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iPhone 8 may pack frickin’ lasers for facial recognition

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iPhone
Lasers could be the iPhone's next big feature.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple’s next iPhone may come with new facial recognition technology and actual friggin’ laser beams, according to an analyst.

By adding lasers near the front-facing camera, Apple will be able to depth-map objects, according to analysts at Cowen and Company. The camera could also be used for image recognition, enhancing security and fueling augmented reality.

Apple earns ‘most intimate brand’ title

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Screen Shot 2017-01-18 at 16.54.19
Apple is no. 1! Woop, woop!
Photo: MBLM

Apple is the “most intimate” brand in the U.S., according to MBLM’s new Brand Intimacy 2017 Report.

What is an “intimate” brand, you might ask? According to MBLM, brand intimacy is defined as, “a new paradigm that leverages and strengthens the emotional bonds between a person and a brand.”

Turn Apple Mail into a handy personal assistant [Deals]

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MailButler makes Apple Mail into the basis of a powerful task management assistant.
MailButler makes Apple Mail into the basis of a powerful task management assistant.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Apple Mail houses all of your contacts, correspondence, and other critical details of your day to day life. That makes it a great platform for a productivity manager, and MailButler turns it into one. Packed with a variety of email-organizing functions, this handy plug-in streamlines and optimizes your correspondence to help you prioritize and get organized. Right now you can get MailButler for just $34.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Super Mario explores Liberty City in hilarious GTA mod

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Mario-GTA-4
Not even Mario is safe in Liberty City.
Photo: CrowbCat

By now you’ve probably already seen the new Super Mario Odyssey trailer for Nintendo Switch, in which everyone’s favorite plumber ventures into the real world for the first time. But what if that world wasn’t created by Nintendo?

The hilarious mod below puts Mario in Grand Theft Auto 4’s terrifying Liberty City, and he looks to be having a whale of a time.

Simple text message crashes almost any iPhone

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iPhone-text-glitch
Three characters is all it takes to freeze your iPhone.
Photo: EverythingApplePro

Apple makes iOS more secure with almost every update it rolls out, but there’s always a glitch somewhere that slips through the net.

The latest is a bug in iMessage that allows any iPhone running iOS 10 to iOS 10.1.1 to be crashed with a simple text message.

Former employee explains how Tim Cook made Apple boring

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LOVELOUD
Tim Cook wants to keep peace at Apple.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Tim Cook’s kinder, gentler management style is the biggest reason why 2016 was one of the most boring years for Apple in recent memory, according to a former employee of the company.

Steve Jobs was notorious for inciting conflict and competition between top employees, which him a controversial leader but also birthed some of the most iconic tech products ever (iMac, iPod and iPhone). After Cook took over, he worked to eliminate conflict within Cupertino’s walls and made employees less passionate, claims ex-Apple employee Bob Burrough.

Vintage Mac Museum steers clear of Macs that sucked

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Adam Rosen's Vintage Mac Museum
The Vintage Mac Museum heads west to Montana
Photo: Adam Rosen

Cult of Mac 2.0 bug Adam Rosen’s collection of vintage Macs doesn’t make him a hoarder, but he acknowledges it doesn’t make him an obvious choice for a husband, either.

In several rooms of Rosen’s Boston home you’ll find a love story nonetheless. The rooms are shrines to a high school sweetheart that matured and grew more sophisticated with time, a friendly face still aglow with “hello.”

iOS 10.2 won’t let you play ripped DVDs from your iTunes library

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The new TV app doesn't like ripped videos.
The new TV app doesn't like ripped videos.
Photo: Apple

iOS 10.2 is preventing users from playing videos that they have ripped from DVDs and other sources and loaded into iTunes.

It’s unclear whether this is just a bug or a conscious move by Apple, but there is a trick that has allowed some users to get around the problem.

Seize power for all your gear and gadgets [Deals]

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3 outlets and 4 USB ports make this travel-friendly power strip a comprehensive charging solution.
3 outlets and 4 USB ports make this travel-friendly power strip a comprehensive charging solution.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

The more we rely on our digital devices, the more chances there are to run out of juice at just the wrong moment. But the essential charging gadgets in this roundup can meet anyone’s thirst for power.

They include a portable, surge-protected strip with USB and standard outlets, a five-port dock that organizes your gizmos while they charge, a trio of extra-long, MFi-certified Lightning cables, and a wireless charging hub for Apple Watch and three other devices. Read on to learn more:

36 years on, you can play Bill Gates’ crappy Donkey game on Apple Watch

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Bill Gates just won the internets.
Of all Bill Gates' accomplishments, how did DONKEY hang around?
Photo: Bill Gates

Before Bill Gates was, well, Bill Gates, he was the 20-something software developer behind DONKEY.BAS, a simple yet frustratingly difficult PC game in which players drive a car along a stretch of road while avoiding donkeys.

Created in 1981 to show off the BASIC programming language on the then-new IBM PC, an updated version of the game has now been ported to Apple Watch.

2017 MacBook Pro to bring Intel Kaby Lake, 32GB of RAM

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MacBook
The next MacBook Pro will bring the power pro users require.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple will launch a new 15-inch MacBook Pro later this year powered by Intel’s next-generation Kaby Lake processors and 32GB of desktop-class RAM, according to a reliable analyst.

The latest models feature Skylake chips and up to 16GB of RAM, but many professionals have complained this just isn’t enough for a high-end notebook.

Is iPhone Apple’s most significant product to date? [Friday Night Fights]

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wood
Can you think of anything more important to Apple?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The iPhone celebrated its tenth anniversary this week, and it’s hard to imagine where Apple would be today without it. It is by far the company’s most successful product, but is it also its most significant to date?

Friday Night Fights bugApple revolutionized a number of product industries with the Mac, iPod, iTunes, and iPad — all of which have been incredibly successful at some point. It also pioneered new concepts with products like the Newton. Were any of these things more important to Apple than iPhone?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we relive our first experiences with iPhone and discuss Apple’s most significant product releases.

10 apps for enhancing iPhone photos

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A good photo editing app can add mood and alter colors to clarify your vision of your dog or any of your photos.
A good photo editing app can add mood and alter colors to clarify your vision of your dog or any of your photos.
Photo: David Pierini/Cult of Mac

One of my favorite observations by a now-forgotten sage explained the difference between writing and photography like this: A bad sentence can be massaged, but nothing helps a bad photo.

So true. However, I’ve experienced for myself how a good photo-editing app can salvage sloppy composition or bad exposure — and even teach you something along the way. So if you resolve to become a better photographer in 2017, you might want to add some tools to put a finer finish on your iPhone photos.

iPhone 7 tops 2016 smartphone performance chart

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Top-10-smartphones-2016
Apple's A10X Fusion chip continues to impress.
Photo: AnTuTu

Benchmark specialists AnTuTu have put together a chart that highlights 2016’s top performing smartphones, and it’s no surprise to see iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus right at the top of it.

Apple’s latest handsets grabbed the first and second spots with the highest benchmark scores, followed by the OnePlus 3T. There’s no sign of a Samsung device in the top ten.

Sharpen your iOS coding chops for next to nothing [Deals]

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iOS 10 and 9 lesson bundle
Learn to code for iOS 10 and iOS 9 in this comprehensive, massively discounted lesson bundle.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

For developers, iOS is as vibrant a platform as ever. There’s plenty of room for new and seasoned developers alike to make their mark, which makes this duo of lessons in iOS 10 and iOS 9 from Mammoth Interactive a valuable resource for coders of any skill level.

It offers nearly 200 hours of top-shelf instruction, and right now you can get the entire iOS coding bundle for just $29 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Apple commemorates Martin Luther King Jr. Day

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MLK-quote-Apple
Apple.com today.
Screenshot: Cult of Mac

Apple is today commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a famous quote on the front page of its website that promotes equality.

Paying homage to the legendary civil rights leader is a tradition for Apple, which has become increasingly focused on supporting equal rights and fighting discrimination in recent years.

Samsung chief faces arrest for bribing South Korea president

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samsungs-new-galaxy-s7-and-s7-edge-bring-better-designs-incredible-specs-image-cultofandroidcomwp-contentuploads2016024_vr-homepage-desktop-size-a-letterbox-v1-780x390
Samsung's de-facto boss is in a spot of trouble.
Photo: Samsung

The de-facto head of Samsung faces arrest on charges of bribing South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye and a confidante.

The call for Lee Kun-hee, Samsung’s vice chairman and the only son of its incapacitated chairman, is part of a larger investigation into alleged corruption involving senior government officials and large South Korean corporations.

