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This cheap hack puts a glowing Apple logo on your iPhone 6

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Get ready to illuminate your Apple logo.
Get ready to illuminate your Apple logo.
Photo: David Cogen

We love seeing Apple’s glowing logo every time a MacBook lid opens, so wouldn’t it be awesome to have the same feature on your iPhone?

Making your iPhone 6 stand out in a sea of other iPhones is now a whole lot easier, thanks to an inexpensive new LED logo kit that brings an illuminated Apple logo to the back of your device. The hack is reversible and supposedly won’t drain your battery — but it might void your warranty.

Here’s how to do it:

4-inch iPhone 6c may pack Apple Pay and powerful A9 chip

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Will the iPhone 6c be a flop like the 5c?
Will the iPhone 6c be a flop like the 5c?
Photo: Gadgetmac/Flickr

The upcoming 4-inch iPhone that has been picking up steam in the rumor mill the last few weeks won’t be a weakling when it comes to processing power, according to a new report that claims Apple’s new A9 chip will power the device.

Apple expert Ming-Chi Kuo at KGI Securities told investors today that his sources indicate the iPhone 6c is definitely real, and that it will look more like the iPhone 5s than an iPhone 6.

iPhone light meter will make your photos shine

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Turn your iPhone into a trusted lighting assistant on photo shoots with the Luma Power.
Turn your iPhone into a trusted lighting assistant on photo shoots with the Luma Power.
Photo: Lumu Labs

A good photographer doesn’t say, I’ll fix it later in Photoshop. Lumu Labs understood this when they developed an accessory in 2013 that turns the iPhone into a light meter.

Though heralded by working photographers and tech journalists at the time, Lumu Labs wasn’t satisfied with the bulbous little device that hooks into the headphone jack. They continued to tinker and came up with the next generation of light meter that is like having a knowledgeable photo assistant in the palm of your hand.

Apple’s Swift programming language goes open source

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Apple's Swift language is now open source.
Apple's Swift language is now open source.
Photo: Apple

Swift, the fast growing computer programming language created by Apple, is officially going open source starting today.

Apple unveiled Swift at WWDC in 2014 with a promise to make it open source in the future. Now that the language has become one of the fastest adopted languages in history, the company announced this morning that the time is right to open up access.

Bored with stocking stuffers? An iPhone laser can probably fix that. [Deals]

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The Juiceboxx Charger Case is just one of the stocking stuffers that should be on your list.
The Juiceboxx Charger Case is just one of the stocking stuffers that should be on your list.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Candy canes are great and all, but in this day and age we’ve come to expect something more when digging into our stockings. Thankfully some of the neatest stuff for stockings, whether portable power, phone-mounted lasers or hands free mounts — is also super affordable. The following are just a few of the awesome stocking stuffers we’ve gathered at Cult of Mac Deals.

Ford adds Siri Eyes Free functionality to 5 million of its cars

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Siri Eyes Free is coming to 2011 model Fords and earlier.
It's not quite CarPlay, but it's close.
Photo: Ford

The Apple Car may be a few years off, but a new deal signed between Ford and Apple is bringing Siri to 5 million more cars.

According to a new report, a software update available today means that any Ford owners who bought a Ford car with SYNC functionality after 2011 can take advantage of Siri Eyes Free by initiating a long press of the voice recognition button on their steering wheel.

iPhone is most popular camera among Flickr’s 112 million photographers

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Canon cameras
The iPhone has been the top choice among Flickr photographers beginning in 2015.
Photo: Flickr

The longtime Kings of the Camera must know their kingdoms are shrinking. If Canon or Nikon need further evidence, Flickr’s 2015 Year in Review shows the popular tool of choice for an engaged and global photography community is not a dedicated camera. It’s first and foremost a phone.

Apple’s iPhone was the popular device used by the Flickr community, according to an analysis of the EXIF data on pictures uploaded to the site. iPhone cameras accounted for 42 percent of the photos on the site, compared to the DSLRs of Canon, 27 percent, and the Nikon, 16 percent.

The best and worst things to buy in December

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Charlie agrees: So many deals, so little time.
Charlie agrees: So many deals, so little time.
Photo: Thomas Cook/Wikimedia Commons CC

December is a month when most people can’t avoid shopping. You may have skipped Black Friday, but the holiday season is a different beast altogether, with gifts from loved ones, friends, and people you barely know coming at you from all angles.

