Being pals with Jony Ive definitely has its benefits. Just ask J.J. Abrams, the director of the upcoming Star Wars movie.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is the fourth person on Time‘s list of “The 100 Most Influential People,” a self-referential grouping of important figures from technology, music, politics, and our global culture.

Cook’s short essay focuses on his business acumen as well as his socially responsible world-view.

“It could not have been easy for Tim Cook to step into the immense shadow cast by the late Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs,” writes Congressman John Lewis for Time. “But with grace and courage and an unabashed willingness to be his own man, Tim has pushed Apple to unimaginable profitability—and greater social responsibility.”

Though there are many places that offer WiFi, the signal can often be unreliable, which renders your connection spotty at best. And, even if you do find a hotspot, you never know just how secure it is.

Now you can get a secure WiFi signal anywhere you need it with the MiFi 2 Unlocked Global Hotspot, only half price for a limited time at Cult of Mac Deals.

It’s been rumored for months that the iPhone 6S might pick up Apple Watch’s Force Touch feature when it’s updated this Fall, but according to the Chinese media Jony Ive is also planning to use the same aluminum used in the Apple Watch Sport.

If Apple pulls it off, it could solve the Bendgate controversy.

When you’re the richest company in the world you can afford to do crazy things: build a spaceship campus, start secret electric car projects, or buy an entire forest.

Apple announced today that it’s buying up 36,000 acres of private forest land that will be sustainably harvested and used for its packaging.

The land is broken into two tracts in Maine and North Carolina and will be managed by the Conservation Fund. Combined, the two tracts are more that two times the size of Manhattan. The pulp from the trees will go toward Apple’s packaging needs, but other companies will be able to buy fiber from them too.

New photos of cases reportedly designed for an upcoming 12.9-inch iPad Pro may reveal interesting tidbits about Apple’s long-rumored giant tablet.

Check out the possible details, based on photos from renowned Apple leaker Sonny Dickson, below.

This week’s ode to a technological marvel of the past would be a better read on an iPhone 6. How else to fully appreciate the design of the device in your hand than to read about when function and form first met on the telephone?

 Among the many items found in my aunt’s home when she died last year in a small town in Michigan’s upper peninsula were two telephones that are examples of the first dial phone.

If the once-common rotary dial phone seems strange today, behold the calling function on this 10-pound candlestick phone. On a circular base are 100 numbers. In communities too small to have a full-time operator, each home was assigned a number.

There was more to Walt Disney than Mickey Mouse. He was an obsessive futurist who used his theme parks to stage ideas of what a world filled with cutting-edge technology and the fruits of scientific ambition might look like.

The upcoming movie Tomorrowland is not only a nod to Disney, it re-imagines his vision with the full 21st-century CGI treatment of a world with robots, flying cars and towers reaching into the clouds.

There have been some Apple Watch games announced — mostly simple affairs, like Nimblebit’s upcoming Letterpad — but nothing truly epic.

WayForward Technologies, the veteran developer behind Ducktales Remasters, wants to change that. They’ve just announced that their latest adventure game, Watch Quest, will be available exclusively for the Apple Watch, starting next week.

After Steve Jobs, the original Mac, and the iPhone, launch day queues have to be one of the most recognisably Apple phenomenons of them all: something which speaks not only to the crazy number of sales Apple makes, but also to the devotion of its fanbase.

Recently it looked as if Angela Ahrendts was trying to permanently change-up Apple culture — sending an email to Apple Store employees which proclaimed, “The days of waiting in line and crossing fingers for a product are over for our customers.”

Fortunately, to paraphrase Mark Twain, it seems fears that Apple would do away with the excitement of launch day lines have been greatly exaggerated.

You know how the iPhone and iPad plays a little chime when you plug it in? The new MacBook also does that. But sadly, the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro remain completely silent when they connect to juice — which can make it hard to tell when you’ve accidentally knocked the MagSafe loose.

