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Meet the man who taught Steve Jobs to think different

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1280px-Stewart_Brand_-Sausalito,_California,_USA_-at_home-14Dec2010
"Stay hungry, stay foolish"
Photo: Cellanr/Wikipedia CC

Steve Jobs reminisced about acid trips and, despite his status as a “master of the universe,” was also a total hippie, according to legendary Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand.

Brand is making a rare appearance today at San Francisco’s Obscura Digital for an event entitled “The 1960s Revisited: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.” In an interview to promote it, he talked about Jobs’ “hippie-to-tech pipeline” and much more.

Apple hires a top virtual reality expert

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grergrg
Apple Goggles, anyone?
Photo: Apple/USPTO

Apple has hired a top virtual reality researcher as it continues to slowly ramp up its focus on the field.

Doug Bowman was previously a professor computer science as well as director of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at Virginia Tech. While there, he was the principal investigator of the 3D Interaction Group, focusing on the benefits of immersion in virtual environments.

Google paid Apple $1 billion to keep its search bar on the iPhone

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Got a new iPhone? Set it up right.
Breaking news: There's big money in search.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android
Breaking news: There's big money in search. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android
Breaking news: There’s big money in search. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android

Android and iOS may be mortal enemies in some ways, but Google clearly realizes the value of having Apple’s hundreds of millions of customers use its search engine.

So much so, in fact, that in 2014 Google paid Apple a massive $1 billion to keep its search bar on the iPhone.

Apple TV’s new ad animates the future of television

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Apps are how you get your content now on Apple TV.
Apps are how you get your content now on Apple TV.
Photo: Apple

The Apple TV future of television is apps, says Apple. Whether you’re sitting down to watch The Simpsons on Fox, Game of Thrones on HBO, or racing your buddies in Asphalt 8, these days it’s a good chance you’re using some sort of app.

You’re definitely app-ing it up if you’re using Apple’s latest hockey-puck device, which brought games and media apps to the big screen not too long ago.

The latest ad for the device, up on YouTube now, highlights all the good stuff with a cleverly animated Apple TV. Check it out.

3D-printed Apple Watch stand is Mac-tastic

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3D-printed-Apple-Watch-stand-Mac
Wait until you see the rest of it.
Photo: Erich Styger

Some intrepid makers have put their 3D printers to work making cool, retro-themed Apple Watch stands. Specifically, they’re creating ones shaped like Apple’s early, beloved desktop computers like the 128K.

It makes sense, really. The Apple Watch shows the time in big green letters when it’s on its side in Nightstand Mode, and green was basically the only color those monitors were capable of displaying. So that’s where these creators are taking their inspiration for some sweet places to hang their Apple Watches.

How to speed up slo-mo videos on your iPhone

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Dogs are good for slo-mo video.
Dogs are good for slo-mo video.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Your iPhone’s slo-mo function is a ton of fun to use when you’re taking action video of yourself or your buddies as you ski down mountains and base-jump off cliffs. If you’ve got an iPhone 5s or later, you know the joy of capturing all the action in a much slower timeframe and then using it to make fun of the faces your friends make when doing extreme sports.

But what if you want to un-slow all that down, maybe to focus less on the funny faces and more on the fast action?

It’s pretty simple to do, though you might not notice how at first. Here’s how to speed up the slo-mo videos you’ve taken with your iPhone.

WATCHe app makes Apple Watch look oldfangled

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WATCHe app
WATCHe lets you turn your Apple Watch into a mechanical timepiece. Kind of.
Photo: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac

A new app for your fancy Apple Watch delivers a super-cool and stylish education on the inner workings of actual watches.

The free app, called WATCHe, shows you the time. Obviously, your Apple Watch can already do that on its own, but the app ups the class by simulating the gears, cogs, springs and movements of an analog watch. And it might actually teach you something.

Space-trippy iOS puzzler splices Bejewelled with Tetris

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Abantus Saga 2
Abantus Saga 2's sliding mechanics are deceptively simple.
Screenshot: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac

You’d be forgiven if you took one look at Abantus Saga 2 and confused it for yet another tedious match-three game. But if you can get over your prejudice, you’re in for hours of enjoyment. And some frustration. But mostly enjoyment.

The puzzle title, which is out now for free in the iOS App Store, has you sliding around colored and patterned “cubes” (they’re squares, but the on-screen text calls them cubes) to complete full rows and columns. And that’s it — that’s the only mechanic. But what the developer does with it will have you playing and replaying Abantus Saga 2 for hours on end.

You’ll waste 3.5 days of your life untangling Apple headphones

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EarPods aren't going wireless in 2016.
EarPods aren't going wireless in 2016.
Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

This one factoid is the greatest reason why Apple needs to kill the headphone: Over the course of your life, you’ll spend a total of 3.5 days untangling headphones.

Edward Aten decided to dive into the math of how much time is wasted in frustration as you endlessly untangle your Apple EarPods. Depending on your listening habits, you may spend up to 32 seconds a day solving the headphone cord puzzle, which adds up ton of wasted seconds over a 38 year span.

New app turns your iPhone into mobile podcasting studio

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Phone in your podcast (no kidding)  with the app ZCast.
Phone in your podcast (no kidding) with the app ZCast.
Photo: Zula

You don’t need a high-frequency antenna or FCC license to be a broadcaster in the 21st century. Anyone can have a podcast – well, that is, anyone with the technical know-how and money for equipment, such as a good microphone, to produce their work.

A company called Zula wants to eliminate what might be the last barrier for the DIY media star. It launched an iPhone app called ZCast, which allows users to produce an audio podcast anywhere with just an iPhone or Mac computer.

Your heart rate sets the pace of Massive Attack’s new album

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Massive Attack fans, take note.
Massive Attack fans, take note.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Massive Attack just jumped ahead of the curve with a new app called Fantom Sensory Music. It uses your iPhone camera, motion sensors, location data and even the heart rate from your Apple Watch to remix one of four new tracks from the trip-hop collective that hasn’t had an album out since 2010.

The app itself is a trippy, almost spooky black and white affair that will have you listening to the tracks as you point the camera in all directions, shake your iPhone, and jog in place to raise your heartbeat. Or, at least, that’s what I was doing.

Forget Adobe, here’s an easy way make PDFs your BFF

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PDFelement makes wrangling PDFs simple.
PDFelement makes wrangling PDFs simple.
Image: Wondershare

This post is brought to you by Wondershare, maker of PDFelement.

If you work with a computer (which, since you’re here, is likely), you have to deal with PDFs. And while PDFs are a great and reliable way to send forms, presentations and contracts — basically anything that can be read or written on — they’re not exactly flexible. In order to edit, add to, remove from, or otherwise alter them, you might think your options are limited to pricey software from Adobe.

Face palm, bacon, water polo and 71 other emoji may be coming to iOS 10

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Some of the new emoji in Unicode 9.0.
Some of the new emoji in Unicode 9.0.
Photo: Emojipedia

iOS 10 may come with a big batch of new emoji, including pictograms for things like shrimp, croissant, owl, wrestlers, a bunch of hand gestures, a shrug emoticon and more.

The Unicode Consortium has recently accepted the updated Unicode 9 emoji set that contains as many as 74 new emoji that companies like Apple and Google will be able to add to their software keyboards. The consortium will make a final determination on which emojis to add later this year, with the release of Unicode 9.0 set for June 2016. That’s pretty good timing for Apple which is expected to unveil iOS 10 at WWDC in June, with a public launch scheduled for the fall.

Here’s the full list of new emoji:

Exploding Kittens iOS game is absolutely claw-some

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Boom goes the kitty.
Boom goes the kitty.
Photo: Exploding Kittens

I’d imagine it’s difficult to bring a beloved tabletop card game to iOS without losing something in the translation, but Exploding Kittens has found the trick.

Created by gaming veterans Elan Lee and Shane Small, and illustrated by internet cartoonist The Oatmeal (Matthew Inman), Exploding Kittens is like Russian Roulette, only with detonating felines. The game is fairly simple, but it has something not many gaming apps include these days: you’ll play with other people in the same room as you.

Even better, the devs have made all the in-app purchases (extra decks, new avatars) free as a launch special over the next four days. You don’t want to miss out on all the extra fun now, do you?

You’ll really like this adorable little speaker

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You just want to touch it, right?
You just want to touch it, right?
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Best List: Sugr Cube wireless speaker by Sugr

Oh, my, is this a cute little speaker. It’s so adorable that I’ve waited through three software updates and spent more time charging the speaker to test than almost any other one I’ve ever reviewed.

Why? Because this thing is drop-dead adorable. The Sugr Cube looks like something straight out of Cupertino: I wouldn’t be surprised to find one sitting on an Apple retail store display table before long.

Cherie Blair thinks Apple needs to hire more women

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Cherie Blair, women's rights advocate and wife of a former British prime minister, chides Apple for its lack of diversity.
Cherie Blair, women's rights advocate and wife of a former British prime minister, chides Apple for its lack of diversity.
Photo: HuffPostRise

Apple CEO Tim Cook continues to take fire over the company’s lack of diversity, the mostly white, male makeup of management described by one investor last year as a “bit too vanilla.”

Women’s rights activist Cherie Blair chose words Wednesday with a little more bite. The British barrister and wife of the former prime minister Tony Blair called Cook “so shortsighted” in Apple’s seemingly less-than-urgent effort to add more women to leadership.

Pay what you want for invaluable photo tools, tips and training [Deals]

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Pay what you want for this bundle of photo courses and top quality assets from some of the world's top shooters.
Pay what you want for this bundle of photo courses and top quality assets from some of the world's top shooters.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

We live in an image-driven culture, and as a result photography is undergoing a new renaissance. If you work in any form of media, you can benefit from having resources and experience in photography, which is exactly what this bundle offers, from massive photo asset libraries to comprehensive lessons. The best part, you can pay what you want for the whole thing and support the work of Save the Children in the process.

Proposed law could ban Apple from selling iPhones in California

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The iPhone isn't ditching LCD screens.
Designed by Apple in California. Just not for sale there.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple could be banned from selling iPhones on its home turf of California if a new bill banning unbreakable encryption is passed.

Called bill 1681, the proposed law was put forward by California assembly member Jim Cooper, who wants any smartphone sold in California after July 1, 2015 to be “capable of being decrypted and unlocked by its manufacturer or its operating system provider.”

Is iOS 9.3 Night Shift toggle coming to Control Center?

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This official Apple image might prove Night Shift will be part of Control Center.
This official Apple image might prove Night Shift will be part of Control Center.
Photo: Apple

For our money, Night Shift is one of the coolest additions to iOS 9.3 beta 1. In fact, it could be the most important UI/UX improvement iOS has added in years.

Even the guys Apple ripped off to come up with the feature are cool with it. But it could get even better before iOS 9.3 is finally released to the general public.

The future of UI for iOS 10 … or iOS 20?

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This video has lots of great ideas about how iOS 10's UI should work.
This video has lots of great ideas about how iOS 10's UI should work.
Photo: Cult of Mac

A lot of “next-gen iPhone” concepts are pretty crappy. Whimsical fancies that have nothing to do with the reality of industrial design. And hey, that’s true of this iPhone 7 concept, which imagines an edge-to-edge display that totally ditches a physical home button. You will not see an iPhone like this anytime in the near future.

But that’s not to say the concept isn’t cool. Because eventually, Apple will release a full-screen iPhone. And when it does, this concept has a lot of cool ideas about how future iOS UIs will work, once the hardware catches up.

Foxconn wants an even bigger slice of the iPhone 7 pie

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iPhone 6s
Foxconn could be acquiring the company which builds iPhone displays.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Foxconn is looking to take over more of the iPhone manufacturing process as it has offered ¥625 billion ($5.3 billion) to acquire Japanese manufacturer Sharp, which currently manufactures displays for Apple devices.