Maintain lots of holiday cheer by shopping wisely with our December buying guide. We’ve pored over the extensive DealNews archives from years past to guide you in your quest for the most savvy purchases in December.

Temple Run 2 gets largest expansion yet, ‘Frozen Shadows’

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Wish you were here.
Wish you were here.
Photo: Imangi Studios

With over 1 billion downloads, Temple Run and it’s sequel, Temple Run 2, are the very definition of mobile gaming success.

It’s even better that husband and wife developers and co-founders Keith Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova are such incredibly nice people. Their startup, Imangi Studios, has found the gold at the end of the rainbow, and they’ve no intention of stopping.

“Frozen Shadows” is the latest (and largest) free update to the franchise yet, giving you new characters like Guy Dangerous and Scarlett Fox to run through a brand-spanking-new ice world. You’ll also get new artifacts, winter costumes, and an absolutely terrifying new demon monkey to run from. Yikes!

“We’re really trying to expand the Temple Run universe,” Shepherd told us on the phone, “in much the same way as a novelist or storyteller would.”

How to play Crossy Road on Apple TV with your iPhone

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Play Crossy Road with a pal, even without a second controller.
Play Crossy Road with a pal, even without a second controller.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Once Apple brought games to the Apple TV, it was a no-brainer that we’d all want to play them together on the couch in our living room.

Apple requires developers to support the new Siri Remote, but they can also allow third-party game controllers to move stuff around on the screen, too.

Crossy Road, the excellent Frogger-like hit iOS game with the seemingly endless supply of cute creatures to play as (that was also an Apple TV launch title), goes one step further. If you want to play with a buddy and don’t have a second gamepad, you can have your pal play Crossy Road on Apple TV with just their iPhone.

Here’s how.

Futuristic straps could do way more than keep your Apple Watch on

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apple-watch-reserve-strap
Your next Watch strap could get a serious high-tech boost.
Photo: Apple

Apple has a range of different Apple Watch straps available — but, aside from letting you pick the perfect strap to suit the rest of your attire, they all serve exactly the same function: keeping Apple’s debut wearable safely strapped to your wrist.

That may change in future iterations of the Apple Watch, with a new patent application published today describing how future Watch straps (or straps for other Apple devices) may include flexible displays woven into the material, offering another way of presenting user messages or notifications.

Apple designs its own multicolor 3-D printer

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Screen Shot 2015-12-03 at 13.17.43
Could Apple build a mass-market 3D printer for consumers?
Photo: Apple

Apple hasn’t released a new printer since the heady days of the LaserWriter 8500 in 1997, but a new patent application suggests the company is working on a new printer — and it’s no ordinary one, either.

Published today under the name “Method and apparatus for three dimensional printing of colored objects,” the patent application describes a 3-D printer capable of not only printing amazing three-dimensional structures, but doing so in multiple colors.

Authors ask Supreme Court to overturn e-book ruling against Apple

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ibooks
Did antitrust investigators target the wrong company?
Photo: Apple

A group of authors and booksellers are standing by Apple in its decision to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling stating that Apple conspired to fix eBook prices when it launched its iBook store way back in January 2010.

The Authors Guild, Authors United, the American Booksellers Association, and Barnes & Noble have all banded together to file an “amicus brief” in the United States, arguing that the belief that Apple was taking place in “anti-competitive activities” was “misplaced.”

Yes, it is possible to stream Steam games to Apple TV

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tvOS just got another new update.
Streaming Steam games on Apple TV? Yes please.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

If you’re hoping to stream games from Steam to your new Apple TV, developer Kevin Smith (no, not the Clerks guy) has shown it is possible by modifying the Moonlight iOS project — which lets users stream Steam games from a desktop computer to their iOS device — so that it works with tvOS.

Check out the videos below.

Ultra-affordable cloud storage for your whole hard drive and then some [Deals]

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Zoolz Cold Storage offers ultra affordable lifetime storage for up to a terabyte of your most valuable data.
Zoolz Cold Storage offers ultra affordable lifetime storage for up to a terabyte of your most valuable data.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Cloud storage has matured into a reliable and sensible solution for keeping data secure and accessible. Also reliable is the high cost of that storage. Thankfully there’s a way to significantly drop the price just by reducing the access speed, like with Zoolz Cold Storage. They’re offering a terabyte of storage for life for just $39.

Twitter promises an easier way to login to your Apple TV

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Apple TV needs a better way to login to stuff.
Apple TV needs a better way to login to stuff.
Photo: Twitter/Digits

Logging into any service on Apple TV is a pain. The text-entry field is one long line, and if you’ve got a particularly lengthy username or password for apps on the Apple TV, entering them can take much longer than it should.

Twitter-owned Digits is offering its own take on a solution with an SDK that tvOS developers can implement in their apps and let users type in a short string of numbers and letters that they get from their iPhone, rather than the full-on username and password combination.

This could solve the problem altogether, and it’s not much more tricky than using an app for Two-Step Authentication, which we all do now, anyway (or should).

6,000 iPhones will upgrade United Airlines’ customer service

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United Airlines
iPhone 6 Plus is taking flight at United Airlines.
Photo: United Airlines

The iPad has helped airlines replace the outdated paper flight manuals pilots used to lug around. Now Apple’s first phablet is ready to help revolutionize the way United Airlines provides customer service.

United Airlines revealed today that it plans to distribute over 6,000 iPhone 6 Plus units to customer service representatives at its hubs across the US, as part of the company’s effort to give employees better tools to provide faster service.

iTunes is having a Boxing Week music sale

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iTunes is throwing a Boxing Week music sale.
iTunes is throwing a Boxing Week music sale.
Photo:

Boxing Day. What the heck is it? Traditionally, it’s the day that British servants and tradesmen, busy servicing the upper class on Christmas Day, got to take the day off and open their gifts. But in the context of modern society, it’s mostly notable for being the week when Apple launches its annual Boxing Week sale for customers in Canada and the UK. Which is now live!

Dating app Blume makes sure your amour isn’t a fake

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Real-time selfies are required for meeting a match on the dating app Blume.
Real-time selfies are required for meeting a match on the dating app Blume.
Photo: Blume

Online dating services promise plenty of fish in the sea. They just can’t stop the catfish from biting.

But the pretenders might not have the same luck with the new dating app Blume. Once a match is made, the two users must exchange selfies, using the smartphone camera in-app, before any communication can begin.

Android users defect to iPhone 6s at unprecedented rate

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android-users-defect-to-iphone-6s-at-unprecedented-rate-2-image-cultofandroidcomwp-contentuploads201510iPhone-6s-camera-jpg
Android users seems to love the new iPhone 6s.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android

Apple’s iPhone family becomes even more successful every year, and the latest models aren’t just a hit with faithful fans. According to new research, the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are attracting Android switchers at an unprecedented rate.

Klipsch on-ear headphones deliver crisp, clear, booming sound

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These lightweight cans deliver heavy sound.
These lightweight cans deliver heavy sound.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Best List: Reference R6i On-Ear Headphones by Klipsch

Sometimes you just need a solid, great-sounding set of wired headphones. They don’t need to charge up like my Bluetooth favorites do, nor do they require pairing (or repairing, like several models I’ve used).

Earbuds are great, too, but for extended listening sessions, I prefer on-ear headphones. They are less sound-isolating — I don’t need to hear my own breathing all the time.

Apple tops ranking of most innovative companies for 10th straight year

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Apple's been the world's most innovative company for a decade.
Apple's been the world's most innovative company for a decade.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

When it comes to innovation, American-based corporations are pushing the envelope more than any other nation and Apple is leading the charge.

According to the latest rankings from Boston Consulting, Apple was the world’s top innovator for the tenth year in a row, followed closely by Google.

Cut down on countless wasted keystrokes with TextExpander [Deals]

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TextExpander 5 helps save time and be more efficient by cutting out needless keystrokes.
TextExpander 5 helps save time and be more efficient by cutting out needless keystrokes.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

If you spend any time behind the keyboard (and let’s be honest, if you’re reading this you probably do), you’re probably wasting a lot of time. The wide menu of commonly used terms, names, phrases and information that we take time to type out add up to minutes and hours that can be saved by using TextExpander. It turns your most regularly used terms into quick keystrokes for populating documents and images, an invaluable time saver that you can get for just $22.

Apple may give Samsung the boot for iPhone 7 chip orders

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apple-vs-samsung
Samsung may be passed over for iPhone 7 chip orders.
Photo: Cult of Mac

After the “chipgate” event of the iPhone 6s — in which Samsung-manufactured A9 processors were rumored to perform worse than those built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) — a new report suggests that Apple may give its South Korean frenemy the boot, and award 100 percent of its iPhone 7 A10 chip orders to TSMC.