Two-year contracts are about to be a thing of the past. Photo: Mike Mozart/Flickr
If you want to buy the iPhone 6s on a two-year contract with AT&T you better hurry.
Internal documents from AT&T leaked online this morning revealing the carrier plans to finally kill the two-year contracts it’s offered long before it become the first carrier to sell the iPhone.
Twitter finally resurrected its Mac app with just about everything its users have been asking for over the past several… well, for a really long time. The update at long last looks much like the Twitter you’re familiar with on your smartphone or desktop browser. It’s complete with highly requested features like GIF support and group direct messages with up to 50 people, plus a dark theme for power users and more.
“Don’t call it a comeback!” Twitter wrote in the update description. “Twitter for Mac is getting the update you’ve been asking for.”
Emoji for all your textual needs. Photo: Rob LeFebvre / Cult of Mac
In Apple’s Messages app, you can easily add emojis with a quick click on the little happy face icon in the iMessage text field. If you use a chat app like Slack, you can do the same.
But what if you want to add an emoji to an email, a letter, or any other text field? Turns out there’s an often-overlooked menu item (with a corresponding keyboard shortcut) that lets you do just that.
Apple TV may be getting a new rival. Photo: Retovona
The new Apple TV may soon get some competition from Microsoft, which according to a new rumor is considering making slimmer, cheaper version of the Xbox One console in an effort to beat Apple in the living room.
It's a beautiful life (thanks to aluminum). Photo: Rob LeFebvre / Cult of Mac
Best List: Zand Aluminum iPad Stand by iQunix
Living in an Apple ecosystem, my world revolves around brushed aluminum and white cables. My iPhone 6 Plus is silver on the back, my iPads are black and space gray, and my MacBook Pro is — you guessed it — a lovely brushed aluminum.
The new iQunix Zand Aluminum iPad stand looks like something Apple would design to set your iPad next to that MacBook Pro for a perfectly matched finish.
Apple Watch is a killer device, even without a "killer app." Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
When you’re counting down the seconds to New Year’s tomorrow night, make sure you’ve got an Apple Watch nearby.
“As a piece of hardware, [Apple Watch is] far more accurate as a timekeeping device than the iPhone,” Apple VP of Technology Kevin Lynch revealed in a new interview. “With New Year’s coming, those who have the Apple Watch will be the most accurate watch in the room. There will be no question about when New Year’s Eve actually is now.”
Witnessing the ingenuity of app developers both small and large is a real highlight of my job writing about the Apple ecosystem. In that regard, 2015 didn’t disappoint: Some tremendous new apps got unleashed this year on both iOS and OS X.
Here are Cult of Mac’s picks for the absolute best apps of the year for iPhone, iPad and Mac.
These 7 courses cover every corner of Microsoft Office, essential to any modern workplace. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
The new year is here, but if you want your career to look any different you’re going to have to learn some new skills. We’ve collected some of the best deals on the lessons you need to keep that resolution to step up your professional game. Whether you’re looking to work with data, managing projects, master Microsoft Office or learn to develop games, we’ve got you covered.
We all made a lot of mistakes this year. Image: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac
We aren’t going to pretend we’re perfect, but that doesn’t mean we have no appreciation for the mistakes of others. They make us feel better about our own glaring flaws, and they also make for some good fodder for “weirdest of 2015” news roundups.
This year, we saw some really impressive corporate blunders as well as some head-slapping moments from Apple fans.
Cloning dinosaurs comes with a price tag. Who knew? Photo: Lydia
Aside from a few big developers, no-one much likes in-app purchases, which have long been used to ruin mobile gaming on iOS.
However, the parents of 7-year-old Faisall Shugaa probably like them less than most — after their son racked up almost $6,000 in IAP bills, including $2,200 spent in just one hour.
We’ve heard enough at this point to be pretty sure that a 4-inch iPhone 6c is coming, but how will it stack up against the last 4-inch iPhone, the iPhone 5s? Pretty well, according to a new report: You can expect better battery life, better performance and better security!
