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This Slap Kirk game is the Shat

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The creators of this game have boldly gone where no one has gone before.
The creators of this game have boldly gone where no one has gone before.
Slap Kirk gif: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

You’d feel better if you could slap your boss. But common sense, workplace rules and a little thing called your bills remind you to check your rage.

A developer and a musician have teamed up to give us an authority figure we can slap silly. Will Capt. James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise do?

Cult of Mac Magazine: Hating on the iPhone battery case, Apple updates and much more

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CoMM Cover

Cover Design: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple releases a new iPhone 6 battery case and everyone hates it. Poor Apple.

This week, we chronicle the beating Apple’s Smart Battery Case takes from the internet, including a look at its insides, how the internet questions Jony Ive’s sanity, and the history of ‘humped’ design at Apple. That, plus accessories just as ugly as the new case, Apples updates to every OS it makes, the things we really don’t need in Apple Watch 2, and how to choose the right running app.

All this and much, much more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine. Check out the top stories below.

Pro Tip: Easily edit your iPhone videos with Adobe Premiere Clip

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Cielo de la Paz can provide steady guidance on how to shoot video with the iPhone.
Cielo de la Paz can provide steady guidance on how to shoot video with the iPhone.
Photo: Cielo de la Paz

Pro_Tip_Cult_of_Mac You have so much great video footage on your iPhone, but therein lies the problem. The thought of sitting down at a computer to edit any of it seems like a mountain you have no time to climb.

Cielo de la Paz is happy to help you reach the summit – rather quickly, too. de la Paz is a fearless creator whose soulful wanderings with her iPhone camera inspired Apple to select some of her work for the “Shot on iPhone 6” advertising campaign.

AT&T launches 2-for-1 sale on iPhone 6s and Galaxy S6

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iPhone 6s colors
The iPhone 6s is a steal at this price.
Photo: Apple

It's time for an upgrade. Photo: Apple
It’s time for an upgrade. Photo: Apple

There’s never been a better time to scoop up the new iPhone 6s if you’re on AT&T.

The carrier announced this morning that it’s having a huge ‘buy one get one free’ promotion that includes top of the line Android devices like the Samsung Galaxy S6, Galaxy Note 5, iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.

Pro Tip: How to get quick info in Apple Maps with 3D Touch

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Now it's even easier to get quick info on any business in Maps.
Now it's even easier to get quick info on any business in Maps.
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac

Pro_Tip_Cult_of_Mac Maps is shaping up to be a pretty great navigational tool with its tight integration in iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan, as well as with much more error-free data.

I use Maps as a sort of mobile, digital yellow pages, finding businesses in town and looking up their phone number, hours of operation, website address, and more. It’s a couple of taps in, which can seem tedious after a while.

Now, though, with an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, you can get this info in a summarized form, using the new 3D Touch. Here’s how.

What happened to Apple’s faultless design?

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Are these signs of a larger design problem?
Are these things signs of a larger design problem?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Unlike any other consumer electronics company, Apple has been nailing product design for decades. Jony Ive and his incredibly talented team have produced countless iconic gadgets that rivals can only dream of, and it’s the biggest reason why the company is so successful today.

Friday-Night-Fights-bug-2But there are suggestions that Apple’s design prowess is beginning to slip away. Under new leadership, Apple has rolled out a number of products — most recently the butt-ugly Smart Battery Case — that have led some fans to question various design decisions.

Are those fans right to be concerned? Is it downhill from here for Apple’s design team, or is this a whole lot of fuss over nothing?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over those questions and more — and weigh in with your thoughts down in the comments section!

Did Steve Jobs know about Apple Watch?

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Apple Watch is a killer device, even without a
Apple Watch is a killer device, even without a "killer app."
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

The Apple Watch is the first major product to be launched without any involvement from Steve Jobs, but according to one of his long-time associates, the Apple cofounder was well aware that Jony Ive was working on a timepiece.

On Thursday at Glance Conf in San Francisco — the first Apple Watch conference ever — Tim Bajarin who had an on-and-off relationship with Jobs for over three decades, said Jobs had at least been told about the watch before he passed.

Low-profile car charger delivers all the power, none of the clutter

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The flush-mount reVOLT car charger tidies up any dashboard.
The flush-mount reVOLT car charger tidies up any dashboard.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

My truck’s getting up in years and lacks many of the conveniences of a late-model vehicle. Forget about an in-dash touchscreen monitor — it doesn’t even have a USB port.

That means I’m stuck using a cigarette lighter adapter to charge my iPhone (which serves as my GPS on many trips). I’ve tried and enjoyed Gosin’s four-port charger, which is awesome for those rare times I’ve got a handful of devices to juice up, but that portly wonder juts out fairly far into the truck’s cabin. Like my truck itself, it is functional but slightly unsightly.

And then there’s the svelte Scosche reVolt dual car charger. Its disarming good looks have ruined me.

If you’d bought Apple stock instead of an Apple III, you’d be a millionaire

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Apple raked in the cash last quarter.
What we wouldn't give to travel back to 1980.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Want a spectacular stat for a Friday? Apple stock has increased 22,250 percent since its IPO almost 35 years ago.

And the accompanying depressing thought: If you had taken the money a new Apple computer cost at the time and instead spent it on AAPL stock during its 1980 public offering, you’d be sitting on a personal fortune of $965,650 today — just a few dollars away from being a freshly-minted millionaire.

Banksy’s Steve Jobs mural puts Syrian refugee crisis into perspective

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The son of a migrant from Syria.
The son of a migrant from Syria.
Photo: Banksy/Banksy.co.uk

Infamous street artist Banksy has created a new mural of Steve Jobs to make a big statement about the Syrian refugee crisis that is causing a storm of controversy not only in Europe but the U.S. as well.

Banksy’s Steve Jobs mural depicts the Apple co-founder with a black bag slung over his left shoulder and an original Macintosh computer in his left. The artwork was sprayed on a wall in the Calais refugee camp called ‘the Jungle’ in northern France.

Here’s a closer look:

Last-minute gift ideas for the comfort-minded and tech-conscious [Deals]

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9d63467942140062cc4bdf81519369860ff7ea62_main_hero_image
It's time to wrap up that shopping.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

The days are ticking away until you’re expected to present that special someone in your life with a thoughtful gift. If you’re stressing out about what to get, or what you might end up paying, take a look at this list of awesome gifts available at a fraction of the usual price. From DIY electronics to bluetooth speakers and even world class socks, whoever you’re shopping for, we’ve got you covered.

Apple spams older iPhone owners with upgrade ads

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iPhone 6s
Because who doesn't want unsolicited ads popping up on their iPhone?
Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

Apple is selling an enormous amount of iPhones right now, but in its efforts to get an extra holiday sales bump it’s pushing an unsolicited pop-up notification to owners of older iPhone handsets — informing them of how “ridiculously powerful” the iPhone 6s is.

Prisoners in the U.K. could be given iPads for education and communication

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iPad Pro
iPads behind bars.
Photo: Leander Kahney / Cult of Mac

What’s the opposite of an iPad Pro? Presumably it would be an iPad con — and if a new scheme proposed by the U.K.’s Ministry of Justice comes to fruition, there could be a whole lot of them.

The proposed project aims to give prisoners taxpayer-funded iPads so that they can video chat with their families, while also improving their numeracy and literacy skills.

Couldn’t we at least pretend prison is designed as a punishment, and hand convicts cheap Android tablets as a deterrent instead?

Mark Cuban wants Apple to boot Twitter out of the App Store

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Twitter
#getridoftwitter?
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

When there are complaints about censorship in the App Store, it’s usually developers arguing that Apple shouldn’t have removed a particular app for infringing on its often-vague user guidelines.

