The dream of replacing all the pieces of plastic in your wallet with your smartphone got a little closer to reality today as Starwood hotels announced that its new keyless entry system – SPG Keyless – is rolling out to hotels worldwide.

Guests at Aloft, Element, and W Hotels around the globe can now use their iPhone and the SPG app to skip the hotel front desk altogether, walk straight to their room, and unlock it, no key required.

Southwest Airlines can’t guarantee you’ll get the seat you want on your next flight, but starting this week you’ll be slightly more entertained wherever you end up, as the airline is introducing free Beats Music streaming on flights.

Beginning today, Southwest will provide all WiFi-enabled aircraft with a custom curated Beats Music experience that’s free for all flyers.

A group of banks added support for Apple Pay today, including USAA, PNC Bank, US Bank, Barclaycard and Navy Federal Credit Union.

USAA and PNC had previously said Apple Pay wouldn’t be supported until November 7, but their cards have already started working in Passbook as of this morning.

Just weeks after a rare Apple-1 computer sold for record numbers at auction, another operational unit of Apple’s first ever computer is set to go under the gavel.

Christie’s is expecting the machine to fetch more than $500,000 at auction in December, which doesn’t seem unrealistic when you consider that the previous Apple-1 mentioned fetched a whopping $905,000.

A monument to Steve Jobs has been removed from St. Petersburg in the aftermath of Tim Cook publicly coming out as gay.

While Cook’s eloquent and poignant essay was largely greeted by celebrations online, in Russia it prompted bigoted comments from politician Vitaly Milonov, whose government has now insisted the Jobs statue be removed as further punishment.

Apple is reportedly planning an investor call for later today ahead of a possible bond sale, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

This would be the third bond sale in the company’s history, and may be the first in which Apple issues bonds in euros rather than dollars.

In its earnings call in April, Apple acknowledged that the majority of its cash and securities are held offshore. Since repatriating this money would incur heavy U.S. taxation, it’s cheaper for Apple to raise money through bond sales. The euro in particular represents a very good deal, since it is currently at its lowest rate relative to dollar-denominated debt in six years.

Almost two decades after Apple shuttered its Newton MessagePad platform, a new video compares the device’s handwriting recognition to today’s touchscreen-based typing on the iPhone.

The fact that you had to plug your Newton into your Mac to manually transfer information makes it seem incredibly outdated. But the handwriting recognition, which was way ahead of its time in 1993, still impresses in terms of speed, as shown in the video below

Microsoft has been taking so many shots at Apple as of late that you could be forgiven for thinking we’ve slipped back through a wormhole to 1996. This tendency doesn’t show any signs of slowing down, either, if you go on Microsoft’s latest ad.

Called “Let’s dance,” the ad compares Lenovo’s Yoga 3 Pro convertible laptop to Apple’s MacBook Air, showing them side-by-side and comparing them on size and features. And, wouldn’t you know it, Microsoft’s preferred option comes out on top.

It’s been another busy week at Cult of Mac Deals. There are a ton of killer deals being offered right now, and it’s easy to miss some of the ones we’ve written about.

Today we highlight some of the best we have right now. You can always go to the Cult of Mac Deals page to learn about all the deals available to you right now.

Apple is expected to announce a huge iPad in early 2015, and a new report details some of the tablet’s specs.

According to the reliable Japanese site Macotakara, the larger iPad (or ‘iPad Pro’, as it’s been dubbed by the press) will feature a 12.2-inch display and improved stereo audio. The device will also reportedly be about as thin as an iPhone.

This week: the war on Apple Pay has begun. We’ll tell you why some of the biggest retailers are moving to block it, and all about the ridiculously dumb app they want you to use instead. Plus, our 72-hour review of the iPad Air 2; the FTC sues AT&T for throttling your data; Christian Bale is your next Steve Jobs; and we pitch our favorite tech and apps then vote on which is best—it’s an all-new Faves ’N Raves.

Snicker your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the chuckles begin.

Our thanks to Sworl for supporting this episode. With the free Sworl iOS app, you can print, frame and deliver beautifully wrapped photos, quickly and easily, all from your iPhone in less than 3 minutes. Learn more at GetSworl.com, and save 20% off your first order with code “CultCast” at checkout.

New bargains on gadgets, software, and services emerge every day at Cult of Mac Deals. As new deals emerge, older ones must ride off into the sunset.

Today we feature 4 hot deals that are ending very soon. Don’t miss out. Pick these up today before it’s too late.

Google’s co-founder Larry Page partook in a wide-ranging interview with the Financial Times, published Friday. Among other topics, he talks about Google’s oppository approach to business compared to Apple — epitomized by a story about Steve Jobs.

