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Controversial Steve Jobs documentary airs on TV this weekend

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man in the machine
Something something dark side.
Photo: Magnolia Pictures

If you haven’t suffered Steve Jobs overload already (and the disappointing box office results for Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs suggests that many people have), Oscar winner Alex Gibney’s controversial feature-length Jobs documentary, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, debuts this Sunday on CNN.

How to keep iPhone from ruining your square lock-screen photos

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It's hip to be square.
It's hip to be square.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

If you’ve ever tried to set a square photo as your lock screen or homes screen wallpaper, you know that iOS will zoom into the photo, resizing it to fit the entire iPhone screen.

This is fine with some images, but square ones, like the ones you save on Instagram or take with your iPhone’s square photo feature, just zoom in too far, obscuring much of the photo.

Here’s a quick and easy work around that will let you see the whole square photo when you use it as wallpaper.

iPhone goes dumb in this neat Apple concept

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iDot would be the first distraction free iPhone.
iDot would be the first distraction free iPhone.
Photo: Martin Hajek/Curved

Apple fans obsess over which new features will get added to the iPhone every year, but if the latest concept from designer Martin Hajek ever becomes a reality, the new iPhone will be more notable for the hardware it’s missing.

The iDot concept packs no camera, no internet connection, zero apps and minimal distractions, so you can focus on what’s really important instead of having your soul slowly sucked away by your iPhone screen.

Apple’s ‘Start Something New’ campaign will help you get your creativity on

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Artist Kahori Maki of Japan demonstrates how she paints using the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.
Artist Kahori Maki of Japan demonstrates how she paints using the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.
Photo: Apple

Apple won’t tell you it makes the world’s best computing products. That’s because rhetoric doesn’t have the same power as seeing is believing.

Apple is showcasing the work of some of the more creative users of iMacs, iPads and iPhones in an advertising campaign called “Start Something New.”

Icebreaker wool jacket is not sheepish about its wintery goodness

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20151115_products-CoM_0506

Best List: Stratus Long Sleeve Zip jacket by Icebreaker

An ancient breed of mountain sheep grew out their amazing to coats to bring us this amazing jacket.

Made of merino wool, the Icebreaker Stratus jacket is not only water-resistant, breathable and warm when wet, but it is also pretty much stink-free.

Why 2015 was Apple’s most important year since original iPhone’s unveiling

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Apple raked in the cash last quarter.
2015 was a crucial year for Apple, and it looks like it's paying off.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

‘Tis the season to be jolly — or, if you’re a tech writer hoping to score enough clicks to help pay off the post-Christmas credit card, ’tis the season to label this the worst year for Apple since records began.

From Gizmodo’s restrained “Everything Apple Introduced This Year Kinda Sucked,” to The Verge calling this the year Apple spent in beta, to Bloomberg banging the “lemon of the year” gong for the Apple Watch, pundits aren’t exactly being kind to Cupertino as 2015 draws to a close.

But, you know what? They’re dead wrong. This was the most important year for Apple since 2007, when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone.

Last chance for the best bargains on Cult of Mac Store’s coolest stuff [Deals]

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Access your favorite movies and TV shows without ever having to worry about travel restrictions again.
Access your favorite movies and TV shows without ever having to worry about travel restrictions again.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

The holidays have come and gone, but the big deals live on, at least for a little while. The Cult of Mac Store still has plenty of awesome tools, toys and subscriptions priced to move, but they’re deals that won’t last for long. Now’s your last chance to take advantage of massive savings on everything from invincible Lightning cables to secure internet browsing.

Apple made up nearly half of all Santa’s mobile presents

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ChristmasCharts_THREE
Apple is still king of the Christmas tree.
Photo: Flurry Analytics

It looks like Kris Kringle spent quite a bit of time delivering iPhones and iPads this year. Apple still remains very much in the dominant position for the tech logo people find most under their Christmas trees. The company garnered almost half of the market share — 49.1 percent, to be exact — for device activations this holiday season, far ahead of the usual runner-up, Samsung.

Get iTunes to stop asking you to authorize your Mac

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iTunes on Mac
iTunes ain’t dead yet.
Photo: Apple

Trying to play a song in iTunes and getting the same error over and over can be frustrating. If your computer isn’t authorized with your Apple ID via iTunes, it won’t let you play any songs you’ve downloaded from the iTunes Store until it is. Sometimes iTunes will seem to get “stuck” prompting you again and again with the need to authorize.

If you’re having trouble playing your purchased iTunes on your Mac due to the repeated prompts to authorize your computer, there are a few things you can do.

Soulja Boy’s latest repetitive trap song is all about iPhone

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Trappin off my iPhone.
Trappin off my iPhone.
Photo: Soulja Boy

Rapper, producer and dance meme-maker Soulja Boy finally removed his regrettable Gucci forehead tattoo over Christmas weekend, and to celebrate he released a fresh new song that’s all about his love of Steve Jobs’ greatest gift to gangsters: the iPhone.

The new meme-worthy trap song blasts the same highly repetitive lyrics and catchy trap beats that turned Soulja Boy into a sensation in 2007 with his hit “Crank That.” Aptly titled “Trappin On My iPhone” (but not to be confused with Bigg Quan’s “Trappin Off My iPhone“), the ridiculous new song contains more than 40 iPhone references and talks about why true CEOs of the streets manage drug empires with the best smartphone, instead of a lame flip-phone burner.

Listen to the song below:

Comfy purple goggles make the best of iPhone VR

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Soft and eminently comfy.
Soft and eminently comfy.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Best List: VR Goggles by Merge

If you’ve ever had a hankering to try out VR with your iPhone (or other smartphone), the Merge VR Goggles are a fantastic fit. They’re made of a soft, lightweight, purple sculpted foam that will fit any face and pretty much any smartphone.

You’ll be able to comfortably wear these as long as you can stand virtual reality apps on your iPhone, thanks to the way they mold to your particular facial features and don’t weigh your head down.

Best console and PC games of 2015

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best_video_games
What have you been playing this year?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac's Best of 2015 It’s been a terrific year for gaming. The next-generation consoles now offer a library of spectacular games that somehow keep getting better and better, while PC gaming just gets greater every year.

2015 brought exciting and long-awaited entries to wonderful franchises like Fallout and The Legend of Zelda, surprising indie smash hits like Rocket League, and must-play platform exclusives like Blooborne and Super Mario Maker.

Here are the best games that we couldn’t put down this year.

Get an assistant that picks up the slack for Siri [Deals]

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EasilyDo is a digital assistant that makes sure you're on top of your schedule and correspondence.
EasilyDo is a digital assistant that makes sure you're on top of your schedule and correspondence.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Siri is (usually) great for answering questions, but for helping us stay on task it’s a bit of a dud. EasilyDo on the other hand will make sure you’re on time and on point with all your obligations. It’s a powerful assistant for managing contacts, calendar, email and more that’s just $19.99.

Time to ditch your DVDs and make them mobile-friendly [Deals]

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Convert all your DVDs and other video files into formats that work great on Apple and Android devices.
Convert all your DVDs and other video files into formats that work great on Apple and Android devices.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

DVDs have all but gone the way of laserdiscs and the dodo. With HD streaming video and high capacity hard drives, keeping shelves full of movies just doesn’t make much sense anymore. But that doesn’t mean you should toss them, at least not yet. The two applications in the MacX DVD Video Converter Pro Pack make it easy to capture and convert your DVDs and other digital videos into formats friendly to your computer and mobile devices. It’s a great way to extend the life of your favorite DVDs into the future for just $11.99.

Must-have Apple TV apps of 2015

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best apple tv apps
These apps truly shine on the new Apple TV.
Photo: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac's Best of 2015 The Apple TV’s App Store is still so new, odds are you might be having trouble figuring out which apps are the best.

The holidays are just around the corner, so for the sake of the friends and relatives who will soon be swarming your living room, you might want to populate your new set-top box with some must-haves. Take a look at Cult of Mac’s top picks for best Apple TV apps.

Inside Apple’s super-secret design lab, plus the best movies of 2015 on The CultCast

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The inner sanctum, aka, the Apple design lab
The inner sanctum, aka, the Apple design lab
Photo: CBS

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: We venture into very heart of Apple, inside Jony Ive’s super-secret design lab, and what we find is amazing. Plus: the best holiday iOS App Store deals and our favorite movies of 2015!

Our thanks to FreshBooks — the easy-to-use invoicing software designed to help small business owners get organized, save time invoicing and get paid faster — for supporting this episode. Get started with a free trial at Freshbooks.com/cultcast.

Weirdest of 2015: This year’s most blistering insults

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Apple fanatics got up to some strange stuff in 2015.
There was plenty of trash talk to go around in 2015.
Image: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac's Best of 2015 In addition to rounding up the best stories of the year, we’re also showcasing the weirdest of 2015, and we can’t do that without including the sickest burns people laid down over the past 12 months.