If you’ve got a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, though, it’s easy to hack in the new MacBook’s power-charging sound. Here’s how.

We’re living in a golden age for comic book movies, but even with that being the case, it can be kind of rare for a film to arrive in multiplexes, faithfully guided there by its original creator.

Having the original creator also show up as a writer or even director can work wonders, however, as this sextet of comic book cinematic gems prove.

IFTTT’s already dead simple Do collection of apps is about to get even better: two of the apps have just been supercharged with Apple Watch support, allowing you to run an IFTTT recipe on your watch face with just a single tap.

We all know that the pope has an iPad, but even popes upgrade. While we normal, unblessed humans tend to simply pass our old iPads down to a family member or sell them on Craigslist when we upgrade, the pontiff’s old iPad went straight to auction, where it sold for a staggering $30,500.

If you missed out on placing a preorder for an Apple Watch because you thought you’d be able to wait until April 24 and then buy one from your local Apple Store, prepare to be disappointed.

That’s because — according to a new memo sent to Apple Store employees by retail chief Angela Ahrendts — no Apple Watches at all will be available to buy as walk-in purchases until June at the earliest: five weeks after Apple’s wearable devices begin shipping.

Apple is reportedly testing two different designs for incorporating Apple Watch-style Force Touch technology into its next iPhone, according to a new report citing the Taiwanese supply chain.

With around five months until the next iPhone is unveiled, Apple is apparently experimenting with different placements for the Force Touch sensor — either locating it between the handset’s outermost protective screen cover and the in-cell touch panel, or else underneath the touch panel backlighting layer.

While Apple isn’t saying how many Watches it’s sold, estimates so far are that more than 1 million preorders have been placed.

Now the industry’s leading Apple analyst is weighing in with his own findings, including why preorder estimates have already been pushed back to June.

After showing us how to use the Messages app, clock faces, and Digital Touch on the Apple Watch, more guided tours have been posted by Apple online.

In its latest round of video tours, Apple takes a look at how to take phone calls, use Siri, get directions, and play music with the Watch.

With strong reviews and positive word of mouth behind both the iPhone 6 and the Samsung Galaxy S6, the battle between the two flagship devices is what the smartphone-watching world deserves.

But there’s one more question that precisely nobody’s been asking up until now: Which one would survive longer in a tub of boiling water?

Yep, as wacky stress tests go, you can forget about accusations of bending — this one takes the cake.

Comparing two impressive new quadcopters is like comparing a hawk to a falcon. Both birds are impressive.

That might make a tough choice for drone enthusiasts looking to upgrade, but for the rest of us, it’s easy: Just watch the awesome marketing videos and drool.

With the advent of Apple’s motion coprocessor chip (the M8 in recent iOS devices), any apps that you download and grant permission to can use this data to enhance their offerings.

This lets apps like RunKeeper, Carrot Fitness and others both gather fitness data from your iPhone as well as send it to the Health app.

This could raise privacy concerns for some, so being able to decide which apps we allow to access our fitness-tracking data — or whether the iPhone tracks these activities at all — can be a helpful.

Here’s our recipe for getting finer-grained control over your fitness-tracking data.

Apple is starting to toss Apple Watches at celebrities like the wearables are Viagra at the Playboy Mansion. Fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld just flashed his custom gold link bracelet on Instagram, and now Sam Smith is showing off his new timepiece — which was hand-delivered by Jony Ive himself.

Renowned fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld showed off his Apple Watch Edition with the first band we’ve seen that isn’t available in stores. And the cost of the custom gold band has to be jaw-dropping.

Keeping tabs on the TV remote control has been one of the greatest problems to plague man over the last 50 years. Apple Watch is finally solving that issue by slapping all the TV controls you need right on your wrist.

Apple fans, take notice.

You have the unique opportunity to win a brand spanking new Apple Watch with the aptly named Choose Your Own Apple Watch Giveaway, open for a limited time only at Cult of Mac Deals.