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How to get Apple Maps on your Apple TV (sort of)

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Plan your next trip from your couch.
Plan your next trip from your couch.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Have you ever tried to plan a trip with your posse while gathered around your iPhone? It’s kind of a mess. The tiny screen doesn’t really lend itself to larger viewings. Even an iPad is much smaller than one of those big-old paper maps we used to use to group plan.

If you want to use a big screen to find your way to a road trip this summer, perhaps TV Maps by Arno Appenzeller will do the trick, letting you plan a trip right on your giant screen TV.

This third-party Apple TV app will let you search a destination, get directions, and then send everything to the companion app on your iPhone, which will then launch Apple’s Map app to get you where you need to be.

Here’s how.

Change your Apple Watch language in a flash

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Force touch Apple Watch
Here's a hint.
Photo: Apple

This tip won’t help everyone, but it should be a huge timesaver for multilingual users: You can change your Apple Watch language for Messages with just a couple quick taps. And you can do it directly on the device without having to go into the companion app on your phone.

Here’s how to make it happen.

Why I love both of Amazon’s new Echo smart speakers [Reviews]

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The Amazon Echo Tap is the portable, battery-powered member of the smart speaker family.
The Amazon Echo Tap is the portable, battery-powered member of the smart speaker family.
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac

Best List: Amazon’s Echo Dot and Echo Tap

Ask Amazon’s Echo smart speaker “How much does the Earth weigh?” and she’ll rattle off the answer in pounds. It takes about a full minute and is genuinely amusing. It’s just one of many surprises up Echo’s sleeve (see this crazy list of Echo Easter Eggs on Reddit). It proves she is by far the best computer you can talk to. Sorry Siri.

And now there are two new members of Amazon’s smart speaker family, both with significant advantages. I love them both, with a couple of caveats.

Avoid hitting walls online, try a different DNS [Deals]

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StreamJack

When you connect online, it’s through a Domain Name System, or DNS. Depending on which DNS network you use, you could be faced with various types of restrictions like blocked shows and sites, or run the risk of your data and identity being exposed to theft. StreamJack offers a proprietary DNS network that bypasses many of those issues, offering the chance to get access and anonymity no matter where you log on for just $29.

Android N brings native support for iPhone-like 3D Touch displays

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3D Touch app switching
3D Touch in action on iPhone 6s.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android
3D Touch in action on iPhone 6s. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android
3D Touch in action on iPhone 6s. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android

Google’s upcoming Android N upgrade will bring native support for iPhone-like pressure-sensitive displays.

The move should make “3D Touch” screens more popular on Android, and will make it easier for app developers to take advantage of them.

Apple has a secret ‘Project Titan’ R&D lab in Germany

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What will the Apple Car look like? And, more importantly, what will it do?
Ich bin ein Apple Car user.
Photo: Motor Trend

It seems that research for Apple’s automotive “Project Titan” is picking up speed, with a newly published report claiming Cupertino has opened a small R&D office in Berlin — with the sole purpose of inventing the electric car of the future.

The new Apple car facility employs between 15 and 20 “top-class” employees, many of whom have previously worked in Germany’s buoyant automotive industry. Skills include everything from creating software to mechanical engineering and sales expertise.

Woz would have disagreed with Jobs about screen time for kids

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Steve Wozniak. Photo:
Woz would never tell his kids to stop being tech addicts.
Photo: HigherEdWeb/Flickr CC

Despite being a veritable genius when it comes to selling the masses on the latest tech product, Steve Jobs once candidly admitted that he set strict guidelines for how much time his own kids were allowed to watch screens at home.

It seems Jobs’ Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, isn’t quite on the same page, however — as Woz argues in a new interview that kids should be able to spend as much time on the computer as they want.

Apple may ditch aluminum for all-glass iPhone casing next year

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iPhone 6 Plus
We may be waving goodbye to Jony Ive's love affair with aluminum.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Jony Ive’s beloved aluminum casing is as about as iconic a part of the iPhone as the Apple logo or a working OS. Despite that, a new report claims that the company will ditch its aluminum look for an all-glass enclosure for next year’s iPhone 7s.

Reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed this tidbit over the weekend in a note to clients, which also reiterated the view that the 2017-era iPhone will sport an OLED display.

Stop searching, we’ve got the iPhone case you want right here [Deals]

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Get everything you want from an iPhone battery case and more, including cutouts to sync your phone without removing it.
Get everything you want from an iPhone battery case and more, including cutouts to sync your phone without removing it.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

With a device as popular as the iPhone, the countless peripheral products that become available make it hard to find the right one for you, and cases are no exception. Lucky for you, we’ve found four of the sleekest and feature rich iPhone 6 and 6S cases you’ll ever find. Now you won’t have to spend days searching out a case that can keep your phone charged and protected in a style that suits your own.

To get into app development, it helps to get a running start [Deals]

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Complete Mobile App Developer Bundle
These 10 courses will get you coding in no time.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Complex disciplines like software development take preparation and strategy to learn and engage productively. Unless you’re in school for it, the responsibility of finding the shape of the subject, pinpointing the areas to focus and in what sequence — it’s all left up to the aspiring app developer to decide themselves.

This bundle of 10 discrete courses will help you make sense of the wide and wild world of web development. It normally goes for well over a thousand dollars, but right now you can get access for just $49.

How Steve Jobs and the industrial design team saved Apple, this week on The CultCast

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Together, they would rebuild Apple.
Together, they would rebuild Apple.
Photo: Apple

This week on The CultCast: We recall how Steve Jobs and the industrial design team brought Apple back from the brink. Plus: The reason Jony Ive gave up his car for a chauffeur; one year with the Apple Watch; and we reveal the strange cultural phenomena we’ve been secretly loving in an all-new What We’re Into.

Our thanks for Freshbooks for supporting this episode. FreshBooks is the easy-to-use invoicing software designed to help small business owners get organized, save time invoicing and get paid faster. Get started now with a 30-day free trial.

Why Jony Ive has a chauffeur, speed up your Mac, get ripped with Apple Watch

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Why does Jony Ive ride around in a Bentley? Cult of Mac will tell you.
Why does Jony Ive ride around in a Bentley? Cult of Mac will tell you.
Cover Design: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Why does Jony Ive, Apple’s chief designer, ride around in a chauffeured Bentley? It’s not like he doesn’t enjoy driving. It’s not because he’s incredibly wealthy, either.

Our very own Leander Kahney thinks he’s got Ive’s ride along motivation down, and you can read all about it in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, along with great stories covering 8 ways to speed up your Mac, getting ripped with your Apple Watch, why a veteran designer’s departure from Apple matters, and how to use your own Bluetooth headphones with Apple TV for a much more private experience.

All that and much more in another awesome issue of Cult of Mac Magazine, available now for download.

Here are the week’s top stories.

Does Apple’s design team need some fresh blood? [Friday Night Fights]

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fnf1
Or is its best yet to come?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

You can’t think about Apple without thinking about great design. The two go hand-in-hand, thanks to the company’s incredible ability to churn out hit products that make billions of dollars one after the other, year after year.

FNF-bugBut Apple’s design team isn’t perfect. There have been some missteps over the years, and it seems like they’ve become more common under Tim Cook. Its design has also become predictable; even before we get a new product, we have a good idea what it will look like.

Are we worrying about nothing, or is it time Apple invited some fresh blood into Jony Ive’s lair? Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we fight it out over this and more!

Tile-based puzzle game sends you sliding into adventure [Reviews]

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Stencilsmith
Stencilsmith combines strategy, farming, mining and battle in a minimalist package.
Photo: Nicolas Sepi, Jr.

If role-playing games take too long, and you don’t think Threes is violent enough, Stencilsmith might be your jam.

It’s an endless puzzle title that has you sliding tiles around to harvest ore, craft weapons, and fight monsters, and it manages to do all of those things with beautifully simple and elegant style. And while everything looks pretty basic and charming, you’ll find after a while that you have way more to keep track of than you thought, and that’s when its ridiculous difficulty will start to gnaw at you like one of those wolves that always shows up on the board when you aren’t quite ready.

But it’s all great fun, and you should definitely check it out.

Check out this week’s best tech, tools and lessons [Deals]

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Learn to hack for the good guys with this comprehensive course in security and penetration testing.
Learn to hack for the good guys with this comprehensive course in security and penetration testing.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

This was a good week for deals, as the list below will attest to. From a camera that takes 3-dimensional pictures to an app for keeping your writing process in line, comprehensive courses in cyber security and more. Take a look, there’s probably something here you’ll be glad you found:

Use free Snapseed on iPad to tune your photos to best effect

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Snapseed lets you tune up your photos with ease.
Snapseed lets you tune up your photos with ease.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Snapseed is a free image editing app from Google that has some fantastic editing tools to make any photo even better.

The killer feature here is the set of Tune Image tools that let you take a good photo and turn it into a great photo, right on your iPad, with very little effort.

Here’s a quick intro to these fantastic tools and how to make them tune your photos to best effect.

Apple reveals how long its devices typically last

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tomb_sunny
How long do you keep your Apple devices?
Photo: Cult of Mac/Ken Marshall CC

How many years do you use your iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Mac before shutting it down for the last time and sending it to the big Apple Store in the sky?

While Apple products are typically far more solid and long-lasting than those made by rivals, the company offers a clue in a newly released document concerning Apple and its commitment to the environment.

Why Jony Ive rides in a chauffeured Bentley

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This is the luxurious interior of the Bentley Mulsanne, Jony Ive's chauffeur-driven car.
This is the luxurious interior of the Bentley Mulsanne, Jony Ive's chauffeur-driven car.
Photo: Bentley Motors

The striking thing about Motor Trend‘s piece on the rumored Apple car is all the talk of the “user experience.”

The various auto designers and experts interviewed by Motor Trend speculate that Apple will try to redefine the car “experience.” They talk about stuff like acoustics, and look and feel, rather than specs like miles per gallon or engine torque.

They predict that Apple will bring a better “user experience” to the car of the future, not just a better physical product.

This reminded me of interviewing Apple’s designers for my Jony Ive book. They explained that the design group takes exactly this approach when thinking about new Apple products. Instead of starting with chip speeds or screen resolutions, they begin by asking each other how the new product should make the user feel.

And thinking about this made me realize why Jony Ive has a chauffeur. It’s not because he’s a one percenter. It’s about Project Titan, Apple’s future car.

Psst. We’re giving away $1,000 iTunes gift cards [Deals]

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iTunes
What would you do with $1,000 dollars for iTunes?
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals Apple

You can think of iTunes like the biggest content candy store in the world, a mother lode of albums, apps, games, movies and TV shows, and on and on. If you’ve ever wondered what it’d be like to go into iTunes with a huge bag to fill as you please, today could be your lucky day. Right now you can enter to win a $1,000 iTunes gift card, no strings attached.

Otherwise great platformer is virtually unplayable in VR Mode [Reviews]

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Space Box
Space Box is a decent platformer, but its hook doesn't quite work.
Photo: Tom Graczyk

Let me say this up front: Space Box is a fantastic game. It’s challenging, fun, and has some really great mechanics and art. And if you have a set of virtual-reality goggles to plunk your iPhone into, you can even play it hands-free in 3-D using head-tracking controls.

And that’s where it runs into some trouble, but you shouldn’t let it ruin the game for you.

Samsung’s Gear Manager app for iPhone leaks out early

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samsungs-gear-manager-app-for-iphone-leaks-out-early-image-cultofandroidcomwp-contentuploads201603Gear-S2-with-iPhone-jpg
Soon!
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android
Soon! Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android
Soon! Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android

Samsung’s new Gear Manager app for iOS, which will let you pair an iPhone with the Gear S2 smartwatch, has leaked out ahead of its official debut.

Testers say the app will bring a surprising amount of functionality, allowing users control music from their watch, and even sync new faces to it.

The only way to benefit from the digital age is to study it [Deals]

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Study the essentials of marketing in the digital age with this bundle of 7 courses.
Study the essentials of marketing in the digital age with this bundle of 7 courses.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

These days, being an entrepreneur means being a master of the digital marketplace. Savvy use of social media, search engine optimization, and developing effective work habits make the difference between thriving or floundering. This bundle of seven courses covers those and a host of other essential topics to doing business in the digital age, and right now you can get access for just $19.

Use Pixelmator to add more of a good thing to your photos

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You can make a dreamy landscape like this in no time at all with Pixelmator.
You can make a dreamy landscape like this in no time at all with Pixelmator.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Imagine a photo of a young child, blowing bubbles into a gentle breeze. Wouldn’t it be an even better photo if there were more than one bubble in it? Because man, that kid is cute, but she sure can’t blow bubbles very well.

With Pixelmator, a fantastic photo editor on iOS and Mac, you can do just that with the clone tool.

Using it, though, as in any complex photo editing program, can be a little unintuitive. Here’s how to add more of a good thing to your photos with Pixelmator on the iPad.