Cult of Mac podcast - page 2

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: The latest rumor about Apple CEO Tim Cook‘s retirement says he could step down as early as next January. We discuss the likelihood of that, and Apple’s succession plans, as we debate the company’s future.

Also on The CultCast:

• Soon, iPhones will let users trigger voice assistants other than Siri (at least in some countries).
• It sounds like Apple might kill the Mac Pro. We pour one out for the distinguished line of high-powered computers — but recognize that maybe their time has come.
• Against all odds, the iPhone Pocket is a hit! Time to eat some crow.
• You won’t believe what London phone thieves do when they find out they’ve got an Android on their hands.
• And finally … we marvel at some super-high-end Apple setups.

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Nobody saw this coming! The iPhone Pocket is a bizarre Apple product, and the press release announcing its precious existence is one of the most pretentious we’ve ever seen.

Still, it might be big in Asia!

Also on The CultCast:

• Apple’s new Digital ID is based on your passport and paves the way for the wallet-free (and possibly surveillance-intensive) future. We discuss the pros and cons.
• Sounds like Tesla is finally buckling and plans to give iPhone users what they want. Victory!
• Griffin shows off a cool new three-way charger that’s fantastic for travel (although he likes it at home, too).
• And finally, we discuss Pluribus, the great new Apple TV show from Breaking Bad mastermind Vince Gilligan. Two episodes in and we’re hooked!

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Apple reportedly plans to pay a cool $1 billion a year to use Google Gemini to make Siri smarter. How do we feel about that? Honestly, anything that fixes Siri sooner rather than later would be a big win.

Anybody creeped out about iPhones and Macs with Google inside should rest easy, though. Apple plans to keep everything safe and secure. And Cupertino’s still scrambling to get its own AI up to speed.

Also on The CultCast:

• Apple plans to build a low-priced laptop that will bring Macs to the masses. We discuss why that has PC makers quaking in their boots.
• The iPhone Air is reportedly a bust. One big reason is that people love their iPhone cameras — and the Air skimped out on that. The next iPhone Air model might add a second lens, but really fix the problem?
• Some automakers plan to pull the plug on CarPlay. We’re already plotting our revolt!
• Griffin runs down the top five features in iOS 26.1 that you should try immediately, including one important toggle that will keep your iPhone from photographing the luxurious insides of your pocket.
• And finally, we wrap up with a new game — Apple Mad Libs!

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: The latest rumor about the 20th anniversary iPhone whets our appetite for this glorious device. It’s just over the horizon, and it sounds like an absolute stunner.

Also on The CultCast:

• Apple reportedly plans to bring a gorgeous OLED screen to almost every iPad.
• A horrifying AirPods Pro 3 problem strikes when you need it least — while flying! Thankfully, it seems like the glitch is not that widespread. Still, we’ve got some tips on preparing for the worst.
• Griffin serves up his M5 Vision Pro review, and Leander talks up Apple Watch Series 11.

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video version, embedded below.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Griffin gets his hands on the new M5 Vision Pro, and he’s all too happy to share his first impressions about the upgraded headset.

Also on The CultCast:

• The latest iOS beta offers a strange option for people who dislike Liquid Glass.
• New rumors about Apple’s folding iPhone and iPad make both projects sound a bit shaky. And the prices we might pay when these devices finally arrive? Outrageous!
• The Mac mini is one smokin’ machine, and it powers some pretty sweet setups.
• And finally, we field a question from a listener about our Cult of Mac workflows.

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video version, embedded below.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: With the M5 chip, Apple silicon blows our minds once again with its insane combination of performance and efficiency. How does Apple keep pulling this off?

We discuss all the lustworthy new hardware that the M5 powers: MacBook Pro, iPad Pro and Vision Pro.

Also on The CultCast:

• What’s the new Vision Pro headset’s biggest upgrade? Hint: It’s not the chip.
• If you’re picking up a new iPad Pro, you really should go big on storage.
• How did the upcoming Steve Jobs commemorative $1 coin go so hilariously wrong?

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: After OpenAI’s Sora app races to the top of the App Store charts, it’s time to consider how fantastic and terrifying it really is.

The iPhone-only app produces startlingly photorealistic videos of wacky things like Pikachu as a World War II soldier and iJustine wrestling an elephant. Will we ever be able to believe our eyes again?

Also on The CultCast:

• Former Apple design chief Jony Ive and his new BFFs at OpenAI reportedly run into some serious problems as they work to create an AI device to take on the iPhone.
• iOS 26 lets you screen iPhone calls even more efficiently than before. Griffin shows us how it the upgraded features work.
• A switcher lands a great deal on a MacBook Air, then goes all in on the Apple ecosystem. Talk about the halo effect!
• And finally, the latest iOS 26.1 beta brings some interesting new features — Griffin tells us all about them.

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video version, embedded below.

This week on The CultCast: Apple just revealed its future Mac plans … on purpose! It’s unprecedented, and we’ll unpack it all for you. Plus: Apple promises an all-new, “rethought” Mac Pro and Apple display; Apple’s plans to make the Mac “pro” again; new pro-level iMacs coming this year; and we review a top-secret new smart speaker and a clever  Watch stand that true Mac fans will love.

Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. It’s simple to accept Apple Pay and sell your wares with your very own Squarespace.com website. Enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10 percent off any hosting plan.

The tech industry appears to be nice and clean, but it has a long and toxic history of environmental damage. Silicon Valley is home to the most Superfund cleanup sites in the country.

A new film, Death by Design, takes a sobering look at the electronics industry and its toxic environmental legacy — both in the United States and in China. The film offers a behind-the-scenes look at the cost of the devices we consume in some measure of ignorance.

Apple features heavily in the film, though it’s not the only tech company implicated.

This week on Kahney’s Korner, I talk to the documentary’s director, Sue Wiliams, about Apple, pollution and Silicon Valley.

In the early ’90s, Pixar was in the middle of creating its first movie, Toy Story, but the company was in disarray. It was bleeding cash and floundering around looking for a business model.

To help turn it around, Steve Jobs hired Lawrence Levy, a former corporate lawyer, to help figure out how to make Pixar a real business.

In this week’s episode of Kahney’s Korner, I talk to Levy about how exactly he and Jobs made Pixar into one of the most successful movie studios in history.

It’s true: music can put you in the mood for love. A Spotify survey found that music is more arousing than touch. That’s why OhMiBod’s iPhone-connected sex toys make sense; they enhance the mood as well as buzzing in time to the beat.

“Our massagers offer an unrivaled sensory experience that allows singles and couples to not only hear their favorite music, but feel it as well,” says the firm’s website.

In this week’s episode of Kahney’s Korner, I talk to Suki Dunham, cofounder of OhMiBod, a female-owned and operated company that makes a line of iPhone and iPad controlled female pleasure products.

Suki used to work at Apple, where she learned a lot about product design, packaging and marketing, which she applies to her business selling high-tech vibrators.

iFixit’s iPhone 7 teardown involved 30 people in three countries, an X-ray machine and lots of sleepless nights. Thanks to iFixit’s hard work, iPhone teardowns have become a tech-culture phenomenon. Millions of fans eagerly await details of the internal components of Apple’s latest devices.

A lot of this has to do with Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, the second-biggest supplier of Apple parts after Apple itself, and publisher of the huge and amazing iFixit repair wiki.

In this week’s episode of Kahney’s Korner, I talk with Wiens about all the work that goes into making the iFixit teardowns for a massive global audience, and the hardware secrets of the iPhone 7.

Apple has opened up Siri to third-party developers, which means we’ll soon be able to do a bunch of things — like ordering pizza or sending money — simply by speaking to Apple’s intelligent assistant.

It’s a big change, and another step toward a friction-free future in which we will talk to our devices instead of poking at them with our fingers.

In this week’s episode of Kahney’s Korner, I talk with Adam Fingerman and Paulo Michels of ArcTouch, a mobile development company that works with big media companies like ABC, NBC and CBS. As they’ve explored the Siri API, they’ve gained insight into what we can expect when iOS 10 and macOS Sierra get released to the public this fall.

The old adage is that new cars depreciate the minute you buy them. However, the rumored Apple car might be the first vehicle to actually make you money after you drive it off the lot.

If Apple’s car is autonomous, it’ll earn its keep delivering people or goods when you’re not using it. So says Paul Godsmark, a robocar consultant and one of the leading experts on the upcoming autonomous vehicle revolution.

In this fascinating interview, Godsmark talks about the enormous changes that are coming up fast with self-driving vehicles, including Project Titan, the rumored Apple Car.

Buckle up! Everything is about to change dramatically — from the way we travel to the way we work.

The market for iPhone cases is worth billions of dollars. The first manufacturer with a case that fits a new device — say, the iPhone 7 — can make a killing in the days following an Apple launch.

For this week’s episode of Kahney’s Korner, I talked with industry veteran Tim Hickman, CEO of Gumdrop Cases. Over the years, he’s tried all kinds of tricks and strategies in the race to be first to market with new iPhone cases — including making thousands of cases that turned out to be wrong.

This time around, Hickman has received several CAD files from mysterious sources in China that supposedly show the exact dimensions of the upcoming iPhone 7. Will he bet his company’s fortunes on these files of dubious origin? Let’s find out.

Ken Segall is a former Apple ad man who worked closely with Steve Jobs for more than a dozen years. Segall is the guy who put the “i” in iMac and worked on the famous “Think Different” campaign.

The big lesson he learned from Steve Jobs was keeping things simple. But easier said than done. How exactly do you keep things simple?

Segall went out and found 40 business folks who keep things straightforward. His new book based on those interviews is called Think Simple:How Smart Leaders Defeat Complexity.

In a new podcast, Kahney’s Korner, Segall talks about some of those lessons, how Steve Jobs kept things uncomplicated and about how Apple is doing these days without him.

This episode of Kahney’s Korner is supported by TunnelBear, an award-winning service that gives you fast and private access to the internet.