Too many unread iMessages? Try this simple trick. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac Photo: Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
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.
Apple Maps could benefit directly from peer-to-peer location sharing. Photo: Apple Photo: Apple
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.
iPad Airs are now officially allowable expenses. Photo: Flickr/U.K. Parliament CC
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.”
Working turntable, speakers and tube amp by Lego artist Hayarobi. Photo: LoctiteGirl/Flickr CC
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.
Her iPhone's so fancy, but you already know that. Photo: Officialcharlixcx
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.
This just keeps getting higher and higher. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
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.
Strap in, boys, it's gonna be a long fight. Photo: OtaKing
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.
The Titanic: Honor and Glory game would take players through the full five days of the luxury liner's tragic journey. Photo: Four Funnels Entertainment
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.
iOS 8.3 is here. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
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.
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.
Get a year of early YouTube access for free. Photo: Vessel
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.
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.
The new Logitech MX Master takes pains to be a great Mac mouse. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
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.
Imagine surfing PornHub on this. Photo: Jeff Keacher
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.
Where would the iPhone and iPad be without multi-touch? Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Steve Jobs may have had an astonishing ability to predict where tech was going next, but he very nearly missed out on the iPhone and iPad altogether.
That’s because — according to a quote from Jony Ive in today’s freshly-released biography, Becoming Steve Jobs — Apple’s late CEO didn’t see “any value to the idea” of multi-touch: the breakthrough touchscreen technology which makes iOS regulars like “pinch-to-zoom” possible.
And it was left up to Ive and a few other core Apple employees to save it.
Maybe don't quit your day job for a shot at the big leagues, Fritz. Photo: Youtube
Fritz the Golden Retriever may be adorable with his bandanna and soulful doggy eyes, but man he can’t catch a damn thing. Well, except maybe a french fry near the end of this hilarious video that looks like it was shot on an iPhone in slo-mo mode.
Since it’s National Puppy Day, let’s all empathize with this sad canine and wonder — what kind of owner keeps tossing food at its head?
There's a new gold rush for a remnant of the late CEO's upbringing. Photo: eBay
Those lucky enough to have gone to high school with Steve Jobs are starting to cash in on their connection to the late Apple co-founder.
The world’s obsession with all things Jobs has extended to his days as a young, long-haired high schooler. A 1972 Homestead High School yearbook with Jobs’ senior picture sold today for over $12,000, and now more yearbooks are being auctioned off at hefty prices.
It’s been over three years since Steve Jobs died, however the hole he left at Apple and those closest to him still hasn’t been filled. Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli’s upcoming book Becoming Steve Jobs is full of anecdotes and events that showcase just how much Steve meant to his friends.
One such event happened in 2013, during Laurene Powell Jobs’ fiftieth birthday. Pixar CEO John Lasseter recounts in the book that he got there early and started talking to Tim Cook.
“Do you miss him? I really miss Steve,” Lasseter said, and then pulled out iPhone to show Tim that Jobs phone number and photo were still on the list.
Apple Pay has quickly become the most-used mobile wallet solution in the world, but finding businesses that accept it still isn’t all that easy. To help ease that pain, Apple launched a website today that offers free Apple Pay decals that participating merchants can apply to their registers and windows.
Twitter is testing auto-playing video. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Twitter is looking to take a swipe at YouTube’s viral video crown by adding a new feature that will automatically play videos in your timeline.
Starting today, some Twitter users in the U.S. on iPhone and iPad may see videos that start playing, whether you want them to or not. This goes for videos ads and users uploaded videos alike, as the company tests whether people are more likely to sit through a video if the action’s already started.
Google’s first foray into wearables didn’t do as well as the company expected. Despite closing the Google Glass explorer program in January though, Eric Schmidt says the project isn’t dead yet. It’s just getting ready for users.
Nest founder Tony Fadell, took over the project earlier this year after the company decided to stop selling the first version of Google Glass. According to Schmidt the technology behind Glass is too important to scrap, so they’ve moved it out of the Google X research lab and are developing it into a standalone unit.
Shouting can be an important part of your internet experience. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
Sometimes you just need to emphasize something. One of the best ways to do so when you’re texting is to make the words you really need to get across in all capitals. Or maybe you just want to shout at someone, and an ALL CAPS sentence will certainly get that across for you.
Before now, I’ve always just deleted the word I was trying to emphasize and re-typed it after double-tapping the Shift key in iOS (for Caps Lock). Now, however, it looks like you can change the case of the word after you’ve typed it without deleting anything.
Instagram introduced a new app called Layout that allows users to combine multiple photos in one image. Photo: Instagram
The Instagram faithful churns out 70 million photos daily. But if you weren’t able to share your meal or tell the story of your quirky cat in a single picture, you had to post multiple photos.
That changed Monday. Instagram introduced Layout, a new free app that lets you combine images into a single post. The news was announced on the Instagram blog.
Users can open Layout and drag and drop photos from their camera roll to any of the custom templates. Flip, rotate, resize and create mirror effects in your layouts.