“He would always tell me, You’re doing too much stuff,” Page says. “I’d be like, You’re not doing enough stuff.”

India is a huge growing market for the iPhone, but a trademark dispute brought by a local Indian company called iVoice Enterprises could throw a wrench in those plans — by attempting to bar Apple from using the handset name it made famous.

You see, as it turns out, back in early 2007 iVoice Enterprises tried to tap into what was then the start of India’s mobile revolution.

Their name for an affordable cellphone? iFon, phonetically pronounced “iPhone.”

Seth Rogen has been tapped to play Steve Jobs’ loveable sidekick Woz in the upcoming biopic starring Christian Bale as Apple’s iconic CEO. We don’t know if Rogen’s guttural chuckling will mesh well with Bale’s ferocity, but when it comes to looking like Jobs and Woz, the duo already has us sold.

Following up on their Bale/Jobs mashup, GadgetLove created the mockup above of Seth Wozniak and Christian Jobs reveling in the beauty of an Apple I motherboard.

Check out  the original photo of Jobs and Woz for comparison:

Look, we all love sharing and getting nude photos of people we consensually want to see naked, right?

The problem, as this College Humor video notes, is that “some of you assholes keep sharing our nudes.”

While the big news is in the leaks of celebrity nude photos, even non-celebs want to be able to share sexy shots with their intimates. But if you keep sharing these ill-gotten gains, the amount of nudes out there? Is going to stop.

Check out the video below for more details.

Since Steve Jobs’ passing plenty of changes have occurred within Apple. In spite of all its differences, Tim Cook has managed to keep the essence of the company the same. With new iPhones, iPads, iMacs, Apple Watches and more more already announced, Tim Cook opened up his personal life to the public in a way we’ve never seen from an Apple CEO.

In today’s episode of Cult of Mac’s news roundup find out what exactly Cook revealed that got the world talking and every detail in-between. Hear about this story and more in this episode of the roundup.

Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV for all our latest videos.

Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor became an Apple employee this year when Beats was scooped up for $3 billion, but in an interview with Billboard, the former Beats chief creative officer reveals that his position at Apple isn’t just for show, he’s actually working on a secret new music project.

Reznor says that Apple is tapping into his creative energy to help create a new music delivery service, and even though he just wrapped up a huge tour and cemented another Oscar nod with his Gone Girl score, Reznor thinks the new service will have a huge enough impact on the music world that’s it’s well worth the effort.

BlackBerry is rolling out a number of new features for BBM that give you greater control over the content and messages you share with friends. In addition to Snapchat-inspired self-destructing messages, the release also brings the ability to retract messages you wish you hadn’t sent.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says we are witnessing a huge shift in the way people buy things in America, and even though his brick and mortar Starbucks stores aren’t supporting Apple Pay right now, he still thinks it’s great for business.

Schultz appeared on CNBC this morning to talk about Starbucks’ mobile payments where he was taken to quipped by Jim Cramer for bragging in March that Starbucks had a big lead in mobile payments with its Starbucks app, only to get leap frogged by Apple Pay this month.

The Java King was adamant Stars’ currency would be relevant ‘at some point in the future’ but admitted there’s no other company that can get shoppers to change their behavior like Apple.

Facebook apps for the Mac have come and gone over the years, but none have managed to capture much attention. A new contender has the goods to stick around.

After working at Apple as an engineer on WebKit and iAd, Scott Kyle decided to get into indie app development. His first stab at it is Current, a new Facebook app for OS X that lives primarily in the menubar. With quality design, notifications, a classic chat interface, and some other tricks up its sleeve, Current makes Facebook feel at home on the Mac.

Smartphones and other assorted mobile devices are great tools for keeping us productive and entertained. The batteries inside those devices, by contrast, sometimes leave us frustrated and wanting more.

Do you find that your device’s limited battery life plays a role in how you use your phone? Constantly afraid you’ll run out of power before the day is out? Then say goodbye to your worries forever with The BookMark Battery, just $34.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Jony Ive has designed someone of the worlds most iconic tech devices, but when it came time to revolutionizing the wrist watch, Ive says it was even more challenging to make than the iPhone.

Speaking to an audience at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Thursday night, Ive said that societal expectations for a wristwatch posed some serious challenges when creating the Apple Watch, but he believes with “every bone in his body” that Apple will usher in an entirely new computing device category.

Beamdog Entertainment is a team of ex-Bioware and Black Isle developers who specialize on taking classic Infinity Engine RPGs and updating them for modern devices, like the Mac or iPad. First, they did it for Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II. Now they’re doing it for Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, which has just been released on the PC and Mac.