Mobile World Congress doesn’t officially begin until tomorrow — and yet Samsung has already stolen the show with its new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge.
Packing improved designs that are IP68-certified for water-resistance, always-on displays, and stellar specifications, these are the South Korean company’s best smartphones yet.
Read on to find out what you get under the hood, and when they’ll be available.
The weekend is halfway over and — if the weather in your area is anything as dismal as it is in mine — thoughts naturally turn to amusing ourselves with the latest apps.
But which ones to sample? Whether you’re looking for a clever translation app, one of the best games of the year so far, or a nifty tool for blasting music from any Bluetooth speaker in your house, we’ve got something for you.
Check out our picks below.
We all travel. We all drink coffee. We all use power. We all use the bathroom. And right now we’ve got deals on gear that’ll give you a new way to do all of the above. Skeptical? Take a look for yourself.
LG is kicking off Mobile World Congress early this year with the anticipated unveiling of its new G5.
The device sports impressive specifications and an all-new modular design made out of metal, which lets users slot accessories into its bottom edge. LG calls these add-ons “Friends,” and you’ll be amazed at what they can do.
Stellar Wanderer gets right into the action with space battles from the very first mission, which takes place in the full 360 degrees of your spaceship viewport.
You’ll take to the vastness of interstellar space, populated by huge space stations, rugged traders, and (obviously) hordes of space pirates to complete missions given to you by mysterious individuals and then taking the reward money to upgrade your craft and piloting skills.
There’s a lot of space in space, and you’ll feel every kilometer of it when you drop into Stellar Wanderer on your iPhone or iPad.
Check out the gorgeous launch trailer below.
LED light bulbs are at the point where there’s just no good reason not to switch over. The A19 ilumi LED Smartbulb embodies what’s best about this new energy-efficient, longer lasting light source, lasting up to 20 years and with 5 times the energy efficiency of a standard bulb. That isn’t even the half of what this awesome bulb can do, and right now you can get one for just $44.99.
This week on The CultCast: Major MacBook Pro and Air redesigns may be coming in June; the magic of the MagSafe adapter; the best Mac for college; Apple versus the FBI; Apple explains “Error 53” and offers up a fix; and stay tuned for our favorite shows and apps in an all-new What We’re Into!
Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. It’s simple to build a website that looks beautiful on any device that visits at Squarespace.com. Enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10 percent off.
Tim Cook sparked an internet controversy when he penned his open letter to Apple customers about why the tech giant was pushing back against a court order to create an FBI-friendly version of its iOS software.
Find out more about Apple’s epic battle over iPhone encryption, along with how to unlock your iPhones secret emoticons, 10 hard drive space-saving tips, the best news and RSS apps for your iOS devices, and a bit about John McAfee’s bid to hack the iPhone for the FBI.
All that and much more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine. Here are the top stories this week.
It’s been a crazy day for news in the case of Apple v. the federal government in the battle over the data contained on a mass-shooter’s iPhone, and some surprising facts are emerging between the two side’s shots at each other.
Today, we saw the Justice Department double down on the original court order, some predictable antics from presidential candidate Donald Trump, and Apple’s responses to both. But we’re also picking up some interesting details that make this already complicated issue even murkier. And things aren’t quite as simple as either side is claiming.
Here are some of the most surprising aspects of this case that have come out in the past few days.
Instagram is a veritable playground of fascinating photography. The trick is to find accounts to follow that won’t waste your time with snaps of low-quality food or wacky pets. Unless you’re into that kind of thing.
So how do you find folks worth following? By checking out what the people you follow on Instagram are looking at, of course. You can also check out the photos you’ve liked, and add them to your feed if you haven’t already.
Here’s how to follow your friends’ hearts to fuel your Instagram addiction.
One thing I do on my Mac more than anything else is write. On average I write about 10,000 words a week, and some weeks, I double that. And that isn’t even counting email and other kinds of communication. That’s why a great text editor app is imperative to my every day workflow. Without it, I couldn’t do my job.
Apple’s fight against the FBI continues to dominate headlines, with the company standing firm to protect its beliefs and the privacy of its users. But should it really be doing more to help law enforcement agencies?
No one who uses Apple products wants it to compromise the security of iOS by creating dangerous backdoors, but should it be working to find a safer solution that would provide the FBI with information when it’s needed?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over this hot topic — and be sure to weigh in at the end with your opinion!
John Sculley may be best known to a generation of Apple fans as the CEO who made the company choose between him and Steve Jobs. But he’s also a successful investor, mentor and entrepreneur — as well as the person who increased Apple’s sales from $800 million to $8 billion during his decade at the top.
In an interview with Cult of Mac, Sculley, who ran Apple from 1983 to 1993, tells why he doesn’t wear an Apple Watch, makes the case that AAPL stock is undervalued, explains how the Steve Jobs movie twisted facts, and talks about his new book Moonshot and the future of entrepreneurism.
With iOS 9, Apple introduced a whole slew of multitasking features including picture-in-picture, so I can watch a video while using another app. Even though this was technically already possible on the Mac, there hasn’t been an easy way to get a video to overlay another window so I can focus on both at the same time. Well the new Fluid Browser solves that problem, quite magnificently I might add.
Fluid is its own web browser, but it’s not meant to replace Safari or Chrome for my main usage. Instead, I open up Fluid and go to a website where I want to play video, like YouTube or Netflix. The video itself will enlarge to fit the width of the browser window. Then magically, if I click somewhere else on my desktop, Fluid will float above the other windows and even has adjustable opacity so I can make the video as prominent on screen as I want.
Who needs ad-blockers when your carrier has your back?
Three has unveiled plans to begin blocking “excessive and irrelevant” mobile ads at the carrier level so users on its network don’t have to endure them when browsing the web on their smartphones and tablets.
It doesn’t matter how iron clad your external hard drive looks — if the fragile disc inside it skips the wrong way or the motor putzes out, you’re looking at a lot of money and time to get your data back. That’s why cloud storage makes great sense for backing up your most important files, and SkyHub is offering an opportunity to protect your data for life. Right now you can get a lifetime subscription for $49.99.
Jony Ive memorably (allegedly) claimed that Swiss watchmakers were “f**ked” due to the arrival of the Apple Watch, and almost 18 months later it seems his prediction is a whole lot closer to coming true.
That’s because, according to new research from Strategy Analytics, global smartwatch shipments have overtaken Swiss watch shipments on a global basis for the first time ever.
See? This is why it’s a bad idea to bet against Jony!
Online petitions can seem like screaming into a hole sometimes, but that isn’t stopping a crop of them from emerging in support of Apple’s stance on phone encryption.
In fact, our survey of signature-calls about Apple’s current refusal to provide the FBI a way to access the data on a locked phone belonging to one of the assailants in last year’s San Bernardino shooting turned up exactly none that demand the iPhone maker to give the government what it wants. And this is something, considering we also turned up one petition that called for a pair of tortoises to stop having to carry around iPads at the Aspen Art Museum and another that demanded that the United States legalize cockfighting.
Opinions are all over the place, is what we’re getting at, but people seem pretty sure that they don’t want Apple to unlock its phones. Here’s a quick look at some of the petitions going around.
Super-elaborate, open-world games with stats, exploration, or an engrossing storyline are great, but sometimes you just want to put your foot in some ninjas’ faces. And that’s where Kick or Die really delivers.
This mobile title has been out for a couple months, but it’s just received an update that adds some new challenges and bosses. We didn’t play the earlier versions, but the new one is a fast-pased, dead-simple kickstravaganza that will keep your thumbs on their toes, even though that sounds completely stupid and impossible.
The game’s fun, though.
Avid Instagram users like to know when new photos show up on the social media platform so they can be the first to like, respond, or even comment on their favorite Instagrammer’s pictures.
You can do the same thing by turning on notifications for a specific user, letting you know exactly when your buddies post to Instagram.
Here’s how to enable this cool hidden feature.
There are plenty of opposing views about how Apple should handle the FBI’s demand to create a backdoor to unlock a dead terrorist’s iPhone.
One idea we haven’t heard before, however, is a concept put forward by former Apple CEO John Sculley: Cupertino could help provide the desired information, but Apple (not the government) could be in charge of reading the messages.
iPhones and iPads have become more than just media-consumption devices in so many ways. From using an iPad as a virtual cookbook to using it as a portable way to develop a website, the iPad and iPhone are extremely useful in everyday life. One of the biggest categories where these devices have made a huge difference is music.
Cybersecurity legend John McAfee has sided with Apple in the company’s fight against the FBI over creating a backdoor to access the San Bernardino shooter’s locked iPhone 5c.
But just because McAfee thinks Apple shouldn’t unlock the smartphone doesn’t mean he thinks he shouldn’t do it.
In an open letter regarding Tim Cook’s decision to deny the FBI request, McAfee has offered up the services of his team of superhero hackers to unlock the iPhone — and he says it will only take them three weeks.
Thanks to this cool little HomeKit gadget from Elgato, I know exactly how much energy my PlayStation 4 uses (79 watts). I also know how much energy is sucked away by my living room lamp (40 watts), my big HDTV (143 watts) and my Apple TV (8 watts).
All I did was plug each of these devices into Elgato’s new Eve Energy Switch and Power Meter, and then pull up the associated app on my iPhone to get instant information on the power being pulled through whatever I’ve plugged in.
The smartplug is also voice-activated, letting me turn on and off whatever device is attached to it.
Neat, huh?
If you’re interested in developing web apps, you’ll want to get familiar with Ruby. This powerful application framework is fundamental to some platforms you might be familiar with — Twitter, Shopify, Github, Groupon, Hulu, Airbnb, and lots more. Fluency with Ruby on Rails is invaluable skill for anybody working in web development, which is exactly what this bundle of lessons offers. Clocking in at over 57 hours, you can get access now for just $29.