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Pictar grip gives conventional camera feel to iPhone

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Pictar eliminates the worry of dropping your iPhone while making pictures.
Pictar eliminates the worry of dropping your iPhone while making pictures.
Photo: miggo

The more I grow to love photography with an iPhone, the more I miss certain things about conventional cameras. Get a grip, you say? A grip is one of the things I am talking about.

miggo, innovative makers of camera bags, straps and mounts, brings to Kickstarter the Pictar, an ergonomic camera grip for the iPhone that also shifts cumbersome menu functions to five programmable wheels and buttons right at the tip of your shooting finger.

Siri lawsuit costs Apple $25 million

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Siri
Hey Siri
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

A long running lawsuit between Apple and Dynamic Advances and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has finally come to an end, and it wasn’t cheap for Apple.

The Dallas-based Dynamic Advances sued Apple for allegedly infringing on a 2007 patent. The patent in question was exclusively licenced to the firm by Rensselaer, but Apple violated it with certain voice features used in Siri. 

Futuristic Apple touchscreen will let you feel textures and temperatures

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iPadwood
Got wood?
Photo: Cult of Mac/Oscar Cortez

3D Touch is all well and good, but future Apple devices may incorporate advanced haptic technology which lets software simulate textures ranging from the grain of wood surface to the cold feeling of metal.

That’s according to a new patent published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, describing a “Touch Surface for Simulating Materials” through the touch-sensitive display or trackpad of an iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

$2 billion lawsuit claims Apple Watch idea was stolen

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Apple Watch lawsuit
Best of luck, ma'am.
Photo: U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan

A Michigan woman is suing Apple and Nike for a combined $5 billion over claims that the two companies stole her concept for a device called a “Detachable Beeper Disc Digital Gym Shoe with Sensor.” She states that she filed a patent for her invention 20 years ago, well before the companies came up with their own, similar products — namely, the Apple Watch and the Nike+ smart running system.

While she’s seeking $3 billion from Nike, she’s only looking for $2 billion from Apple, so Cupertino’s getting off relatively light on this one.

Why the departure of Apple designer Daniel Coster matters

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Daniel Coster, fourth from left, is leaving Apple's vaunted industrial design team.
Daniel Coster, fourth from left, is leaving Apple's vaunted industrial design team.
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac

The departure of veteran Apple industrial designer Daniel Coster is significant because, like the Mafia, no one ever leaves Jony Ive’s design studio.

Coster, a core member of Apple’s design team for more than 20 years, is perhaps only the third member of Ive’s tight-knit industrial design group to leave in almost two decades. And one of the others died.

Apple’s mouse will get even more magical with Force Touch

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apple-magic-mouse_2-900-80
Force Touch is coming to the Magic Mouse.
Photo: Apple

From introducing the mouse to a mass market to getting rid of its buttons by order of Steve Jobs, Apple has always been at the forefront when it comes to driving mouse technology forward.

A new Apple patent published today promises to keep that tradition by describing a future Magic Mouse with integrated Force Touch sensors.

Coming soon, we hope, to a Mac near you!

40 moments that have defined Apple over 40 years

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A photo of people looking at the first-gen iPhone inside a glass case on the original iPhone launch date.
Admiring fans check out the first iPhone in its public debut.
Photo: Traci Dauphin/Cult of Mac

Apple turns 40 years old today, and what a journey it’s been: from a promising homebrew startup to an underdog fighting off bankruptcy to an industry-straddling behemoth with $233.7 billion in revenue, all thanks to the vision of the co founder of apple.

It’s impossible to boil down every significant Apple event into one story, but we did our best to pick out the 40 most significant moments in the company’s past.

Check out these key moments in Apple history below.

General Electric nearly bought Apple in 1996

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iPhone
The iPhone could've been made by GE.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple Inc. and General Electric are two of the most iconic American companies of the last century, but back in 1996 they almost become one company as GE CEO Jack Welch considered buying the computer maker.

It would have only cost GE $2 billion and the current Apple CEO, Michael Spindler, was begging Welch to pull the trigger on the deal in order to save the struggling company.

Government is on a coast-to-cast phone-unlocking rampage

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government-is-on-a-coast-to-cast-phone-unlocking-rampage-image-cultofandroidcomwp-contentuploads201506apple-samsung-iphone-galaxy-patent-war1-jpg
The government has big plans for the All Writs Act.
Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns/Flickr CC
apple-samsung-iphone-galaxy-patent-war
The government has big plans for the All Writs Act. Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns/Flickr CC

Right from the start, the current iPhone vs. FBI standoff has revolved around whether it was focused on unlocking one specific handset or setting a precedent that would allow the Justice Department to unlock any phone it wanted.

Well, if you wanted evidence that the government is using the All Writs Act to try and force Apple and Google to unlock a whole lot of smartphones around the U.S., look no further than the below infographic.