This post was going to be part of my new book, Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level, but was cut for length. Over the next week or so, we will be publishing several more sections that were cut, focusing mostly on Apple’s manufacturing operations.

Steve Jobs always had a deep fascination with automated factories. He was first exposed to them during a trip to Japan in 1983. At the time, Apple had just created a new floppy disk drive called Twiggy. During a visit to Apple’s factory in San Jose, however, Jobs became irate when he discovered the high failure rate of Twiggy drives Apple was producing. More than half of them were rejected. Jobs threatened to fire everyone who worked at the factory

The death of iTunes might finally be on the horizon. Or, at least, the downsizing of iTunes certainly seems to be.

iOS developer Steve Troughton-Smith revealed today that he unearthed evidence about Apple’s plans to make separate apps for Music, Podcasts and Books. iTunes slowly morphed into a bloated beast over the last decade, so paring down the app would be welcomed by Mac users. But Troughton-Smith warns not to get your hopes up too high just yet.

Mac gamers can finally add more horsepower to their Mac without breaking the bank on an expensive external GPU.

Sonnet unveiled its new eGFX Breakaway Puck today that packs Radeon RX 560 graphics for just $400. This is the cheapest eGPUs we’ve seen yet, making it perfect for MacBook owners that are hampered by the machines’ weak internals.

The Braven BRV-105 can go anywhere and survive whatever you can. This palm-size speaker is waterproof and rugged without being too bulky. Attach it to your bike or belt and listen to music wherever you go without headphones.

We fully tested this Bluetooth accessory, so don’t miss our review.

The Photos app’s Faces feature is fantastic. It does a pretty good job of gathering all the pictures of a person together, for both browsing and search. And it’s really easy to add new faces to the list. But what about managing those faces? What if the Photos app’s AI added some photos of a stranger into the photos of your husband?

It’s easy to tell your iPhone or iPad that a photo does not contain the person it thinks it does. Unfortunately, it’s a real pain to find the setting you need to tweak.

More Americans pay to listen to Apple Music than Spotify. The Swedish company had been ahead since the iPhone maker got into the streaming music business back in 2015, but Apple finally closed the gap. And its growth is continuing to outpace its rival in the US.

Spotify still has many more paid subscribers globally, however.,

Cuba’s vibrant surfer culture is the star of Apple’s latest ‘Shot on iPhone’ short film. The new five minute video shows how Cubans connect with nature through surfing, even though good boards are hard to come by.

Packed with tons of gorgeous underwater shots and beautiful visuals of everyday life, ‘Ola Cubana’ will have you ready to quit life to go shred some waves on a tropical island.

“It’s a lifestyle, surf,” explains one of the guys in the film. “It brings us peace. We release energy. We have contact with nature. It has greatly improved my life.”

Come catch the vibe:

At this point, we all know the MacBook’s butterfly keyboard can prove problematic. Apple recently admitted the problem is real — and even issued a rare apology.

Anecdotally, pretty much every MacBook owner I know has experienced keys sticking or repeating at one time or another. But occasionally I meet someone who seems blessed with a faultless MacBook keyboard. And Apple claims the problem only affects a small number of MacBook users.

So what is going on? I have a theory — and a tip that might keep your MacBook’s keyboard from crapping out if it hasn’t already.

Qualcomm is still prepared to supply Apple with 5G modems for a future iPhone — despite an ongoing legal battle between the two companies.

Reports have indicated Apple may be struggling to secure 5G modems from Intel and other vendors for a 2020 refresh. But Qualcomm president Cristiano Amon says, “if they call, we’ll support them.”

There have, unfortunately, been plenty of scams involving stolen or misappropriated Apple products due to their high resale value.

However, few clock up the kind of quantities revealed in a report about a five-year scam. It involved an accounting manager for a software company. Over several years, Nadia Minetto spent upward of $6 million on iPhones and iPads using a company credit card. These Apple devices were then sold, before Minetto was ultimately caught.

You could safely assume that computer hackers and people who knit have little to talk about. One activity is clearly analog and seemingly old-fashioned while the other pre-occupies the mind of a tech geek.

Fabienne Serriere blows up that assumption by being both. She combines the two rather different activities to make eye-catching scarves imprinted with Mac ROM code.

