Cult of Mac

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.

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.

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 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.

Two more major U.K. banks have hopped on the Apple Pay bandwagon. Lloyds and Halifax are now supported by the service, bringing the total number of Apple Pay banking partners in the U.K. to an impressive 11.

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!

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.

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 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:

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 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.

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:

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:

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.”

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.

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.

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.

There’s been a disturbance in the Force: a free-to-play Star Wars game has arrived for iOS and Android, and it’s surprisingly damn good.

Star Wars: Uprising is the first video game that’s actually canon to the new Star Wars Universe, taking place between Return of the Jedi (VI) and the upcoming The Force Awakens (VII).

That alone merits a download, but once you start playing, you’ll find a really well-written storyline, some deep customization options, and an addictive gear collecting and upgrading system that will keep you going back for more. Check out the trailer below for some glorious Star Wars action.

Android Pay has begun rolling out to users with support at more than 1 million locations throughout the U.S.

The Apple Pay competitor, which was first unveiled at Google I/O back in May, is available on NFC-equipped smartphones running Android 4.4 KitKat and above, and it’s compatible with a whole host of banks and credit card providers.

Adding AppleCare+ coverage to your iPhone 6s is going to cost you a little more extra this year. Apple didn’t announce any pricing changes on stage at yesterday’s event, but the company did update its website to reflect the higher prices, and not only will iPhone 6s owners have to pay more to buy AppleCare+, they’ll also be charged more for service fees.

The Pokémon Company’s second smartphone game is going to bring your favorite pocket monsters to the real world for the first time.

Pokémon GO, which is coming to Android and iOS in 2016, is a location-based game that will let you find, fight, and catch Pokémon in the cities, towns, and neighborhoods around you like never before.

So you want to be a blogger. One way or another you’re going to have to reckon with the big cheese in blogging, WordPress. To get your arms around the subject, we’ve gathered a bundle of a dozen courses that cover the ins and outs of using the dominant platform in the blog-o-sphere, and the business of blogging itself. Even better, you can pay whatever you want for the whole shebang.

Apple fans can’t purchase the iPhone 6s, Apple TV, or iPad Pro that were unveiled yesterday, but if you’re lucky you can pick up the cheap gold Apple Watch Sport today, now that Apple Stores have received limited supplies of new units.

Cult of Mac got an early look at the new gold finish thanks to a reader who already scooped up a 42mm gold Apple Watch Sport at the Apple Store in Gilbert, Arizona, and while the new model is way cheaper than its expensive Edition sibling, it still looks like a million bucks.

Take a closer look:

T-Mobile sure wants to be your carrier for the new iPhone 6s.

Having previously introduced attention-grabbing offers like Apple Music streaming which doesn’t take a byte out of your monthly data allowance, the Uncannier is now offering customers the chance to get their hands on a 16GB iPhone 6s for $125 less than its normal sales price of $649.

And outspoken CEO John Legere wants to make sure you know T-Mobile coverage is better than ever, too.

While the just-released iOS 9.1. beta is light on major features, it does contain some big additions for the iPhone’s emoji keyboard.

Tons of new emoji were added in iOS 9.1 as part of the system’s update to Unicode 8.0 standards, which includes support for burrito, taco and unicorn pictograms. There’s also a stop hand, upside-down smiley face, a turkey, prayer beads, and much more.

Here’s a look at all the new emoji: