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Cult of Mac Magazine: Everything we know about Apple’s hot new gear

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So many great things!
So many great things!
Cover: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

If you missed Apple’s big event this past Wednesday, we’ve got you covered. All the details you need are here in one convenient digital magazine for your weekend reading pleasure. Want to know all about the new iPhone 6s? The new Apple TV? What about the iPad Pro with it’s new Apple Pencil?

It’s all here, so don’t be shy – download the latest issue of Cult of Mac Magazine right here and dive in to get the skinny on these exciting new products, plus much much more.

Activision commits to Apple TV with big console games

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Another plastic guitar, another rock star in the making.
Another plastic guitar, another rock star in the making.
Photo: Activision

One of the biggest video gaming companies ever has just affirmed its support for the new Apple TV, itself just revealed this week by Apple.

Activision wrote a blog post detailing the games it will bring Skylanders SuperChargers, Guitar Hero Live, and Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved to Apple TV, which shows a confidence in Apple’s ability to create yet another fantastic home for gaming as it did with iOS.

These aren’t casual like Crossy Road (though those types of games will do well on the big screen, too), but full console versions of popular titles.

This smart camera tells you when your idea is not original

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Sorry, no pictures here.
Sorry, no pictures here.
Photo: Phillipp Schmitt

Imagine pointing your lens at something and the camera not letting you take the picture because what you are looking at has been photographed too many times.

Copenhagen designer and artist Phillipp Schmitt has developed the Camera Restricta, a device that first tracks its own location and searches online for photos that have been geotagged for the area within the camera’s range.

Is iPhone 6s really worth the upgrade?

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iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s square off in this week's Friday Night Fight.
iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s square off in this week's Friday Night Fight.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

With Apple’s next-generation iPhones going on sale just after midnight PST, it’s time to decide whether you’re going to upgrade.

Friday-Night-Fights-bug-2The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are by far the biggest ‘S’ upgrades so far, with new 3D Touch displays, faster A9 processors, improved Touch ID, and the best iSight cameras yet. But are those things worth the upgrade fee?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over whether you should spend your hard-earned cash on iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.

iPhone 6s preorders begin: Here’s how to get what you want

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Pretty in pink. I mean Rose Gold.
Pretty in pink. I mean Rose Gold.
Photo: Apple

Preorders of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are set to open tonight at 12:01 a.m. Pacific. Apple’s certainly made a ton of improvements to the preorder process over the years, but as the Apple Watch recently taught us, taking an extra few minutes to get your preorder in could cause your shipment to be delayed.

Demand for the new iPhone 6s is expected to be greater than ever, so we’ve compiled a handy guide to help you get the iPhone you want and get back to sleep before Apple’s servers get absolutely crushed.

Here’s what to do:

The NFL can’t stop calling Microsoft Surface an iPad

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Patriots coach Bill Belichick on the sidelines with an 'iPad.'
Patriots coach Bill Belichick on the sidelines with an 'iPad.'
Photo: NBC

Microsoft is paying $400 million this season to make the Surface the official tablet of the NFL but the league’s announcers still can’t stop calling it an iPad.

The 2015 NFL season officially kicked off last night with the first game between the Steelers and the Patriots. After NBC returned from a commercial break, the network showed a shot of Belichick working with one of the many Microsoft Surface tablets that are provided on the sideline, only instead of talking up the league’s Microsoft partnership, announcer Al Michaels commented how Belichick was ‘on his iPad.”

Watch the clip below:

Golf gadget will show you the holes in your game

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Blast Golf Replay is a sensor on the club teamed with your iPhone to provide swing data flashed across a video replay.
Blast Golf Replay is a sensor on the club teamed with your iPhone to provide swing data flashed across a video replay.
Photo: Blast Motion

The golf industry is loaded with gadgets that promise to make your drive explode off the tee and turn bogeys into birdies. And there are plenty of golfers who pay handsomely for these promises in hopes of shaving a stroke or two off their average.

Most get suckered.

But a tiny device by Blast Motion, coupled with the iPhone, is slowly gaining approval among golf’s teaching professionals. It makes no promises, but it does provide numbers and video proof to support what your teacher’s been telling you all along – your game’s got problems.

