Apple debuted the Apple Watch at its own stores and special upmarket pop-up boutiques, but now that the device has been on sale for a while, we’re starting to see it trickle-down to other retailers, too.
One of these outlets is Best Buy, which has confirmed it will be selling the Apple Watch at more than 100 stores in the U.S. from August. That number is set to expand to more than 300 outlets by the holiday season.
Time to seize the power without getting overcharged. These amazing deals cover all the tools you’ll need to keep your devices juiced wherever you go, from external batteries to USB charging hubs, lightning cables and more.
The Activity app on your Apple Watch suggests new “Move goals” each week, based on how many calories you burned the previous week. To test how this works in practice, I accepted every new goal my Watch suggested during the past 10 weeks.
The Move goals became progressively more challenging as the test went on. They nearly doubled, from 950 to 1,840 calories, and I could no longer keep up. I realized that Apple is following the Peter Principle, and that’s why I was always destined to fail.
This week in Cult of Mac Magazine, it’s time for Leander to bust out that famed “vision thing” he’s so great at with his informed take on the top five best Apple products of all time. Ever.
Then we’ve got a cat fight between two of the hot digital intelligences out now: Siri and Google Now, a ton of tantalizing details about Apple’s latest record-breaking earnings call, a peek at a leaked iPhone 6s front panel that seems strangely familiar, and a look at how invisible advertisement may be slowing your iPhone way down.
All that and more in Cult of Mac Magazine, freely available right now in the App Store.
This is a heads up that Cult of Mac has a major site redesign coming Monday. We’re flipping the switch this weekend. If anything goes wrong, you’ll know why!
Here’s what we’ve got planned.
Apple’s been stealing top talent from automakers over the past few months to help it work on the company’s electric car project, but according to a new rumor, Apple wanted to steal the entire body of another luxury automaker’s car to get its project on the road.
Everybody likes to get a good chuckle out of Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant. But we really have to call its brand neutrality into question.
Despite all of the doom and gloom we’ve been hearing since the Apple Watch launched in April, including the company’s own reluctance to let us know how well the device is selling, it looks like our favorite digital helper has decided that it’s a winner.
Asking Siri “What is your favorite watch?” or “What do you think of the Apple Watch?” will get you some enthusiastic endorsements of Apple’s latest gizmo. And this is our surprised face.
Apple Watch comes with a limited number of functional, classy watch faces for you to use, but it totally lacks wacky, personalized watch faces for you to gloat over. If you’re searching for cool Apple Watch faces that stand out, there are plenty of options to explore.
Now a new collection of images shows how cool it would be if we had the ability to customize our Apple Watch faces the way we want. Note, though, that many of these would be impractical for telling time. As my co-worker Evan Killham said when he saw these ideas, “Where does the clock part go?”
Home security system manufacturer Uniden just released a swanky new system that can store 120 days’ worth of data and, if you want one, you’ll have to go directly through the manufacturer or Apple.
The Uniden Wireless DVR HDD comes with two cameras and a 1TB drive for storing your home movies like so many unwatched episodes of Psych. And it could lead to some bad news for smart-thermostat maker Nest’s own security offering.
The first trailer for Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine, the controversial documentary by Sir Alex Gibney, debuted online today, giving us our first extended glimpse at a film that supposedly pulls no punches when it comes to the late Apple CEO’s life and legacy.
You can watch the first trailer for the film, which Gibney described as an “impressionistic” depiction of Jobs, below.
What are the artifacts that define America’s greatest moments? Two are the original Declaration of Independence and the Star-Spangled Banner that inspired the Francis Scott Key song.
If you see those in the top three, the third might be the suit Neil Armstrong wore when he stepped onto the moon’s surface.
While the suit was constructed to make it to the moon and back, it was not built to last forever. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum is raising money for a major restoration project to get the Armstrong suit ready for public display on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 2019.
Every mobile platform now ships with its very own virtual assistant, and while they all offer a similar set of basic features, Google Now and Siri are way ahead of their rivals. Google Now knows what you want and when you want it, but Siri has sass and personality, and is about to get a whole lot better with the help of Proactive.
If you were to pit the two against each other in a virtual ring, which one would come out wearing the belt? Join us as we find out in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac!
The zombies are here and they’re standing around waiting to be blown to bits. See, these are “Stupid Zombies” and the object of this third installment in the franchise is the same as the first two: use a knowledge of physics to bounce bullets around each level and kill as many zombies as you can with each shot.
Stupid Zombies 3 offers over 100 different levels to blast your way through using a shotgun, flare gun, or grenade launcher (it’s bouncy!) to rid the world of these intellectually challenged individuals who experience undeadness.
Check out the trailer below to see what I mean.
You couldn’t blame the folks behind non-Apple streaming music services being worried when Apple Music was announced — but according to Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews, there was nothing to worry about.
