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The wait is over, Apple Music now live

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Iovine
Jimmy Iovine talks up Apple Music at WWDC 2015.
Photo: Apple

After months of speculation, Apple Music has officially launched — with the Beats 1 radio station also kicking off one hour from now at 12pm ET/9am PT.

Apple Music, which received positive first-look reviews earlier today, is initially available for a free three-month trial, after which it will set users back $9.99 per month — or $14.99 if you want to share with up to six members of your family.

Irish newspaper refuses to give Taylor Swift free publicity photos

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post-327723-image-bea46cf9445da7bb4742d7f0fbd5e036-jpg
An Irish newspaper said no thanks to signing Taylor Swift's photo agreement.

One of Ireland’s largest newspapers told readers Tuesday morning not to expect any photos of Taylor Swift performing during her two sold-out concerts in Dublin.

The Irish Times passed on photographing her shows because of a restrictive contract Swift’s people ask shooters to sign. The contract gives the photographer a “one-time-only” use on the photos yet allows Swift unlimited rights to use the images for publicity and promotion.

Such contracts by entertainment figures are nothing new, except Swift famously called out Apple for initially withholding royalties to musicians during the free three-month trial period of the new Apple Music service.

Aluminum-attacking chemical poured over iPhone 6 is Jony Ive’s worst nightmare

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Yep, this is pretty much a horror movie for any Apple designer.
Yep, this is pretty much a horror movie for any Apple designer.
Photo: TechRax/YouTube

Next to his favorite Bentley getting into a scrape, there can be few things which sound more likely to give Jony Ive nightmares than a chemical element capable of causing the catastrophic structural failure of aluminum.

Unfortunately for Jony, that chemical — referred to as gallium — not only exists, but has somehow gotten into the hands of oddball YouTube stress tester TechRax. All in the name of clicks science, TechRax has previously established himself as enemy number one to Apple’s Industrial Design team — doing everything from assaulting new iPhones with DeWalt angle grinders to crushing an Apple Watch Edition between two magnets.

Check out the video below to see how the aluminum iPhone 6 manages against its toughest challenge yet.

Apple Music review roundup: Cupertino is hitting all the right notes

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Apple-Music-iPhone
Apple Music sounds like a game changer.
Photo: Apple

Apple Music is set to launch at 11am ET/8am PT today, alongside the release of iOS 8.4. As we count down the minutes, however, we can entertain ourselves with the first batch of “early impression” reviews for Apple’s new streaming music service.

Has Apple done it again? With minor quibbles, the answer certainly seems to be a resounding “yes.” Check out some of the review highlights below:

Ask Siri to divide zero by zero and get ready for an hilarious insult

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Siri will answer your questions, but that doesn't mean he/she has to like them.
Siri will answer your questions, but that doesn't mean he/she has to like them.
Photo: Apple

Compared to more sedate virtual assistants like Google Now, Siri has always had a reputation for snark — whether it’s answering every annoying hypothetical question we can throw at it with equally sarcastic answers, or getting amusingly annoyed when we confuse him/her with rival AI assistants.

A newly-discovered Siri Easter Egg swept the Twittersphere on Monday, however. Asking Siri to divide zero by zero may sound like a basic math question, but the result is pure offbeat hilarity.

And just a bit mean, too.

Apple interns earn $7,000 per month, plus benefits

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internship
Apple internships are a bit more serious than those portrayed in the horrendous movie The Internship.
Photo: 20th Century Fox

Is there a better place to intern than Apple? Quite possibly not, according to the claims of one former intern who recently broke confidentiality to speak out about his experiences with the company.

Forget about hopefully making enough to cover your bus fare, “Brad” says Apple offers interns around $6,700 per month, plus the opportunity to work paid overtime at time-and-a-half.

And when it comes to perks, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Designers beef up farming tech with wearables for cows

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Moo Cows by Matt Northam
Some dumb cows are getting some smart wearables.
Photo: Matt Northam/Flickr. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Design firm Cambridge Industrial Design herd that dairy farmers might want to track their cows’ moo-vements, so they went ahead and developed some udderly clever smart collars to help keep an eye on the beasts.

That’s right: Even cattle are starting to horn in on the wearables scene.

Apple Camp returns to teach tech to kids

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Apple Camp
Apple Camp is a free, three-day program that guides kids through a project.
Photo: Apple

Parents looking to keep their creative kids busy this summer might want to look into Apple Camp, a free, three-day workshop at select Apple retail stores.

As in previous years, sessions will occur throughout July and August and will guide campers ages 8 to 12 through one of two cool projects.

Apple wins over more customers than Samsung, report says

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iLove by Lis Ferla
Apple users love their Apple stuff.
Photo: Lis Ferla/Flickr. Licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

You can call it customer loyalty, brand stickiness, or whatever other terms the cool marketing kids are using these days, but it all means the same thing in this case: Apple is doing a better job than Samsung of retaining customers and winning over new ones.

This is according to a report from RBC Capital Markets, which polled Apple and Samsung customers about their current and future purchases.

That future where we fly around with jetpacks will arrive soon

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First responders could be flying in and out of hot spots with the Martin Jetpack by next year.
First responders could be flying in and out of hot spots with the Martin Jetpack by next year.
Photo: Martin Aircraft Company

We’ve been promised jetpacks since the 1950s and dreaming about them even longer. Just hang on a couple more years.

Plenty of time to save the $150,000 it will cost to buy the Martin Jetpack, which promises to be the first practical jetpack ready for vertical liftoff.

The Martin Aircraft Company has been conducting research and development on personal jet packs for a couple of decades. Even before it became a privately funded company, its founder Glenn Martin had been tinkering with the idea of something that can fly longer than 30 seconds since the early 1980s.

