Cult of Mac

One of the highlights of any Apple keynote is that it inevitably means another catchy jingle from YouTube songsmith and longtime Mac-fan, Jonathan Mann: a musician whose Apple-centric songs once made even Steve Jobs dance.

Frankly, it’s amazing that nothing short of amazing that Mann is able to create such entire songs, complete with music videos, so quickly after an Apple keynote is off the air, but somehow he does. Choosing a smooth jazz-synth sound and the vaguely-inappropriate title “It’s Not Just With You, It’s In You… I Mean On You,” Mann lovingly lampoons Apple’s “most personal device” with an earworm that, all things being equal, should tide you over until WWDC.

Check out the music video (and its lyrics) after the jump. You might even want to sing along…

Apple will consume 18 percent of global sapphire ingot output making the displays for the Apple Watch, according to a new report coming out of China’s supply chain. This adds up to a whopping 30.8 million millimetres of two-inch (diameter) sapphire ingots in total.

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Betabrand designers don’t want to dress us in crap. But they will happily cover us in Poo emojis.

The San Francisco-based crowd-funded clothing company known for innovative blends of comfort, clever, cool and humor – consider the Photobomber hoodie or Shiny Silver disco leggings – seem to have piles of material with a poo emoji pattern.

First, Betabrand produced a Chuck Taylor-inspired high-top sneaker, then a men’s short-sleeve button-up shirt that left the company flush with orders. Now, a sleek pocket dress sprinkled with the bright-eyed, smiling coil of fun is available.

Shortly before Apple kicked off its Spring Forward event yesterday, Google released its latest Android Wear ad, which showcases the one thing you won’t get with the upcoming Apple Watch: choice.

Assume, for a moment, you’ve always been an Android guy but yesterday’s spintastic Apple Watch presentation sent you over the edge.

Now you’re a freshly minted Apple fanboy with money to burn, and you want to go from zero to full-on Apple hero. How much is it going to set you back if you’re ready to go all in with the latest, greatest gear Cupertino has to offer?

We’ve seen a lot of iPhone 6 torture tests in our day. But this guy dropping his iPhone 6 in a lava lamp has to be the grooviest.

The CIA has been been involved in a multi-year effort to crack iOS security, according to new information provided to The Intercept by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The attempts have been the focal point of multiple yearly CIA conferences called “The Jamboree.”

Among the possible solutions proposed include a means of “whacking” Xcode, the software used to create apps for iOS and Macs. Researchers claimed they had discovered a means by which Xcode could be manipulated to allow devices to be infected, so as to allow for the extraction of private data — thereby creating a “remote backdoor” that would disable core security features and allow undetected access to Apple devices.

The Apple Watch is a watch in as much as the iPhone is a phone: It bears a resemblance to its titular device, but does so much more as well. That said, Apple’s focus on inviting fashion and watch journalists to yesterday’s “Spring Forward” keynote shows that Cupertino does view its new wearable device as an alternative to analog watches.

Now that we finally have a price tag for all the Apple Watch models, we can compare a few classic alternatives you could strap on your wrist instead. You won’t get the apps, or the ability to beam your heartbeat to a loved one, but if it’s a stylish status symbol you’re after, these are the timepieces the Apple Watch needs to beat.

Check out our picks to see if Jony Ive’s proclamation that Swiss watchmakers are “f*cked” is really true.

The people of St. Pauli in Hamburg, Germany are pissed off about being pissed on.

Declaring “Peeback Time,” an anti-public urination group has coated neighborhood walls with a special chemical that will return the stream back to anyone too lazy to find a bathroom.

St. Pauli draws throngs of visitors in the German port city because of bars, music clubs and a well-known red light district. The Beatles briefly called St. Pauli home before fame struck.

With so many Apple Watch configurations to choose from, making your preorder before Apple’s initial stock sells out next month could be difficult if you leave it until the last minute.

But you can choose and save your favorite Watch configuration now for instant preordering later through the Apple’s online store.

When Steve jobs co-founded Apple, his vision was to democratize technology.

At the time, computers were for governments and rich corporations. Jobs wanted everyone to have their own computer — a crazy idea back in the ’70s. The slogan for the original Macintosh was “the computer for the rest of us.”

For the next 30 years, Jobs worked hard to realize that mission. Although Apple has never made the cheapest computers, in general, the trend has been cheaper and more accessible, from the Mac to the iPhone. For most people, Apple’s products are largely affordable.

This is why the gold Apple Watch Edition — which starts at $10,000 — bugs me. It’s not a watch for the rest of us. It’s a watch for everyone but us. It’s a watch for the one percent.

If there’s one thing Xiaomi can’t be accused of, it’s having a lack of ambition.

Not content with having come out of nowhere to become the world’s third-biggest smartphone maker, the CEO of the Chinese tech company, Lei Jun, has announced that he next plans for his company to become the number one smartphone vendor globally within the next 10 years.