Own the camera that fired the first shot in a photographic revolution [Deals]

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The 1st generation Lytro set the stage for the light field revolution in consumer photography.
The 1st generation Lytro set the stage for the light field revolution in consumer photography.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Consumer light-field cameras are changing how we think about photography, by creating images that seem less like static shots and more like dynamic moments. The Lytro started it all, a compact camera that marks a huge advancement in consumer photography. Now it can be yours for a drastic 59% off, just $79.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Why 6s is truly the best ‘s’ iPhone yet, this week on The CultCast

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"3D Touch is something we’ve been working on for a long time—multi, multi, multi years.” — Jony Ive
Photo: Apple

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Our reactions and impressions of all the gadgets unleashed at Apple’s media extravaganza! Plus: Why the 6s is the best “s” yet; a look into Apple’s efforts to architect the 6s’ new 3D Touch technology; why the Apple Pencil is not a stylus; and so. much. MORE…

Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. Build a beautiful website quick at Squarespace.com, and enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10 percent off.

Siri slaps down reporter at White House press briefing

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Siri will answer your trivia.
Hey, Siri, give us a hint about the Iran nuclear agreement.
Photo: Apple

Siri has been involved with some pretty memorable moments as of late, whether it’s saving the life of a teenager stuck under a truck, or asserting itself as the new voice interface for Apple TV.

Now you can add shutting down questions about Barack Obama’s Iran policy to the list!

Check out the hilarious video below.

Jony Ive denies that Apple is turning into a luxury company

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Hermes Apple Watch bands are now available on their own.
Apple couldn't wait to hop into bed with French luxury house Hermès.
Photo: Apple

Jony Ive sure loves his designer goods, but don’t suggest to him that products like the new high-end Apple Watch Hermès are turning Apple into a luxury company.

“We don’t think in those terms,” Ive says in a new interview. “I’m not comfortable with words like exclusive.”

This from the guy who made a $17,000 smartwatch!

The Apple announcements that really got our hearts pumping

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If you look closely you can actually pinpoint the exact moment the Apple Watch heart rate monitor stops working.
You can actually pinpoint the second when Apple announced a stylus.
Photo: The Simpsons, Twentieth Century Fox

We’ve seen Wednesday’s Apple keynote dissected every which way, but how about analyzing the moments where viewers’ heart rates jumped at the latest news from the Good Ship Cupertino?

That’s what the developers and beta testers of heart-monitoring Apple Watch app Cardiogram did, as they set their devices to workout mode for the anticipated event to find out what really tugged at their heart strings.

The results are … interesting.

Live Photos are great — just not for 16GB iPhones

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iPhone 6s has Live Photos.
Live Photos consume twice the space of regular iPhone pics.
Photo: Apple

When Phil Schiller introduced the iPhone 6s’ new Live Photos, he noted that Apple had implemented it, “in a space-efficient way, so they don’t take up much more room.”

In fact, according to a new report, Live Photos take up around 2x the space of a regular still photo. That’s still an impressive bit of compression on Apple’s part, but also likely to make life a bit tougher for those planning to buy the entry-level 16GB iPhone 6s.

Apple’s iPhone 6s keynote is even more magical as a musical

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Tim cook
Just when you thought Apple's keynote couldn't get any more memorable.
Photo: Apple

Apple’s keynotes typically give you plenty worth singing about, and for “Song-A-Day” YouTuber Jonathan Mann, that’s reason enough to bust out new tunes.

Mann, whose catchy jingles once made Steve Jobs dance, always puts together a musical remix following Apple events, and this week’s jam-packed keynote is no exception.

If you don’t have time to sit through the entire 2-hour-plus event, or simply want to relive the most memorable lines with a catchy electronic backing, this is the video for you. Check it out below:

Bill Graham Civic hosted Apple’s biggest hyperbole-fest ever

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The iPhone 6s Plus might be hard to find on launch day.
All Apple's saying is that the iPhone 6s will be the most amazing, dynamic, life-changing thing you've ever seen.
Photo: Apple

We get that yesterday’s Apple event was a marketing thing, which is why every presentation began with whoever was onstage telling us how “thrilled,” “excited” or “really happy” they were to be there. And the exaggeration just continued from those intros.

Here are some of the most outlandish and enthusiastically subjective lines that came from the stage at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. We’ve organized them by speaker so you can see who “won” this verbal arms race of canned excitement.

Former NBA player uses all 5 fingers to palm Apple products

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Rex Chapman stole a lot of Apple gear to pay for his addiction.
Rex Chapman stole a lot of Apple gear to pay for his addiction.
Photo: Mark Cornelison/Lexington Leader-Herald

Former NBA player Rex Chapman pleaded guilty to four counts of felony theft this week. He was arrested for not only stealing over $15,000 worth of Apple gear from the store in Scottsdale, Arizona, but also for selling it at local pawn shops.

Chapman allegedly pretended to use the Apple Store’s self-checkout system, leaving without actually paying for the items.

Why Apple Pencil blows away Wacom Cintiq

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The Apple Pencil makes drawing on an iPad Pro incredibly precise.
The Apple Pencil makes drawing on an iPad Pro incredibly precise.
Photo: Apple

This is a guest post by Linda Dong, a graphics expert and former designer at Apple. It originally appeared on her personal website.

A lot of hesitation (or dismissal) of the new Apple Pencil seems to stem from people’s belief that the Wacom Cintiq, currently regarded as the pinnacle of professional drawing stylus/surface design, is superior in performance and design at a similar price.

😩 *sigh*

Quite plainly, the Cintiq sucks in comparison. And I’ve been using them for years for industrial design sketching, UI and art. Let’s compare the experience:

Latest Apple fashion? Cool Siri-themed fingernails

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Apple senior design producer Jen Folse talks about the changes to Apple TV.
Apple senior design producer Jen Folse talks about the changes to Apple TV.
Photo: Apple

Jen Folse used the Apple stage Wednesday to tell the world about Apple TV. She used her nails to express her loyalty to the company.

If you got close enough to Apple’s lone female staffer to present at the company’s fall product event Wednesday, you could see the wavy lines of blue, pink, red, yellow and white on her nails painted to look like Siri’s Apple Watch interface. Those same colors were also used in official promotions of the fall showcase.

Have a look:

Are Apple’s Live Photos a gimmick or a game-changer?

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Live Photos bring a little life to your still images.
Live Photos bring a little life to your still images.
Photo: Apple

A few extra megapixels is always welcome, but if there is one feature of the new iPhone 6s camera that gets us to say “Wow,” it is Live Photos.

The new Live Photos technology actually captures a brief moment before and after your snap, giving the subject in a finished picture motion and a bit of life. After seeing it for the first time, some said, “Wow, that’s cool!” And others said, “Wow, that’s nothing new.”

Conquer YouTube (and win $10,000) with LG’s Dream Setup competition

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LG is offering $10,000 and a chance for budding vloggers to build the computer rig they've always wanted as part of its Dream Setup competition.
LG is offering $10,000 and a chance for budding vloggers to build the computer rig they've always wanted as part of its Dream Setup competition.
Photo: LG

This post is brought to you by LG Electronics.

Since the dawn of YouTube, anyone with a webcam and something to say has had a chance to become a bona fide superstar.

A huge portion of the vlogging celebrities on the Tube make their name and fame by reviewing technology or games — searching “let’s play,” the genre of YouTube videos in which vloggers entertain viewers by getting way into playing video games, yields some 7 million hits. “Unboxing” — literally videos of someone unboxing some new toy or gadget — pulls up more than 20 million.

Samsung and Sony take jealous stabs at Apple

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Apple's back on top again.
Apple's back on top again.
Photo: Apple
Tim Cook doesn't care. Photo: Apple
Tim Cook doesn’t care. Photo: Apple

Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.

Apple was reminded of this after its keynote on Wednesday when rivals Samsung and Sony took to Twitter to mock the length of its presentation — and its new iPhone 6s.

Creepy soundboard turns Jony Ive into your puppet

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Ever want to control Jony Ive? Now you can.
Ever want to control Jony Ive? Now you can.
Photo: Jony Jive

Jony Ive has one of the coolest, most suave voices among Apple’s executive leadership team. I could listen to him pronounce “aluminium” and “metallurgists” all day. Now, thanks to a creepy new soundboard, you can make Apple’s chief design officer say pretty much anything you want.