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OS X El Capitan promises to redefine the Mac experience with a host of new improvements that make working (and playing) smoother than ever.

There’s a lot to learn about all the new goodies in El Capitan, which finally became available to the public for free today. Everything from Notes to Safari, from AirPlay to Spotlight, has seen gains both big and little.

After spending a lot of time with the new OS, which has been in beta for months, we’ve found 13 killer features every Mac owner needs to know to get the most out of El Capitan. Here they are!

If you’ve been having trouble with Apple’s Game Center after upgrading to iOS 9, you’re not alone.

Read Apple’s discussion forums and you’ll find 14 pages of comments from disgruntled gamers complaining about — and trying to solve — this rather massive issue.

Apple’s latest and greatest operating system for Macs — OS X El Capitan — is now available for free to users around the globe.

OS X El Capitan brings with it a number of new features like Split View and Spotlight search, along with tons of under-the-hood performance improvements that aim to make the Mac more rock-solid than ever. Best of all, it’s absolutely free for all Mac owners.

Apple’s Gatekeeper feature was designed to keep even the most advanced users from accidentally installing malicious software on their computers, but a super-simple exploit lets hackers sneak malware onto your Mac.

The exploit was discovered by Patrick Wardle, director of research at security firm Synack. Wardle found that the exploit is made possible thanks to a key design shortcoming in Gatekeeper that lets an attacker use a binary file already trusted by Apple to execute malicious files.

Here’s how it works:

That buzzing in your ear might be a mosquito, or it could be a SKEYE Pico Drone (so think twice before swatting it). At roughly the scale of an ice cube, the Pico’s fun-to-size ratio is off the charts, and right now you can get one for just $34.99.

No, it’s not a collective delusion — the iPhone 6s really is more water-resistant than its predecessors.

In a new teardown carried out by our friends at iFixit, the iPhone 6s was found to include a gasket-style “mystery adhesive” around the handset display, specially designed to keep water out.

It seems iPhone 6s customers are having a love affair with the new rose gold color option. Numerous reports indicate that it’s the most popular color choice for this year’s iPhone release. It’s all shiny and new as soon as you get it, but ten minutes later you realize you’re probably in the market for a new case. And yes, it’s about to completely shield the rose gold goodness.

You sit back in your chair, sigh and begin to question if there’s even hope left in this universe. The good news is there are more than a few cases that will let you show off that new rose gold iPhone, or even just your deep passion for rose gold as a color and fashion statement. Take a look at a few of your best options.

As a bonus, all of these cases are less than 25 bucks each.

Google is keeping a keen eye on Apple — and promising to do everything faster, better and cheaper than Cupertino. That’s the takeaway from today’s impressive Google event, during which the world got its first look at tons of new services, devices and features coming soon to a screen near you.

Here are all the ways Google answered Apple at the San Francisco event, a few ways Google surged ahead — and some gratuitous jabs at Cupertino.

Apple is already looking ahead to how the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus will take over the world, according to our survey of individual countries’ region-specific Apple sites.

If you don’t live in one of the first 11 countries that received the new phones on Friday, you may not have long to wait, as our findings reveal the next 105 or so places Apple plans to sell the 6s. Check out the map below to see when it’s coming to your neighborhood if it hasn’t already.

Following their big unveiling in San Francisco this morning, Google’s new Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P are now available for pre-order. But should you buy one, or is your hard-earned cash better spent elsewhere?

To help you decide, here’s a handy comparison that shows you how Google’s latest devices stack up against the competition from Apple, Samsung, LG, Motorola, and more.

We didn’t expect to see a new tablet from Google today, but we got one, and it wasn’t a Nexus.

It’s called the Pixel C, and it’s a 10.2-inch slate that hopes to take on devices like the Microsoft Surface and Apple’s upcoming iPad Pro with a detachable keyboard and a focus on productivity.

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple CEO Tim Cook is urging competitors to copy Apple in the fight against climate change.

Speaking today at the BoxWorks 2015 conference at Moscone Center here, Cook said Apple’s rivals should copy its efforts to run their operations entirely on renewable energy.

“We are very focused on the environment,” he said. “Climate change is real, and we should stop denying it.”

Making sounds is something anybody can enjoy, whether it’s a beat, song, podcast, overdubs for a home movie. But the intimidating complexity of most audio editing software is enough to send someone to eBay looking for a tape recorder. TwistedWave is the audio production app for the rest of us, an intuitive way of creating full, rich recordings without extensive technical know-how, and right now you can get a copy for just $15.

SAN FRANCISCO — Will Tim Cook do anything to steal Google’s thunder?

The Apple CEO is back at the Moscone Center, this time for BoxWorks 2105, the annual gathering of customers and developers for enterprise cloud storage company Box.

It’s a rare speaking gig for Cook, who tends to limit his engagements to just a few high-profile events a year. While big and successful, Box’s conference is hardly one of the marquee events on the tech calendar. Unless it falls on the same exact day Google is announcing new products at its big Nexus media event.

“He’s f****ing with Google,” said one analyst in the press room when asked why Cook chose this event.

Cook is likely to talk up the new iPad Pro and Apple’s enterprise efforts, which include partnering with IBM and Cisco. Read on to see what he says. We’re liveblogging the event. Cook will be onstage at 9 a.m. Pacific.

After months of leaks and speculation, Google’s new Nexus smartphones are almost here. In just one hour, the company will kick off its big keynote in San Francisco to announce the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P — and maybe even more.

You can follow the whole thing in our liveblog right here starting at 9 a.m. Pacific.

3D Touch was the most widely-praised feature of the new iPhone 6s, and something that has the potential to be a real game-changer going forward.

In a newly-published patent, Apple explains how 3D Touch-style technology could revolutionize maps, by letting users animate the screen with different levels of touch.

iOS 9’s Wi-Fi Assist feature helps when you’re connected to a slow Wi-Fi connection by kicking in your cellular data network to help things seem a bit snappier.

The problem is that it can also rack up some data charges if you end up going over your data cap. If you’ve got a limited data plan with your wireless carrier, you’ll want to find this iOS 9 setting, which is on by default, and kind of buried in the Settings.

With just days to go before free Apple Music trials start to expire, Cupertino is finally getting serious about explaining exactly how its streaming music service works.

A new wave of “guided tour” videos demystifies Apple Music’s functionality and features — but will this marketing and educational push be too little, too late to stop a wave of defectors from leaving the fledgeling service at a critical time?

The iPhone 6s has the best camera Apple’s ever made, but have you ever wondered how much better the new camera is than the original iPhone that launched back in 2007?

Lisa Bettany put the iPhone 6s camera through its paces in a new comparison test that pits the new device against the previous eight iPhones. Her images show how far Apple’s smartphone photography game has improved since the original iPhone debuted with its 2-megapixel sensor.

Check out the comparison shot below:

So, you’re one of 13 million people to get a brand new iPhone 6S over the launch weekend. Congratulations, you now have access to a faster phone — potentially a rose gold one, better cameras, stronger aluminum and of course, 3D Touch. The latter is actually extremely useful, but it’s only as useful as developers allow.

Since the feature is brand new, 3D Touch mostly works with Apple’s stock iOS apps for quick application shortcuts on the Home screen, plus Peek and Pop inside apps to preview different types of content. A few productive developers saw the light and quickly updated their apps to support this drastically new way to use an iPhone.

You can tell that the future is very bright for 3D Touch as developers are just getting started figuring out how to unlock all of its potential. Until we reach that 3D utopia, here are five terrific apps that already do Apple’s latest innovation plenty of justice.

iPhone 6s is a mirror image of its predecessor at first glance, but thanks to improved internals and innovative new technology, it’s very much a different beast.

With Apple’s latest A9 processor, a new 12-megapixel iSight camera, Live Photos, and 3D Touch, this is much, much more than just an “incremental” iPhone upgrade. It’s the iPhone that will change the way you use your iPhone. It’s Apple most exciting smartphone in years.

Symbols have been key to the way humans express ideas for millennia, and and as visual communications get supercharged by the internet, designers can never have too many options. The universal power of symbols inspired the creators of the Noun Project, a massive collection of royalty-free icons meant to empower designers with the means to visually express almost any idea. Right now, you can get two years of unlimited access to the Noun Project’s archives for just $39.

We’ve heard very little about the official Apple Music app for Android since the service was announced back in June, but now a third-party company claims to be running a new beta program on Apple’s behalf.

Betabound is giving Android users the opportunity to register their interest in Apple Music for a chance to get early access — but we’re not totally sure it can be trusted.

The Apple advertising campaign “Shot on iPhone 6” can now be a line on the closing credits of a Swiss news station, which now does 100 percent of its broadcasts on the iPhone.

During the summer, Léman Bleu gave each of its reporters an iPhone 6 kit to shoot their stories and use for live shots. That means a reporter with a mic in one hand can use the free hand to grip a selfie stick for live standup shots.

The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus have sold a record 13 million handsets in their first three days on the market, according to Apple.

“Sales for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have been phenomenal, blowing past any previous first weekend sales results in Apple’s history,” said Tim Cook.