Los Angeles

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on Los Angeles:

Apple signals entertainment ambitions with major Los Angeles expansion

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An artist's rendering shows Apple's planned facility on the LA-Culver City border.
An artist's rendering shows Apple's planned facility on the LA-Culver City border.
Photo: Apple

With plans underway to build two adjoining facilities on the border of Los Angeles and Culver City, Apple has signaled it means business in the entertainment industry. The new development will serve as its regional headquarters, the Cupertino tech giant said.

Apple’s new Tower Theatre store in LA looks preposterously beautiful

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Many Angelenos on the hunt for Apple gear will recognize the historic theater's restored clocktower and sign. But the interior will blow them away.
Many Angelenos on the hunt for Apple gear will recognize the historic theater's restored clocktower and sign. But the interior will blow them away.
Photo: Apple

Apple previewed its newest retail location at the historic Tower Theatre in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday. The company announced the store’s Thursday opening in conjunction with the launch of the Today at Apple Creative Studios global mentorship initiative for young creatives.

And wow, the new store looks like a real beauty. Apple called it “one of its most significant restoration projects to date.” That’s saying something. Just look at Rome. Or Bangkok. Or even the long-established Grand Central Station store in New York.

Apple’s second-generation mapping vehicles spotted in the wild

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apple maps
The new Apple Maps vehicle spotted in LA.
Photo: BusinessInsider

Apple’s fleet of vehicles used to gather data for Apple Maps appears to have gotten a significant upgrade and it could help make Apple Maps even better.

People in the Los Angeles area have spotted a second-generation version of Apple’s mapping vehicles in the wild. Unlike the previous version, these cars aren’t vans, as Apple has opted to use Subaru SUVs instead.

Apple’s flagship L.A. store will be part retail, part performance center

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Tower Theatre
The 91-year-old Tower Theater will be the home of the first LA Apple Store in the Downtown district.
Photo: Steve Minor/Flickr

Apple’s plans for the historic Tower Theatre store were revealed today, showcasing how the iPhone-maker plans to turn the Los Angeles location into one of its main flagship stores.

Tower Theatre was one of the first buildings in L.A. with air conditioning, an aspect that intrigued Apple when it started making plans. Instead of constructing a perfect glass box store, Apple plans to keep a lot of the building’s historical aspects intact.

Apple plans store in Downtown Los Angeles’ historic Tower Theater

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The Tower Theater will be the home of the first LA Apple Store in the Downtown district.
The 91-year-old Tower Theater will be the home of the first LA Apple Store in the Downtown district.
Photo: Steve Minor/Flickr

There are multiple Apple Stores in the Los Angeles Area, but not one in the Downtown district. That’s apparently just about to change.

The iPhone maker has plans to put an Apple Store in the historic Tower Theater on S. Broadway.

YouTube TV arrives to shake up streaming world

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YouTube TV is only available in 5 cities for now.
YouTube TV is only available in 5 cities for now.
Photo: YouTube

YouTube’s new tv streaming service for cord-cutters has finally arrived for customers in five major US markets.

The new service, dubbed YouTube TV, gives subscribers access to dozens of channels that normally would require a cable subscription, putting it in direct competition with the likes of Hulu, Sling TV, DirecTV Now and Playstation Vue.

Educator who orchestrated $1 billion iPad deal could face detention

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iPads in classroom

Los Angeles teachers union president Alex Caputo-Pearl has called for an investigation into Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent John Deasy’s relationship with Apple, which led to the announcement that the school system had blown its entire $1 billion tech budget on giving an iPad to every student last year.

Although the iPad deal was later put on hold, the L.A. Board of Education is being pressured by Caputo-Pearl to investigate why Deasy and his then-chief deputy, Jaime Aquino, were apparently discussing the deal with Apple and education publisher Pearson up to two years before the official bidding process was finished and contracts were approved.

The new Beats L.A. campus is pimpin’, yo!

