I’ve had the Amazon Echo sitting on my desk for the last couple of months and it’s an odd device – and I actually think it’s pretty great.
It’s a voice-controlled, speaker-cum-shopping tube that can go in your kitchen, living room or bedroom. You use it for simple queries like, “How’s the weather?” or “How is my commute? or “What is Barack Obama’s middle name?”
Listen to me interact with this device on this week’s edition of Kahney’s Korner.
Cult of Mac’s Photo Famous series introduces you to the groundbreaking photographers featured in Apple’s “Shot on iPhone 6” ad campaign.
Brad Mangin’s friends gave him a good ribbing as “the last photographer on the planet” to carry a flip phone. They all had iPhones and couldn’t believe it took him so long to not only own one but discover the picture quality of the phone’s camera.
Laughter would turn to admiration in less than a year’s time. Mangin would go on to use his first iPhone to produce a robust baseball essay for Sports Illustrated and get a book deal with his iPhone pictures.
Hidden in the dense verbiage of Apple’s latest trademark filing for OS X El Capitan is an intriguing detail not previously seen in similar filings for OS X Mavericks or Yosemite — revealing that Apple’s next-gen OS X could possibly be on its way to the iPad.
The Woz wasn’t exactly the world’s biggest fan of the Ashton Kutcher-starring 2013 movie Jobs, whose script he infamously dismissed as “crap.” But what did he make of the trailer for Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs, which landed earlier this week?
In an email correspondence, Wozniak gives something of a mixed view — essentially dinging the film for its accuracy, but arguing that its heart is in the right place.
Apple will ship 50 million iPhone units in the fourth quarter of 2015, according to a new report published today which claims that companies in the iPhone 6s supply chain have started delivering finished components to Foxconn and Pegatron for final assembly.
If accurate, this means that the iPhone 5s, 6, 6 Plus, 6s and 6s Plus will hit combined shipments of 230-240 million units in 2015 — up from the 192 million units Apple shipped last year.
Siri has become an accessory to even more bullcrap from the Internet as pranksters have found another way to trick Apple’s digital assistant into contacting emergency services. And it’s only slightly less dumb than you think.
The prank claims that “something funny” will happen if you say “112” to your iPhone. North American users probably don’t know that 112 is the European equivalent to the 911 emergency number, and Siri will respond to the request by placing a call to your local switchboard.
Snohomish County, Washington’s Sheriff has taken to Twitter to put an end to the madness.
If you like the look of the high-end Apple Watch Edition, but the $10,000+ price point makes your heart and wallet hurt, a Swiss company might have a nice alternative for you.
Golden Dreams of Geneva specializes in classing up iPhones, cases, and bags, and it’s turned its monocle-rimmed gaze to Apple’s new smartwatch. The company can take a standard version of the wearable and make it fancy at a fraction of the cost of its more precious sibling.
If you’re one of the people out there who haven’t taken the plunge on an Apple Watch, you’re not alone. While Apple’s latest wearable has gotten a ton of press and sold really well, a lot of the rank and file out there might think it’s a toy, or only for rich folks.
In fact, says journalist Morgan Housel over at Time, most people throughout history have pretty predictable responses to new things.
He has a list of reactions to new innovative inventions, each of which are reactions we’ve all heard (or had) when the Apple Watch (or the iPad, or the iPhone) was launched.
In a few years, “Sorry, I don’t have any cash on me” may no longer be a good enough excuse to give that chronically money-strapped friend when they come around asking to borrow a few bucks.
That’s because a newly released Apple patent suggests that the iPhone maker may be getting into the person-to-person payment game in future versions of its hardware.
Actress and one of the stars in the upcoming biopic aptly named Steve Jobs Kate Winslet, dished about some details of the movie. It seems she’s pretty enthusiastic about it, proudly boasting about how the film was made. She also had kind things to say about co-star Michael Fassbender, who plays Steve Jobs in the movie.
We’ve had a couple days to check out Apple Music, Apple’s song-streaming platform that launched Tuesday. It comes loaded with 30 million songs that you can listen to on demand with a quick search or a request to Siri.
But all that choice and tech power may come at a price, as some users are reporting that the new Music app is killing their iPhone’s battery life.
My MacBook Air’s charging cord was basically destroyed after only about two years of owning it. I just kept putting black electrical tape around it but that only seemed to make it worse. I finally waved the white flag, went to the Apple Store and bought a new charger for a whopping $79. If you’ve been through this before, listen up, because Juiceboxx will help you out.
Juiceboxx is a plastic case that wraps around your MacBook’s power adapter and forces the cord to point straight forward at the base. That way when you need to wrap it up and go, the cord isn’t dealing with the stress of being bent and twisted. More importantly, your cord won’t fray as it tends to do, leaving you with more money in your pocket and one less trip to the Apple Store.