It’s always strange when companies and CEOs snip and snap at each other like annoyed children. We should expect them to be above that sort of behavior, but guess what? They totally aren’t.

Here are some of the most blistering insults of the year.

Becoming certified in project management will upgrade any resume [Deals]

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Learning project management skills can make you a lot more marketable. This bundle of courses will teach you.
Learning project management skills can make you a lot more marketable. This bundle of courses will teach you.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

If you want to work in an organization of any size, becoming fluent in project management is one of the most marketable skills you can acquire, This bundle of five classes, clocking in at more than 120 hours, offers a clear path to getting PMP® certification, and the pay bump that comes with. It’s an invaluable resume booster can be yours for only $39.

Why most New Year’s resolutions fail (and how iPhone can help you succeed)

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The secret to losing weight and getting fit with iPhone in 2016
An expert reveals the secret to losing weight and getting fit with iPhone.
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

If you’re feeling guilty about your festive overindulgence, you may be planning to lose some weight and get fit in the new year. Well, sorry to be a Grinch, but research suggests that only 8 percent of New Year’s resolutions are successful.

The good news is that there is a better way. One that involves steadily building healthy habits over time. There are some handy iPhone apps that can help with this, but you won’t find them in the Health & Fitness section of the App Store.

The 11 most inspiring, imaginative and all-around best movies of 2015

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Best movies of 2015
Our favorite movies of the year were both big and small.
Photo: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac's Best of 2015It was a little tough to whittle our choices for the best movies of 2015 down to 11, but we did.

If you’d told us five years ago that we’d be getting new Jurassic Park, Star Wars and Mad Max movies, and that they’d all respect their predecessors while forging their own paths, we’d have ask the bartender for whatever you’d been drinking. But all of those things happened, and 2015 was better for it.

We also got some great original movies, including some charming comedies and one of the scariest monsters in recent memory. It was a pretty good time, regardless of your tastes, is what we’re getting at.

Here are our picks in no particular order.

Mobile developers: Here’s your chance to learn Swift, and fast

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These four lessons are a surefire and affordable way to learn Swift, one of the most relevant iOS languages.
These four lessons are a surefire and affordable way to learn Swift, one of the most relevant iOS languages.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

For any mobile developer, learning Swift is a must. It’s an intuitive and fast language that’s key to iOS, OS X, tvOS, and watchOS. This bundle of four lessons — in the form of 3 apps and an E-book — will get you up to speed in practicing coding, testing scripts, and more. And the best part: the whole shebang is just $9.99.

How to set up all your shiny new Apple gear

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No matter what Apple gear you got (or gave), we're here to help.
No matter what Apple gear you got (or gave), we're here to help.
Photo: Pixabay

This time of the year typically means gifts, both giving and receiving them. Surely some of you have gotten a brand new Macbook, iMac, iPhone or iPad (Pro, anyone?).

If so, you might be looking at a lovely morning playing with your shiny new toys. But where to start? What essential tweaks, software tricks and necessary little tips do you need to make sure they’re set up the right way?

Well, we’ve got your back, with roundups to help you easily set up your iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, iPad (Pro, Air 2 or mini), Apple Watch or new Apple TV the right way. Here’s the list of setup guides to get you up and running with your brand new Apple gear.

Cult of Mac Magazine: Apple’s ‘idea factory,’ best iOS games of 2015 and more

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Sneak peeks, setup guides, best of, and more.
Sneak peeks, setup guides, best of, and more.
Cover Design: Stephen Smith / Cult of Mac

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, so we’ve decided to unleash our weekly magazine stuffed full of great Apple news, reviews, and how-tos for your yuletide pleasure.

This week, we’ve got a peek inside Apple’s super-secret Industrial Design team, the ten best iOS games from this past year, a plethora of setup guides for all your shiny Apple gear, and a look at some of the year’s most dedicated iFans.

Here’s the rundown this week.

Must-play Apple TV games of 2015

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best apple tv games
You need to have these games on your Apple TV.
Photo: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac's Best of 2015 Games is already one of the most popular categories in the Apple TV’s new App Store. Just two months after the set-top box’s release, the Games category is easily where you’ll find the most variety of apps so far.

Many are free while others are relatively expensive. But price isn’t necessarily an indicator of quality: These Apple TV games truly stand out for their innovative gameplay and sheer entertainment value. Take a look at Cult of Mac’s top picks.