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Take a peek inside Apple Watch’s companion iOS app

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Photo: Cult of Mac
Photo: Cult of Mac

Apple placed another app that can’t be deleted on everyone’s iPhones with the release of iOS 8.2. For now, the Apple Watch companion app is just a useless tease if you don’t have an Apple Watch yet, but iOS developer Hamza Sood has cracked it open and given us a preview of what the app will look like once you get your watch.

Sood tweeted some interesting tidbits about the app, revealing its beautiful dark theme along with details about the settings, how to add friends, mute notifications, and other interesting features.

Take a peek inside the app below:

Apple Watch keynote is reimagined as a smooth pop music video

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Cook has Apple's momentum rocketing along. Photo: Apple
Tim Cook wouldn't be the first Apple CEO to rock out to one of Jonathan Mann's Apple songs. Photo: Apple

One of the highlights of any Apple keynote is that it inevitably means another catchy jingle from YouTube songsmith and longtime Mac-fan, Jonathan Mann: a musician whose Apple-centric songs once made even Steve Jobs dance.

Frankly, it’s amazing that nothing short of amazing that Mann is able to create such entire songs, complete with music videos, so quickly after an Apple keynote is off the air, but somehow he does. Choosing a smooth jazz-synth sound and the vaguely-inappropriate title “It’s Not Just With You, It’s In You… I Mean On You,” Mann lovingly lampoons Apple’s “most personal device” with an earworm that, all things being equal, should tide you over until WWDC.

Check out the music video (and its lyrics) after the jump. You might even want to sing along…

The 7 biggest shockers from Apple’s ‘Spring Forward’ event

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Only the sticker shock mattered. Photo: Apple
Only the sticker shock mattered. Photo: Apple

The biggest surprise about today’s big Apple Watch event? That Cupertino’s upcoming wearable didn’t really steal the show.

We got a few new details about the smartwatch, but Tim Cook and crew really blew our minds with several other big announcements. Here are the most important revelations from the show at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

What’s inside Apple’s mystery tent?

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Apple's tiny white tent nestles between buildings at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Photo: Jim Merithew/ Cult of Mac
Apple's tiny white tent nestles between buildings at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

SAN FRANCISCO — Another Apple event, another mysterious building sprouting up seemingly overnight. They pop up to shield Apple’s prep work from prying eyes, but they also fuel the imaginations of anybody who’s interested in Cupertino’s next move.

The latest such structure — this time with solid white walls and a tented, tarp-like roof — isn’t nearly as elaborate as the gigantic building erected before last fall’s Apple Watch event, but the mysteries concealed could be gigantic.

The big reveal comes at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts next Monday, when we will almost assuredly learn more about the Apple Watch (among other things). Until then, all we can do is wait and wonder: What could be hidden inside Apple’s mystery tent?

What to expect from Apple’s ‘Spring Forward’ Watch event

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Apple is taking over the Yerba Buena Center in San Fransisco. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Apple is taking over the Yerba Buena Center in San Fransisco. Photo:Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple’s March 9 “Spring Forward” event is just around the corner, and its tagline can only mean one thing: Apple Watch news galore.

Scheduled for the day after daylight saving time kicks in, we expect Apple to shower us with details about the upcoming wearable, including pricing and availability. Select Apple Watch apps from App Store developers will likely be shown off as well to whet our appetites for what’s to come.

While there’s a chance some new Mac hardware could share the stage Monday, we expect the event to focus mostly on all the unanswered questions surrounding the Apple Watch.

What are those questions? Glad you asked:

Siri speaks 7 new languages in iOS 8.3

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Siri speaks even more languages in iOS 8.3. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Siri speaks even more languages in iOS 8.3. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple’s second iOS 8.3 beta, which was pushed out to registered developers on Monday ahead of a public release later this year, enables Siri to speak seven new languages, testers have found. It also brings more performance improvements for older iOS devices like the iPhone 4s.

Doom maker’s weapon of choice for teaching coding? Apple IIc

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Starting with the BASICs. Photo: John Carmack
Starting with the BASICs. Photo: John Carmack

When you’re one of the closest things the programming world has to a rock star, you might assume that — when the time comes to pass your godly coding powers onto the next generation — you’d hand your offspring a brand new iPad and a crash course in the likes of Swift: the insanely popular state-of-the-art iOS language unveiled at last year’s WWDC.

Try telling that to John Carmack! The legendary coder behind the smash hit games Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake (today working at Oculus VR) recently shared a picture of his young son’s home computer lessons. Carmack’s choice for suitable hardware and software? BASIC on the 1984-era Apple IIc.

He’s kicking it old-school!

Don’t expect the 12-inch Retina MacBook Air this month

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You may have a little longer to wait if you want a Retina MacBook Air. Photo: Martin Hajek
You may have a little longer to wait if you want a Retina MacBook Air. Photo: Martin Hajek

Like you, we’re excited about Apple’s next MacBook Air, a device that is rumored to be a an ultra-sexy 12-incher with only a single port and a beautiful Retina Display.

Now we’re hearing that Apple is planning on updating the MacBook Air later this month. But don’t get too excited. This is not the MacBook Air you’re waiting for.

Jony Ive was ‘tormented’ with jealousy over Yahoo’s beautiful weather app

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Photo: AddictiveTips
Jony Ive's jealousy over Yahoo weather app yielded a startling imitation. Photo: AddictiveTips

One of the first projects Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer oversaw as CEO was the Yahoo Weather app. The app was so well received that it even ended up receiving a coveted Apple Design Award in 2013.

Apple also redesigned its stock Weather app to look just like it in iOS 7.

It turns out that it wasn’t a coincidence the two apps looked so similar. Jony Ive was “tormented” with jealously of Yahoo Weather’s design.

6 ways Microsoft copied Apple with Windows 10 (plus some truly new ideas)

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It's on many devices, but we still don't know what kind of devices.
It's on many devices, but we still don't know what kind of devices.
Photo: Microsoft

Microsoft just unveiled the future of Windows 10 today in Redmond. Along with some crazy holographic goggles that take on Google Glass and Oculus, company executives revealed the ambitious plan to make the next generation of Windows the first truly universal platform for desktop PCs, laptops, smartphones and more.

The 2.5 hour keynote was packed with new features coming to Windows 10 devices and the Xbox, but eagle-eyed Apple fanboys have already noticed a few ways Microsoft was influenced by some of Apple’s best features.

Here are 5 plays Microsoft stole from Apple’s playbook: