With its pro-privacy stance, Apple’s pretty good at treading the line between usefulness and creepiness, which other tech companies can struggle with.

A newly-published patent, however, may challenge that assertion — describing a method for monitoring another person’s location, via their iPhone, with constant user notifications sent to alert you of any changes in their progress along a route.

Presumably so you can hop in a chair, grab a white cat for your lap, and sit facing the door to greet their arrival with the line, “Mr. Bond, I’ve been expecting you.”

I’m a big fan of getting instructions off the internet: recipes, directions on car maintenance, or video game walkthroughs, for example. The problem is that you need to be online to view them.

Now in iOS 9, however, there’s a way to save web pages to a handy, offline-friendly PDF file. The next time you’re flying on an airplane and trying to get through Broken Age with a walkthrough, you’ll be in luck.

Here’s how to convert any webpage in iOS 9’s mobile Safari to a PDF and then read it in (or send it from) iBooks.

Android Pay, the newest kid on the block in mobile phone payments, has found a way to get people using their smartphones to pay for goods and services: loyalty reward systems.

Like similar retail, grocery and airline programs, Android Pay will soon include points for specific purchases to encourage us all to use our smartphones more and more to pay for the stuff we already buy.

Coke is the first program up, according to Google exec Sridhar Ramaswamy, with points to earn each time you use Android Pay to buy a Coke through any one of some 20,000 NFC-enabled Coca-Cola vending machines. You’ll get points that will let you get free Coke, Coca-Cola gets to know where and when people are buying its products and Google gets people to use Android Pay. It’s win-win-win.

A recent study that measured the brain activity of people using the Apple Watch suggests that even the most skeptical of users came to like the wearable after some hands-on time with it.

The findings come from “neuromarketing” group eMerite, which connected electroencephalograms to 20 people and studied their reactions as they tried out different functions of Apple’s smartwatch.

Microsoft officially opened its flagship store on NYC’s historic Fifth Avenue today just blocks away from Apple’s iconic glass cube, and it’s taken a few pages from the iPhone-maker’s playbook in the process.

The doors to Microsoft’s new store opened just in time for the release of the new Surface Book and Surface Pro 4, but Microsoft says it’s totally cool if Apple fans bring in their devices too.

“If you bring your iPhone in here, I’d love to show you how to use Office on it,” said Kelly Soligon, senior director of retail stores marketing at Microsoft. There are signs of Apple’s influence throughout the store through, from the giant glass facade to the glass staircase.

Take a look inside:

You’ve got an idea for a shot with your GoPro camera. But you don’t have the right mount, or the tripod you carry won’t go low enough or fit in a space with that great angle.

Photographer Ruogo Zhou has designed a hunk of plastic that cradles the GoPro and provides it 20 different angles for shooting. It’s a small polyhedron support that can fit in tiny spaces and it goes by the name SLOPES.

If you want Siri to tell you everything there is to know about music you might need an Apple Music subscription to get the right answers.

The three-month trial period for Apple Music has finally ended, and it appears that not signing up for the monthly service may cost you a bit of Siri functionality.

My female friends who are photographers bristle when you bring up the idea of a camera bag being designed for women. The few women’s camera bags they’ve seen have tended to be cutesy – and cutesy doesn’t cut it.

They want the same things in a bag as the men – roomy, stealthy and sturdy. Why should gender matter in the design?

ThinkTank, an industry leader in camera bags for every kind of photography, may have found the right combination of aesthetic and function in a new line of bags created for women.

A memory chip that originated from the first digital computer on a manned space flight will be up for auction next month in Dallas. For those calling in a bid, the smartphone in their hand has more than 250 million times the capacity of this chip.

The onboard computer for Gemini 3 aided astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young with several phases of their March 1965 mission, including prelaunch and re-entry. The 4.25-inch chip, a Random Access Non-Destruction Readout Memory Plane contains 4,096 bits of information, equal to about half of a K.

Although Apple hasn’t confirmed it, there have been rumblings that the new iPhone 6s is more water-resistant than its predecessors. So what better way to make a viral stress test video than to strap every iPhone ever made on a board, lower them into a tray of water, and observe the order in which they stop working?

Done properly, such a concept should let its creator sit back and watch the retirement fund ad revenue roll in. Well, done properly it might. Done incredibly haphazardly, on what looks like the world’s most buoyant piece of wood, it’s not quite such a winner.

Check it out below.

Getflix: Lifetime Subscription – 88% off
Traveling shouldn’t mean leaving your favorite TV shows and movies behind. While Netflix, Hulu and other streaming services are shut off to anyone traveling outside the US without a tricky VPN or server masking arrangement, Getflix strategically channels traffic using Smart DNS in order to unblock 100 streaming channels. It works on any device without having to install special software, and offers an optional VPN account to add a layer of encryption to your online activity.

