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Apple Watch may enter mass production earlier than expected

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Original Apple Watch models
Forget yield problems -- the Apple Watch may go into production one month ahead of forecasts. Photo: Apple
Photo: Apple

Apple is said to have resolved yield issues with various Apple Watch components, and the device is set to go into mass production in January — one month earlier than many were expecting — according to a new report from Taiwan’s United Daily News.

The news story also claims that Apple has ordered 24 million Apple Watches for 2015, and that supplier Quanta is massively boosting its workforce to accommodate. Quanta has already increased its number of workers from 2,000 to 10,000 — and it will supposedly expand again to 20,000 employees at the height of first year Apple Watch production.

First-gen iPhone 2G is now going for $12,500 on eBay

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Screenshot: Cult of Mac
Screenshot: Cult of Mac

Back when it was released in 2007, the original iPhone 2G cost $599 with a two-year contract from AT&T. Seven years later, boxed first-gen iPhones are a little rare, but if you’ve got the dosh, you can still buy one on eBay.

But prepare to be shocked by the sticker price: An original iPhone in mint condition will cost you $12,500.

We’re the chips in America: Apple could build A9 processor in the U.S.

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Chips
A9 production may be coming to the U.S. Photo: Fabrizio Sciami/Flickr CC
Photo: Fabrizio Sciami/Flickr CC

GlobalFoundries, a.k.a. the largest silicon foundry in the United States, is pushing to to become a mobile device chipmaker for Apple, according to a new report.

On the back of the enormous success of the iPhone 6, the battle to build Apple’s next generation 14-nanometer A9 chips has been raging as of late — with the three leaders being Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Samsung and GlobalFoundries.

The chips in question are set to debut with Apple’s 2015 iOS devices, including the next generation iPhones and iPads.

Win a high-def action cam with The GoPro Hero4 Black Giveaway [Deals]

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CoM_GoPro_Hero4_Black

If you seek adventure at life’s every turn, then you need an action cam to capture your exciting exploits as they unfold. But not just any action cam will do. You are going to want the best action cam money can buy. Or, better yet, why not just win one for nothing?

You could win a brand spanking new, top of the line, high definition action camera when you enter The GoPro Hero4 Black Giveaway at Cult of Mac Deals.

Lego scooter helps gimpy tortoise get around

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Lego wheels glued on the belly of this tortoise helps him move while he recovers from muscle weakness. Photo by Action Press/Rex
Lego wheels glued on the belly of this tortoise help him move while he recovers from muscle weakness. Photo: Action Press/Rex

Tortoises are born with houses on their backs. But what if their legs aren’t strong enough to move about with such a burden?

A veterinarian in Germany found a solution for one gimpy tortoise by raiding his son’s toy collection: Dr. Carsten Plischke used Lego bricks to make a kind of scooter for Blade, a shellback that has difficulties walking because of a growth disorder.

Photo finish: Instagram now more popular than Twitter

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Screen grab: Instagram
Photos: Instagram

Oh good, more selfies.

Instagram has surpassed more than 300 million users, doubling its membership in just over a year.

The app, which has a stream of more than 70 million photos and videos per day, now has more users than Twitter (284 million), proving once again your friends would rather see a picture of your dinner than read about it in 140 characters or less.

“Over the past four years, what began as two friends and a dream has grown into a global community,” CEO Kevin Systrom said on the Instagram blog. “We’re thrilled to watch this community thrive and witness the amazing connections people make over shared passions and journeys.”

Stop-motion Submarine Sandwich turns sporting goods into deli delights

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Photo: PES
New stop-motion video Submarine Sandwich re-creates a 1920s deli counter.
Photo: PES

Soccer balls and catcher’s mitts become tasty slices of deli meats in Submarine Sandwich, the latest amazing video from stop-motion auteur PES.

The Oscar-nominated director says it takes up to 12 hours to produce three seconds of his short films, which are creative in the extreme. His latest two-minute masterpiece, which premiered Wednesday on YouTube, is sweet meat for your hungry eyes.

The world goes mad in new Mad Max: Fury Road trailer

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madmax2

Photo: Get ready to go mad. Photo: Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. released the first theatrical trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road today, and while Mel Gibson is nowhere to be seen, George Miller’s post- apocalyptic world has only gotten more insane now that Tom Hardy has stepped into the role of Max.

