Cult of Mac

When my 2001 Subaru Forester died on the side of the highway a week or so back, I was not excited about trying to find a replacement.

Buying a car is right up there with heading to the DMV, going to IKEA and attending your ex’s next wedding. It’s depressing. And inevitable. The load of anxiety-ridden, “hurry up and wait” BS that has marred my every interaction with car dealerships both new and used is overwhelming.

So it was with glee that I bypassed all that crap and used my iPhone, email and Twitter to buy myself a new car. Let me explain.

Apple has launched a new iPhone 5 battery replacement program for a “small percentage” of iPhone 5 devices that “may suddenly experience shorter battery life or need to be charged more frequently.”

The idea behind Secret is that you can share anything to your social circle with the comfort of total anonymity. Users’ identities are kept hidden, and that’s what’s supposed to make the app enjoyable or whatever.

As it turns out, it’s not that hard to see who someone actually is on Secret. The catch is that you need their email address.

The uncertainty about iPhone 6 availability this fall is largely centered around one component: sapphire. The ultra-durable material is rumored to be in not only two new iPhone models this fall, but the iWatch as well.

Apple’s only sapphire partner is GT Advanced Technologies with a relatively small operation in Arizona. According to another report, GTAT’s sapphire production, particularly for the 5.5-inch iPhone 6, will he heavily constrained until 2015.

The next-gen version of USB will be reversible like Apple’s Lightning connector, meaning you’ll be able to plug it in from either side. Called USB Type-C, the new connector recently entered production, and leaks indicate Apple could ship compatible cables very soon.

If you can’t wait any longer, you can actually buy a Lightning to reversible USB sync cable right now.

With the probable iPhone 6 reveal nearing, a new Samsung device — referred to as the Samsung Galaxy Alpha — has leaked. The ongoing Apple-Samsung rivalry means the two companies battle each other with practically every new device and software update. But will Samsung’s latest offering hold its own against the iPhone 6? Or will it become another faceless device that’s simply here then gone?

Watch today’s Cult of Mac news roundup to see the latest rumors regarding Apple’s and Samsung’s latest devices, tech luminaries taking the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and the inside scoop on how a former Apple employee turned his store uniform into cash for his favorite charity.

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Pretty much everyone already knows that the iPhone 6 is coming out next month, but one of Apple’s carrier partners in China just couldn’t hold onto the secret anymore, and announced to customers on Weibo that it will sell an unlocked iPhone 6.

The ad was quickly deleted, however, it did reveal that Apple plans to release a single version of the iPhone 6 that supports all the wireless networks in the China for the first time ever.

Gabe Ibañez directs and Antonio Banderas stars in this gritty, realistic near-future sci-fi flick, Automata.

The premise is that, in 2004, robots have found a way to circumvent built-in Protocols against harming human beings or self-altering their own physical form.

The award-winning film looks to be a fantastic take on the robots-gone-wild sub-genre, and it’s got Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men) as a rogue killer robot and Melanie Griffith as a scheming politician; what’s not to like?

Apple has added 16 new countries and regions to the App Store’s Volume Purchasing Program today that allows businesses and schools to purchase mass quantities of a single app in just one purchase, and distribute it among multiple students or employees.

The list of new countries joining the program include Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, and the UAE.

The addition of the new countries was announced by the App Store team via the following email:

Apple’s expected to announce its first foray into wearables this October, but a new report out of China is adding to fanboy fears that the iWatch launch won’t take place until 2015, with claims that suppliers won’t even start delivering components until September at the earliest.

And then it’s going to take months just to assemble a few million units.

Foxconn factory employees have leaked the complete dimensions of the iPhone 6, according to iGen.fr, which posted photos of what appears to be Foxconn’s internal software listing the full dimensions for both the 5.5-inch and 4.7-inch iPhone 6.

The two new phones, code named N56 and N61, are expected to be announced next month, and if the leaked specs are right, not only will the 5.5-inch iPhone have more screen than your iPhone 5s, it will also be 60% heavier.

Apple is expected to reveal the iPhone in nearly three weeks, but according to a Reuters report, production has hit a snag, sending suppliers scrambling to get enough parts in time, thanks to a last minute design change.

To make the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 thinner than ever, Apple planned to shrink the backlight assembly by using a single layer of film — instead of the two used on the iPhone 5s display — but after running into some last minute problems with production, Apple decided to redesign the key component.

This post is brought to you by Alamex Ltd, creator of Zen Clock.

