What sorcery is this? It’s just a smarter, more accurate way to select text on your Mac, is all.

Everyone likely remembers the first time they saw Apple’s Photo Booth app, and chuckled to their friends while contorting their features to resemble a chipmunk or big-eyed cartoon character.

An amusing new story reveals what can go wrong when sending such pictures, however: A mom in Edinburgh, Scotland, became convinced her daughter had suffered a terrifying allergic reaction after being shown one such image.

Steve Jobs had a way of getting under people’s skin. Still does, if you consider the growing number of Apple fans who have had his iconic face or some other Jobs tribute tattooed onto their skin.

Today we celebrate what would have been the Apple co-founder’s 61st birthday by looking at body art inspired by the pioneer of personal computing.

If you want a Mac that looks like the trashcan Mac Pro, but don’t actually want to spend the several thousand dollars it costs to buy a Mac Pro, the Dune Case might be for you: it’s a Mac Pro-inspired PC case for any hackintosh you care to throw into it.

iOS 9 adoption has ground to a halt, remaining static at 77 percent, according to Apple’s latest developer figures.

This is the exact same percentage of iOS 9 users as last time Apple published its adoption figures, on February 8 — and just 1 percent growth from this time last month. Meanwhile, 17 percent of users are running iOS 8, and 6 percent are still using an early version of Apple’s mobile OS.

Unless your name is Timothy Donald Cook, or you could get away with calling him T.C. to his face, chances are you don’t know exactly what Apple’s got planned for its next-gen iPhone 7.

Apple probably doesn’t have the idea of a “widescreen” iPhone 7 — complete with magically expanding display — in mind, but as wacky concept videos go, a new video from designers Sonitac is not only beautifully put together, but genuinely something I’ve not seen before.

Check it out below.

The current Apple vs. the FBI privacy case is fast becoming one of the biggest tech stories of 2016. But Apple clearly believes it ought to be elevated even higher — telling a federal judge this week that the case should be kicked up to Congress level, instead of being decided by courts.

TSMC is reportedly the only manufacturer set to build A10 chips for the upcoming iPhone 7 — and it’s spending the money necessary to not only fulfil Apple’s orders this year, but hopefully to secure future A-series chip orders, as well.

Apple fans rallied behind their privacy savior in more than 50 cities across the United States today to protest the FBI’s demands that Apple unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone and compromise the security of millions of users’ data in the process.

Grassroots protests broke out from Albuquerque to Washington, D.C., aiming to raise public awareness about the privacy battle Apple is fighting. The protesters had some harsh words for the FBI.

Apple may have killed the anti-eyestrain app F.lux on the iPhone, in favor of their own ‘Night Shift’ mode. But fans of F.lux on the Mac and PC will be happy to know it is now coming to Android.

Don’t worry iPad Pro lovers, Apple isn’t nerfing it’s fancy Pencil.

The company removed the ability to navigate in iOS 9.3 with the Apple Pencil in the last four beta updates, but Apple reassured users today that it will bring the functional it back by the time iOS 9.3 is available to the public, it’s just fixing a few things in the meantime. 

Recycling is great. Reusing is even better, which is why Coca-Cola’s new packaging that can double as a VR viewer for iPhone one of the coolest and greenest innovations we’ve seen so far this year. 

The new packaging prototype transforms a traditional 12-pack box made from recycled cardboard into a Google Cardboard-esque VR viewer. Coca-Cola doesn’t have immediate plans to release the new packaging, but it probably wouldn’t take much convincing if the right promotional partner came along.   

Three different versions of the VR packaging have already been conceived. Watch demos of all three below:

While I don’t ever mind paying for amazing apps by great developers, who doesn’t like App Store sales — or even better, sales on iTunes movies and music? A few months ago I stumbled on an app called CheapCharts and I’ve been using it ever since to monitor App Store sales on apps I want to keep an eye on.

Samsung is under fire again from iPhone fans for its apparent lack of attention to detail when designing the new Galaxy S7 and S7 edge. Apparently, the fact that the ports don’t line up on the bottom of these devices automatically means they’re not as good as Apple’s.

But it’s total rubbish.

The world’s largest piece of curved glass is currently being installed at Apple’s fabulous spaceship campus. Over 3,000 gigantic curved glass panes will be used to form the walls on both side of Apple’s four-story campus that will measure more than one mile around.

Apple will use more than six kilometers of curved glass once the project is completed at the end of 2016, so the European Press Agency decided to get a closer look at the monstrous project as it enters its most delicate phase.

Check out the size of these huge glass panes:

Instagram power users are all about the filters, typically choosing a few favorites that they use more often than others.

Instead of swiping back and forth along the filters row, why not reorder them to put the ones you use most often up front? Better yet, how about deleting the ones you don’t use ever to streamline your entire filter experience?

Here’s how.

As a victim of a poorly-made iPhone wallet case that lost my ID and credit card, I’m always wary when I try a new one. I like carrying my valuables with my iPhone so I don’t need a secondary wallet, but I really like hanging onto my stuff even more.

The Urban Armor Gear Trooper case takes great pains to secure three to four plastic cards (and a bit of cash) in its roomy interior and provides a locking door that acts like a mini safe — nothing’s gonna fall out of this wallet case.

The latest batch of betas from Apple have just been made available to public testers one day after their initial release to developers.

Members of Apple’s Beta Tester Program can install iOS 9.3 beta 4 on their devices. The update adds a bunch of new feature like Night Shift mode, Touch ID-secured Notes, as well as a ton of bug fixes. Users can download the beta directly from Apple’s website, or install it over-the-air if the previous beta is already installed.

OS X 10.11.4 beta 4 has also been released to public testers. For a round up of new features to expect in iOS 9.3, check out our two-minute video below:

The iKlips might be the easiest and fastest data storage and transfer option for iOS devices. At 32 gigs, it’s got a USB on one end and a Lightning on the other, making it easy to access your music, photos, documents, and more at a moment’s notice. Right now a 32 gig iKlips drive is just $65.

We still don’t have exact sales numbers on the Apple Watch, but something is clearly having a big impact on Fitbit, Apple’s biggest rival in the fitness wearables category.

Fitbit stock dropped 19 percent today after its forecasts missed estimates, and analysts downgraded the stock as a result. Fitbit shares have declined 44 percent this year so far.

And the Apple Watch? By all accounts we’ve heard, it’s doing pretty darn well.

Today, the iPod shuffle you’ve been hoping for is getting a shot at life — no thanks to Apple. Mighty Audio is launching its Kickstarter campaign for the new Mighty streaming music player, a small clip-on device that can stream Spotify wherever you go without having to use your smartphone. A portable, affordable music player with streaming capabilities? Yes please.

iOS 9.3 inched one step closer to its public launch yesterday with the developer release of beta 4, which brings a handful of new features to iPhones and iPads along with a couple of bug fixes.

iOS 9.3 beta 4 doesn’t contain any huge new features or a graphics overhaul, but it polishes up what is already a solid operating system. In today’s video, Cult of Mac will show you all the best new features iOS 9.3 beta 4 has to offer in under two minutes.

Check it out:

People may be split over whether or not Apple is doing the right thing by defying the FBI by refusing to create an iPhone backdoor, but according to a new report, Apple’s squabble over privacy isn’t likely to have much of an impact on its brand appeal — however much Donald Trump wants people to boycott the company’s products.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster this morning revealed the results of a survey of 1,0002 Americans — suggesting that an equal number of people are more or less enamored of the brand as a result of the recent news, while the majority of respondees claim not to know anything about the story.

The cheapest iPad costs $269. The most expensive iPad costs $1,079. And they’re all basically wafers of easily-damaged silicon, sandwiched between even more easily shattered glass.

The point? You don’t want to drop an iPad, let alone three of them. Yet that’s just what Olga Kay risked, trying to answer one timeless question: can you juggle iPads?

Grassroots protests against the government’s attempts to hack the iPhone are set to take place today in nearly 50 cities around the United States, beginning at 5.30pm local time.

“FBI Director [James] Comey has been repeatedly asking the White House and Congress for a backdoor to encrypted phones for the past year,” privacy advocates Fight for the Future representative Holmes Wilson tells Cult of Mac. “If he says he doesn’t want this kind of access going forward, he’s just lying, and you can see it in the public record.”

According to Wilson, this is why this story is such a big deal — and what Cult of Mac readers can do to get involved: