Cult of Mac

BERKELEY, Calif. — ILE is big in Japan. The California bag company has found a market with the Japanese bike website Blue Lug, and the collaboration keeps pushing ILE into new bags, materials, hardware and color choices.

Eric Fischer, 26, launched ILE (short for “Inside Line Equipment”) out of his apartment four short years ago. He was racing bikes, buying fabric and making bags one at a time for himself, his friends and friends of friends.

“I always liked making things, but building buildings didn’t seem scalable,” Fischer told Cult of Mac. “Making bags seemed more like a painting rather than building a house.”

When Apple announced the new 2015 MacBook Air a couple weeks ago, there was at least a couple of disappointments.

First of all, for those of us who love the current form factor, power, keyboard, ports, and trackpad of the MacBook Air, there was no Retina Display in the 2015 model of the ultraportable.

In fact, the new MacBook Air’s Intel HD Graphics 6000 chip allegedly didn’t support Retina, with the maximum resolution it could pump out to an external monitor 2560 x 1600: a few million pixels below the 4K resolution necessary to make an argument for a desktop monitor being Retina.

It turns out, though, that Apple has undersold the graphic performance ability of the new MacBook Air.

Short of Samsung, there’s no other company that gets as bad a rap for copying Apple as Xiaomi. The Chinese gadget maker, though, has just beaten Apple to market in at least one category. Although a proper Apple HDTV has been rumored by the likes of Gene Munster for ages, Xiaomi has beaten Cupertino to the punch with a beautiful — and affordable! — Android smart TV.

Apple has bought a boring database company you’ve never heard of called FoundationDB. While not as sexy as buying Beats, the acquisition is good news for Apple’s increasingly important cloud services.

The Virginia-based startup, which has raised a little over $20 million in funding, specializes in handling large chunks of data very quickly. TechCrunch first reported news of the acquisition.

Apple could definitely use help on the server side, especially after its cloud services just recently suffered the worst outage in their history. With the iTunes Store, App Store, iCloud, iMessage, Siri, and a forthcoming TV service, Apple needs all the data power it can get. Hopefully FoundationDB will help.

It looks like that cheap cassette adaptor I bought for my first iPhone and that universal remote for all my TV gadgets at RadioShack in the last ten years may come back to haunt me.

If you’re like me and you’ve shopped at RadioShack within the last several years, your personal information may be included in the sale of all of the failed electronics retailer’s assets in an auction that concluded Monday of this week.

The sale also includes Radio Shack trademarks, patents, leases, and the court presiding over the matter will likely decide whether Radio Shack can continue its retail operations at a smaller scale.

The reported winner of the bid, Standard General, is also RadioShack’s largest shareholder, making this an odd one. The winning bid still needs to be approved by a bankruptcy judge, who will have to consider the pending legal challenges to this sale.

Like, for example, whether a retailer that bragged, “We pride ourselves on not selling our private mailing list,” can sell them once bankrupt.

You can’t get an Apple Watch until April 24th. But that doesn’t mean you can’t pretend to have its fine metals rubbing your naked wrist right now.

By printing out a tiny piece of paper and downloading an app, a horrible render of the Apple Watch will appear on your wrist like magic.

Police in Somerset County Maine have finally apprehended a man wanted for charges of burglary after the suspect, 24 year-old Christopher Wallace, made a crucial mistake after weeks of evading the cops: he snapchatted his hiding spot.

A warrant for Wallace’s arrest had been issued in connection to the theft of propane and wood stoves that were recovered at his home in February. Wallace hid for weeks after it was made known publicly that authorities were searching for him. Eventually he got cocky posted a message of Snapchat that he was back home.

Friends tipped off the sherif’s department that he was at house, which quickly brought officers to his door. They didn’t find him at first, but then Wallace decided to double-down on the stupidy and posted that the cops were looking for him and that he’s hiding in the cabinet.

More tips came in and the cops eventually located Wallace and posted this celebratory message on Facebook:

You just knew that when Apple announced its new “Shot on iPhone” ad campaign — crowdsourced from the millions of photos shot by regular iPhone owners each year, and displayed on billboards and bus stops around the world — it wouldn’t take long for someone to parody it.

Well, that day has come, thanks to a Tumblr parody page called “Also Shot on an iPhone” which shows an array of oddball bathroom selfies and other images blown up to poster size and displayed around San Francisco by a pair of local guerrilla street artists.

The results are suitably hilarious.

Rock band OK Go contains some incredibly talented folks. Their crazy-creative videos keep us dancing and guessing “how did they do that?” while they make iOS games and manage a successful touring and record-making career along the way.

Now the foursome is advertising for Red Star Macalline, a Chinese furniture company, with an advertisement using their hit song “I Won’t Let You Down,” including a video shot in China itself, as well as a remix of the tune for the ad.

Check it out below, but don’t say we didn’t warn you. Chair dancing will probably ensue (if you’re sitting down).

If you’re like me, you’ve got a ton of unread iMessages on your iPhone and tapping through them all just to get rid of your app badge anxiety seems like a bit too much effort.

Apple has your back, though, with a nicely designed way to mark all your iMessages as read. It might not be apparent at first glance where to find this magic trick. Here’s how.

You’re driving home late one night with your friend following. You lose him at a red light and, realizing he doesn’t have your address, need to tell him where to go.

You ask Siri to share your route with your friend, and voila, he’s able to follow your location as you drive with the Maps app.

Such is the kind of scenario that could arise in the future, thanks to a new Apple patent.

The 650 politicians who win seats at the U.K.’s House of Commons on May 7 are set to be given iPad Air 2 devices as part of a new deal.

Not everyone is happy about it, though. Shadow Cabinet Office minister (and possible Android user?) Chi Onwurah has attacked the plan — saying that, “Locking some of the most powerful people in the country into a platform that most of my constituents can’t afford seems like a mistake.”

Standing in front of a classic turntable, you might not expect to be impressed by the brick work

But it’s the first thing that comes to mind when beholding the sci-fi hi-fi created by Korean Lego artist Hayarobi.

No detail is overlooked on Hayarobi’s record player, which he called The Planet. It consists of more than 2,400 pieces and is powered by a Lego Power Functions Battery Box and LEGO Power Functions M-Motor, according to Huh Magazine.

Lesser brands like Samsung have to splash some serious cash to give the impression that they’re cool pieces of technology, but Apple’s so ubiquitous that pop stars are seemingly lining up to feature its products in their music videos.

The latest to create an unofficial Apple ad is pop songstress Charli XCX (a.k.a. the girl who sang the hook on Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy”). In her new video “Famous” — debuted as part of this week’s YouTube Music Award Show — Charli dances around her bedroom texting and watching videos on her iPhone and iPad, before both devices run out of battery, at which point she’s whisked off on a surreal adventure.

Check it out below:

Cupertino claimed the title of world’s most valuable company earlier this year, but according to some bullish Wall Street analysts, Apple could soon become the world’s first trillion-dollar company.

In a note to investors today, Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brian White increased his target price for Apple shares to $180, putting his estimations well above other analysts’ expectations. Apple shares’ value will increase 40 percent over the next 12 months, according to White’s report.

While Apple naysayers have pointed to slumping iPad sales and the unclear future of the Apple Watch as signs that Apple is weakening, White gives three key reasons why Apple is poised to break the trillion-dollar barrier.

Face it, we’ve all imagined ourselves in the hot seat of a TIE fighter or X-wing at some point.

With this hot new fan-made anime, you can finally get your tour of a galaxy far, far away from the perspective of one of the Empire’s sweet Twin Ion Engine pilots. It’s a loving homage not only to the Star Wars franchise, but also to those rad anime shows of yesteryear, like Robotech and Speed Racer

Buckle in and check it out below. You’re gonna love it.

Video games let us experience murderous rampages, violent carjackings and the horrors of war. But should virtual entertainment take us through a real-life tragedy with depictions of the actual people who lost their lives?

The developers of Titanic: Honor and Glory are prepared to answer that question as they build out a game based on the 1912 sinking of the luxury liner that claimed more than 1,500 lives.

The fourth beta of iOS 8.3 was released to developers today, less than two weeks after Apple dropped the third beta.

Previous betas have added new features like racially diverse emoji, two-factor authentication support for Google, and an option to download free apps without entering your password. The second public beta of iOS 8.3 was also made available to participants of Apple’s public beta testing program.

Along with the iOS 8.3 betas, Apple also released Xcode 6.3 beta 4 with Swift 1.2. The betas are available in the iOS Dev Center or as an over-the-air update if you already have the third beta installed. The release notes don’t mention any major new features, but we’ll let you know what we find once it’s installed.

Here are the direct download links:

Apple is trying to make Apple TV more appealing than ever with a lower price tag and HBO Now exclusivity, but Amazon announced today that it’s bringing new features to its set top box too, and they won’t cost customers a cent.

Expandable USB storage, private listening via for wireless headphones, and hotel Wi-Fi support are being added to Amazon’s TV devices. The new features will rollout to customers over the coming weeks as a free, over-the-air software update for the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick.

The list of new features includes the following:

Imagine getting early access to videos from your favorite YouTube channels, like Good Mythical Morning or Smosh.

Now imagine paying for the privilege.

Vessel, from former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar and CTO Richard Tom, proposes you do just that: pay $2.99 per month to get your videos three days earlier than the rest of the internet.

You’re not alone if you think this is a tough sell to a market obsessed with getting things for free, but Hulu Plus (which offered shows seven days earlier for a fee) did pretty well with the model, becoming the fastest paid subscription service, according to Kilar.

The team has also made the first year of Vessel for free, so that will help.

Here’s your opportunity to pick up the most amazing, precision-controlled RC drone.

The SKEYE Nano Drone, the world’s smallest quadcopter, is 41% off with free international shipping for a limited time only at Cult of Mac Deals.

We’re just weeks away from the Apple Watch’s launch, but maybe you’re not as excited about it as some of us are. It’s understandable; not everyone needs a $550 watch that offers many of the same capabilities your phone already does (albeit more conveniently).

If you’re in the market for a cool new watch and don’t need all the smart features and gadgetiness of Apple’s offering, here are a few less-shiny options you could check out. And they are, in fact, far less shiny than the Apple Watch. Because they’re made of wood.

Apple TV is boosting up its channel lineup ahead of the company’s rumored launch of a stand-alone streaming service. Channels for TED Talks, Young Hollywood, and Tastemade were added to the Apple TV homescreen this morning, bringing viewers a new selection of cooking tutorials, celebrity TV shows, and educational talks.

TED Talks serves up a number of presentations given by intellectuals all over the world, focusing on a myriad of topics ranging from body language to how we discovered DNA. Young Hollywood offers users a range of celebrity-focused shows, interviews, and other programming all available for free. Aspiring chefs can find a bevy of cooking shows in the Tastemade channel that features food adventure shows, cooking shows, and also video city guides.

SAN FRANCISCO — To make its mouse of the future, Logitech looked to the past. The MX Master, a reboot of a classic Logitech mouse that brings back a long-lost feature while adding significant modern upgrades, is perfect for the port-deficient new MacBook.

The MX Master resurrects the nifty scroll wheel that was a killer feature of the MX Revolution, which Logitech released in 2006. The Revolution’s clever scroll wheel seemed to shift gears on the fly, going from slow to speedy and letting you zip through long webpages and documents. The feature helped turned the Revolution into a hit, but the scroll wheel went away in subsequent Logitech mice, causing fans to weep for their loss when their beloved mouse finally crapped out.

The MX Master brings back the innovative scroll wheel with a vengeance.

When the Macintosh Plus was released 27 years ago, it was the most powerful Mac on the market. It even contained a SCSI port, which opened the door to the Macintosh getting a modem. Eventually, there were even internet browsers released for the Macintosh Plus.

That got Jeff Keacher over at the Daily Dot thinking. What would it be like to plug a 1976 Macintosh Plus into the modern web? Surprise surprise — it was absolute torture.