Cult of Mac

The billboards and ads featuring beautiful photographs shot with an iPhone 6 are nearly gone. Apple is now promoting a new iPhone. But that does not mean Apple has forgotten the photographers whose work helped sell phones and treat the world to art in public spaces.

Photographers from the “Shot on iPhone 6” campaign have been getting packages in the mail, a pair of cloth-covered coffee table books featuring their work. The books were apparently a surprise and included a pair of white gloves for handling with care.

If you’ve tried to type in any sort of long password or search terms into your new Apple TV using the fancy Siri Remote, you know you’ve had a tough time.

Even if you adjust the tracking to make it a little more accurate, scrolling through letters and clicking on the touch surface can be a nightmare of inaccurate clicks and missed targets.

The fine folks over at The Loop found a different way to navigate single items like this, and it’s totally amazing.

GoPro owns the action camera market it invented and the routine emergence of new competitors only seems to make GoPro’s sales go up. Why would anyone try to compete?

In creating The People’s Action Camera, Utah-based Vidi did not set out to target GoPro. It is instead aiming for more budget-conscious consumers who aren’t necessarily into gadgets. The result is a camera that requires little to no study to use, provides pro-grade high-def footage and has software that edits video for you.

One other thing – it costs less than $100.

You had me at “ruined continent.”

Overland is an upcoming 3D survival tactics game from the creator of Canabalt, Adam Saltzman. Its beautiful, chillingly-chromatic art style has me itching to play it, as does the cool way the team has created an approachable rogue-like set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland without dumbing it down.

Check out the video below, with Saltzman’s narration.

Apple has added a new shopping category to the App Store today, bringing with it a collection of apps that cover everything from auctions, product reviews, price comparisons, Apple Pay apps, and more.

App Store users will begin seeing the new category on the App Store today. It may end up on the tvOS App Store as well, considering one of the biggest selling points during the keynote demo was the ability to shop from your TV. To make the new creation of the new category even better for users, a select number of apps are offering limited deals to iOS shoppers.

The following promotions are available in the ‘Save While You Shop’ group:

Apple Pay and 3D Touch may play a crucial role in Instagram’s quest to develop a more robust marketing platform, based on some new ads the company has started testing.

Instagram has rolled out a number of new ads that let users shop for stuff like clothing, food, skateboards and more by simply using 3D Touch to bring up a menu of options that makes the process of buying goods nearly instantaneous.

The iPad Pro is the Apple tablet of my dreams.

I’ve been lusting after Apple’s crazy-big iPad since the first whispers of the device echoed around the rumor mill a few years ago. When Apple finally unveiled the Pro at the September keynote, I was beyond stoked to fork over more than $1,000 for an iPad big enough to host Thanksgiving dinner on.

The display is breathtaking. The graphics are mind-blowing. The Apple Pencil is magical. Even the freaking speakers are better. But after weeks of debating whether the Pro is really worth it, I’ve realized its diminutive little brother, the iPad Mini 4, is really the perfect tablet for me.

Here’s why the mini 4 might be the best iPad for you, too:

Happy Friday, everyone! That of course means another Cult of Mac Magazine positively brimming with amazing how-to, news, and feature articles to keep you informed and entertained all weekend long.

We’ve got a fair pile of Apple TV how-tos aimed at getting you set up and running hot with Apple’s new set-top box, as well as a round up of the five best games to play on your big screen and several hidden tricks you need to know about the new Siri Remote.

We hope you like all that and a ton more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, the best slice of Apple news and info this side of Cupertino. Be sure to grab yourself a copy today.

Here’s the rundown for this week.

Chances are you can vaguely remember the last Apple ad you saw, but do you remember it in the same way you remember the company’s “1984” commercial for the original Macintosh, or its wonderful “Think Different” campaign? It’s been a while since we saw anything quite as iconic.

Apple still creates great commercials we can’t help but talk about, but many fans would say those ads aren’t as good as they once were. Has Apple lost its marketing magic, or is it just too difficult to create truly iconic ads in the digital age?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over these questions and more!

Best List: Fujifilm X100T camera

My professional DSLRs are starting to look good in retirement. Just ask my neck, back and right shoulder, which are still angry after years of toting the heavy cameras and lenses around.

In their place to sate my photographic wanderings is the Fujifilm X100T, a diminutive, mirrorless, rangefinder-style camera that records gorgeous files. Its exterior is also easy on the eyes — it tends to stop passersby, who ask questions like, “Is that a Leica?”

While working for Apple alongside good friend Jony Ive on special projects, like the Apple Watch, industrial designer Marc Newson found time to devote his celebrated sensibilities to two very simple objects.

Behold his take on the toaster and the teapot. Simple and clearly fitting for kitchens right now and 100 years from now.

iOS 9 is here and the development frenzy has begun. It’s not too late to get in on the action though, and right now may be the best time to start with this bundle of top notch lessons that can be your for whatever you want to pay. The almost 100 hours of instruction covers iOS 9, Swift, Xcode, WatchOS 2, tvOS, and more, and all proceeds go to Project HOPE, delivering medicine, supplies, experts and medical training in response to disasters and wellness needs around the world.