I never saw the first movie and have no clue what’s going on in the trailer, but that’s not stopping me for getting ridiculously amped for this quasi-sequel that takes place in a world that’s run out of water, so the only sensible thing to do is worship steering wheels and smash weaponized-hotrods to bits while speeding through fire tornados.

The special effects and cinematography look absolutely insane and the supporting cast make us believe that watching the world of fire and blood destroy itself might be come with decent acting mixed in.

Watch the world go mad in the trailer below:

Alipay brings Touch ID payments to 300 million customers in China

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Apple Pay is going everywhere in 2015. Photo: Apple
Apple Pay is inching closer to China. Photo: Apple

Apple is still trying to get a license for Apple Pay in China, but its new friends at Alibaba are bringing Touch ID payments to the mainstream in China today, with an update to the popular Alipay app that gives iPhone owners the power to make purchases with a fingerprint.

Alipay, which boasts over 300 million users in China, is the e-payment branch of Alibaba which just had the biggest global IPO ever this year. Tim Cook and Alibaba CEO Jack Ma met this year to talk about an Alipay + Apple Pay partnership, and the addition of Touch ID support is a strong sign that Apple’s mobile payments solution could be added in the future.

iOS 8.2 beta 2 is now available for developers

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A new day, a new iOS bug...
iOS 8.2 beta is here. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple surprised us with the untested iOS 8.1.2 update yesterday, but this morning Cupertino is dropping something a bit more exciting with the second beta release of iOS 8.2 that brings WatchKit to the iPhone.

The iOS 8.2 beta is available now in the Dev Center along with an Xcode 6.2 beta. The release notes don’t mention any new features, but there are tons of bug fixes, plus some improvements made to WatchKit. We’ll let you know if we find anything new once we install it.

Developers can pick up the beta as an over-the-air update if you’re already on the iOS 8.2 beta 1, or you can get it from the direct download links below:

Lego Bill Gates’ fave reads of 2014 will surprise you

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Can Bill Gates get any cuter?
Can Bill Gates get any cuter? Photo: Bill Gates
Photo: Bill Gates

In a delightful little video from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the tech billionaire and philanthropist talks about the favorite books he’s read this year. It’s an eclectic collection: Thomas Piketty’s volume on income inequality, Capital in the Twenty-First Century shares equal space with fiction novel The Rosie Effect as well as a book from the late 1970s, Business Adventures, by John Brooks. It’s a rare insight into the mind of one of our biggest business and cultural leaders of the last several decades.

Check out the video below for the whole list, and a charmingly presented stop-motion Lego film starring Bill Gates himself.

Apple and IBM launch first wave of enterprise apps

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IBM
The first wave of apps marking the partnership of Apple and IBM are here. Photo: Apple/IBM
Photo: Apple

After unveiling a partnership with IBM back in July this year — designed to combine IBM’s enterprise data specialties with Apple’s iOS hardware and software — Apple today announced the first 10 of its iOS apps released as part of the agreement.

In a press release, Apple’s Phil Schiller describes it as a “big step for iPhone and iPad in the enterprise,” and notes how “Apple and IBM are bringing together the world’s best technology with the smartest data and analytics to help businesses redefine how work gets done.”

Is Apple planning on being a Scrooge this year?

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Where is 12 Days of Gifts? Photo: Apple
Where is 12 Days of Gifts? Photo: Apple

Last year, Apple celebrated the holidays with a fantastic app called 12 Days of Gifts. Like a digital advent calendar, the 12 Days of Gift apps handed out free music, TV shows, movies, books, and apps over the holiday period.

But this year, we haven’t seen the 12 Days of Gifts app, at least so far. Is Apple canceling it? What’s the hold up?

How to keep those annoying phone calls off your iPad or Mac

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Photo: Alex Heath/Cult of Mac
Seriously, I don't want to have to ignore your call on three devices. Photo: Alex Heath/Cult of Mac

I love the idea of being able to answer a phone call on my Mac, or even on my iPad. The convergence of this communication technology seems like it has great potential.

In reality, though, I end up getting three rings for every call, each slightly time-shifted from the rest, as I sit in my office/living room with my iPhone, iPad and Mac. You’d think that such an intelligent system would know that I had all three devices in one room, and only ring through to one specified device. Until Apple figures that out, maybe in an iOS update or OS X 10.11, there’s only one thing you can do: Disable the heck out of it.

Here’s how.

