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Speculation surrounding a “budget” iPhone died out when Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller promised it would never happen. But with iPhone 6s demand allegedly falling and the global smartphone market becoming increasingly saturated, could a more affordable phone give Apple a security net? Could it prevent the iPhone business from stagnating in the same way the iPad business has?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we bicker like children over these questions and more!

We know it isn’t a contest, but if we had to put the features revealed in Apple’s massive beta dump today up against each other, tvOS 9.2 would be the definite winner.

Don’t get us wrong; it’s cool to see the future of our favorite iStuff all laid out in front of us like a gleaming future-buffet. But Apple TV’s list of updates has us the most excited about what we’ll get to do with that device when the update comes to the rest of us.

Here’s what we have to look forward to in tvOS 9.2.

LAS VEGAS — CES 2016 is about to kick off. The world’s biggest consumer electronics show, which is held each January in Las Vegas, starts this week. At a press preview Monday night, we got a peek at some of the industry’s latest, greatest offerings.

Here’s some of the stuff we think is pretty cool. Check out a cocktail robot, a monster Wi-Fi router that promises to eliminate dead spots, and a fixed-wing drone that flies like a hawk.

You could say 2015 was a product-ive year for Apple. The company entered the wearable market with the Apple Watch, released a hugely updated version of the Apple TV streaming box, unveiled the massive iPad Pro (and considerably less massive iPad Mini 4), took on tune-streaming with the Apple Music service, and made its annual update to the iPhone with the 6s and 6s Plus.

We also saw updates to the operating systems that run all those things, as well as a new desktop OS in El Capitan, but it wasn’t all great news. Apple encountered lawsuits, shakeups and investigations by countries and entire federations thereof.

So whether we ultimately decide Cupertino had a good or bad year, at least it was pretty interesting. Relive the ups and downs with this Apple year in review 2015, Cult of Mac-style.

While the Apple Watch is still waiting for its “killer app,” plenty of great apps already exist for the new wearable. They ease us through common tasks, add value to awesome iPhone apps, or delight us with subtle functions that we didn’t necessarily know we needed (but now practically can’t live without).

These apps might not be homicidal, but they make us want to strap on an Apple Watch each and every day. These are our favorite Apple Watch apps of 2015.

As an Apple fan, there’s a great gift you can bestow upon your friends and family this holiday season. The amazing part is, it’s free.

I’m not talking about the free tech support you’ll inevitably dole out to befuddled relatives (Cult of Mac’s how-to section can help with that, BTW). I’m talking about evangelizing for two of Apple’s least-loved products — and this gracious act will also goose the greater good.

Your smart life is about to get even smarter with a new set of software development tools that will let coders include world-class speech recognition and natural language processing — the same stuff that powers Siri, Apple’s personal digital assistant — to thermostats, refrigerators, apps and, yes, even robots.

The folks at Nuance have created a new system, currently in beta, to allow any company to include code with language commands that are specific to their hardware or apps. It’s called Nuance Mix, and anyone can sign in and create their own speech-recognition code to work with their apps or connected devices.

“Any developer, big or small, can come in and define a custom set of use cases,” Nuance’s Kenn Harper told Cult of Mac during a demo of the SDK. “You’re going to start talking to everything at home and work — speech is about to get more ubiquitous.”

To the derision of the entire internet, Apple’s new Smart Battery Case for the iPhone has an inelegant hump on the back.

Turns out, this isn’t the first time Apple design chief Jony Ive and his team have “humped” a thin design.

What will the iPhone 7 look like? Even Apple doesn’t know. According to a new rumor out of China, Apple is currently experimenting with at least five distinct iPhone 7 models, each with a totally different combination of hardware, including a possible AMOLED screen, a USB Type-C connector instead of Lightning, and a fingerprint reader built into the display.

Pebble has slashed up to 35 percent off its latest smartwatches ahead of the holiday season. Its new Pebble Time can now be had for $129.99 — down from $199.99 — while the Pebble Classic can be had for just $69.99.

Best List: Bamboo Fineline 1 stylus by Wacom

Wacom is to graphics tablets what Kleenex is to facial tissues, so it’s no surprise that the company knows its way around a stylus. And the original version of the Bamboo Fineline is a great entry point for those looking to start drawing, sketching, and taking notes on their iPads.

Tim Cook loves the new iPad Pro so much it’s the only product he travels with now, other than his iPhone.

In a new interview talking about the benefits of the new big-screened iPad, the Apple CEO trumpeted the iPad Pro’s productivity thanks to new multi-tasking software in iOS 9 complimented by the new keyboard and Apple Pencil. Some detractors have dismissed Apple Pencil as a just a fancy stylus, but Cook insists it’s a much more revolutionary product than that.

You know that Apple TV is a great set-top box that allows you to play games, watch TV shows and movies, and even listen to Apple Music streams.

What you may not have known is that you can connect Bluetooth speakers so that you don’t bother your roommates or family when you’re watching, enhance dialogue, and even change the audio language on supported media.

