Rick Rubin and Star Wars collide to make this new electronica album.
Rick Rubin and Star Wars collide to make this new electronica album.
Photo: Hollywood Records

Looking for a way to express your love for both the greatest sci-fi movies of all time as well as your penchant for electronic dance music (EDM)?

Hollywood Records, American Recordings, and legendary producer Rick Rubin have got you covered with a new official album, Star Wars Headspace, a compilation of original EDM tracks that have various Star Wars sounds and effects within them.

Sounds hot, right? You can preview three of the tracks thanks to Beats 1’s Zane Low, below.

Smartphones with 7-day battery life coming sooner than you think

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iphone-charging-battery-lightning-cable
Charging up every night will be a thing of the past.
Photo: freestocks.org/Flickr CC

Intelligent Energy is a company with a mission: It wants to get fuel-cell battery technology in smartphones everywhere to dramatically improve battery life. Today, it signed a joint development agreement with an anonymous smartphone manufacturer to put that plan into action. The two will work together on embedded fuel-cell technology, which would be capable of delivering a staggering seven days of battery life to smartphones.

How to capture long exposures and light trails with your iPhone

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A decent tripod and a few great apps can help you capture stunning light trails, motion blur, and low light photos.
A decent tripod and a few great apps can help you capture stunning light trails, motion blur, and low-light photos.
Photo: Ally Kazmucha/The App Factor

app-factor-logo-thumbnailLong-exposure photography lets you capture light trails, motion blur and better low-light shots. While the iPhone’s built-in Camera app doesn’t let you control shutter speed and light sensitivity, lots of apps do. Slow Shutter Cam is my favorite — here’s how I’ve used it to capture long exposures with nothing but my iPhone 6 and a tripod.

Managing multiple Instagram accounts is finally easier

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Account switching is coming to Instagram.
Account switching is coming to Instagram.
Photo: Instagram

Switching between multiple Instagram accounts will get a whole lot easier this week.

Instagram has tested a new feature for months that allows users to manage multiple accounts without logging out and signing in again every time. The company revealed today that its account-switching feature is finally ready for prime time and will roll out to iOS and Android very soon.

Sometimes the best gift for the tech-minded isn’t just another gizmo

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The Hullo is a perfectly simple gift for the tech-saturated.
The Hullo is a perfectly simple gift for the tech-saturated.
Photo: Hulltex

Hackathon may finally create great Apple TV apps

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Apple TV
The next big app might be yours.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Just a few months after release, the Apple TV has just about 3,600 apps in its App store. That’s a ton of entertainment, games, and media apps waiting to be discovered on the big screen.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a single killer app among them.

AppLovin, a mobile adverting and analysis firm, is hoping to change all that with the first ever Apple TV contest and hackathon, to be held in San Francisco this coming April.

Priority Bicycles drop the chain for a ‘maintenance-free’ ride

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Priority makes owning a bike simple.
Priority makes owning a bike simple.
Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

Best List: Priority Bicycles Classic Diamond frame bike

When it comes to bicycles I am profoundly inept. Riding is fine. Just don’t ask me to fix it when it breaks.

My assembly and maintenance skills are so bad, the last time I reviewed a bike I put a critical piece on the wrong side and didn’t realize my error for weeks until someone finally pointed it out in pics.

So when the folks at Priority Bicycles told me they have a bike that pretty much never ever needs repairs, I couldn’t wait to saddle up and see how well it rides.

watchOS 2.2 and tvOS 9.2 get third beta updates

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Apple Watch
Will Apple finally deliver one of our most-requested features for watchOS?
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Developers can now download the third beta builds of tvOS 9.2 and watchOS 2.2, which bring a number of changes to the Apple Watch and Apple TV platforms.

Apple’s release notes for the software updates don’t contain clues about the new features, but users who have already installed tvOS 9.2 beta 3 report that it adds the ability to use dictation to insert text in search fields as well as the ability to use Siri search in the App Store.

Tim Cook gets sacked by Twitter for blurry Super Bowl photo

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Twitter is not impressed with Tim Cook's photography skills.
Twitter is not impressed with Tim Cook's photography skills.
Photo: Tim CookTwitter

Apple didn’t shell out for a super-expensive Super Bowl commercial last night, but CEO Tim Cook still managed to bring tons of attention to the iPhone — just not in the way he intended.

Celebrating the Bronco’s ugly victory over the Panthers last night, Cook tweeted a picture of the post-game festivities from the 20 yard line. It’s a position millions of people would’ve died to be in, but the only thing Twitter seemed to care about was how horribly blurry Tim’s photo turned out, leading to a flood of “shot on iPhone” jokes.

Pirate Bay adds ability to stream torrents in your web browser

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YAAAR mateys! The Pirate Bay is now streaming.
YAAAR mateys! The Pirate Bay is now streaming.
Photo: The Pirate Bay

The world’s largest torrenting site is making it easier than ever to watch all the movies and tv shows your too cheap to pay for.

