I’m always on the lookout for a better, more efficient, useful and stylish bag to carry my MacBook Pro, iPad 3, and various electronic accoutrements, including an external battery, noise-cancelling headphones, and a ton of different cables to power and charge everything in there.

I also like to add a paperback book, various papers and flyers (if I’m covering a conference) and room to drop in a little reporter’s notebook, a pen or three, and a digital audio recorder for interviews. Oh, and it helps to have an easy pocket to slip my iPhone 6 Plus and wallet in if I need to go through security at the airport.

The Kastel Donjon bag is a European-style messenger bag that meets all these needs in an attractive, useful way.

Facebook is working on a breaking news app that would deliver news outside of the main Facebook app, according to a report. The app would ask users to pick out publications and topics that interest them, then it would broadcast bite-sized news alerts when new articles get published.

Publications that get on board would be able to send out instant notifications to all of its followers for the latest news. They’re allowed 100 characters of text and a link to the news article. Sounds pretty much like a tweet, right?

Apple Music has some amazing playlists created just for you, with humans behind the scenes making perfect mixes of music that fits your specific style and music tastes.

You can make your own playlists, too, and share them out to friends and family, but what if you want to see other people’s playlists? There’s just no way to pop on to Apple Music and see what playlists strangers are making.

Now, however, a new website called Playlist Hunt brings you the next best thing: a site dedicated to sharing and playing playlists by its members.

Few of us have ever given much thought to the building of a better lightbulb. But technology has forced us away from the incandescent bulb to LED lights which are more efficient, last longer and, in some cases, provide a variety of color.

The design and engineering team behind the Aerelight isn’t riding the LED wave. They are instead coming in on the wave after that with OLED lighting technology for its elegant razor-thin table lamp.

When Google reorganized itself into a subsidiary of a new over-arching company, Alphabet, you’d think that they’d have checked to see if anyone else was doing a similar business with the name.

In fact, BMW also does business as Alphabet, and they own the trademark and the .com URL to boot.

BMW makes cars, and Google is working on a self-driving car. That seems like possible grounds for a trademark infringement suit, right?

Beats 1 radio has been arguably the best feature to come out of Apple’s foray into the streaming music world. With its fabulous lineup of rotating DJs and artist radio shows, Beats 1 has become a great place to discover new music, but many users have complained the station focuses too much on hip-hop and plays the same songs too often.

To identify Beats 1’s true taste in music, a new study analyzed data on more than 12,000 songs played on the station from early July to early August. After crunching the numbers, they found Beats 1 has something other radio stations lack: scarcity.

iCloud Drive is a Dropbox and Google Drive-type service from Apple that lets you store documents in the cloud, making it super easy to synchronize them between your iOS and OS X devices.

You can access it on your Mac with an icon that shows all the documents you’ve stored in iCloud in a folder-like structure.

Prior to iOS 9, in order to access these documents on your iPhone or iPad, you’d need to open an app that supported iCloud Drive on your device.

Not anymore. iOS 9 comes with its own iCloud Drive app, and here’s how to enable it.

The snobby photographer inside me is offended whenever someone suggests that good photography is the result of owning “a really good camera.” Give me a little credit for anticipating and recognizing the good light, composition and human dynamics unfolding before me.

Rite Aid originally banned the use of Apple Pay at its registers when Apple’s contactless payment system launched late last year, but it appears that the store chain is ready to change its stance later this week and let customers pay with Apple Pay.

You got an Apple Watch, congrats! It’s a beautiful, powerful, pricey bit of tech that’s also just a sharp table corner or door handle away from ruining your day. Make sure your new acquisition stands the test of time with Spigen’s protective Apple Watch protector and matching power stand. Right now the combo is just $21.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Google might have the Nest Learning Thermostat, but Tim Cook’s got a smart shower, thanks to a recent investment by the Apple CEO in a new, environmentally friendly shower company.

And what kind of boss would he be if he didn’t test the next-gen washing solution as an option for Apple employees?

Apple could release the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus and 6c at the same time, claims notorious leaker Evan Blass, better known as @evleaks on Twitter.

This is the latest in a series of reports suggesting that Cupertino is looking to offer a new 4-inch iPhone “c” model — having abandoned the name and form factor when it made the jump to phablet-sized phones.

China’s surprise devaluation of the yuan is likely to have a massive impact on Apple and its suppliers.

China devalued its currency in an attempt to boost a flagging economy — resulting in the country’s biggest one-day loss in 20 years.

And while some will be celebrating, others (likely including Tim Cook) can’t be too happy about it!

The days of iPhone sales growing year after year could be over with the iPhone 6s, claims an investment advisor for KGI — citing a stalling smartphone market in China and an underwhelming Force Touch feature as the handset’s big selling point.

The unnamed KGI analyst — who is more than likely Ming-Chi Kuo — says that Apple is likely to sell between 65 and 75 million iPhones in the last quarter of 2015, which would signal either zero or possibly even negative growth for the company.

iPhone owners are 50 percent dirtier than Android users, according to a new study commissioned by the U.K.-based online retailer Brighthouse.

Brighthouse tested 170 items as part of its study, including game controllers, remote controls, laptop computers and 38 different phones — with 24 being iPhones and 14 being unspecified Android devices.

Spotify is planning to introduce a new “gated access” model that will make its free streaming plan a lot less attractive, according to a new report. Those who choose to opt out of paying for the service could see it become extremely limited, with access to just one or two songs from big album releases.

Apple Metal, introduced at last year’s WWDC, gives developers low-level access to the GPU to maximize the graphics and performance potential of their games. Now Android gamers are going to get a taste of that, too.

No, Apple isn’t bringing Metal to Android — but Google is adopting an alternative called Vulkan.

Disappearing photo and video sharing app, Snapchat, has just updated to include a couple of great new features, including a data-reducing Travel Mode, an emoji button called Sticker Picker, and a way to see who’s viewing your posts, called Stories, in the app itself.

Google just dropped a bombshell announcement that the operating structure of the company is getting seriously shaken up. To start, co-founder Larry Page broke the news of Alphabet: a new holding company which Google will operate under moving forward. Page will operate as the CEO with Sergey Brin as President effective immediately.

The original developers behind the controversial Mac cleaning/scam software MacKeeper at ZeoBIT have entered into a settlement with customers, after losing class-action lawsuit filed against the company in May of 2014.

Customers who bought MacKeeper before July 8th are eligible to receive a refund for purchasing the security and performance program, as long as they file a claim for reimbursement before November 30th.

Computer engineer Hunter Scott wrote a Python script to enter virtually every Twitter contest started over the span of nine months. The bot ended up entering him in about 165,000 different “RT to win” contests and more importantly, he won close to 1,000. On average, he won four contests per day every day.

If you’ve been itching to get your hands on Apple’s latest public beta for iOS 9, you’re in luck. With new proactive features for Siri, public transit directions in Maps, and a supercharged notes app, not to mention new multitasking and keyboard features for newer iPads, iOS 9 is looking pretty great.

Plus, now that we’re getting closer to the actual Fall release, the iOS 9 beta (release 5) is probably more stable than it was when it first released to the public in July. Of course, all beta software can mess up your iPhone, so don’t apply it unless you’re willing to put up with possible glitches and maybe even a bricked iPhone.

If you’re good with that, though, here’s how to get the iOS 9 beta onto your iPhone (or iPad) right now.

Jay Blahnik has been one of Apple’s key hires in getting the Apple Watch and now in one of his first extensive interviews since joining the company, Apple’s fitness guru has revealed how his teams of experts tried to differentiate the Apple Watch in the hugely competitive new wearables market.

When it came down to making Apple Watch, it wasn’t just about making something that looks good that also tracks your steps and calories. Blahnik tells Outside that Apple’s goal was to silence the noise by ignoring the fitness trends and focusing in on the three things that mattered the most.

Here are seven key things we learned from the interview:

Apple isn’t going to repeat its Bendgate error for a second year, according to a video posted by Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy, aka the man who famously bent an iPhone 6 Plus with his bare hands.

Hilsenteger got hold of an iPhone 6s backplate, courtesy of renowned Apple leaker Sonny Dickson, and compared it to the original iPhone 6. As he points out, Apple has made key changes to the iPhone design with the aim of learning from its past mistakes.

Check out his video below:

Is there a better sign that the future has arrived than meeting with friends at a park to play with flying robots? Another such sign might be that you can now get one of those robots for the price of a dinner date. The SKEYE Mini Drone is about to launch, at a whopping 34% off for anyone who pre-orders — just $64.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.