Bring your entertainment wherever your travels take you for just $39.

The latest entry to the Beats line of speakers and the first one under Apple’s supervision, the Beats Pill+ is now available. At $229, it’s $30 more expensive than its predecessor, the Beats Pill 2.0, but it has much more to offer. This Bluetooth speaker apparently has improved sound quality, a tweaked design, and unsurprisingly charges via Lightning cable.

Apple Watch is by far the most successful smartwatch to date in terms of sales, so perhaps it’s no surprise that Apple has been voted the “coolest wearables brand” by smartphone users.

The Cupertino company not only beat technology rivals like Samsung and LG to the top of the list, but also high-end watchmakers and fashion brands like TAG Heuer, Rolex, and Ralph Lauren.

Apple is set to open its debut brick-and-mortar retail store in Singapore, according to a message sent out by health and exercise chain Pure Fitness.

In a message directed at patrons, Pure Fitness revealed that it is one of several tenants closing their premises in Singapore’s upscale retail building Knightsbridge, “to make way for the opening of Singapore’s first Apple store [sic] later in 2016.”

Apple has just made its new Apple TV refresh available for pre-order from its online store in 80 countries — with orders with one day shipping set to ship from October 30.

What a way to kick start the week!

Here’s a use for your iPhone 6s’ 3D Touch feature you may not have thought of before: acting as a set of mini kitchen scales.

That’s not exactly how FlexMonkey’s Plum-O-Meter app works, but it’s a pretty neat demo of how Apple’s pressure-sensing handset can be used to weigh small objects, such as plums. Check out the juicy video below.

Steve Jobs had his toughest two days at the box office this weekend since the real Jobs launched the poor-selling Power Mac G4 Cube.

The long-awaited Aaron Sorkin biopic turned to not be that eagerly-anticipated after all, since it limped to a disappointing $7.3 million on its first weekend of wide release.

Apple debuted three new iPhone 6s ads over the weekend, showcasing not only the new features of Apple’s latest handset, but also its impressive ability to rope in A-list stars to help sell its products.

Two of the ads, “Flip a Coin” and “Crush,” feature Django Unchained star Jamie Foxx, while the third, “The Camera” boasts NBA MVP Steph Curry. Check them out below.

It’s emoji time, thanks to fresh iOS 9 and OS X updates that bring a ton of new pictograms to the Apple universe. In this week’s edition of Cult of Mac Magazine, we’ve got great emoji how-tos, Apple news, and product reviews, plus the story of a Mac developer who schemed up a brilliant way of battling software pirates, Klingon-style.

All this and more awaits you in Cult of Mac Magazine – be sure to download our fantastic app today.

Here are this week’s top stories.

In an age of increasing specialization, stepping up a career means showing certification. That’s especially true in the realm of information technology, and the CompTIA certification is one of the most widely recognized in the business. This CompTIA A+ test prep bundle and will make sure you’re ready to knock it out of the park. Normally going for thousands of dollars, right now you can get access to it for just $59.

The weekend’s already half way over but, fear not, Cult of Mac is here to fill you in on the week’s best apps.

In addition to great gadget-hunting and photo sharing apps, we’ve picked out some great games from the past seven days. Check out our suggestions below. You won’t regret it!

This week on The CultCast: our hands-on first impressions of the new Apple TV! Plus: the new and notable in OS X 10.11.1 and iOS 9.1. And if you want to hear why a half-cyborg Woz might one day lead the AI armies of Armageddon, stick around till the end for an all new (and totally ridiculous) Get To Know Your Cultist, #FutureDay edition. Because quite frankly, your life might. Just. DEPEND on it…

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% off.

It’s white, cylindrical, has a spinning head and is full of electrical connectors. It’s not Luke Skywalker’s trusty robotic assistant, but the Twist Plus+ World Charging Station could be yours with its ability to charge five devices simultaneously and through outlets anywhere in the world. It’s a game-changer for the international traveler or anyone who travels with more than one mobile device, and right now you can get one for just $34.99.

After six months of trying to log my runs with my Apple Watch, I finally gave up and bought a dedicated GPS running watch.

There’s a lot to like about Apple’s new wearable. The Activity app, for example, is brilliant at helping people lose weight. But the truth is, as a running watch, it sucks.

Just a few short weeks after Twitter launched Moments, it’s already gearing up to start the monetization process. Promoted Moments will have brands curate some of their favorite tweets from around the service relevant to the promotion and pack them neatly in Twitter’s newest feature.