Google is in talks with chipset manufacturers with a view to designing its own processors and other components for future Android devices, according to a new report.

The company is said to be interested in following Apple’s footsteps in an effort to make Android “more competitive” at the high end of the market, and to “solve other major problems.”

You know that Apple TV is a great set-top box that allows you to play games, watch TV shows and movies, and even listen to Apple Music streams.

What you may not have known is that you can connect Bluetooth speakers so that you don’t bother your roommates or family when you’re watching, enhance dialogue, and even change the audio language on supported media.

Here’s how to do all that, from the comfort of your couch with the new Siri Remote.

There are only 5 more Fridays left until Star Wars: The Force Awakens debuts in theaters. Director JJ Abrams swore he wouldn’t give fans any more trailers, but a new international trailer for the film was released this morning, and oh boy is it filled with a bunch of new scenes.

This might be the most revealing trailer we’ve seen yet, with new footage of BB-88, Chewbacca, Leia, Finn, Rey, and of course, Kylo Ren wielding his broadsword lightsaber.

Check out all the new goodness in the trailer below:

Everything we’ve heard so far about Apple’s long-awaited iPad Pro suggests that it’s coming November 11th, but according to a source familiar with Apple’s plans, would-be customers can actually expect the plus-sized tablet to officially launch on Friday 13th.

Jason Voorhees would be proud!

Apple TV’s killer feature is the App Store. And with an App Store comes games.

I don’t care what near-sighted gaming sites are saying. Sure, Apple’s new box doesn’t have a whole lot of gaming content yet, but it has some great offerings if you poke around a bit. I’m finding games for the new Apple TV that never grabbed my attention when they were on my iPhone or iPad, but seeing them up on the big screen pulled me right in.

Which are the best games for the Apple TV to check out right now, though? Here are our five favorites, in no particular order. Note that the links below will take you to the iTunes App Store. If you purchase them with the same iTunes ID you have set up on your Apple TV, they’ll appear in the “Purchased” tab of the little black puck’s App Store. Alternately, you can search for the game name directly from your TV.

iOS 9.1 brought a whole lot of new emojis, but some users are complaining that it had another unintended consequence too — breaking their Touch ID fingerprint sensor.

Posts on Apple’s Support Communities website claim that the recent update either slows down their Touch ID, or in some cases means it even fails to recognize fingerprints altogether.

Prior to founding a tiny little company called Apple, Steves Jobs and Wozniak were “phone phreakers” — selling illegal blue boxes to help people make free long-distance phone calls.

While both quickly turned their back on their law-breaking ways, Jobs noted that, “If we hadn’t made those little blue boxes, there might never have been an Apple computer.”

The entire saga is now the subject of a short documentary, featuring new interviews with Woz, alongside notable phone phreaks Charlie Pine, Tony Lauck, and John “Cap’n Crunch” Draper. Check it out below.

The Apple Watch is continuing its international rollout by going on sale in India — shortly before the country’s Diwali festival, and just one month after the Indian debut of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.

Apple’s first wearable device — which has so far shipped close to 7 million units around the world — starts at Rs 30,900 ($469) for the 38mm Apple Watch Sport, and goes up to Rs 14.2 lakh ($21,500) for the top-priced Apple Watch Edition.

Like all well-designed products from the Apple mothership, the new Apple TV’s remote, also known as the Siri remote, looks simple but contains a surprising amount of depth.

Sure, you might know that one press on the Menu button will take you back one screen, but what about all the other secret moves (like how to restart your Apple TV with the buttons)?

Luckily, we’re here to help you discover all the secrets of the Siri remote. Today, let’s look at the buttons and their hidden features.

It’s time to dust off that virtual reality headset that you’ve hardly used since the day it arrived, because the biggest video platform on the planet now supports VR video. Google CEO Sundar Pichai today announced that YouTube has begun offering its first VR video, which can be enjoyed with Google Cardboard.

Facebook is dipping its toes into the music biz this week with a brand new feature that makes it easier than ever to share your favorite tunes with all your social network friends.

The new Music Stories feature rolls out to iPhone users today and allows you to share 30-second song samples from Apple Music and Spotify by simply copy and pasting a link into your status update.

Here’s a preview of how it works:

You have your reasons for not owning a smartwatch, one of which is you happen to like the timepiece presently on your wrist. What if you could make your primitive wristwatch a little smart?

Chronos is like slapping a brain on the back of your favorite timepiece. It is an ulna-thin disc with 36 hours of battery life that brings curated notifications and health tracking to a watch of any age.

The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus have barely been out for a month, but Apple engineers are hard at work finishing the iPhone 7, and they’re already placing orders for new chips.

Apple has placed LCD driver orders with Synaptics for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, indicating that the touch and display driver (TDDI) single-chip solutions its been developing in-house aren’t quite ready for prime time.