Some Apple Watch users are apparently confused over what types of exercise the wearable’s Workout app can track. Many people are using it to log weightlifting or stretching sessions, even though Apple only claims the app is suitable for “dedicated cardio workouts.”
Fortunately, a new breed of fitness apps is emerging that uses the accelerometer access enabled by the recently released watchOS 2 to track strength and flexibility workouts more effectively.
The best podcast app for iOS — Overcast — got a huge update today, and best of all, its creator has decided to drop the in-app purchases and make it completely free for everyone.
The popular Overcast 2.0 app now includes streaming, chapters, storage management smart speed and tons of other optimizations. Even though there aren’t any in-app purchases, creator Marco Arment has included a patronage option where customers can support the app with a small monthly donation.
With all the free new features, there’s really no reason not to use Overcast over Apple’s Podcast. One of the app’s best features is that it makes listening to podcasts a bit more social by allowing users to recommend podcast episodes to followers.
Here’s how to get the most out of Overcast recommendations:
The new Steve Jobs movie gets just about everything wrong, says the PR veteran who worked with the Apple CEO during the first Macintosh’s launch. From the situations to the dialogue, almost nothing’s accurate.
“How many things are not true in the movie?” laughed Silicon Valley PR vet Andrea “Andy” Cunningham during a phone interview with Cult of Mac. “Several hundred!”
But Cunningham said she loves the new Steve Jobs biopic anyway, because it captures the truth — a truthier truth.
Whether you like it or not, 2-in-1 tablets that turn into laptops are a thing. Microsoft’s Surface was one of the first to kick off this trend, and with the Surface Pro 4 that was announced this week, it is making the 2-in-1 an even more compelling device.
For the same price as an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, you can get a Surface Pro 4 with powerful notebook internals that runs desktop-class software when you need it. So, why wouldn’t you?
What makes the iPad Pro a better option? And did Apple miss a trick by not making the iPad Pro the ultimate 2-in-1 for iOS and OS X users?
Join us as we battle it out over these questions and more in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac!
DJI, which has taken our filmmaking aspirations airborne with its popular line of Phantom drones, has brought its tech genius back to Earth with a new handheld camera with three-axis gimbal stabilization.
The Osmo can record 4K video or 12-megapixel still images all atop a grip with built-in controls, a stereo microphone plus an audio jack for more sophisticated sound recording.
You’ve spared no expense in creating a smart home. You bought smart lightbulbs, a smart TV and smart appliances. All that’s missing is a device that makes you look smart when the electric bill comes in the mail.
The Agustsson brothers of Iceland may have figured out that part. They are the creators of Trinity, an affordable line of portable wind turbines, some of which can power the entire home.
We live in the future we all saw coming, one where the phrase ‘you have to use your hands?’ is said un-ironically. It’s the 21st century after all, why should we have to, you know, touch things to make them work? KOAR’s Bluetooth Cloud Buds are built for their time, a seamless hands-free way to listen to music and use your phone for just $24.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.
Steve Jobs writer Aaron Sorkin has been doing the media rounds as of late. Last night he appeared on Conan, where he made a kinda-sorta apology to Tim Cook for their recent falling-out — only to then turn around and joke about Apple hacking his personal files.
As you do.
Apple just announced record-breaking iPhone 6s sales, but according to a new report, the Mac may not be showing quite the same upward trajectory.
Research firms Gartner and IDC both claim Mac sales have slowed to their lowest rate since late 2013, although they disagree about the extent.
It happened again yesterday: My beautiful, coveted iPhone 6 Plus found itself airborne, tumbling through time and space. I think it knew where it was headed — I certainly did. I could hear the horrifying noise even before it happened. The inevitable bone-chilling sound of my iOS 9 goodness coming in Force Touch contact with the tile.
I do this often enough to know my cat is running short on lives. This time I lucked out again, but I know the shatter is inevitable. So I’ve turned to the grandfather of iPhone protection: Otter Box and its almost-bombproof Defender series.
The iPhone 6s and 6s went on sale in an additional 36 markets today, bringing the total number of countries where Apple’s latest handset is available to well over 40.
Check out the list of second-wave countries (and a few snaps of celebrating Apple fans) below.
After kicking off the “phablet” trend in 2011, the Galaxy Note series has become the bigger and better smartphone in Samsung’s lineup every year — and usually the best phablet on the market. But with this year’s Note 5, a lot has changed.
Samsung has snubbed a number of popular features to take a gamble on the new design language it first introduced with the Galaxy S6 earlier this year. It makes the Note 5 far prettier than its predecessors, but does it make for a better handset overall?
You bet your S Pen it does!
People who have been waiting to pick up their iPhone 6s or 6s Plus without a SIM card can start planning out their weekend — because Apple has just started offering unlocked, carrier-free, SIM-free versions of its next-gen iPhones direct from the Apple Store.