If you want in on wireless charging, buying a Qi-enabled device like an iPhone X is just the start. You also need a wireless charging pad (and no, you’re not getting an AirPower.).

Why not go with one that’s affordable, low-profile and portable? (And that actually exists, for that matter.)

Tactical, turn-based role-playing game Fire Emblem Heroes has been a massive hit for Nintendo on iOS. And now we know what’s it’s got in store next.

In a YouTube video update, Nintendo shared some of the big new features for the game. These include a new Arena mode, a Pair Up mechanic, and much, more.

This week on The CultCast: The death of AirPower — the real problem that no one is talking about. Plus: 2019 iPhone rumors point to some wildly useful new features; more evidence the 2018 MacBook, Air and Pro keyboards are still having problems. And we wrap up with a review of Leander’s favorite wireless charging mat, Lewis’ take on the new AirPods 2, and Erfon’s got a favorite new podcasting gadget on an all-new Under Review.

Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. Easily create a beautiful website all by yourself, at Squarespace.com/cultcast. Use offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain..

Apple Music has undercut rival streaming services in India with even cheaper subscription prices.

The cost of an individual plan has fallen to the equivalent of $1.43 per month. Apple’s changes come just weeks after Spotify and YouTube Premium landed in India for the first time.

Tim Cook has made no secret of the fact that he’s a sport fan — with a particular love of the teams at his alma mater, Auburn University.

With the Auburn Tigers basketball team entering the Final Four against Virginia this weekend, Cook called the Paul Finebaum Show on ESPN to geek out about sport.

The massive rise of the smartphone is coming to a close, and Samsung is bearing the brunt of it.

As well as a manufacturer of its own handsets, Samsung also provides memory chips and display panels to other companies. Due to slowing demand for smartphones around the world, Samsung today revealed that its operating profits have plunged. It expects that its first quarter takings will be down by 60 percent compared to last year.

Apple’s efforts to make the iPad as thin as possible mean that their fragile aluminum frames have been known to bend easily. But the new iPad mini holds up surprisingly well in a brutal bend test.

Unlike its larger siblings, the fifth-generation slate remains perfectly intact when shaped to look like a banana.

Apple has scrapped a controversial plan to build a flagship Apple Store in Melbourne, Australia’s Federation Square.

Apple had been battling to build the store for much of last year. It even scrapped its original designs and came up with new ones, only to have those criticized as well. Government agent Heritage Victoria ruled that the Apple Store would be too “visually dominant.” It also said that demolishing the existing Yarra Building to construct Apple’s flagship store would “diminish” the public space.

Anyone who upgrades an iPhone or iPad to iOS 12.2 can’t change their mind. Apple ceased digitally signing the previous version so it can’t be installed anymore.

This is normal. Apple always stops allowing people to downgrade a few weeks after a newer iOS version is released.

One of Google’s top AI experts has left the company to join Apple’s special projects group.

Ian Goodfellow, who created an AI approach called general adversarial networks (GANs), was hired by Apple as a director of machine learning, adding another prominent Google AI expert to its growing team.

Apple’s AirPods are about to get some fresh competition from Amazon.

The online retail giant is reportedly planning to release its own set of wireless earbuds that will be powered by its digital assistant Alexa and possibly better audio quality.

Call of Duty: Black Ops III has finally made its way to the Mac after being available on Windows PC since its launch over three years ago.

The Mac version of Call of Duty: Black Ops III was revealed by Aspyr today. It comes all the same content in the Windows version, plus 64-bit and Metal support. If you’re ready to rack up some kills though you better be ready to say goodbye to all the free space on your hard drive.

The number of downloads from Apple’s iOS App Store declined slightly last quarter, according to a report from market analysis firm Morgan Stanley.

However, revenue from iOS software is increasing, up 15 percent year-over-year.

Ounce for ounce, Apple’s replacement Apple Pencil tips are probably more expensive than gold¹. It will cost you $20 for four of the tiny things, all of which are ridiculously easy to lose.

But if you use your Pencil for anything more than the odd casual stroke, sketch or swoosh, you’ll eventually need to replace a worn tip. The good news is that it’s easy. The bad news? That price.