Name your price for this coding crash course [Deals]

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Name your price for a full-spectrum, comprehensive, hands-on set of lessons in coding on several platforms.
Name your price for a full-spectrum, comprehensive, hands-on set of lessons in coding on several platforms.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

It’s a new year, so it’s a great time to give yourself the valuable new skill of coding. It’s a discipline that takes a lot of time — and often money — to get proficient, but this bundle of coding lessons offers a chance to learn for whatever you’re willing to pay.

Today you can name your price for the Learn to Code 2017 Bundle at Cult of Mac Deals.
Clocking in at 156 hours of instruction, this bundle covers everything from basic to advanced techniques for development on iOS, web and other platforms. You can learn Python, Ruby,  JavaScript, Google’s Go programming language, iOS 10 and Swift 3 — and lots more!

This is a full-spectrum set of lessons useful for people at any skill level. The lessons are buttressed by hands-on projects and templates that make this more than just book work. It’s a great way to get practical experience in the craft of coding.

Buy now: Pay what you want for the Learn to Code 2017 Bundle, worth well over $1,000.

Upgrade your iPhone with 60X zoom and more [Week’s Best Deals]

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Get triple backup and extra reach for your iPhone's lifeline with this bundle of MFi-certified Lightning cables.
Get triple backup and extra reach for your iPhone's lifeline with this bundle of MFi-certified Lightning cables.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Take your mind off the crazy week and rest your eyes on some of its best deals at the Cult of Mac Store. This go around we’ve got a trio of MFi-certified Lightning cables, a lifetime VPN subscription, a full-on telescopic lens for your iPhone and a skeleton key for streaming video.

The best part? Most of these deals are priced at more than 90 percent off!

Mavic Pro: The coolest gadget since the original iPhone [Reviews]

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Mavic Pro
The Mavic Pro is much more than a cool flying toy.
Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

Tiny cameras that can fly still seemed like a sci-fi dream just five years ago, but with DJI’s new Mavic Pro drone, the future has arrived ahead of schedule.

When it comes to drones, no company is killing it right now more than DJI, and the Mavic Pro is its most amazing achievement yet. Yes, some drones fly faster and shoot better video, but the Mavic Pro is the ultimate drone for people who love photography, flight and the outdoors but don’t want to be weighed down.

Best of all, you don’t need to be a practice drone pilot or tech nerd to have a blast with the Mavic Pro. Here’s why it’s our favorite drone ever.

These sleek fitness trackers lean into Apple Watch territory [Deals]

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CoM - Striiv Fusion Activity & Sleep Tracker
Striiv Fusion adds water resistance and a hardened screen to its feature rich fitness tracker.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

One of the big features of the Apple Watch is its health tracking ability. Another one of its prominent features is a steep price tag. Striiv has flipped that script with a sleek fitness tracker that also sports the functions of any smartwatch worth its salt, at a fraction of the price. We’ve just got a pair of Striiv models into the Cult of Mac Store, check them out below:

Consumer Reports changes its verdict on new MacBook Pros

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Custom keys for Photoshop.
Software update sorts out battery issues, says the consumer watchdog.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Consumer Reports has revised its earlier rating for the new MacBook Pro lineup and now recommends the laptops, after a software update fixed battery problems found in testing.

The respected consumer watchdog previously cited the new laptops’ “highly inconsistent” battery life as the reason it couldn’t give out one of its coveted recommendations — the first time an Apple laptop had failed to make the grade.

Don’t abandon your Apple TV, sell it to us

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The new Apple TV is about to be unveiled.
The new Apple TV is about to be unveiled.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

If you’re a decent person (we’ll assume you are since you’re a Cult of Mac reader), you don’t leave your old TV on the sidewalk when it’s outlived its usefulness. The same consideration for your neighbors and the environment should extend to your old Apple TV.

Whether you’re abandoning your old Apple TV to upgrade, replace a busted unit or to give up TV entirely (yeah right), the Cult of Mac buyback program will make sure you get the most money possible. Even better-known companies like Gazelle and Walmart can’t offer as much, and you’ll be making sure your dated or defunct device ends up in the right place.

App Store’s walled garden could bring antitrust suit

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Apple pays $467k for doing business with blacklisted app developer
Does Apple have a monopoly on apps?
Photo: Apple

Apple may find itself at the center of a new antitrust lawsuit after the U.S. appeals court ruled that the App Store’s “walled garden” could be monopolizing the market for iOS apps.

What the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling takes issue with is the fact that iOS apps can only be downloaded from the App Store, and not from elsewhere — thereby adding up to a potential monopoly.