SAN FRANCISCO — Not content to conquer the Bluetooth speaker market with tubes and bigger tubes, Ultimate Ears made its latest portable audio device look like a lily pad. They made it waterproof, too. The only problem was, the UE Roll sank like a stone.

“As life would have it, it doesn’t float,” said Rory Dooley, Ultimate Ears’ senior vice president, during a visit to the Cult of Mac headquarters.

The solution? Create a tiny life preserver for the UE Roll, and give it away to anybody who orders the hottest speaker of the summer directly from UE’s website (while supplies last).

Apple nearly made a deal with Uber for its new same-day delivery service, before ditching them in favor of startup courier service Postmates Inc., according to a new report.

Apple allegedly considered adopting Uber’s new delivery project, known internally as UberEverything. Starbucks also entered into negotiations with the taxi company, before settling on the same delivery service as Apple.

In the West, the most iconic Apple Store is probably the company’s glass cube for its Fifth Avenue flagship store in New York. In the East, however, arguably Apple’s most recognizable retail outlet design is the 30-foot glass cylinder used for both the company’s Shanghai and Chongqing Apple Stores.

As Apple continues its rise in places like China, it is doing everything it can to stop rivals from ripping off its ideas — which is why it filed a design patent on the building, which was published today — naming none other than Steve Jobs as one of its inventors.

Here’s a unique-looking case for your iPhone that promises to do more than just protect your handset from nicks and scratches.

The Hibiki case for iPhone 6 says that it will also make your audio sound better.

Apple Watch stand makers are responding to watchOS 2’s Nightstand mode feature, which will turn your wearable into a makeshift alarm clock and display the time in landscape mode when it’s charging on its side. New Apple Watch docks are starting to appear to accommodate this feature ahead of the software update coming this fall.

I’ve been loving Apple’s “Shot on iPhone 6” ad campaign, if for no other reason than it gives me hope that one day, I too will be able to capture crazy beautiful images with my smartphone’s camera.

Apple has pushed the campaign with tons of billboards, posters and videos, all shot by various iPhone 6 users around the world. The latest group of short videos features breathtaking shots of the Netherlands, Norway, Oregon and Australia, accompanied by sweet indie jams like “Murakami” by Made in Heights.

Watch all four videos below:

If the fight card featured the urbane intellect of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard against Darth Vader and his command of the Force’s Dark Side, who would win?

We won’t spoil it for you. One fired the fatal shots, but the other got the last word. To say they fought to a draw would not give anything away.

The hilarious writers at College Humor did an animated sketch with the Next Generation cast rattling sabers with the great Sith Lord from his Death Star. The prize was not a planet or some other galactic real estate. It was to decide which series concept is nerdier?

The iPad Pro has pretty much been confirmed by a hidden keyboard in iOS 9, and more clues are popping in the first iOS 9 beta that may reveal the device will have the same pixel density as the iPad Air 2.

GarageBand for Mac is getting a sonic upgrade with 10 new drum settings and 100 new synth sounds designed for electronic dance music and hip-hop tracks.

The new features are coming June 30 — just in time for the launch of Apple Music.

When iOS 9 rolls out to the public this fall, it’ll be iPad users that appreciate it most, thanks to the many improvements Apple has made to multitasking. One of the biggest is Split View, a feature that’s exclusive to the iPad Air 2, which lets you run two apps side-by-side — just like you would on your Mac.

Split View lets you read articles in Safari while composing an email in Mail, enjoy a novel in iBooks while taking notes in the Notes app, and talk to friends via iMessage while organizing your schedule in Calendar.

But is Split View as game-changing as it looks at first glance? You bet it is.

Developer Bethesda had a surprise or two for its showcase at the Electronics Entertainment Expo trade show last night. But the biggest one was a previously unannounced game called Fallout Shelter, a resource-management title for iOS that puts you in charge of a subterranean colony after the nuclear holocaust.

Most surprising of all: It’s out right now, and it’s free.

Spotify’s software engineers have cooked up a new feature that lets you rewind your music tastes to see what they would have been like if you were born in a different generation.

