Cult of Mac

The tagline for next week’s Apple media event is “It’s been way too long.” While that might be nothing more than a sarcastic nod to the fact that Cupertino announced the Apple Watch and iPhone 6 just last month, it could be a cryptic indication that we’ll see updates to some of the company’s neglected products.

Rumors suggest new iPads and Macs will share the stage at Apple’s October 16 event, and we’ll probably get OS X Yosemite’s release date and more talk about iOS 8 and Apple Pay, but what about the rest of the product lineup?

Here’s a look at Apple products currently languishing in update hell, along with some rumors and speculation about what the future might hold.

Bendgate was the Internet’s Meme of the Week at the beginning of October, so if you’re still banging your head to come up with a funny Halloween costume idea, why not  poke fun at your own love for Apple and rollout in this DYI Bendgate costume?

The folks at Halloween Costume created this simple iPhone 6 costume you can make at home with just foam or cardboard paper. The display is slightly more forgiving in bend tests, but that might because they forgot to update their iPhone 6 to iOS 8.

If you’d rather go geeky than ghoulish this Halloween, here’s how to make your own Bendgate costume:

Bullish activist-investor Carl Icahn is back again! In a tweet sent earlier today, Icahn noted that he plans to send Tim Cook an open letter tomorrow. The contents of this letter are unknown, but Icahn promises it will be “interesting,” to say the least.

Popcorn Time’s popularity has taken off this year by bringing BitTorrent streaming into the mainstream with a lineup of apps that let users watch nearly any new blockbuster they want for free with just the tap of a finger.

We published a hack that brings the popular Netflix-alternative to iOS 8 users for the first time ever without a jailbreak, but before diving into an endless buffet of the world’s most popular movies and TV shows, you might be wondering just where this magical software came from, and most importantly: can it be trusted?

After being available to the public for more than seven months, many aspects of Popcorn Time are still a mystery – like who’s actually building it – but, here’s everything you need to know about the hot new torrenting service:

The Magazine, one of the best original technology-focused Newsstand magazines out there, is closing up shop as of December of this year.

The Magazine raised the bar for a digital-only publication, providing well-written and edited short and long non-fiction that ranged topically from Apple to personal stories with true warmth and impact. We’ll miss the twice monthly title and wish the team the best.

When asked on Twitter why the publication was ending, The Magazine’s official account cited money issues.

Smartphones made of metal are far fancier than their plastic counterparts, but like other metallic objects, they will bend with enough force. No, “Bendgate” is not exclusive to the iPhone 6 Plus; Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 4 — its first phablet to sport a metal chassis — will bend just as easily if you’re not careful with it.

Quick – grab your iPhone and take a picture of something nearby — the remote control on your coffee table, a pair of Warby Parkers, anything, really. Now take that photo and turn it into a fully editable vector graphic that can be used by a host of drawing and artistic programs across your iPhone, iPad and Mac, all via the magic of Adobe’s Creative Cloud.

That’s precisely what Adobe Shape CC does, one of a host of new apps available on your iOS device to make capturing the real world much easier than ever before.

Here’s a quick video rundown of how it works.

Apple’s plan to put sapphire glass in everything took a tumble this week when its exclusive supplier GT Advanced Technologies filed for bankruptcy, and according to Apple’s spokesman, they were just as shocked as all of us.

In a statement issued this morning to Reuters, the Apple spokesman Chris Gaither said the company was ‘surprised’ by GT’s decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but they haven’t given up on its AZ plant yet.

Your music is awesome, and awesome music deserves to be played using equipment designed to let the listener hear every guitar note, every percussive beat, and every lyric like it’s being played live in the room by the artists themselves.

Today, we feature two such high quality audio devices: The New Soundfreaq Double Spot, and the AIAIAI TMA-1 Pro Quality Headphones. Both are available at deeply discounted prices for a limited time at Cult of Mac Deals.

Apple isn’t quite done rolling out its new products for 2014, as the company just sent out invites to a special Town Hall event being held on its Cupertino campus on October 16th at 10AM PT.

The event comes just weeks after the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch were revealed, but the invites provide few clues about what they’re going to announce yet. The iPad Air is expected to get an update, and the rumor mill has spit out claims of a Retina iMac making an appearance too.

OS X Yosemite will also be introduced publicly at the event, and we could even see a new Mac Mini or some other goodies. All will be revealed soon when Tim Cook and the gang take the stage next Thursday. Cult of Mac will be liveblogging the event so stay tuned.

Apple is expected to announce its new iPad lineup at an event next week, but manufacturers in Vietnam have leaked a hands-ons on video of a high-quality iPad Air 2 dummy unit, that reveals all the subtle design tweaks coming to the world’s most popular tablet.

One of the biggest changes is addition of Touch ID as well as the disappearance of the the mute-switch, which has been completely removed from the left side of the iPad Air 2, while the volume buttons are a bit more recessed.

Check out the hands-on video below to see some of the other changes:

Within hours of Apple seeding its second iOS 8.1 beta to developers, dev Hamza Sood has discovered several pertinent pieces of information related to Apple Pay — including the setup screen within the Passbook app, the setup screen in the iOS 8.1 setup, and the setup screen on the iPad.

Sood previously discovered references to Apple Pay in the first iOS 8.1 beta.

