In its biggest move yet to regulate Apple in China, the Chinese government has forced Apple to shut down its iBooks Store and iTunes Movies in the country — just six months after the services were first made available.
While the government initially approved the launch, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television reportedly changed its mind and demanded that Apple shutter the service.
Facebook is bringing more algorithms to bear to predict exactly what you’ll want to see in your News Feed, according to a post on its Newsroom site today.
The social-media platform has been tinkering for years with the processes that determine what actually makes it to your screen. But these latest “improvements” might prove even more restrictive and detrimental to publishers than the loss of the chronological feed, and they could inspire other services to make similar changes.
Here’s what Facebook is doing to your News Feed now.
As news of Prince’s unexpected death spread today, shocked fans hoping to stream his tunes on Apple Music came up empty.
In the streaming era, the incredibly prolific musician — best known for his string of hits and Grammy Awards in the 1980s — is practically a ghost.
If I ran the world, Krosmaster Arena, a fabulously fun and deep strategy game that started out as a board game with delightfully sculpted miniature figures, would be topping the charts right alongside stuff like Clash Royale or Angry Birds.
Of course, I don’t, but I’m hoping each one of you reading this tries it out on your iPad so you can experience the joy of playing it digitally.
Greg Packer is a shirtless footnote in the history of the iPhone. The retired highway maintenance worker from Long Island made a name for himself as the first person to line up for the sale of the first iPhone in 2007.
During his nearly weeklong stint sitting outside the Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York City, scores of reporters came by to interview him as he sat in a lawn chair, at times not bothering to put on a shirt during his many closeups.
There’s a good chance you’ve heard about virtual private networks, or VPNs, but have no idea what they are. VPNs are, in essence, a way of establishing a secure and direct connection — like one you might have between two computers in the same office.
Using fancy techniques like dedicated connections, virtual tunneling protocols and encryption, a VPN distributes a connection that runs according to the same security and operational rules as that direct connection, only it’s distributed through a public network — namely, the internet.
As a tech fan, there are plenty of times — particularly when you hear about billionaire investors and record-breaking stock prices — when you wonder whether you would have had the foresight to predict things turning out the way they have.
Would you have bet big on Apple around the time of its 1980 IPO? Was it obvious that Steve Jobs was going to turn around the company in 1997? Or would you have been the equivalent of folks calling the Titanic an unsinkable ship, and pouring your life savings into pre-crash dot-com companies?
An amazing new data-viz shows how the returns on a $1,000 investment made in Apple, Microsoft and IBM would have fared over the next 20 years following January 1, 1996. Check it out below:
Samsung couldn’t have wished for a better start for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge.
Not only are sales shaping up to beat expectations, with an estimated 10 million sales during March alone, but according to the latest data, the new handsets helped Samsung crush Apple in smartphones shipments last quarter.
We’d almost forgotten about the eMac, but some designers have refreshed it for 2016.
The clever thinkers over at Curved have come up with a concept that brings the teardrop shape back for a new generation. Their version combines that classic design with more-recent Apple hallmarks. And while we’re not completely sold on some parts of it, it’s still a pretty handsome machine.
Check it out below.
Since there is still much to learn about the upcoming iOS 10 debut presumably at WWDC this year, Federico Vittici of MacStories and concept designer Sam Beckett took it upon themselves to bring their dreams to life. They worked together to design an incredible concept video that fulfills Vittici’s wishes for the next version of iOS. The video is nothing short of stunning and their implementation of his (completely reasonable) feature requests will have you absolutely drooling.
I’m willing to bet that you’ve misplaced your iPhone around the house before. I know I have; almost once a week I’m wondering where I set down that magical device. Is it in the bedroom? The kitchen? The (gasp) bathroom?
If you’ve got an Apple Watch, though, you can use its ping feature to find your iPhone with an audible sound, and even a flashing LED if you need it.
Here’s how.
It might be time to think twice about using your smartphone while it is charging.
Suhana Mohamad, a 30-year-old mother of two from Malaysia, was tragically killed by her handset after being electrocuted during a phone call.
Putting your mouth around a Pax 2 vaporizer is like smoking the future.
At a time when every other vape company is making smoke boxes that look giant battery packs with an exhaust pipe, Ploom — the Silicon Valley-based startup behind the Pax loose-leaf vaporizers — is killing the market with a dank dose of subtlety.