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Beats employees, presumably chilling till the next episode. Picture: Fast Company

Beats may have been acquired by Apple for $3 billion earlier this year, but that doesn’t mean that the trendy headphone maker is ready to adopt the white Jony Ive-favored minimalism of Apple just yet.

While Apple continues to work on its Cupertino “Mothership” headquarters, an article from Fast Company sheds some light on the new Beats campus being renovated from two industrial buildings in Culver City, Los Angeles.

Featuring reception areas, conference rooms, and offices in one building, and a cafeteria, gym, and double-height workshop for R&D in the other, the article describes the design as featuring “architectural gestures that go from pop to cinematic to downright arty.”

One thing it’s not, though, is reminiscent of Apple.

Survivalist gear reveals individual nature of fear

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Curtis' Bug Out Bag is just one of the grab-and-go emergency kits documented in Allison Stewart's Bug Out Bag photo series.
Curtis' Bug Out Bag is just one of the grab-and-go emergency kits documented in Allison Stewart's Bug Out Bag photo series.

Everybody packs differently for the apocalypse.

Photographer Allison Stewart reveals the fears and foresight of survivalists in her photographs of bug-out bags, the emergency preparedness kits put together by individuals ready to flee an impending disaster. In her photo series Bug Out Bags, the contents of the grab-and-go bags get splayed out against a stark white background, showing the wide variety of items deemed necessary by the preppers.

Stewart, raised on the Gulf Coast under the annual threat of hurricanes, comes by her fascination with the subject naturally.

“When I lived in New Orleans, I was stuck in my house for four days without electricity or fresh water,” Stewart told Cult of Mac in an e-mail. “The water in my street was waist-deep and lapping at my front door. I was very thankful for my water supply, my transistor radio, and of course the wine supply.”

No two packs in her Bug Out Bags photo series are alike, a fact Stewart attributes to the individual nature of fear. One is loaded with forestry tools; another includes a gas mask; a third is stocked with canned food. While basements from Tornado Alley to the Ring of Fire hold stockpiles of emergency supplies, she found bug-out bags truly explore the unique psyches of their owners.

L.A. School Board Blows Entire $115 Million Tech Budget On iPads

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iPad mini with Retina

The Los Angeles Board of Education has voted to continue its efforts to provide every student and teacher in the L.A. Unified school district with a computer by approving a new $115-million proposal to distribute iPads to 38 more campuses. The proposal also calls for the purchase of laptops for every student at seven high schools, and picks up a couple thousand extra iPads for new state tests in spring.

Overall the board thinks it will buy somewhere around 67,500 new tablets just for the spring testing, even though an oversight committee recommend only purchasing 38,500. The board decided getting everyone the same model at the same time is of the utmost importance for revolutionizing education, even though the $1-billion effort is expected to exhaust all their tech funds made available by voter-approved school-construction bonds.

Samsung Builds Fake Apple Store To Shoot Anti-iPhone 5 Ad

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You look familiar.

Samsung has begun shooting its next commercial, and like previous ads, this one will poke fun at Apple and its users — namely those who will be purchasing the new iPhone 5 this week. Unfazed by its recent court loss, the Korean company has erected a fake Apple store, complete with Macs and iOS devices, just so that it can mock every consumer using a rival device in a 30-second video.

Photos of the set, which is currently being constructed in Los Angeles, have begun making their way around the web, and they show the store in all its glory, with fake banners, and even fake Geniuses.

Spectrum Issues Cause AT&T LTE Slowdowns in Chicago And Other Major Markets

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AT&T's LTE service won't be as fast as Verizon in several markets
AT&T's LTE service won't be as fast as Verizon in several markets

 

As AT&T continues to roll out its LTE network across the country, some markets are getting markedly lower speeds for LTE iPads and other devices. In fact, two of the company’s largest markets are getting speeds below the national average for AT&T’s LTE service and below Verizon’s LTE service in those areas. Those two markets are Los Angeles and Chicago – but several other cities may be in for the same issues as AT&T expands its LTE service in the coming months