Everything you need to know ahead of Apple Music’s launch tomorrow

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Apple Music
All of your questions and answers ahead of Apple Music's big debut.
Photo: Apple

Apple Music makes its big debut tomorrow, June 30, at 8 a.m. PST. It’s going to be a very big day for the music industry, and for us listeners. It’s the day streaming goes truly mainstream. From tomorrow on, it’s officially the streaming era.

But how does it work? What artists are going to be available? You probably have a lot of questions about what Apple Music’s launch means for you — and we’ve got answers.

How to reset and re-pair your Apple Watch

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Apple Watch reset
Apple Watch reset
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

If your Apple Watch stops responding to your iPhone, you can reboot it or you can turn the Bluetooth connection off and on. If that doesn’t work to reconnect your Watch, you might need to reset it, and then you’ll need to re-pair it.

Here’s how.

Plan better stories to make your iPhone videos come alive

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Mobile editing is much easier when you have a plan.
Mobile editing is much easier when you have a plan.
Photo: Apple

We’ve all done it before: we head to the family reunion, the wedding, the kid’s birthday party and we just shoot everything. We have no plan except that we think we’ll have time later to edit it down to something interesting.

Unfortunately, that just leads to a bloated iPhone with too many unnecessary video files. Plus, you know you’re never going to get around to sitting down and looking through all that footage again. Ugh.

With a good plan, however, and a firm grasp of one simple storytelling technique, you’ll avoid this problem and create some amazing videos without a whole lot of extra work.

Here’s how.

Apple Music coming to Sonos, but there’s bad news

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Soon you'll be able to blast Apple Music through your Sonos speakers.
Soon you'll be able to blast Apple Music through your Sonos speakers.
Photo: Sonos

There’s good news and bad news for Beats Music and future Apple Music users alike. Apple has confirmed that the new music service will arrive for Sonos apps and speakers, but unfortunately not right away. It turns out integration won’t be ready in time for the big launch tomorrow, June 30, but the two companies are working together to bring Apple Music to Sonos as soon as possible.

Find your way out of the subway faster with Apple Maps

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Now you can figure out which of the 4 different doors out of the subway is best.
Now you can figure out which of the subway exits is best.
Photo: Apple

If you’ve ever taken a ride on an unfamiliar city’s subway or transit system, you know how confusing it can be to know which specific exit to use to find the right above ground location you need to get to where you’re going.

In the upcoming iOS 9, Apple Maps aims to help you out with a subtle yet extremely useful feature: it will tell you which exit to take when you’re using the Transit option, also new to iOS 9.

Add the crucial skill of coding to your toolbelt with BaseRails now 92% off [Deals]

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75bef17103fac985b69d00e0d9d9ec528f8c2344_main_hero_image

Learning to code is like learning a second language: it’s best done fully immersed and with expert guidance. Unlike learning a new language, there’s nothing like the nation of “Code-topia” to visit (yet) where you can learn among the native speakers. And unless you’re already in school for coding, it’s largely up to you to find your own teachers and classes. Luckily, BaseRails Ruby on Rails Training offers a comprehensive education in one of the top programming languages on the web, Ruby on Rails, straight to your computer (who knows what kind of virus shots you’d need to visit Code-topia anyway).

Soundtrap takes on Garageband in an epic battle of recording software apps

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A singer records vocals using Sountrap recording software, which can be used on any device.
A singer records vocals using Sountrap recording software, which can be used on any device.
Photo: Soundtrap/YouTube

Geography doesn’t have to get in the way of the band coming together.

A startup company by the name of Soundtrap Monday rolled out what it calls the first online music and audio recording studio, allowing musicians to collaborate remotely in real time using any operating system.

It will likely directly compete with Garageband, Apple’s popular software used to create music and podcasts that first launched in 2004.

iPhone first went on sale 8 years ago today

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How the iPhone has evolved over the years.
How the iPhone has evolved over the years.
Photo: Gadgetlove

The original iPhone first went on sale eight years ago today, on June 29, 2007 — a simpler time when Pixar released the movie Ratatouille, the NFL shut down its European league, Rihanna’s “Umbrella” topped the music charts, and Apple stock sold for a measly $17.43.

If only we knew then what we know today!

Giant iPhone 3G repurposed as an insanely cool Mac monitor

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Heading
Suddenly my 5K iMac seems less exciting.
Photo: 92JMFL/Imgur

Back in 2008, when Apple was selling roughly a tenth of the number of iPhones it sells today, the company produced a limited number of giant-sized display iPhones with built-in 30-inch Cinema Displays to show off its new line of smartphones.

Most of them were destroyed after the promotion was finished, but thanks to the wonderful world of the Internet, we can see that at least one made it out alive — and has now been converted by Reddit user 92JMFL into possibly the world’s sweetest Mac display.

Check out more photos below.

Samsung wants an even bigger share of iPhone production

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Samsung is after more of Apple's iPhone business.
Samsung is after more of Apple's iPhone business.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Samsung is reportedly making a bid to steal away Toshiba’s job of producing the flash memory chips for the iPhone 6s — something which would help out the South Korean tech giant at a time when its own mobile business is struggling.

The news follows not long after reports that the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus is looking to add faster TLC-based NAND flash storage for the next-gen handsets, possibly en route to ditching the largely-useless 16GB entry level storage option in current iPhones.

Tim Cook leads 8,000 Apple employees in Gay Pride Parade

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SF pride
Apple waving the flag for LGBT rights. Literally.
Photo: Tim Cook/Twitter

Apple was out in force yesterday as Tim Cook and 8,000 Apple employees participated in Sunday’s 43rd Annual Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco, following last week’s historic Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage across the U.S.

Apple employees carried LGBT rainbow flags as they took to the streets — considerably outnumbering the hundreds of employees from other tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Uber, and others.