Cult of Mac

Apple rolls out new products next week at the annual fall reveal, but you can’t stop thinking about the Apple IIc from 1984.

Self-taught hardware hacker and 3D printer Charles Mangin feels you. So much so that Mangin, of Raleigh, NC., creates tiny versions of classic Apple computers that encase the Raspberry Pi computers. He has even made a classic Mac that serves as a working charging dock for the iPod Nano and an SD card reader that looks an old Apple disk drive.

Traveling usually comes with anxiety over either not having access to a wall socket for all your devices, or having the wrong one for the country you’re in. Consider that problem solved with the Twist+ World Charging Station, a compact charging hub that makes sure no matter where you go, you’ve got a place to plug in all your devices. It’s a game-changer for convenience, and it’s going for just $34.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Have a spare $3,900 lying around to spend on the Apple fan in your life? If so, you could do a lot worse than splashing out on twin mice, still in their packaging, signed by none other than Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Wozniak.

Apple is bringing some big upgrades to the iPhone 6s FaceTime camera according to a new report from one of the most respected Apple analysts on the planet.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo issued a note to investors this morning, claiming the new iPhone 6s will add a much improved 5 megapixel camera sensor to the FaceTime camera, making it it the best selfie machine Apple has ever made.

In a rare showing, Apple has acknowledged that there is still “a bit of homework to be done” when it comes to improving one of its products — in this case, Apple Music.

The company’s streaming music service has seen mixed success since its launch back in June, with reports of falling listenership and even a public slating from a well-known pro-Apple pundit.

Recently Apple Music’s senior director upped and left the company, with no word on whether it was his or Apple’s decision to step down.

The editing on Star Wars: The Force Awakens isn’t finished yet but one of the characters already promises to be the hot toy of the Christmas season.

BB-8, the roly-poly little droid seen spinning across the screen in trailers for the highly anticipated movie, is now an app-controlled toy with an adaptive personality that responds to voice commands.

Skype is today rolling out major updates to its Android and iOS apps that bring a brand new look and a bunch of new features. Users on Android can look forward to enhanced search and improved messaging, while those with an iPad can expect to see all the features they’re used to on iPhone.

Apple just keeps trying to crack the lucrative nut known as your living room. From a gimmicky Macintosh TV in the 1990s to a “hobby” Apple TV in the mid-2000s, Cupertino keeps trying to come up with ultimate digital hub for our homes.

So far, Apple has failed to deliver a magical device that will tame all our televisions. Here’s a brief history of Apple’s TV efforts — a two-decade push aimed at ensconcing an Apple machine at the center of our domestic universe — ahead of next week’s likely Apple TV refresh.

The long-running Silicon Valley antitrust case that saw Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe accused of conspiring to suppress worker salaries has finally come to an end.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh gave final approval to a $415 million settlement in a ruling on Wednesday. This is an increase of around $90 million on the $324.5 million settlement rejected last year, but far below the $3 billion that plaintiff Michael Devine had asked for in a letter written to Koh in 2014.

If the rumor mill has it right, new iPhones are right around the corner. But that doesn’t mean you should relegate your current model to the junk drawer once you trade up: You can turn your old iPhone into money in one of several ways.

Despite a slowdown in China’s smartphone market, Apple is reportedly increasing orders of the iPhone 6s ahead of its launch, according to Japan Display CEO Mitsuru Homma.

“They’re coming to us with more orders, saying ‘give us more, give us more’. They keep increasing,” Homma said.

Apple’s App Store policing is being called into question again after the company rejected a Cecil the Lion-inspired game in which animals turn guns on poachers.

Cecil’s Revenge features a safari truck of cheerful-looking wildlife firing at various caricatures of hunters, ranging from old-timey colonialists with rifles to cartoon Africans with guns.

Given Netflix’s success in the area, it would be fair to say that most people are excited about the possibility that Apple may be entering the original programming arena.

However, according to a new report citing industry insiders, Apple could wait quite a while before launching into its latest venture.

A connected home security system that you can run right from your iPhone sounds like a fantastic idea. But which system should you pick up?

We’ve taken a look at the Skylink Alarm System Starter Kit to see what it can do. It includes a security hub, various window and door sensors, and a slick Wi-Fi-connected camera that you can set up and use from your iPhone no matter where you are in the world.

Check out our fun video review of this iOS-controlled home security system below.

Apple is still being pretty cagey about exactly how many Apple Watches it has sold since the wearable premiered in April, but a new report suggests that the device is doing just fine in the all-important Chinese market.

Shanghai-based research company RedTech Advisors estimates that China has more than 1 million Apple Watches in use, and it reached this number in a mere 17 weeks.

We’ve all been using a passcode to secure our iPhones and iPads since forever, right? You’ve had the option to use an alphanumeric passcode since iOS 7, but if you chose to use a simple numeric code, you were limited to four digits.

Not anymore! Apple added the ability to use a six-digit passcode in iOS 9, and this quick settings tweak will make your iPhone or iPad far more secure.

The Chemical Brothers and the Weeknd will headline this year’s Apple Music Festival according to an announcement made today by the company on Twitter. The festival was revealed last month but Apple has only given us a few hints about who’s going to take the stage until today when Leon Bridges was also revealed to be one of the acts headlining the 10 day event.

We’re hearing some rumblings and grumblings that Apple might start producing original content to go along with an updated version of its Apple TV streaming box, and do you know who isn’t worried about it? Netflix.

Reed Hastings, CEO of the giant streaming service, spoke to CNN to discuss his company’s new availability in Japan and its future plans to expand into all of Asia, and he could not have sounded less concerned when the interviewer asked about the rumors of the Cupertino company getting into content creation.

History is full of DIY flying machines, including the occasional Joe who ties a bunch of helium balloons to his lawn chair.

So it was only a matter of time before someone would figure out the number of drone propellers it would take to put a man in the air The answer is 54.

A British man may have made the first manned drone flight, if there can be such a category, when he fastened a 54 rotors from quadcopters to make a personal helicopter he dubbed the Swarm.

I’m just about tired enough of my green Apple Watch Sport band to be ready for a new color soon.

Lucky for me (and probably the rest of you who feel the same way), the latest rumor out of the blogosphere is that Apple will announce new colors at the September 9 event at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium next week.

Amazon’s Wi-Fi enabled Dash buttons are finally here, turning your home into a veritable vending machine for essential home items like laundry soap, pet food, paper towels, and more.

Better yet, when you order one — each costs about $5 — you’ll get your five bucks back the first time you use it to purchase an item from Amazon, making the buttons essentially free.

More and more these days, mobile websites will pop up a prompt to download an app associated with the site. This “app install interstitial” hides most of the actual web page and bugs users to essentially stop browsing the web and head to an app store and install an app. App install prompts suck.

“Our analysis shows that it is not a good search experience,” Google asserts in a new blog post, “and can be frustrating for users because they are expecting to see the content of the web page.”

As of Tuesday, web masters can use Google’s updated Mobile-Friendly Test page or Google’s mobile usability tools to find out if they have any offending pages.

The NFL’s 2015 season is set to kick off next week and to provide more coverage than ever of this year’s gridiron action, CBS announced that it will stream two regular season games, four playoff games and the Super Bowl 50 to Apple TV for free

The Polaroid Snap is a new 10-megapixel camera that instantly prints out photos you take without any ink. It works with ZINK paper that produces 2-inch-by-3-inch prints and essentially lets you keep physical copies of photos you’d put on Instagram and probably quickly forget about.

Believe it or not, it’s also pretty affordable.