A lawsuit claims the battery of an iPhone 4s is responsible for a house fire. Photo: Apple
Smart upgraders know that when a major new version of iOS drops, older devices might want to think twice about updating. That advice isn’t much comfort to people on the iPhone 4s, though, who pulled the trigger on iOS 9, and saw their devices slow down as a result. Now, a class-action lawsuit is targeting Apple on behalf of iPhone 4s owners, arguing that Cupertino essentially crippled their phones with the update.
Damn that easy-to-use grid of apps! Photo: AppleDamn that easy-to-use grid of apps. Photo: Apple
The iPhone may have fundamentally changed Google’s plans for its Android smartphone platform, but according to Google’s design chief, the iOS homescreen layout — consisting of grids of apps icons — is disappointingly stagnant.
“[The iPhone] crystallised a lot of other things that were kind of stayed even by that point, like the rows of icons, which don’t scale very well,” Matias Duarte, Google’s vice president of design, told Wired. “This idea of a tiny grid that you manually curate starts to feel very heavy and burdensome.”
We’re still waiting for an official decision from European Commission regulators about Apple’s alleged tax avoidance through its Irish subsidiary, but in the meantime the company has agreed to pay €318 million ($347 million) to settle a tax investigation in Italy.
After China, the Middle East and Africa is one of Apple's big focuses. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Apple is focused on expanding into new markets, and after its success in China, it seems the next focus is on the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region.
According to analysts at Counterpoint Research, Apple saw its market share in the region climb 3.9 percent in the third quarter of 2015, compared to 2.2 percent during the same period one year earlier. Overall, iPhone shipments grew 133 percent on-year in 2015 to enter the top 5 smartphone brands in the area.
Something something dark side. Photo: Magnolia Pictures
If you haven’t suffered Steve Jobs overload already (and the disappointing box office results for Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs suggests that many people have), Oscar winner Alex Gibney’s controversial feature-length Jobs documentary, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, debuts this Sunday on CNN.
We’ve heard for years that Apple could incorporate OLED displays into next-generation iPhones, but over the past few months, those rumors have ramped up, suggesting that the power-sipping display technology could land as early as the iPhone 7.
Now, a new report buttresses those rumors, saying Apple is close to finalizing a supply agreement with Samsung and LG to give future iPhones OLED displays.
It's hip to be square. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
If you’ve ever tried to set a square photo as your lock screen or homes screen wallpaper, you know that iOS will zoom into the photo, resizing it to fit the entire iPhone screen.
This is fine with some images, but square ones, like the ones you save on Instagram or take with your iPhone’s square photo feature, just zoom in too far, obscuring much of the photo.
Here’s a quick and easy work around that will let you see the whole square photo when you use it as wallpaper.
iDot would be the first distraction free iPhone. Photo: Martin Hajek/Curved
Apple fans obsess over which new features will get added to the iPhone every year, but if the latest concept from designer Martin Hajek ever becomes a reality, the new iPhone will be more notable for the hardware it’s missing.
The iDot concept packs no camera, no internet connection, zero apps and minimal distractions, so you can focus on what’s really important instead of having your soul slowly sucked away by your iPhone screen.
2015 was a crucial year for Apple, and it looks like it's paying off. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
‘Tis the season to be jolly — or, if you’re a tech writer hoping to score enough clicks to help pay off the post-Christmas credit card, ’tis the season to label this the worst year for Apple since records began.
Access your favorite movies and TV shows without ever having to worry about travel restrictions again. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
The holidays have come and gone, but the big deals live on, at least for a little while. The Cult of Mac Store still has plenty of awesome tools, toys and subscriptions priced to move, but they’re deals that won’t last for long. Now’s your last chance to take advantage of massive savings on everything from invincible Lightning cables to secure internet browsing.
Apple has pledged to do more on the diversity front. Photo: Apple
Twitter has hired away Apple’s Director of Worldwide Inclusion & Diversity, Jeffrey Siminoff, who will join the microblogging company as its new VP of Diversity and Inclusion from January.