Cult of Mac

This week: Apple might be eyeing 2020 for their first car, but you can catch our most wanted features and price expectations right now. Plus: Cupertino pay massive bonuses to poach top talent; the insane acceleration of Tesla’s new electric car; the new and notable from iOS 8.3 beta; Toyota says “no thanks” to CarPlay; and finally, your listener questions, answered!

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Full show notes ahead!

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Forget Comcast, ZTE takes the cake with the most blatant Apple-ripoff-of-the-month award. The Chinese company’s latest handset, the Blade S6, is clearly… inspired by the iPhone.

While it doesn’t have the identical chamfered edges of Samsung’s upcoming phone, it does copy the most iconic part of every Apple product.

We get slammed 24/7 with new Apple rumors. Some are accurate, most are not. To give you a clue about what’s really coming out of Cupertino in the future, we’re busting out our rumor debunker each week to blow up the nonsense.

This week the Apple Watch rumors have reached a crescendo as invites to a not-so-mysterious event in March were released. Will the Apple Watch really launch with 100,000 apps? Will demand for the gold Apple Watch wreak havoc on the world’s gold supply? And don’t forget about the Apple car either. New rumors are claiming Samsung could be the biggest boost or roadblock for project Titan.

Find out the truth behind the week’s wildest Apple rumors below:

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During his whirlwind tour of the Middle East and Europe, Apple CEO Tim Cook has been leaving little breadcrumbs of Apple Watch revelations.

There was the confirmation that the Watch will be showerproof in Germany, and now Cook has said it will eventually replace your car keys.

Samsung’s three-sided display may make the Galaxy S6 Edge a little different, but it won’t be the most unique smartphone at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.

Monohm, a company based in Berkeley, California, that makes “heirloom electronics,” will announce a perfectly round smartphone called the Runcible that’s designed to look like a pocket watch.

At our current place on the evolutionary chart, we are a species that carries more things in the pockets of tighter pants.

Michael Tunney understood this every time he went to a bar and saw patrons pull out their cell phones and bulky wads of keys before sitting down. Tunney, himself bothered by keys in the pocket, set out to solve this problem.

The 28-year-old Chicagoan with a manufacturing engineer background invented Key Smart, a holder that keeps keys from jabbing your thigh and removes the unsightly pocket bulge out of form-fitting pants.

Think of a Swiss Army knife, but with keys that fold out of a slim handle.

Fancy a .app web address? You’re going to be buying it from Google. The search giant has splashed out just over $25 million on the entire .app web domain, which is around $19 million more than any other company has paid for a top-level domain so far.

iOS developers are constantly spitting on Android. But that’s not necessarily the way it should be. The developers behind iA Writer, one of the most beautiful distraction-free writing apps for iOS and Mac, have just ported their app to Android. And they seem really positive about Android so far.

Many of us have been eagerly awaiting a new version of Tweetbot for iPad for quite a while now, as well as an updated version of Tweetbot for Mac. The wait seems like it’s drawing to a close though. Today, developer Tapbots shared some updates, giving us a roadmap for the next updates to both Tweetbots for Mac and Tweetbot for iOS.

Former Apple retail boss Ron Johnson is taking on a new mission: helping online retailer Nasty Gal move into the brick-and-mortar retail space.

According to Re/code, Johnson is leading a $16 million investment in the ultra-chic brand, which started out in 2006 as an eBay store, and has risen to bring in more than $100 million in annual revenue. Johnson will also be joining the company’s board of directors, while simultaneously acting as the CEO of his as-yet-unlaunched e-commerce startup, Enjoy.

Steve Jobs would have been 60 years old this week, a sad fact we didn’t want to let pass unnoticed. Luke takes a look at this milestone year for the late Apple co-founder and ultimate savior. Buster tours the 300 racially diverse emojis Apple added to the latest iOS update, and then gives you an inside peek at the grueling hiring process all Apple employees must go through to work for our favorite company. Rob shows you how to find your lost iPhone–even when its battery is dead, and then takes a quick peek at the stunningly gorgeous new remastered version of stealth game République.

Be sure to hop into this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine for all this and more!

When Apple’s Greg Joswiak first introduced the EarPods on stage at the iPhone 5 event in 2012, he said they “look unlike any headphone you’ve ever seen before.” Samsung won’t be able to say the same for its new earphones, however, because they are essentially EarPods clones.

It has taken a lot longer than we anticipated, but the South Korean company has finally gotten around to launching an EarPods ripoff of its own, and it’s expected to come bundled with the upcoming Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.

“What color is this stupid dress?”

That’s the question I (as well as most of the Internet) asked friends tonight at the local bar, after a picture of an ugly gold-and-white … errr … black and blue bridesmaid’s dress swept the Internet late Thursday night.

An impassioned fight broke out between my buddy, the bartender and myself. “It’s gold and white!” they said emphatically.

