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Apple may stop iPhone 5c production next year

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Photo: Apple
Photo: Apple

Apple is set to discontinue the iPhone 5c next year, according to a new report from Taiwan’s Industrial and Commercial Times. The news outlet claims that Apple will continue producing the handsets until the middle of 2015, at which point assemblers Wistron and Foxconn will wind down production.

This news follows on the back of a similar report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who claims that Apple will do away with both the 5c and 4s, despite both doing well in emerging markets. This is part of an effort to streamline Apple’s handset business, and will mean that all available iPhones will feature the Touch ID technology at the heart of Apple’s mobile payment ambitions.

How to fix Wi-Fi problems in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite

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Download iOS 8.0.1 now. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac.
These unofficial methods will ease Wi-Fi problems in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite users have been plagued by a host of Wi-Fi problems since Apple’s two latest operating systems were released. Apple has released updates for both, but to no avail: People keep suffering through Wi-Fi drops, seemingly at random.

What the heck’s going on? According to one developer, the issue is caused by the custom technology that Apple uses for AirDrop and AirPlay on both iOS 8 and OS X. And there’s a way to fix it!

Apple is getting ready to ditch Google as search engine for iOS and OS X

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An image of the Google beta logo with the rainbow Apple logo in place of the first O
For a brief moment, there was a report of Google buying Apple.
Photo: Google/Apple

Apple has spent a great deal of time distancing itself from Google ever since its erstwhile partner launched Android back in 2008. Google Maps and YouTube haven’t been bundled as default apps on iPhones or iPads for years, and rumors keep swirling that Apple will kill its partnership with Google as a default search engine in Safari on both iOS and OS X.

But now? Now it looks like Apple might finally pull the trigger, ending all of its Google partnerships for good.

BlackBerry will pay you money to ditch your iPhone

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Photo: BlackBerry
Photo: BlackBerry

In a marketing campaign I can only assume is some kind of meta-parody designed to go viral, BlackBerry is offering a so-called “Trade-Up” program designed to get iPhone owners to jump ship to the new BlackBerry Passport.

From December 1 until February 13, disgruntled iPhone owners can “upgrade” to the BlackBerry Passport and receive up to $400 for their iPhones, plus an extra $150 (or $200 CAD) from BlackBerry. To take advantage of the “deal” customers must pick up their BlackBerry Passports from either ShopBlackBerry.com or Amazon.

This simple new circuit could double iPhone data speeds

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A simple new circuit could double iPhone data speeds. Photo: Apple
A simple new circuit could double iPhone data speeds. Photo: Apple

Your iPhone can send data pretty fast over a wireless network, but it’s hobbled in at least one regard: the wireless antenna design can’t send data while receiving data at the same time. That means that the data speeds of your iPhone are potentially cut in half, just by the nature of wireless technology. But a new circuit could allow future iPhones to double their data speeds without making any other changes.

Justice Department pushes unnamed smartphone maker to help crack passcodes

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Photo: Rob LeFebvre, Cult of Mac
Photo: Rob LeFebvre, Cult of Mac

Apple is big on secrecy: both its own and its users’. Earlier this year, the company tweaked its software to ensure that even Apple would be unable to crack a passcode set by one of its customers.

“Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data,” Apple wrote on its website. “So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.”

Users have generally praised the decision, but government officials have been less than impressed — even going so far as to say Apple’s decision could potentially result in the death of a child.

While most people can see through this kind of scaremongering, the U.S. Justice Department isn’t giving up that easily. According to a new report in the Wall Street Journal, the DOJ is turning to a 225-year-old law called the All Writs Act to try and solve the problem of password-protected cellphones.

How Corning won Apple back and built the strongest Gorilla Glass yet

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Corning's Gorilla Glass. Photo: Corning
Gorilla Glass is the go-to material for today's touchscreens. Photo: Corning

Corning’s relationship with Apple looked doomed earlier this year. Having manufactured the touchscreens for every iPhone since 2007, the Gorilla Glass bosses were all but sure they were being ditched in favor of synthetic sapphire crystal, set to be supplied by Apple’s hot new partner, GT Advanced Technologies.

But while Apple’s affair with GT has imploded spectacularly, Corning is back on Cupertino’s crush list after stepping in at the eleventh hour to create super-sized displays for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Now Corning is convinced its latest technological advance — Gorilla Glass 4, its toughest version yet — will banish sapphire suitors for the immediate future.

“Sapphire is a really, really nice material that’s very good for reducing scratches,” Dave Velasquez, Corning’s director of marketing and commercial ops, told Cult of Mac. “However, we feel very strongly that glass is the best material for touch panel cover glass. When you weigh up everything from cost to drop-testing, to the amount of energy that’s needed to make it, in our opinion Gorilla Glass is clearly the best material to use.”

Intel wants to replace all your passwords with Touch ID-style biometrics

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Touch ID
Photo: Apple
Photo: Apple

Touch ID might have just made it to iPads, but Intel wants to go one step further: bringing enhanced biometric passwords to PCs, which it plans to do before the end of the year.

“Your biometrics basically eliminate the need for you to enter passwords for Windows log in and eventually all your websites ever again,” Kirk Skaugen, senior vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group at Intel, recently revealed.

The software, which will arrive courtesy of the Intel-owned McAfee, will allow PC users to replace the 18 passwords that the average user reportedly has with a combination of fingerprint, gesture, face and voice recognition.

You’ll want to believe in bedtime stories again after watching trailer for Pan

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Sail away to Neverland next summer. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures
Sail away to Neverland next summer. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures

You think you know Peter Pan’s story? Guess again, because director Joe Wright (Anna Karenina, Pride and Prejudice) has got an entirely new tale to tell.

Pan is the origin story of the boy who never grows up. He’s an orphan, left on a doorstep with a mysterious note from his mother. He’s secreted away to Neverland, where he mixes things up with Tiger Lily, Blackbeard (played by an almost unrecognizable Hugh Jackman) and a young, idealistic Captain Hook.

Check out the gorgeous trailer below for the full details.

Accurately read your blood alcohol content with The BACtrack Vio [Deals]

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The holidays are approaching fast which means parties and family gatherings. It also means that your local police force will be stepping up patrols to find people guilty of driving under the influence.

Now you can take the guess work out of deciding whether you can safely operate a vehicle after imbibing with The BACtrack Vio, only $42.99 for a limited time at Cult of Mac Deals.

Humans are back on the menu in first Jurassic World trailer

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jurassicworld
Sea World's going under, but at least we've got Jurassic World. Photo: Universal Pictures

It’s been over a decade since the last time Hollywood took us to the magical world of friendly and fun dinosaurs, but the first trailer for Jurassic World has been released, and from the looks of things, everything’s changed and yet nothing is different at all.

The park is open and humans are back on the menu. Chris Pratt is all over the first trailer, playing a genius paleontologists brought to the island to investigate the disappearance of a genetically-modified super dinosaur, created by Jurassic World’s air-head scientists, who obviously didn’t learn from the past three movies.

Watch the full trailer below:

Apple reaches record $700 billion market cap

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Yep, Apple's worth a whole lot of money right now. As if you didn't know that already. Photo: Pierre Marcel/Flickr CC

AAPL shares sure have experienced a crazy roller coaster ride this year. Splitting 7-to-1 earlier in 2014, a fantastic run of product launches and announcements since then has driven Apple stock higher and higher. Earlier this month we noted that Apple was now worth more than the entire Russian stock market, and today it has hit a personal-best market cap of $700 billion.

This happened as Apple’s share price rose to the $119.65 mark, bringing it to a pre-split price of $837.13. For those keeping tabs at home, not only is this better than Apple’s last high point, when it was valued around $650 in late 2012, but it also represents a massive 50% increase since January this year.

How to bring Kinect-like gesture control to your Apple TV

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Kinect-like gesture control comes to the Apple TV. Photo: Onecue
Kinect-like gesture control comes to the Apple TV. Photo: Onecue

We know that Apple is interested in giving the Apple TV Kinect-like motion sensing abilities — they bought the 3D motion tracking company behind the tech last year, after all — but who knows when, if ever, it will actually come to living rooms.

If you want to start waving your way through your Apple TV’s interface now, though, meet the Onecue. It’s a cool little gadget that grafts Kinect-like functionality into your home entertainment system.

10 astonishingly great video games based on movies

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This delightfully colorful video game had kids throwing apples and leaping across dangerous bazaar stalls  to re-enact some of the crazy scenes from the Disney animated movie of the same name. The title blended some Prince of Persia gameplay with the easy-on-the-eyes color palette of the Disney hit to create a very playable video game experience.
This delightfully colorful video game had kids throwing apples and leaping across dangerous bazaar stalls to re-enact some of the crazy scenes from the Disney animated movie of the same name. The title blended some Prince of Persia gameplay with the easy-on-the-eyes color palette of the Disney hit to create a very playable video game experience.

Why iCloud is Apple’s worst product

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Hacker who tried to extort Apple for $100k is spared prison
What is happening with iCloud within Apple? Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

iCloud was hailed by Tim Cook back in 2012 as “not just a product. It’s a strategy for the next decade.” Yet these days, iCloud is something of a mess: Not only has it not gained significant features since launch, but a slate of very public hacks have made it a rare black mark on Apple’s security record.

What the heck happened? According to a new report, iCloud isn’t living up to its potential because, organizationally, it’s an orphan within Apple.

Appy days: iPhone 6 sales drive App Store downloads to record highs

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Photo: Apple
App Store downloads hit a new high in October. Photo: Apple

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are shattering all kinds of sales records, and that knock-on effect is starting to be felt elsewhere: The overwhelming interest in Apple’s next-generation handsets pushed iTunes App Store downloads to new heights last month.

How much of an increase are we talking about? In October, the top 200 free iOS apps hit a collective 7.8 million app downloads per day, according to new research from Fiksu, a Boston-based marketing firm.

One year after ground broke, Apple Campus 2 is coming along nicely

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Apple's
Apple's "spaceship" campus is clearly taking shape. Photo: Apple

It’s been pretty much a year since ground was broken on the “spaceship” Apple Campus 2, and things are progressing at a rate of knots.

In a new photo provided by Apple, and posted by the city of Cupertino, the company’s $5 billion campus can be seen taking shape. The image is a reminder of just how big the campus is set to be, since it will house a massive 13,000 employees — or the equivalent of 35 fully-filled Boeing 747s. Tim Cook has called the campus Apple’s “home for innovation and creativity for decades to come.”

The city of Cupertino’s website makes note of a schedule for the project, noting that earthwork is set to continue until the middle of next year, while construction on the building itself will be completed by late 2016.

Smart gifts for the college students on your list

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Mini Jambox pumps out the jams. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
From music to MacBooks, these gifts will resonate with students. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

You might think college students are tricky to shop for, but in reality that couldn’t be further from the truth. Since they’re constantly swamped with homework and simultaneously managing a busy social life, all they want is stuff that makes their lives easier and more fun.

If you’re stressing about what to get the student in your life this holiday season, never fear. We’ve collected some great gift ideas, handpicked by college students for college students:

Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs movie saved by Universal after Sony backs out

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When it comes to making Steve Jobs light up the sliver screen, poor Sorkin just can't cut a break.
When it comes to making Steve Jobs light up the sliver screen, poor Sorkin just can't cut a break.

Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay on Steve Jobs has been in a seemingly perpetual state of flux for months. Multiple A-list actors and directors passed on the project, with Christian Bale most recently bowing out of the leading role after being all but confirmed by Sorkin himself.

Then the studio financing the movie, Sony, put it up for sale—a good sign that a project isn’t going smoothly in Hollywood. Luckily, Universal has swooped in to save the day.

Have room to spare and save with The 10 Ft. Apple-Certified MFi Lightning Cable [Deals]

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CoM_10ft MFI Lightning Cable

It’s a pretty common sight: Using an iOS device that is short on battery life while it’s charging with an even shorter Lightning cable.

Now you can get the range of motion you need to comfortably use your iOS device while it’s charging with The 10 Ft. Apple-Certified MFi Lightning Cable, half price for a limited time at Cult of Mac Deals.

Light your space in a rainbow of colors with ilumi, the LED Smartbulb [Deals]

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CoM_ilumi

Incandescent light bulbs are inefficient, last only a couple of years at most, and can emit light in one color only. It’s time to introduce the concept of interior lighting to the 21st century.

Today, people expect more from their interior lighting options. Those people use the ilumi LED Smartbulb, available at the discounted price of $79 at Cult of Mac Deals for a limited time.