Starting today, visitors of the Pirate Bay can use a new plugin called Torrents Time that allows you to stream torrents directly in your browser so you don’t need to download anything.

Photographers, you use Adobe. You should learn it. [Deals]

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These 14 courses cover essential Adobe photo software and the key skillsets in photography itself.
These 14 courses cover essential Adobe photo software and the key skillsets in photography itself.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Adobe’s software products have become an key part of photography for pros and amateurs alike. Photoshop and Lightroom are industry standard platforms, but this bundle of 14 Adobe certified courses extend beyond software and into photography itself. It’s over 65 hours of top quality instruction in shooting and editing photos, and using Adobe’s essential software to bring your photos to their highest realization. Right now, you can get the whole thing for $69.

Pediatric exoskeleton proposal wins top robotics prize

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pediatric-exoskeleton-proposal-wins-top-robotics-prize-image-cultofandroidcomwp-contentuploads201602Phoenix002-940x656-jpg
The Phoenix weighs just 27 pounds.
Photo: SuitX

SuitX, a company driven to lower the cost on bionic technology to help people walk, won a prestigious robotics competition that will help it fund a pediatric exoskeleton for children with neurological disorders.

Last week started with SuitX debuting an exoskeleton for $40,000 and ended Saturday with a $1 million prize in the United Arab Emirates AI and Robotics Award for Good.

Deleting Facebook app will give your iPhone 15% more battery

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facebook-logo-file
It won’t happen until 2020 at the earliest.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

The most popular social network in the world is ruining your iPhone’s battery life.

Facebook’s iOS app is in the hot seat again this week thanks to a new report that reveals iPhone users can get up to 15% more battery life if they simply delete Facebook’s resource hogging app and just use the Safari app instead.

India will fast-track approval for Apple Stores

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India
Apple wants to dramatically improve its 2 percent share on the smartphone market in India.
Photo: Tim Cook/Twitter

India has indicated it will bypass the usual regulations for foreign companies and grant easy approval for Apple to establish retail outlets there.

This comes as CEO Tim Cook tries to tap new global markets, especially India, a country of 1.3 billion people where it has seen small gains in iPhone sales.

Last chance to reap the very real benefits of a VPN [Deals]

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Secure and accelerate your Internet experience with one of the top VPNs in the business.
Secure and accelerate your Internet experience with one of the top VPNs in the business.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

It doesn’t take long for the information superhighway to start feeling more like a hazardous dirt road from Mad Max. All sorts of bad guys and obstacles await us in the Internet — identity thieves, unscrupulous advertisers, location restrictions. Virtual private networks (VPNs) are a great way to secure passage to your favorite sites online, and PureVPN, one of the fastest options for securing and anonymizing any online connection, is available for the last time at just $59.

Parking, a weathercat, and other awesome apps of the week

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Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apparently some kind of sportsball contest is going on this weekend, but that’s no reason to put your phone down — we still have plenty of cool stuff for you to try out in our apps of the week roundup.

Whether you’re looking to organize your daily thoughts, start your day off with a cartoonish weather forecast, or really feel like paying for parking with your Apple Watch, we have you covered. And maybe we have something about football, too. Who knows?

Only one way to find out.

Turning pro with Adobe software has never been easier [Deals]

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Become an expert in any and all of Adobe's software products with more than 7,000 video lessons.
Become an expert in any and all of Adobe's software products with more than 7,000 video lessons.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Adobe is all over the digital workplace, creative workflows, and heck, the internet itself. The list of Adobe’s software platforms is long and familiar — from Photoshop to, InDesign to Flash and Dreamweaver and beyond — and getting fluent in one or several of them can improve your effectiveness and hireability dramatically. This bundle of training videos makes that possible, and right now you can get a lifetime subscription for just $74.

Apple’s rumored March event: Catch our hardware expectations on The CultCast

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New Apple hardware in March?  Party time!
New Apple hardware in March? Party time!
Photo: Kickboxer, Lionsgate

This week: New hardware, incoming! We’ll tell you our hardware expectations for Apple’s rumored March 2016 event, and there’s a lot to discuss. Plus: Why the next iPad Air could be the best one yet; iPhone 7 may have far fewer features than expected; and, is Apple making a move into virtual reality?

Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. It’s simple to build a website that looks beautiful on any device that visits at Squarespace.com. Enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10 percent off.

Rule the Health app! Plus: best email apps, Apple’s March event and more

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Tweak that Health app dashboard for even better results.
Tweak that Health app dashboard for even better results.
Cover design: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

If you take the time to properly set up your iPhone’s Health app, you can turn it into a powerful dashboard for keeping track of all the metrics that matter most to you.

Find out how to turn the unloved iOS app into an essential fitness dashboard in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine. We’re also spilling the beans on Apple’s March event, rating the best email apps, exposing the latest iPhone 7 camera rumors, and rolling up a bunch of must-have Apple travel accessories.

Here are the top stories this week.