Plex, the popular media streaming service that makes it easy to access your entire video, music, and photo catalogs from pretty much anywhere, has been hacked.
A server breach this week allowed hackers to gain access to user data — including email addresses, private messages, and forum passwords — but Plex assures us our credit card details are safe.
Apple has no shortage of products and gadgets to show off lately. The company recently released the Apple Watch, its music streaming platform came out this week, and we’re closing in on the reveal of the next iPhone.
But late-night host Jimmy Kimmel has a line on another daring product from Apple, and he revealed it in a bit on his show on Tuesday. It involves customers just giving Apple money for no real reason.
You can check out the full gag in the video below.
For my car, I have an anti-theft device called the Club. It is a telescoping device that hooks on each side of the steering wheel and locks in place with a key. Can it be broken? Probably, but the idea is to present a time-consuming obstacle to the thief who relies on speed.
For my MacBook Pro, I have the Blade by Maclocks. The Blade sits inside a bracket that affixes to the bottom of my computer. The Blade folds out from the bracket, providing a slot in which I can attach a lock tethered to a cable.
It is most secure when you loop the cable through an anchored object, like a pole or, in the case of one coffee shop from which I like to work, a table support that is bolted to the floor.
As a Brit that can’t handle warm weather, the recent heatwave that swept across the U.K. almost killed me. I sat here with my skin sticking to my leather office chair, longing for cool air conditioning that would help me breathe freely again.
But at no point did I stop to consider my poor smartphone.
Smartphones get hot, too — especially when they’re charging — which is why Chevrolet though it would be a great idea to give them their very own air conditioning vent in its 2016 lineup.
If you were hoping to listen to Prince on Apple Music, thinking that the purple-clad passionate one’s music would be on the service like many other exclusives on Apple’s new streaming service, you’re out of luck.
The artist currently known as Prince has pulled all of his music from streaming services, except for one: Jay Z’s Tidal, which reputedly has the best terms for mega artists like the Purple Rain lead.
Turns out that doves will cry after all, since they can’t listen to Prince on Apple Music or Spotify.
Struggling to upload all of your cat snaps to Google Photos? You’re not the only one. A bug has been preventing some users from adding more images to their Photos library after reaching a certain number — but don’t worry; Google is not capping your unlimited storage allowance.
If you’ve upgraded your iPhone or iPad to iOS 8.4 in order to take advantage of the insanely great Apple Music, you won’t be able to use Home Sharing to play the iTunes music from your Mac via your iOS device any more.
Several fans took to the Apple discussion pages to note that Home Sharing is no longer accessible on their mobile devices, killing their media setups.
“Before today,” writes forum user ddrucker, “I could bring up the entire library on my iPhone/iPad and play it through my earphones.”
Like our mobile devices, cars have been getting faster and smarter, so it makes sense that the connection between the two should do the same. When charging on the go, it’s a safe bet that you’ll want to be at full power by the time you get where you’re going, without frying the battery in the process. The MPOW 3-Port Intelligent Car Charger has you covered, and for just a few more hours you can get it for a price that’ll keep your wallet charged too.
Rumors that the iPhone 6s will receive a new 12-megapixel camera with 4K video recording got a boost today — thanks to a document allegedly leaked by a Foxconn employee.
The document also suggests that the iPhone 6s’ front-facing camera will receive a massive upgrade from the 1.2-megapixel sensor found in current iPhones thanks to a new 5-megapixel sensor.
The illustration that accompanies a patent application is a first glimpse inside the head of the inventor. Finally, an idea becomes a possibility, and even if an invention later proves to be impractical or an outright failure, the drawing serves as a tangible record of humanity’s quest to solve problems and move forward.
But the modern day patent sketches are stark chicken scratches compared to the intricately detailed, da Vinciesque artworks that once accompanied applications to the United States Patent & Trade Office, which first opened in 1790.
If for whatever reason you’re unhappy with the image quality, screen size, and square display of the current Apple Watch display, don’t expect any of your quibbles to be fixed with next year’s Apple Watch 2.
According to a new report, the display of the next-gen Apple wearable will remain identical in size, shape and resolution to its predecessor — although the display will be marginally thinner to allow for a larger battery.
Apple Music is the latest way to stream a ridiculous number of tunes on demand. And with all that variety, you’re going to get some cursing in there. It’s just how a lot of musicians work.
But if you don’t want to hear all of those bleepables and swears, it’s a pretty quick fix to keep it from showing up in your stream. Here’s how to do it.
Universal dropped its first full-length Steve Jobs trailer yesterday, giving us a closer glimpse than we’ve yet had at the Aaron Sorkin-penned biopic, set to hit theaters this October.
Being the fans that we are, Cult of Mac scoured the 2:40 trailer to pull out the juiciest details. Read on for everything we learned.