Are you busy on your Mac all the time? Does that little clock in the top right hand corner of your screen govern your life, at least during the week?

Maybe it’s time to switch to Zen Clock.

The Zen Clock turns your desktop to a color that constantly changes through the whole spectrum throughout a 24-hour period.

Take life a little slower and bring some Zen onto your Mac as you learn to tell the time of day in the way nature intended.

The Samsung Galaxy S5 has become the latest tech giant to take on the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise awareness for ALS — but does it have an ulterior motive? Like the vast majority of videos that Samsung puts out, this one can’t help but take a swipe at competing devices from rival companies.

When you’re gaming on a new-generation console like the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, you’ll be astounded by the crystal-clear graphics and the silky-smooth 60 frames per second animations.

If you want to share this video at its native resolution, you’ll need something heavy duty to do the capture and editing. Something massively capable that can handle input via an HDMI interface. Something that doesn’t take up too much space — you need that for your gaming consoles. What you need is something like the Elgato Game Capture 60HD.

Because life’s too short for a crummy converter box with a huge footprint.

San Francisco-based developer Giacomo Balli doubled his take on his iPhone apps thanks to an April Fools’ Day joke. When he ratcheted up the price to an eye-popping $4.99 for an app that catalogs books, he got downloads instead of complaints.

The App Store lets devs change the sale price of their apps pretty much any time they like, but most folks take conventional routes: cutting prices during sales or dropping prices to free. Balli made his previously free apps premium with just a toggle.

“There weren’t any app updates, either,” he told Cult of Mac over the phone. “Just the price.”

Product Hunt is the hottest startup in the Silicon Valley tech bubble right now, which is fitting because all it does is promote other startups.

Think of it like Reddit for the best new apps and services. Users can up-vote products they like and submit their own for consideration by the community. It’s a site for the geekiest of tech enthusiasts who are early adopters and care about how things are made.

The official Product Hunt iPhone app was released today, and it’s currently getting featured on the front page of the App Store.

Apple is nearly ready to become the go-to place for healthcare providers to get all your personal fitness data, and along with meeting with hospitals to talk about the benefits of HealthKit, Apple has been talking to the countries biggest health insurance providers about partnering with its health initiatives.

Estimote makes iBeacons in little polygon shapes with cool colors and custom designs. Designed to communicate over low-energy Bluetooth, Estimote Beacons can be used to alert nearby smartphones of a specific deal when they enter a shop, for example.

But what if different items for sale in that shop had their own iBeacons? That’s the vision behind what Estimote is calling Stickers, small adhesive sensors that can be put just about anywhere. As more and more companies adopt iBeacon technology, expect to start seeing these kinds of little beacons everywhere you go.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been under fire all year for being run pretty much the exact opposite way as Apple. Needing all the help they can get, Tim Cook payed a visit to the local Veterans Hospital in Palo Alto this afternoon.

Tim tweeted that he met with doctors and veterans at the VA Palo Alto with Congresswoman. Anna G. Eshoo. The hospital now uses iPads to help treat vets and families, and you can bet Tim did a little campaigning for HealthKit and iOS 8 while pulling out his best Patch Adams impersonations.

The iPad program at VA Palo Alto was initiated at the beginning of 2013 and now claims shorter-than-average wait times for both primary and specialty care appointments. Newly confirmed secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Robert McDonald, also visited the Palo Alto VA yesterday and said it sets the standard within the troubled health care system, calling it the “crown jewel.”

It has been seven years since Intuit has released a new version of Quicken for Mac. Like Windows XP, the finance management suite has remained a shining beacon of how ancient software can look after a few years.

Now it’s 2014, and Quicken is back with a big 2015 release and companion mobile app. There are some new features, and certain features from Quicken 2007 are missing in the launch version. The design has been completely revamped, and cloud sync keeps your finances up to date on the Mac and Money Management iPhone app.

Other than getting to #humblebrag to all your friends that Dr. Dre is your colleague at the top tech company in the world, working for Apple has some serious benefits in the form of cash money.

Apple makes sure to compensate most of its corporate employees enough to at least afford a Tesla. But if you’ve ever been curious how much each position at Apple earns a year, the folks at BusinessVibes created the graph based on data from GlassDoor that ranks over 20 jobs at Apple based on pay from the lowly Mac Genius to Jony Ive’s industrial designers.

The good news for coders ready for a career switch is even software quality assurance engineers start around $92k a year, but of course Apple places the most value on industrial designers who bring home nearly $30k more a year than the 2nd highest paid employees – hardware engineers.