“Are you blind?! It’s clearly navy and black,” I burst out, baffled, between bits of burrito and brew. I called the waitress over to win her over to my side, but surprise, she says, “It’s like, kind of copper and gray.”

Nearly 75 percent of people surveyed see the dress pictured above as gold and white, according to Buzzfeed. In reality, it’s navy and black.

The Internet completely blew its mind trying to explain why some people saw the #Dressgate dress in different colors. Experts are still struggling to come to a scientific consensus as to why you might see the fabric in a completely different color scheme than your friend. I feel like I’m going insane because it’s definitely blue and black, but most won’t agree.

To make it clearer, here’s the image with different color balances to show what others see:

Last year around 1.4 Million U.S. households reportedly threw in the towel on Pay TV and embraced the cord-cutting revolution. And it seems that the idea of consuming media in non-traditional ways starts young, with Nickelodeon this week announcing its plans to launch a subscription video service aimed at preschoolers.

Called Noggin, the service takes the form of an iOS app set to launch on March 5. Costing just $5.99 per month, it will be advertising-free, and will boast a range of kids’ shows, such as “Blue’s Clues” and “Little Bear” that are not currently part of Nickelodeon’s assorted TV networks.

There is a pretty set pattern that happens whenever Apple enters a new industry: evidenced everywhere from iTunes to the iPhone to the (rumored) Apple Car.

First of all, the established old guard dismiss Apple as a tech company that knows nothing about their business, then starts to panic when it realizes what it’s in a fight it may well lose, and then finally follows Apple down whichever path it is going.

Having initially dismissed Apple’s debut timepiece, Swiss watchmakers are now squirming as the Apple Watch’s April launch date creeps ever closer. First off, TAG Heur admitted it was working on a smartwatch and now fellow Swiss watch company Mondaine has revealed it is doing much the same.

It may be a desperation move on the part of Mondaine but, hey, as desperation moves go, it’s a pretty gorgeous one!

In one to file under “N” for “Never happening,” mobile phone company Ericsson has filed seven new lawsuits asking the U.S. International Trade Commission to block Apple products, such as the iPhone, from selling in the United States.

The lawsuits allege that Apple is infringing on up to 41 patents, related to user interfaces, battery saving, and operating systems. Kasim Alfalahi, Ericsson’s chief intellectual property officer, claims that the company has offered Apple a license for the technology, but has been turned down.

As part of his tour of the Middle East that included inaugurating Apple’s new Israeli R&D center, Tim Cook paid a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum today. Yad Vashem has served as the Jewish people’s living memorial to the Holocaust ever since it was established in 1953, and has seen dozens of prominent leaders grace its halls.

During his visit to the museum, including a walk through the Hall of Names, Cook left behind an inspiring message paying tribute to those who tragically perished for what they believed.

Read Tim’s entire guestbook message below:

You no longer need a Mac or iOS device to access Apple’s web-only version of iCloud apps.

Apple announced that starting today, anyone — even PC-users — can access its suite of iCloud web-based productivity apps, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, for free.

Zane Lowe, BBC DJ and future Apple employee, sat down with Kanye West today to talk about a number of subjects, including what the rapper’s amazingly innovative company will look like when it hits his projected $1 trillion valuation.

West didn’t sound too sure about the products he’ll be selling, but he pointed to some advice he got from none other than Apple design legend Jony Ive, saying innovation is basically overrated.

Today the FCC made a historic move to protect net neutrality. By reclassifying ISPs under Title II of the Communications Act, the internet is now regulated like a utility.

“While some other countries try to control the internet, the action that we take today is an irrefutable reflection of the principle that no one, whether government or corporate, should control a free and open access to the internet,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler during a packed meeting today in Washington DC.

In attendance at the meeting was Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who called the FCC’s decision a “victory for the people.”

Apple’s invite for the Apple Watch event looks like it was designed on a spirograph, but it’s also quite lovely.

Some Apple fans have already whipped up high-res wallpapers of the invite to remind you all day every day that all the info about Jony Ive’s fabulous timepiece will be revealed on March 9th.  The wallpapers come in versions for Mac, iPhone and iPad.

Grab yours below:

République Remastered is the gorgeously rebooted Mac and PC version of Seattle-based Camoflaj’s intriguing episodic stealth video game that originally came out for iPad and iPhone in December of 2013.

The development team took the opportunity to completely revamp the game within the updated game engine, Unity, moving the entire project from Unity 4 to Unity 5. By making this the first game release ever with the Unity 5 engine, they got early access to the engine in return for documenting their process.

“When Unity 5 was announced we saw our chance to make good on our two-year old promise to make a PC and Mac version of République,” writes the team on the Unity blog. “In addition to spending months completely reworking the game’s controls and UI, we knew we’d benefit from an increased wow factor on this new platform. From our dumpy office in downtown Bellevue (surrounded by industry titans like Bungie and Valve), we’ve put our heart and soul into this ambitious and at times, difficult, project.”

Check out the official game trailer below to see how they succeeded in making this already stunning game even more gorgeous.