CarPlay and Android Auto are Apple and Google’s first attempts to slowly invade the automobile, but finding a car that supports them hasn’t been easy the past year. If you’ve been curious what it’s like to drive around with either system, the folks at Consumer Reports put the two systems head-to-head during a morning drive to get coffee.

Each interface has its promises, but the report also highlights a lot of areas that need to be worked on — like how you can’t change your car’s FM radio while using Apple Maps. Unlike your car system though, CarPlay and Android Auto will probably be upgraded every year, giving you new features each year, just like your smartphone

Here’s what it’s like to ride with CarPlay and Android :

Our friends chuckle when we text them a story using emoji. Fun little pictures rich in context and feeling, especially when we can make use of the smiling poo.

But that funny emoji story could also make a very secure password.

The British company Intelligent Environments has developed emoji security technology the developers say will be easier to remember and offer many more combinations that a four-digit PIN code.

If you’ve ever found yourself awkwardly crouching next to a power outlet, waiting for your phone to charge, then you’ll quickly see why we snapped up this MFi-certified Lightning cable as soon as it made its way to Cult of Mac Deals.

When Apple Music launches at the end of June you won’t have to pay a cent to listen to all the music your ears can hear for the first three months. If you want to keep using Apple Music after the three month trial period though you’ll have to fork over $10 a month, and according to a new report it’s paying out more to the record labels than Spotify.

Thanks to its constant improvements and the fact that we carry it around virtually everywhere we go, the iPhone has become our de facto camera over the past few years.

But while most of us use our iOS devices for little more than taking Facebook snaps, the annual IPP (iPhone Photography) Awards are a reminder of just how gorgeous our mobile pics can look.

Simply put, there’s no excuse!

Apple’s giant iPad has been one of the rumor mill’s favorite products to gossip about for years, even though no one has seen so much as a chamfered edge of its supposed 12-inch display. However, some assets hidden inside iOS 9 indicate that the new tablet — often referred to as the “iPad Pro” — could make an appearance soon.

According to a developer who’s been digging through iOS 9, the new keyboard scales to a much larger screen size than we’ve seen so far. When the new keyboard is enlarged, it adds an extra row of keys, hinting that Apple’s monstrous new tablet could rear its head in the near future.

Check it out:

Apple has always been big in the educational market, but it’s something the company has pushed more than ever under Tim Cook — albeit with sometimes mixed results.

The dream of having schools fully embrace the Apple ecosystem certainly sounds pretty far off, however, when you hear that one school district in the U.S. is still reliant on almost 30-year-old Commodore Amiga 2000 computers to automate its air conditioning and heating systems.

Say it ain’t so, Grand Rapids, Michigan!

Some were outraged about the $10,000 cost of the Apple Watch Edition, but will people really race to see one of the glittery timepieces get obliterated by powerful neodymium magnets?

Oddball YouTube stress-tester TechRax clearly hopes so, because he recently plonked down the money to carry out just such an “experiment” in his quest for views. Check out the resulting video below.

Seriously, how does this guy get his money?

Is trouble brewing for Apple’s forthcoming Spaceship campus, set to be opened by the end of 2016?

According to a recent report, Apple’s initial contractors for the project — DPR Construction and Skanska USA — are parting ways with Apple, and will be transitioned off the build over the next several weeks.

Not everybody has two-and-a-half hours to watch an Apple event. Tim Cook and crew delivered tons of updates at the kickoff for this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, and you can speed through all the news with this WWDC 2015 keynote supercut.

It’s just two-and-a-half minutes long!

Shop our top picks of the week at Cult of Mac Deals, including a coding course bundle, a limited-edition drone, and more.

After spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on your new Apple Watch, it’s hard to justify tossing the device on the table to charge like discarded jewelry. If you’ve got a 3-D printer, it’s easy to class things up by printing out an Apple Watch stand.

These 3-D-printed Apple Watch stands will protect your high-tech timepiece from scratches and, more importantly, provide a platform to show off your new smartwatch to friends and family — even when you aren’t using it.

A variety of 3-D printing files are available to download completely free of charge, and they get the job done just fine. Take a look at some of the best designs out there — all of which cost nothing to download.

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