Quanta Computer has reportedly started production on Apple’s ultra-thin 12-inch MacBook Air notebooks — although production challenges may mean that it doesn’t hit shelves under after Christmas.

Citing sources in Taiwan’s supply chain, the Digitimes report states that the new MacBook Air is slimmer than both the existing 11.6- and 13.3-inch models, and may well sport Retina displays.

This ambitiously slim form factor is pushing component makers to the limit, however, and currently yield rate is not satisfactory, which has resulted in low output. It is hoped that this will increase from November onwards, although this may not be enough to see the notebooks arrive for the holiday season.

The iPad may be more popular than ever among young people, but according to one analyst that same level of excitement doesn’t carry over to the forthcoming Apple Watch.

In a research note to clients, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster describes reaction to the Apple Watch among teens as “tepid,” despite the fact that Apple remains an incredibly popular brand.

According to Munster, interest in the Apple Watch actually fell over the past year — starting out at 17% interest from teens in spring, and lowering to 16% just prior to Apple’s September 9 unveiling of its wearables device.

We all know that Apple’s advertising is a cut above the competition, but sometimes Cupertino’s competitors stoop so low that all you can do is just shake your head in embarrassment.

That’s certainly the way I feel about Toshiba’s racist new ads. Released in Croatia, they feature a couple of slanted tablets that have been placed to look like squinty eyes, just like the way Asians have been stereotypically portrayed in Western media for centuries. Face palm!

New details have emerged about the surprise bankruptcy protection filing of GT Advanced Technologies, a.k.a. the company that was supplying Apple with its sapphire.

As per the Wall Street Journal, Apple agreed to lend GT Advanced a total of $578 million to help get its large sapphire factory in Arizona up and running, only for Cupertino to withhold the final $139 million payment it was due to make, for reasons which aren’t yet clear, but likely relate to the company’s failure to deliver sapphire to Apple’s satisfaction.

Which weighs more? An iPad filled with media and apps, or an iPad with no media or apps installed?

It sounds like a trick question — the digital age equivalent of “What weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of rocks?”

But surprisingly, an iPad without anything installed on it does weigh less than an iPad that is full.

Ready for your next nerdy dose of Star Wars awesomeness? Lucasfilm Animation and Disney have put together an all-new animated adventure that takes place 14 years after the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (the third and final prequel in the Star Wars saga) and five years before Star Wars: A New Hope (the original movie that came out in 1977).

If you have an Apple ID, you can check out the first regular episode of the series right now on iTunes for free. How’s that for a deal?

Check out the extended trailer for the Star Wars: Rebels series below.

It’s not that Apple’s emoji keyboard is necessarily bad, but it could be better. If you’re a hardcore emoji user, you know that it’s a pain to scroll through and find the perfect emoji in the moment.

Maybe you’re looking for the perfect funny face or food item for the conversation. To take your emoji game to the next level, you need a third-party keyboard called Emoji++.

Nestled among the vintage globes, surgical drawings and reflecting telescopes at Bonhams New York’s upcoming “History of Science” auction are spectacular several Apple-related goodies.

Most impressive of all of these is an Apple 1 motherboard, circa 1976. Described as being in “superb overall condition,” this is the first computer ever built by Steve Wozniak under the Apple banner, prior to the far more successful and mainstream Apple II.

Only 200 units of the Apple I were ever made, although just 63 are thought to still survive — and only 15 of these are documented as having worked since 2000.

This is one of them.

Will the Apple TV become a hub for controlling your smart home in the near future? Signs are pointing to yes.

Apple is quietly testing HomeKit support for its TV set-top box with developers. The functionality can turn an Apple TV into an always-conntected bridge device for communicating between hardware peripherals that support Apple’s HomeKit framework.

Apple has seeded a second Gold Master candidate of OS X Yosemite to developers this afternoon, following the release of iOS 8.1 beta 2 earlier this morning.

OS X 10.10 Yosemite GM Candidate 2 is now available in the Mac Dev Center and the Mac App Store to members of Apple’s developer program. Xcode 6.1 GM seed 2 was also released this morning, along with an Apple TV Software beta update.

The idea that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus would have a sapphire display was one of the most widely reported errors leading up to the unveiling of Apple’s next gen iPhones.

But while plenty of time was spent discussing the possibility, very few people made any money through the speculation — except for Tom Gutierrez, CEO of sapphire manufacturer GT Advanced Technologies, which just filed for bankruptcy protection.

According to the Wall Street Journal, one day before Apple revealed its new iPhones wouldn’t feature sapphire screens after all, the boss of the struggling company cashed in more than 9,000 shares of GT stock for an average price of $17.38 — bringing in a total of $160,000.

Since February this year, Gutierrez has sold close to 700,000 shares in his company, valued at more than $10 million.

Got three minutes? Then you can travel Turkey, north to south, through this shifting and cunningly edited short film, called Watchtower of Turkey, by Leonardo Dalessandri.

He traveled over 3500 kilometers in 20 days, filming the lush landscapes and varied peoples of this middle eastern land, across eight different regions and cities in the Republic of Turkey, a land that has been inhabited since the paleolithic age.

“I’ve crossed Cappadocia, Pamukkale, Ephesus, Istanbul, Konya; and tasted baklava, kunefe, doner, the turkish tea; and got the chance to meet the soul of Turkey, its people,” writes Dalessandri on the video page, “and got their smiles and their hospitality.”

You’ve got to see this short film below.