Apple’s selling more iPhones than at any point in its history, but that doesn’t mean it’s not looking to grow its user base even more.
To achieve this, the company today launched its new smartphone trade-in program at brick-and-mortar Apple Stores — allowing owners of selected Android, BlackBerry or Windows Phone handsets to swap their existing devices for credit that can be used toward buying an iPhone.
Who knew the Plague of Blood could be so fun.
Students at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology created a Rube Goldberg machine that covers the highlights of the Passover story, complete with falling Matzo crackers as part of the chain reaction.
Rube Goldberg machines are fun, over-engineered contraptions designed to complete a simple task, but the Passover story, by no means, is simple. There are plagues, a burning bush, a baby Moses in a basket and the parting of the sea.
If you think the 2007 unveiling of the iPhone is tech’s most impressive demo, you haven’t seen anything yet!
Back in 1968, when Tim Cook was barely 8 years old, an engineer named Doug Engelbart put on a computer demonstration at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco.
Over the course of 90 minutes, Engelbart showed off for the first time a stream of new technologies that would shape computing for the next half-century: windows, hypertext, computer graphics, the mouse, video-conferencing, word processing, real-time collaborative editing and more.
Now those of us who missed it the first time around can see it live, thanks to a new avant garde opera taking place at Stanford’s Bing Concert Hall.
Okay, this is pretty cool: a 2.6x scale model of an Apple Watch built entirely out of Nanoblocks, the tiny building blocks made popular in Japan, but with a growing international following.
With the smallest brick being 4mm x 4mm x 5mm, creating this take on Apple’s eagerly-anticipated wearable device took more than 800 bricks. It was created by Christopher Tan, a well-known Nanoblock brick artist, who has previously built scale models of everything from the Great Wall of China to zombie dioramas.
You can check out more pictures of his Apple Watch below.
Among the biggest differences between Steve Jobs and Tim Cook as leaders of Apple is Cook’s willingness to use his platform as CEO to push positive social change.
Having last week shamed Indiana’s controversial “religious freedom” bill — which potentially allows a business to deny service to would-be customers if they disagree with their sexual orientation, based on religious beliefs — Cook elaborated on his thoughts in a weekend editorial for the Washington Post.
Proclaiming that “Apple is open … to everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love,” Cook makes a powerful case. Check out his thoughts below.
As can be seen everywhere from Xiaomi’s not-so-original smartphone designs to the number of knockoff Apple Watches already available for sale, Apple has a problem with ripoffs in China.
But having recently unveiled its stunning new West Lake store in Hangzhou — featuring an all-glass facade and floating second floor — the company’s taking no chances: it’s filed (and been granted) a design patent to make sure that no-one tries to mimic its iconic design.
The Food and Drug Administration is in a tough spot when it comes to health-tracking wearables. As the U.S. government agency in charge of regulating medical devices, it can’t promote health-oriented technology that doesn’t do what it claims, but it also doesn’t want to stifle innovation at a time when Silicon Valley is finally turning its attention to the field.
That’s why, according to a new report, the FDA is giving the tech industry, and particularly tech giants like Apple, leeway to develop new products without aggressive regulation.
Keeping your kids safe on your computer is one of the more important things you can focus on as a parent. Mac OS X has a great tool built right in to do just that: Parental Controls.
It’s fairly easy to set up Parental Controls on Mac, but if you need a quick hand at making them work for you, our video will walk you through the process.
Right now you can save a bundle on cool stuff to make your Apple computing experience the best yet.
Learn a new coding language, get a handy dandy Bluetooth speaker for your iOS device, or back up your Mac’s data and save big time bucks. Read on to learn more about our best deals and then go to Cult of Mac Deals to see more.
It’s the weekend, which means it’s time to catch up on all of the hot new apps you might have missed throughout the week.
Twitter sets the live video world ablaze with Periscope, a couple great iPhone photography apps, the best way to calendar on the Mac, and some others made it into this week’s roundup.
Without further ado, here are this week’s awesome apps!
You’ll find supremely awesome deals on cool products for your Mac, iOS device, and more every single day at Cult of Mac Deals.
The offers at Cult of Mac Deals are so good, though, that they just cannot stick around forever. This may be your last chance to save 70% on a lifetime subscription to VPN Unlimited, or to get Dragon Dictate for Mac 4 at half off, plus more. Read on to check out all the hot deals ending soon.