Here’s how to do all that, from the comfort of your couch with the new Siri Remote.

Is merging iOS with OS X a good idea? For the longest time, the answer to that question has been a resounding no from anyone who appreciates good software — but with iPad Pro on the horizon, there may well be a growing case for it.

The iPad Pro has the potential to be the ultimate 2-in-1 — a laptop that could really replace a notebook when you need to get stuff done. But in many ways, it’s being held back by iOS, which is still very much a mobile platform without many of the basics we have on our desktops — like a file manager.

So, is there now room for a new platform that delivers the best of iOS and OS X, perfectly suited to a tablet that doubles as a notebook?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over that very question!

Remember in grade school when you learned what the middle finger meant? Twitter was kind of like that Thursday morning as giggly and astonished people reported their discovery of a middle-finger emoji in their iOS update.

This is not new news. We knew the finger would fly when the iOS update was announced earlier. Maybe it got lost in the excitement of finally getting a taco emoji. Who knows. But the tweets about the bird were refreshing 20 and 30 at a time every few seconds this morning.

To most taking to social media, the middle finger feels naughty and delicious.

It’s with great sadness that I heard about the passing of Gary Allen this morning. I met Gary several times over the years and called and corresponded with him many times. He ran IFOAppleStore.com, by far the best website about Apple’s incredible chain of retail stores, a topic that proved a rich hunting ground, given its size, influence and global reach. Gary had an encyclopedic knowledge of Apple’s stores and his site — now sadly offline — was an incredible resource.

Gary was also known for traveling all over the word to attend store openings, often camping out the night before. He visited London, Paris, Tokyo, Istanbul, Beijing and many, many other cities. Some saw this as eccentric, but the point was not the store opening itself, but the chance to socialize with a bunch of like-minded people. To get some idea of his devotion to his hobby, check out his Twitter and Flickr feeds, still online and full of pictures from his travels.

I wrote a profile of Gary a few years ago that is now also offline, so I’m resurrecting it below.

As iPhone 6s owners freak out over whether their new smartphones might be saddled with a performance-deficient chip, an app that makes it easy to identify the type of chip inside the new smartphones mysteriously vanishes from the App Store.

It’s enough to get “Chipgate” conspiracy theorists churning, but the reality is a little less dark than all that.

OS X El Capitan promises to redefine the Mac experience with a host of new improvements that make working (and playing) smoother than ever.

There’s a lot to learn about all the new goodies in El Capitan, which finally became available to the public for free today. Everything from Notes to Safari, from AirPlay to Spotlight, has seen gains both big and little.

After spending a lot of time with the new OS, which has been in beta for months, we’ve found 13 killer features every Mac owner needs to know to get the most out of El Capitan. Here they are!

If you’ve braved a line (or just waited impatiently for your mail or a delivery from your local courier) and finally have your hands on an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus of your very own, you may be wondering what do do with your new precious. Sure, you could call all your friends and tell them you’re speaking to them through your shiny new gadget, like I did with my Apple Watch.

And I’m here to tell you that everyone loves that.

But you’re probably looking for some cool apps to play around with, and it may be hard to know where to start — especially if this is your first iPhone. So here are a bunch of apps that should be at the top of your list.

If the rumor mill has it right, new iPhones are right around the corner. But that doesn’t mean you should relegate your current model to the junk drawer once you trade up: You can turn your old iPhone into money in one of several ways.

The iPhone 6s keynote might be less than two week away, but we’ve already seen a bunch parts leak out of upcoming smartphone. A source provided Cult of Mac with the images above of an iPhone 6s screen assembly. The new assembly is slightly thicker than the iPhone 6 screen assembly, which is in line with previous rumors that the new device won’t have the same width as the iPhone 6.

We haven’t been able to take a closer look at the screen assembly, but another leak this morning takes a closer look at a mysterious new chip on the iPhone display that appears to confirm Force Touch is coming.

“I guess I’m known as that firmware-poking guy,” says Hamza Sood, the young hacker who most recently found a way to create and add custom watch faces to Apple Watch.

Cult of Mac chatted with the London-based 19-year-old via email to find out more about what makes him tick.

If you compare the Apple Watch to dedicated fitness tracking devices, it comes up short, and the forthcoming watchOS 2 will do little to address these limitations. Instead, with this update Apple is focusing on helping improve third-party fitness apps.

That’s because Apple sees its wearable as the main component of a fitness platform, with the Activity app as hub. While the built-in Workout app is mostly for beginners, third-party apps will provide the missing features for hardcore users.

As a fitness tracker, Apple Watch is currently little more than a fancy pedometer. It only tracks distance and calories — the quantity, not the quality, of your movement. That’s a problem because fitness is about more than burning calories.

However, an interesting patent from Apple — plus a new technology claimed to be “Siri for understanding human movement” — suggests that Apple Watch could soon be adding weightlifting to its repertoire. Which would be good news for gym-goers and CrossFitters everywhere.