When you’ve got a lot of pictures to share with friends and colleagues, it can quickly turn into a mess of shared folders, resizing and reformatting. CloudApp is a premium app designed to make sharing photos a seamless, drag-and-drop affair. It’s an easy way to get your content where you want it and fast, and right now you can get CloudApp for just $24.99.
The more I grow to love photography with an iPhone, the more I miss certain things about conventional cameras. Get a grip, you say? A grip is one of the things I am talking about.
miggo, innovative makers of camera bags, straps and mounts, brings to Kickstarter the Pictar, an ergonomic camera grip for the iPhone that also shifts cumbersome menu functions to five programmable wheels and buttons right at the tip of your shooting finger.
Apple is expected to banish the 3.5mm headphone jack to make its next-generation iPhone 7 even thinner. But it won’t be the first smartphone maker to take this controversial step.
LeEco today unveiled a trio of new Android-powered handsets that have all snubbed the headphone jack in favor of digital USB-C headphones and wireless alternatives.
If you’re setting up your new iPhone for the first time, one of your must-do steps will be setting up Touch ID. Apple’s biometric security system lets you map your own fingerprint to the Home button so nobody can unlock your device but you (or the bad person who has gained control of your thumb somehow, but that’s a bit grim).
When I set up my Touch ID the first time, I mapped the thumbs of both hands separately, and that was a good idea because I frankly have no idea which side my phone is going to be on when I want to get into it. And that’s served me well, but we’ve found an even more efficient way to do that same thing thanks to some sharp internet investigators.
If you love rose gold but hate yourself for even thinking about getting locked into Apple’s walled garden, you’re going to love Samsung’s new pink gold (not rose gold) color option for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge.
Just look at how pretty it is!
The FBI has had three weeks to examine the unlocked iPhone belonging to San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook, and U.S. law enforcement officials are finally ready to say whether they were able to find anything of use on the handset.
The answer? Not much. Although that’s not the way they’re presenting it.
We’d heard rumblings and observed omens and portents about the imminent release of new 12-inch MacBooks, and now they are here. And that’s pretty cool, I guess.
Longer battery life is always a plus, as are faster Skylake processors and speedier memory. The new Rose Gold option is pretty, too.
But despite the fact that I’m still rocking a 2011 MacBook Pro, I’m not reaching for my wallet to grab one of the new Retina MacBook models. I can’t even explain why that is — I simply don’t care.
Apple’s not-so-secret electric car project has added yet another Telsa engineer to its growing ranks.
Former Telsa VP of Vehicle Engineering Chris Porritt has reportedly been hired by Apple. Porritt also recently worked at Aston Martin as chief engineer. Now he’ll be working on “special projects” at Apple — like Project Titan.
While the iPhone 7 is rumored to have wireless charging, those of us who upgraded to the 6s are stuck without until the 7 launches this fall.
Xvida is here to save the day with its new modular mounting system with QI charging, launched today on Kickstarter.
And of course, Cult of Mac is here to show you everything you need to know with a handy video. Check it out below.
Most people don’t use a stylus with their iPhones, and late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wouldn’t want them to. But the StylusFlex might change a few minds because it’s not simply a substitute for the five styli you have at the end of your arm.
You have plenty of reasons to just stick with your fingers when you’re using your iPhone or iPad, and this device seems to realize that. That’s why it does a few extra things that might help it earn its keep.
In today’s digital job market, data is king. Learning to work with the vast oceans of data that inform today’s enterprises of all sizes can be intimidating, but one thing you can be sure you’ll need to know is the SQL database language.
Knowing how to build and manage databases is one of the most lucrative skills you can add to your resume, and right now you can learn learn SQL inside and out when you sign up for this SQL Bootcamp for only $49.
Update: As several readers have pointed out, right now Apple’s “buy” page appears to be down for its new MacBooks. Either the company’s not quite ready to make the MacBooks available for sale or someone in Cupertino is costing Apple thousands and thousands of dollars.
Apple today unveiled its new MacBooks, boasting the latest Intel processors, improved graphics, faster flash storage and an additional hour of battery life.
The new 12-inch notebooks are available in four different aluminum finishes, including gold, silver, space gray and — for the first time ever — rose gold.