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban had something else in mind, however, when he sent a series of tweets claiming that Apple should boot Twitter off the App Store — until the social networking company finds a way of better removing “objectionable” material from its service.

Star Wars fans love the series’ most dangerous tech

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Star Wars Force Awakens Rey BB-8
This could be you, you heartless nerds.
Photo: Lucasfilm

A new poll of the most-wanted technology from the Star Wars universe shows that fans may not have really thought their answers through.

The survey comes courtesy of Harris Poll and software developer myDevices and asks one question: “If you could have any technology from the Star Wars trilogy, which would you want?”

While we approve of the study ignoring the prequels completely, we aren’t sure about the winners because it sounds like what these fans are really requesting are amazing and spectacular deaths.

HBO Go just got even more distracting

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HBO Go Band of Brothers
You'll hit Play on Normandy in Band of Brothers, and the next thing you know, they'll be in Berlin.
Photo: HBO

An update to HBO Go is a direct assault on your productivity.

The streaming service just added two new features that are sure to send you spiraling into a “just one more” death spin. The new features are Picture-in-Picture (for compatible devices running iOS 9) and autoplay, which is how you sit down to watch a single episode and then look up later to discover the sun has come up, and now you have to go to work.

Install these battery-killing, storage-hogging apps at your own risk

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android apps
Which apps are the worst for your phone's battery, performance and data plan?
Photo: Pixelkult/Pixabay CC

Phone-killing apps
Which apps aren’t the best for your phone’s battery, performance, and data plan? Photo: Pixelkult/Pixabay CC
[/caption]

The latest quarterly report from antivirus company AVG has outed the battery-killingest, storage-hoggingest apps currently available.

Some of the culprits are unsurprising, but a few might be murdering your phone’s performance without you knowing, like some kind of ninjas that have somehow taken app form. All of this and more happens in “Appsassins,” the screenplay I’m pitching to SyFy.

But here are the biggest offenders, because that’s really the more important information here.

Apple looks poised to sell 21 million watches in first year

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Simple fitness trackers from Fitbit, Xiaomi and Garmin outsold Apple Watch during the third quarter.
Simple fitness trackers from Fitbit, Xiaomi and Garmin outsold Apple Watch during the third quarter.
Photo: David Pierini/Cult of Mac

Didn’t think the Apple Watch would catch on? Not everyone agrees, especially analysts who study sales projections.

Cupertino is on track to sell 21 million watches and rake in about $8.4 billion in revenue in the first 12 months of the Apple Watch, according to one of the hottest Apple analysts around. Not bad for a company that entered the wearables game late.

New iPhone app Yallo lets you record your conversations

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Get Yallo in on your phone conversations.
Get Yallo in on your phone conversations.
Photo: Yallo

When I first became a reporter, I bought one of those little mics you could suction-cup to a telephone to record interviews. That was some gadget, except for having to tape it to the handset because the suction cup sometimes popped off.

You can still buy this kind of microphone or use your smartphone with an app called Yallo. A simple interface lets you record incoming calls, share the recorded conversation with an associate or have recordings transcribed and automatically sent to email.

Golden Globes loves Steve Jobs even if nobody else does

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Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs movie is coming to Netflix
Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs movie is coming to Netflix
Photo: François Duhamel/©2015 Universal Studios

It may not have done well at the box office, but Steve Jobs is poised to make a huge splash this award season.

The film picked up four Golden Globe nominations when the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the candidates this morning. The association loved the Aaron Sorkin flick so much they made it the second-most nominated movie for the prestigious award show set to take place on January 10th.

These wraparound sports shades won’t screw up your look

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Lust List Spy Sunglasses Screw
I Spy some pretty sweet shades.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Best List: Screw sports sunglasses by Spy Optics

Choosing a pair of sports shades is always a balancing act of form versus function. Luckily, Spy Optics makes sunglasses for every face and every activity.

With its Screw series of shades, Spy found the sweet spot where you get what you need while sweating your ass off without looking like an ass when standing in line at the coffee shop.