Wunderlist is already one of the best apps to get things done on your iPhone, and soon, it will be just as good on the Apple Watch.
This week: more rumors of a souped-up Apple TV coming in June, and we examine the softer side of Steve Jobs, as described in a new unofficial, Apple-backed biography. Plus: Skynet is the stuff of movies, but Elon Musk, Steven Hawking, and now Steve Wozniak, all believe AI is a big threat. Should we worried? You’re gonna want to unplug your Segway after this discussion.
Our thanks for Freshbooks for supporting this episode. FreshBooks is the easy-to-use invoicing software designed to help small business owners get organized, save time invoicing and get paid faster. It also makes tax time a cinch. Get started now with a 30-day free trial.
Full show notes ahead!
I followed the advice of an App Store optimization expert last year in an attempt to promote my iPhone app. Big mistake. It felt wrong at the time, and it did more harm than good. Now I’ve learned to trust my gut instincts instead.
Well, this is a bummer.
Gary Allen, perhaps the most respected voice and enterprising reporter in the Apple Community when it comes to Apple’s retail presence worldwide, is retiring from the blog he founded, ifo Apple Store.
Excited that Nintendo plans to release iPhone games in a new collaboration with mobile developer DeNA?
Here’s a taste of what it could end up being like: Nintendo’s gaming classic Super Mario 64 running on an iPhone!
I pretty much love Apple and Lego in equal measure, so the idea of somehow combining the two is never going to fail to win my approval.
Assuming that I’m not the only person to feel this way, allow me to introduce the Brik Case: a fantastic Kickstarter campaign intended to raise the cash needed to manufacture a MacBook case that can be decorated with Lego bricks, to create any design of your choosing.
Now just might be the best time ever to be a Mac gamer, as a ton of big titles for PC and console are also available for Apple computers via the Mac App Store, Steam or GoG.com. It’s a golden era of cross-platform goodness, and it’s easier than ever to find a game you’ll love on the Mac.
Some of today’s hot titles demand a good controller, though. One of the best is Sony’s DualShock 4 controller (the same one that comes with the PlayStation 4). If you’ve got one, you’ve got easy access to a fantastic, ergonomic and just plain great gaming controller that will work with your Mac, requiring very little setup to make it happen.
Here’s our recipe for great wireless Mac gaming.
It turns out Apple isn’t talking with NBCUniversal about partnering for its forthcoming TV service. At least not yet.
How do we know? Because Comcast, NBCUniversal’s parent company, hasn’t been approached by Apple at all. But that doesn’t mean NBCUniversal’s content won’t be on Apple’s service when it launches.
Apple’s Tim Cook has been very public about his stance on gay rights.
Now he’s calling out the state of Indiana’s highly controversial “religious freedom” bill, which Governor Mike Pence signed into law yesterday.
Slack, the cool new communications app that many of the world’s top companies have flocked to, just revealed that it’s been hacked.
Attackers were able to access a Slack database, the company said Friday morning. There’s no indication the hackers were able to decrypt passwords stored on the server, but Slack is immediately ramping up security efforts in response.
Whether it’s arguing over market share vs. profit margins, or Google Now vs. Siri, the war between Android and iOS users can sometimes can a bit heated.
But up until today, no matter how anti-Apple the crowd, I’ve never heard anyone stoop to compare Tim Cook’s company to Adolf Hitler, the mass-murdering Nazi Party leader.
That’s all changed now, however, as a new ad from Chinese Internet video site service, Jia Yueting, is drawing on the massively offensive parallel to promote its new Android smartphone.
About the only thing you can’t print on a 3-D printer is a time machine. However, the creators at Formlabs have managed to bring forward a staple from many 1950s living rooms.
OK, so 3-D printing a miniaturized replica of a Philco Predicta television isn’t exactly time travel, but you can ignore that when you realize the TV actually works.
This week, Alex has a quick look inside Apple’s secret health lab, Leander has some of his own thoughts about the hot new Becoming Steve Jobs book, Luke has important info about how hackers are brute-forcing simple passwords, Rob gives you a quick how-to on marking all those unread iMessages as read, and David has a pretty neat story about Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty. Wild, fun, and all Cult of Mac — that’s what we have for you in this edition of Cult of Mac Magazine!
YouTube has been supporting super-sharp 4K video for over a year now, as well as video playback at 60 frames-per-second. But for the first time, the world’s biggest video sharing platform will now allow viewers to combine the two.