Maybe Apple killed off the iPod Classic too soon?

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Photo: Apple
Photo: Apple

After years without updates, September 9th was a sad day for iPod fans: it marked the formal extinction of the iPod Classic, the last of Apple’s chunky, non-flash-based music players.

Three months after the last iPod Classic was sold through Apple.com, though? The iPod Classic is more in demand — and more expensive — than ever.

This painter sees the world through 8-bit glasses

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R2-D2 is just one of Adam Lister's 8-bit-inspired pop culture artworks.

Remember being lost in the 8-bit world of Atari and Nintendo? When Adam Lister was a boy, he couldn’t spend enough time in his basement playing Pong, Space Invaders or Donkey Kong.

Games and graphics, of course, evolved, and the chiptune music of those game consoles went silent long ago. But the graphic language where characters are a rough collection of cubes and rectangles still speaks to Lister.

It is the lens through which he views art history and pop culture in a series of more than 250 watercolor paintings he created over a three-year period.

63% of users have now upgraded to iOS 8

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20140407_iOS-tips_0058_final
iOS 8 adoption continues to pick up. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

It was a rocky start for iOS 8, but adoption figures continue to creep upwards. As per the latest figures released by Apple, 63% of active iOS users are now running the latest version of the company’s mobile OS, while 33% are using iOS 7, and 4% are running earlier versions of the operating system.

Apple measured usage via visits to the App Store on Monday this week.

The increase is likely related to the continued high sales of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus — which are predicted to sell a massive 71.5 million units over the holidays. Most recently, Apple released iOS 8.1.2 to the public, helping to solve the mystery of disappearing ringtones on iOS devices.

Apple’s legal team blasts the media over requests to release Steve Jobs video

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Steve Jobs introducing the iPod mini. Photo: Apple
Steve Jobs footage may not be released to the public after all. Photo: Apple

Apple’s latest class-action lawsuit made the news primarily because it featured none other than Steve Jobs as a key witness, as he appeared courtesy of a video deposition taken shortly before his untimely death in 2011.

Immediately, news outlets jumped on the opportunity to publicly release the footage, with The Associated Press, Bloomberg, and CNN filing a motion to have the tape released.

“Steve Jobs is not your typical trial witness, and that’s what makes this a unique circumstance,” said a lawyer acting on behalf of the media companies, adding that, “We’re not asking for anything other than what the jury heard.”

However, it seems like cooler heads may prevail — and we won’t see the footage after all.

How to build a gaming Hackintosh on the cheap: software

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Installing OS X on your PC. Photo: Pedro Aste/Flick, CC-licensed
Installing OS X on your PC. Photo: Pedro Aste/Flickr CC

My mission to build a powerful gaming Hackintosh for $650 — $50 less than Apple’s midrange Mac mini — is almost complete.

In Part 1 of this guide, I covered the components I purchased for my build and recommended extras and alternatives for those with different budgets.

In Part 2, I walked you through assembly of the screaming machine.

Now it’s time to install the software.

Believe it or not, building your Hackintosh is the easy bit; getting OS X to run on a machine it was never designed for is the real challenge.

But with time, patience and a little bit (OK, plenty) of frustration, you can make it happen.

Here’s how.

Save big on extra storage with the HyperDrive MacBook Storage Expander [Deals]

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CoM_HyperDrive_MacBook_Storage

For as long as there have been home computers, users have been looking for ways to increase their storage capacity. The first harddrives that entered the market in the 1980’s were difficult to install, had small capacity limits, and were remarkably expensive, even by today’s standards.

By contrast, today you can easily increase the capacity of your MacBook Air 13” or MacBook Pro Retina 15” by up to a huge 128GB for a paltry $30 with the HyperDrive MacBook Storage Expander, 25% off at Cult of Mac Deals for a limited time.

Sony hack reveals dirty secrets behind Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs movie

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New leaks reveal the dramatic backroom details behind Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs screenplay, including his top choice to play the leading role. (Photo courtesy of MGM)
New leaks reveal the dramatic backroom details behind Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs screenplay, including his top choice to play the leading role. (Photo: MGM)

If Aaron Sorkin had his way, Tom Cruise would be Steve Jobs.

That’s one of the juicy details to have surfaced from leaked emails between Sorkin and Sony, the studio Sorkin had originally partnered with to make the film. The leaks also reveal the controversial casting decision that ultimately caused Sony to give up the film to Universal.