So it’s not quite an ax. It’s more of a hatchet.

But you can do some shredding on the diminutive Jamstik. It’s a portable smart guitar that gets beginners playing recognizable chords within a few minutes and helps the inspired musician instantly articulate those notes blooming in his or her brain. Connect it to most Apple devices and learn with the Jamstik tutorial app or record in Garage Band.

The first version was popular, but Minneapolis-based Zivix wanted to make improvements based on customer feedback. The music technology company raised more than $800,000 on a recent Kickstarter campaign to bring Bluetooth technology and a magnetic pickup to the newest generation, Jamstik+.

Apple’s been using antenna lines in its smartphones ever since the days of the iPhone 4 and antenna-gate, but a new patent filed by the company could soon make those unsightly lines disappear for good.

A new Apple patent could add a startling amount of functionality to your iMessages.

The tech would let you schedule pre-written texts and even send new ones automatically based on context the app draws from elsewhere on your iPhone.

The razor-blade business model refers to a business in which a company sells a product for a modest price, and then profits from sales of accessories.

According to a new report, the Apple Watch represents a high-tech spin on this concept — since a large number of customers are not only spending hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars on the wearable device itself, but also shelling out for a spare band — thereby letting Apple dip into their wallets for a second time.

Taking a note out of the James Bond playbook, British car manufacturer Range Rover U.K. has developed a new prototype system allowing its rugged Range Rover Sport vehicles to be controlled remotely by way of a smartphone app.

Sound good? Check out a video below.

From the health-tracking features of the Apple Watch to iPhone cases capable of predicting strokes, there are more and more medical devices involving Apple products.

Perhaps the most amazing so far, however, involves a newly-launched medical technology which allows chronic pain patients to use their iPod Touch to interrupt the pain signals travelling up their spinal cord on their way to the brain.

In the West, the most iconic Apple Store is probably the company’s glass cube for its Fifth Avenue flagship store in New York. In the East, however, arguably Apple’s most recognizable retail outlet design is the 30-foot glass cylinder used for both the company’s Shanghai and Chongqing Apple Stores.

As Apple continues its rise in places like China, it is doing everything it can to stop rivals from ripping off its ideas — which is why it filed a design patent on the building, which was published today — naming none other than Steve Jobs as one of its inventors.

ST. JAMES, Missouri — The first in Tom Gasko’s impressive collection of vacuum cleaners arrived before he was born. It was a summer day in 1962 and his mother, Jean, was pregnant and uncomfortably hot. The Rainbow vacuum salesman in her living room realized she was in no mood to listen to his sales pitch, so he placed ice in the vacuum’s water pan, switched on the machine and blew cool air on her.

 Eighteen days later, Mrs. Gasko had a new vacuum and a son who would grow up to collect one of every model of vacuum cleaner ever made in the United States.

Many of his 704 vacuums, including the Rainbow that brought sweet relief to his mother, is on display in a museum he curates in St. James, Missouri.

“If you turned on a vacuum and I couldn’t see it, I could probably tell you the brand just by the pitch of the motor,” Gasko told Cult of Mac. “I’ve always been fascinated by the motors and how subtle changes over the years to design affects the suction.”

Casimir Zeglen was truly a man of the cloth. He was a Catholic priest — with an obsession for silk underwear — but the pleasure he got from silk touching skin was because it stopped bullets.

 The Chicago priest is credited with inventing the first bulletproof vest, a calling he answered in 1893 after the city’s mayor was gunned down.

The vests worn today by soldiers, police officers and marked men are made with lightweight armor and sophisticated, bullet-resistant fibers like Kevlar that evolved as weapons got more powerful. Yet they work much the same way as Zeglen’s silk invention: The material catches and deforms slugs, then spreads the force of the strike over a larger area of the vest.

Hidden in HomeKit documentation published today is the intriguing confirmation that Apple TV will serve as the digital hub for Apple’s new home-automation setup.

It’s a reminder of just how seriously Apple now treats the set-top box that it dismissed as a “hobby” a few years ago.