The first beta for iOS 9.2 was seeded to developers earlier this week, but public testers can get in on the action as well now that Apple has made the latest build available to the public.
Steven Jobs and the introduction of the iMac. Photo: QuartSoft
So maybe fans and friends of Steve Jobs think the Aaron Sorkin film was a bit of a hatchet job on the late mercurial genius who started Apple.
An IT company in the Ukraine called QuartSoft released an animated biography of Jobs this week as a way to thank him “for letting us enjoy the perfection of the products you created.”
Apple TV 4 brings iOS apps to the big screen. Photo: Apple
When Apple TV units finally ship tomorrow, they will bring iOS apps to the big screen for the first time.
Some of the best apps from your iPhone are making the jump, including Periscope, Zillow and Airbnb. And of course all the old Apple TV apps like Netflix, HBO Now, Hulu and Showtime will still be available.
Now that the new Apple TV’s arrival is imminent, developers are ready to flood the device with a tons of apps focusing on everything from cooking and exercising to gaming and news.
Put your Apple Watch inside an Epik case and it'll be protected (and super-sized.) Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
Best List: Epik Apple Watch case by Lunatik
There are times you want to protect your precious Apple Watch from the extreme abuse you put it through each day — welding, chopping down trees, building your own car, the usual — and there are times you want to make a fashion statement that’s larger than life.
Lunatik’s Epik aluminum Apple Watch case and watchband combo can do both those things for you. The outsize aluminum case bolts around your Apple Watch, and the seriously metal link watch band will make you the envy of every other badass.
This 8-course bundle of lessons covers all the essentials of Adobe Photoshop, one of the most widely used applications in visual media. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
Knowledge of Photoshop is one of the most commonly sought skills in digital media, but let’s face it — Adobe’s powerful industry standard image editing software can be a bit intimidating. That is, until you get a grip on the basics of how it works, which is exactly what the ‘Train Simple’ Adobe Photoshop Bundle offers. Over the course of 8 lessons, you’ll get a stem-to-stern tour of the concepts, functions and tools of Photoshop. It’s a deal that’s back by popular demand for a limited time and for just $55 at Cult of Mac Deals.
Could Apple TV make television more like Periscope? Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
Apps on Apple TV could allow for Periscope-style feedback to live broadcasts, says Apple Senior VP Eddy Cue in a new interview with CNNMoney‘s Brian Stelter.
That’s one of the most fascinating points raised in a short conversation about Apple’s streaming set-top box ambitions, which also touches on a number of other topics — including Apple’s plans to make original Netflix-style content for Apple TV.
Siri will soon let you search Apple Music. Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
Apple TV’s Siri-enabled universal search feature is set to come to Apple Music early next year, Apple has confirmed.
The feature means that Apple TV users will be able to request to find songs, artists or albums in the way that they can currently find movies or TV shows.
"Hey, Siri? Will people hate me if I go to the party as 'Sexy Immortan Joe'?" Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Siri has a few extremely scientific and mathematical costume suggestions for Saturday’s festivities, but good luck figuring out how to implement most of them.
You can get prompts from Apple’s digital assistant by asking, “What should I be for Halloween?” to your favorite iOS device. Siri’s ideas aren’t bad if you can find a way to make them work. Check out a few of them below, which we captured from an Apple Watch.
The Apple Watch isn't a bad little earner for Cupertino. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
When it comes to revealing Apple Watch sales figures, Apple has kept its lips more tightly sealed than a swimmer in a sewage tank.
One of the ways it’s done this is hiding the Apple Watch numbers under the “other products” category in its SEC filings — alongside the iPod, Apple TV, Beats Electronics, and assorted accessories.
That doesn’t mean we can’t gauge something from looking at Apple’s new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents, though. And despite keeping hush-hush about it, it seems the Apple Watch isn’t doing too badly for Apple at all.
Apple TV owners in the U.K. will soon be able to enjoy BBC iPlayer. Photo: BBC
The BBC has confirmed that its on-demand “catch-up” iPlayer service is coming to the new Apple TV for the first time.
Despite being available on other platforms including Roku, Google Chromecast, Amazon’s Fire TV, Sky’s Now TV and various video game consoles, iPlayer has not previously been available through Apple TV — although it was possible to use the BBC’s free iPlayer app for the iPad or iPhone via Airplay.
Adele's management are looking for $30 million from Apple. Photo: XL Recordings
It’s been years since Apple got rid of CD drives in Macs, but apparently Adele didn’t get the memo. That’s all we can conclude from a new report, claiming that the team behind the gazillion album-selling songstress tried — and failed — to persuade Apple to sell physical CD copies of her upcoming album, 25, in Apple Stores.
Because, you know, it’s not like the company has a new streaming music service it’s focused on selling people on or anything!
Nintendo's first mobile game has not a Mario in sight.
At an investor briefing in Tokyo this evening, console maker and developer Nintendo unveiled the first of its proposed five smartphone games it will make with mobile giant DeNA between now and March 2017. And it’s not the most exciting news for long-time fans of the Wii U company’s library.
The title, called Miitomo will be a free-to-play title that lets your cartoonish “Mii” avatar talk to your friends — often without your knowledge.
Nintendo Account doesn't have much of a ring to it, but this is big news. Photo: Takashi Mochizuki/Twitter
At a strategic briefing for investors today in Tokyo, Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima took to the podium to talk about the game-maker’s plans for the near future, including, we hope, information on the venerable company’s foray into mobile gaming on iPhones, iPads, and possibly Android devices.
The new service — blandly called “Nintendo Account” — will connect console, PC, and smart device users in a way that has never been seen before in Nintendo’s history.
The new Apple TV brings powerful new features. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
The new Apple TV looks like the old one, but it’s a complete overhaul of the little black puck. It now comes with a full-blown App Store, a touch-sensitive remote and voice controls via Siri.
We got our hands on a developer model and have been playing around with it. We like it a lot. Setup is fun, the interface looks stunning, and the touch remote works beautifully. If the Music app is any indication, apps on this thing are going to be great. There’s just one little thing wrong. And it’s not little, actually. It’s big.
Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly about the 4th-generation Apple TV.
iOS 9 is on a huge number of Apple's mobile devices. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
Whereas most websites these days — Cult of Mac included — are responsive to whatever device you’re browsing on, there are still a few websites out there that will serve you a special mobile version when you head there on your iPhone.
Unfortunately, sometimes the functionality of the full desktop version of the website is missing from the mobile version. When that happens, you can use the iOS 9 version of Safari to get the full desktop versions even when the web developers don’t provide a link to do so.
Media card slots and three A-type USB ports make Satechi's Type-C Hub Adapter a workhorse. Photo: Satechi
Pulling the plug and getting the new MacBook with its single USB-C port doesn’t mean pulling the plugs on your peripherals. Plenty of companies, Apple included, offer adapters.
But one of the most versatile and elegant adapters arrived Wednesday from Satechi. Its hub adapter offers three A-type USB ports, an SD card slot and a micro SD card slot, allowing a user to seamlessly carry on.
U2's VR music video feels like Bono is singing right at you.
Photo: VRSE
Apple and U2 have gotten together again to promote their greatness, only instead of force feeding you an album you don’t want, this time the duo is diving into virtual reality for the band’s new video for “Song for Someone.”
YouTube Red, the new subscription service that lets you enjoy the latest content from your favorite YouTube channels without ads, is now live in the United States.
Priced at $9.99 — and bundled with Google Play Music — Red also lets you play YouTube content in the background on your mobile devices, and download videos for offline viewing.
Microsoft has a new outlook on its email and calendar app. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of MacMicrosoft has a new outlook on its email and calendar app. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android
Microsoft is merging two of its most popular mobile apps into one: Outlook email and Sunrise calendar. Outlook has always been a favorite among email users while Sunrise rose to fame for being both free and feature-packed. Combined as one, Microsoft is hoping the move enables users to more seamlessly glide between emailing and calendar tasks.
The result isn’t really a huge departure from what Microsoft currently offers in Outlook, since Outlook already has your calendars built in. Instead, it’s more about refining navigation within the app while additionally bringing in some features from Sunrise.
The biggest change is that the sun is setting on Sunrise. After Microsoft bought the calendar app just this year, the company is already pulling the plug on it.
Snapchat just took the game to a new level. Photo: Snapchat
Videos on Snapchat are getting some new special effects today with a big update that adds ‘speed modifiers’ to the app’s toolset on both iOS and Android.
The new speed modifiers are basically video filters that allow snappers to add slo-mo, fast-forward, or rewind effects to a video. If you’re on an iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus the update is even better, bringing 3D Touch support to the app for the first time.
With the UE Boom 2, Ultimate Ears makes a great speaker even better. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Best List: UE Boom 2 by Ultimate Ears
We loved the original UE Boom and the new 2.0 version is even better. The UE Boom 2 is stain-resistant, stylish, shock-resistant and completely waterproof. We’re not sure who is trying to listen to their tunes underwater, but if that’s your jam … you are good to go.
Chinese smartphone maker Huawei is on the rise. Photo: AndroidCentral
Chinese smartphone maker Huawei has had a couple of good months as it aims to shed its image as a manufacturer of cheap devices. It released a new and now popular premium phone in September, surpassed rival Xiaomi in sales in their home market and, like Apple, had a glowing Q3 earnings report.
And with Apple boasting of rapid growth in China, Huawei answers the challenge by hiring Apple’s former creative director, Abigail Brody, to be the company’s chief user experience designer.
Apple's new campus is all about cross-pollination between departments. Photo: Apple
Steve Jobs was a big believer in great ideas coming from serendipitous interactions. So it’s no surprise that this concept was a central part of the design brief for Apple’s forthcoming “Spaceship” campus — one of the last projects Steve was actively involved with at Apple.
In a new (rare) interview with Phil Schiller, Apple’s Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing talks about the importance of collaboration, and how Apple’s new 13,000-person campus will help further that goal, despite its massive size.
It just got much harder to turn down an LTE-enabled iPad. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
If you’ve been weighing the pros and cons of splurging on a new iPad, T-Mobile now has one more pro to add to your list. Through its Jump on Demand program, customers can get a 16GB iPad Air 2 or iPad mini 4 for $0 down. The iPad Air 2 will cost $26 per month after that and the iPad mini 4 will cost $22 per month. Additionally, the program allows you to upgrade your tablet up to three times per year.
Enter for a chance to win a trip around the globe, a conversation with travel expert Tim Ferriss, and seven of the top gadgets for travel. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
There’s traveling and then there’s traveling smart, and few are smarter about travel than Tim Ferriss. Star of The Tim Ferriss Experiment is and author of #1 New York Times bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek, he’s made a living out of helping people travel better and more effectively. The Round-the-World Giveaway gives you a chance to hang out with Ferriss and travel the globe with a big bag full of world-class gadgets. It’s a package worth thousands of dollars, but here’s the clincher: entry is totally free.