Apple blew us away today with its HBO Now partnership, sexy new MacBook, and ResearchKit. But the star of the show was Apple Watch, which has the potential to be either a game changer or massive flop.

For those who don’t remember, this was the second time Apple execs have taken the stage to talk Apple Watch. We got an initial preview of the Watch back in September, and today’s event was more for filling in the knowledge gaps.

While we already knew the Watch’s main selling points and the kinds of apps it would run, there was still some crucial information that needed answering. Luckily Apple did address the most important questions, but it also left certain aspects of the Watch in ambiguity.

The new MacBook is gorgeous, insanely thin, revolutionary and pressure-sensitive. It’s also missing one killer feature: a glowing Apple logo.

The shining bit of trade dress has been a pop culture icon ever since Apple released the PowerBook G3 in May 1999. However, it looks like Jony Ive’s design team is ready to sacrifice the glowing Apple beacon in the name of thinness. You’ll still find a light-up logo on the MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros, but it was never meant to be on Apple’s new golden beauties.

Take a look at the back of the new 12-inch Retina MacBook:

HBO is finally embracing cord-cutters by offering up a dream product: unlimited access to all of its content for $15 per month, no contract required.

The new cable-free service is set to premiere next month, just in time for the Game of Thrones season 5 premiere, but in order to access it you’ll need either an Apple TV or an iOS device. Apple signed an exclusivity agreement with HBO to sell the new service, and according to a report from Recode’s Peter Kafka, Apple’s exclusive access will last for the first three months.

Pre-orders for the Apple Watch start on April 10th, but if you’re anything like us, you probably already know which Apple Watch you’re going to buy.

I’ve got my heart set on the Apple Watch Sport murdered out in space grey with a black sport band, even though the stainless steel Apple Watch is a little cheaper than I was expecting. Some of the Cult of Mac staff are still debating which timepiece they’ll be purchasing, but we want to hear from you, the readers, which Apple Watch version do you plan to buy?

Today’s media presentation was billed as an Apple Watch event and even its name, “Spring Forward,” had the press preoccupied with time and wrist-based computing.

But journalists in attendance were just as excited to learn about a completely reinvented Retina MacBook. Reporters covering the Apple unveiling eagerly shared initial impressions once they got their hands on Apple’s thinnest, lightest computer yet.

The look impressed. The touch was another matter.

Today’s ‘Spring Forward’ keynote was packed with more videos than any event in recent memory. Not only did Apple show promo videos for the new products like the 12-inch MacBook and Apple Watch, there were three separate videos just talking about the different materials that went into Apple Watch.

Apple finally posted all nine new videos on its YouTube channel, and you can watch all of them below:

What will make or break the Apple Watch for most people isn’t a fancy band or the feel of the Digital Crown. It will be the apps they can use.

And after today’s Spring Forward event, it looks like a lot of apps will be ready for Watch on day one.

There won’t be an App Store on the Watch itself, but you’ll be able to install apps directly from a special section of the App Store on a paired iPhone. Here are what the hottest third-party Watch apps will look like, including ones Apple isn’t showing off on its site:

Now that we know more about the long-awaited Apple Watch, it’s time to find out how it stacks up against Google’s Android Wear platform and the growing number of wearables that support it.

There are lots of similarities between the two, but there also some big differences in software, hardware, and price that will likely help you decide which one is right for you.

Starting April 10th you’ll be able to go into any Apple Store and try on Jony Ive’s amazing new timepiece.

If you’d rather not wait and want to see how Apple’s timepiece will fit your wrist right now, Apple’s got a handy sizing guide that will help you find the perfect size from your house. The Apple Store app for iOS also has a size comparison tool so you can see how big each watch face is on your wrist.

Grab the printout version below:

Aside from the gorgeous new 12-inch MacBook Air, the part of today’s Apple keynote that excited me the most was the announcement of what Apple is calling ResearchKit, a new open-source iOS software framework designed to crowdsource volunteers for medical research studies.

Using the tool, researchers can tap into Apple’s massive iPhone user base to recruit people for medical data-gathering. Users sign up with a digital signature, and can then instantly begin recording data.

True to the rumors, Apple Watch comes with a special Power Reserve mode that will lightly sip on juice so your watch can keep ticking.

Tim Cook didn’t specify how long Apple Watch’s ‘all day’ battery lasts, but Apple’s website specifies you could potentially keep your watch alive for an extra 72 hours in Power Reserve mode.

“We set out to completely reinvent the notebook,” Tim Cook told the crowd during today’s Apple event. “And we did it.”

Apple introduced it’s biggest redesign of the MacBook since the original MacBook Air was released in 2007. The new notebook comes weighing in at just 2 pounds and 13.1mm thick, despite boasting a Retina display with a 2,304-by-1,440 resolution.

The thinness of the new MacBook isn’t the only thing that’s impressive. There’s a new Taptic TouchPad, thin keyboard and USB C. Plus, Apple invented new terraced batteries to squeeze juice into every cranny of the all-metal housing, giving you 10 hours of use on a single charge.