Pandora’s Q2 revenue came in better than expected at $285.6 million, largely thanks to solid growth on the advertising side, which increased 30 percent year-over-year.
Do you mediate every bit of your experience through the cold display of your iPhone? Do you film concerts, text during dates, and spend more time looking at your screen than into the eyes of the people you’re hanging out with?
Are you addicted to your iPhone?
NoPhone may have the solution for you. In what seems to be a rather tongue-in-cheek product page, NoPhone touts its thin, light, wireless design. Which makes sense for a smartphone-shaped hunk of plastic.
For many of us, when our Wi-Fi connection drops out it’s time to freak out. Whether you work from home or in a sprawling office, common things like fluorescent bulbs, microwaves, even an inconveniently placed wall can disrupt an internet connection at just the wrong moment. NetSpot Pro Wi-Fi Optimizer makes wandering into Wi-Fi dead zones a thing of the past by creating an accurate visual map of signal strength wherever you are, an invaluable tool for just $19.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.
Cult of Mac’s Photo Famous series introduces you to the groundbreaking photographers featured in Apple’s “Shot on iPhone 6” ad campaign.
Michael Mainenti is in the developmental stages of a photography career, a point when he should be looking at the works of the established masters and saying, “Some day.”
Mainenti is faithful to this time-honored tradition except that some day is already happening. The 25-year-old college student is among the photographers whose work was selected by Apple for a global advertising campaign to show off the improved camera in the iPhone 6.
“It is a humbling feeling to see my work in the same advertising campaign with photographers I followed even before the launch of the ‘Shot on iPhone 6’ ads,” Mainenti told Cult of Mac. “It’s a boost of confidence and motivation to get better.”
Looking for an innovative, immersive app experience to entertain your buddies with this weekend? Then you may be interested in 360-degree animated film app Spotlight Stories, which just landed on iOS after a couple of years as an Android exclusive.
Using a combination of 2D and 3D animations, the app lets you move your body and mobile device to check out what’s happening in different parts of the video — essentially letting a story unfold around you. If you’re remotely interested in seeing the potential of the iPhone and iPad as a way of telling stories in a totally new way, you won’t regret it.
This week: some pundits are fed up with Apple music, but you know what? We’re not. Plus: Apple’s Back To School promotion is finally unveiled; Apple Watch topples expectations, gets an insane satisfaction rating; iOS devices cross a major threshold; plus we answer your questions on an all-new #CultCastQnA.
Our thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode. Learn virtually any application at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.
Show notes ahead. Bon appétit.
If you have young children, the last question you want to hear on any long journey is, “Are we there yet?” It’s never asked just once; it’s asked again and again and again until you angrily threaten to turn around and go home, or you plow into a tree.
The question is so infuriating that even Google Maps can’t take it. Ask the maddening question a few times while navigating and you’ll get the angry response you deserve.
When Tony Fadell was put in charge of Google Glass earlier this year, we wrote that the father of the iPod had been “tasked with saving Google Glass from extinction.”
According to a new interview with the Nest co-founder, that’s not entirely accurate, though. Fadell says that rather than being saddled with the project by Google, he actively asked for it.
“It wasn’t handed to me and said, ‘Tony clean it up,'” he explained. “I offered. I remember what it was like when we did the iPod and the iPhone [at Apple]. I think this can be that important, but it’s going to take time to get it right.”
What vaulted Apple from its humble Silicon Valley origins to the absolute top of the business world? From its first desktop computer in 1976 to today’s category-crushing Apple Watch, the company is intensely focused on creating technology that will delight the masses.
That vision is best exemplified by Apple’s five most important products, which I’ve rounded up in this week’s edition of Kahney’s Korner. Some made the list for reasons that might surprise you.
In my mind, the original iPod basically came out yesterday. Which is why it’s more than a little surreal — yet strangely amusing — watching kids who weren’t even born in 2001 react to it like they’re archeologists uncovering the relics of a bygone civilization.
Does it make calls? Does it have external speakers? And surely it’s got to have a touchscreen somewhere, if you can only work out which button to press. No, no, and no are the answers, as these grade school kids learn over the course of an amusing video. Check it out below:
We hope that the designer of this cute Apple Watch stand doesn’t get an adorable little cease-and-desist letter in the mail.
The WatchMe stand bears an uncanny resemblance to the stars of some despicable memes scattered across the Internet like salt, but it isn’t a complete rip-off. They don’t have arms, after all. And luckily, the Apple Watch, which the stand wears like a monocle, isn’t round.
So it’s a toss-up, really.
If you have plans this weekend to saunter into your local Apple Store and pick up a Nest thermostat for your increasingly connected home, we have bad news for you: The company is no longer offering the device for sale in either its retail or online stores.
But could Apple interest you in an Ecobee?