Elon Musk has hit out at Apple’s rumored electric car project, saying that it’s filling its ranks with second rank people — who Tesla has already tried out and then gotten rid of.
“They have hired people we’ve fired,” Musk told German newspaper Handelsblatt. “We always jokingly call Apple the ‘Tesla Graveyard.’ If you don’t make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I’m not kidding.”
If you’re confused about the so-called ‘Chipgate’ controversy swirling around the Internet today, we’re here to help.
It just wouldn’t be an iPhone launch without something going awry, and the latest outcry concerns the relative performances of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus’ A9 processors, especially their effects on the phones’ battery lives. And if that all sounds a bit technical and boring, it is. But it’s not too hard to understand.
The app that Chipgate made famous is returning to the App Store after a brief hiatus.
Developer Lirum Labs has told Cult of Mac that its diagnostic tool, that can tell people which A9 processor their iPhone 6s contains, is back by popular demand.
Heading to social media to vent about Chipgate, some iPhone 6s owners are upset to discover that not all A9 chips are created equal.
Worse, some feel duped by Apple, which used two vendors to supply different versions of the chips in “identical” phones. Others worry about reports of inferior battery life — and some are thinking seriously about returning their new iPhones. Still others are playing the latest Apple controversy for laughs.
The Chipgate controversy upsetting iPhone 6s owners over the past 48 hours is completely overblown, Apple said this afternoon, claiming battery life on iPhone 6s units varies only slightly.
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus owners have discovered that devices with a TSMC A9 chip get considerably better battery performance than ones sporting an A9 made by Samsung, based on GeekBench 3 scores and some real-world testing. However, Apple says that “manufactured lab tests” that continuously run a heavy workload don’t represent the iPhone 6s’ true capabilities.
Here’s Apple’s full statement on Chipgate:
Steve Wozniak lashes out at his Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, asking the Apple CEO what he actually does, in a just-released scene from the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic.
While the pair remained close friends until Jobs’ death in 2011, the scene shows the two meeting before the unveiling of the NeXT Computer. After confronting Jobs about his roll in creating computers, Woz warns Steve that he’s about to get killed for releasing the NeXT, which was marketed toward schools and students — but came with an ungodly $6,500 price tag.
Watch the heated exchange below:
Seriously, people, we have families to feed. Kittens to adopt. We need your ad impressions.
The new iOS content blockers, as well as traditional ad-blocking browser plugins, threaten the wallets of every ad-supported website, including Cult of Mac. Luckily, it’s easy to whitelist us (and any other sites you want to support). It’s incredibly easy to restore order to the online universe, whether you’re using an iPhone or a Mac.
AT&T finally activated Wi-Fi calling on its network, allowing iPhone users to seamlessly switch to their local wireless network to place calls when their LTE signal is weak.
Apple added WiFi Calling in iOS 8, but you probably haven’t had a chance to use it yet because the only carrier in the U.S. to support it has been T-Mobile. Now that the nation’s second-largest carrier is getting on board, more iPhone users than ever can take advantage of the feature to place calls anywhere in the United States, free of charge.
Here’s how to turn it on:
The cloud is a pleasant yet mysterious name for that place our pictures, videos, emails and other digital bits of life go to be stored. With our vibrant lives taking up all the storage on our devices, we are slowly warming to cloud-based services that promise to keep our stuff safe and accessible.
A company called MiMedia has designed a cloud service it hopes allays reluctance with a clean user interface, quick uploading and easy, private sharing. Best of all, it can immediately free up storage space on your phone.
iPhone 6s units with a TSMC A9 processor score two hours’ better battery life over those with Samsung chips in GeekBench test scores, but real-world gains of the “good” chip might be much less significant.
Several YouTubers have put the iPhone 6s TSMC and Samsung A9 chips to the test in real-world scenarios to get to the truth of Chipgate — and what they discovered was quite surprising.
OS X El Capitan has arrived, and it’s a free for most Mac users, making the decision to upgrade super-simple. Once you have it installed, there are some awesome new features you have to try out. See them all in action in our video tour below.
Not all iPhones 6s units are created equal, and yours just might have a weaker processor thanks to Samsung. Chipgate rocked the Internet with the revelation that Apple used two different suppliers for the A9 chips in its latest iPhones and one processor looks like a serious under-performer.
Even though Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s 14-nanometer A9 chips are bigger than Samsung’s 12-nanometer A9 chips, if you have an iPhone 6s with a TSMC chip, you might get an extra two hours of battery life on your device.
There’s no way to tell if you’re getting stuck with a Samsung A9 processor when you purchase your iPhone 6s in stores or online, but you can find out whether you got saddled with a crappier processor with some help from a couple of apps.
Here’s how to find the maker of the A9 processor in your iPhone 6s or 6s Plus:
