Yesterday’s iTunes update brought a few improvements to Apple Music as it lives on the Mac and PC. The minor tweaks and bug fixes are always welcome, but Apple Music still has a long way to go before the experience is where it should be, particularly in iTunes.
This week, Apple has released a ton of new updates into the wild, including better-and-better versions of iOS 8, an iTunes that does Apple Music a bit better, and a Boot Camp that will let you run Windows 10 on your Mac. Try that on your Chromebook.
We’ve got a ton more, too, like killer tips and tricks for the public beta of iOS 9, a slick feature on trailblazer photographers who took selfies back in the day, and some ideas on how Apple Watch should track weightlifting sessions at your local gym.
All that and much, much more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine
(Note: Because of Cult of Mac’s recent redesign, some images are not displaying properly in this week’s issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. We apologize in advance — and we’re working on it.)
I wanted to find photos from my vacation a couple of weeks ago, so I figured I’d try out Siri’s new iOS 9 functionality.
“Siri,” I said, “show me photos from Hawaii.”
Dutifully, Apple’s updated digital assistant pulled up photos from my trip to Oahu a couple of years ago. They’re lovely, but I wanted more recent pictures.
“Siri, show me photos from Hawaii last week,” I said, reasonably.
As soon as I finished speaking, there they were. Siri had launched my Photos app on my iPhone and brought up the photos I’d taken while in Kona. Great stuff.
Here are some other ways you can get Siri to find the photos you want in the huge pile you have sitting on your iPhone.
Like every other company, Apple and Google have had their share of highs and lows in the past — but one thing that’s for sure is that neither of them can keep going from strength-to-strength indefinitely; they’ll both stumble at some point in the future.
But which will be the first to take a tumble?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over that very question!
“Welcome to Spotify, Mr. President,” tweeted the streaming music giant Friday morning. That’s right: The president of the United States just shared two vacation playlists — and he didn’t use Apple Music.
The two music lists, titled “The President’s Summer Playlist: Day” and “The President’s Summer Playlist: Night,” contain 20 songs each, showing an eclectic taste with a diverse artist representation, including the Isley Brothers, Bob Dylan, Otis Redding and (ugh) Coldplay.
Rock music history is rife with musicians who developed a sort of god complex from money and fame.
A recent posting on Instagram indicates fame is unlikely to corrupt Brittany Howard, lead singer and guitarist for Alabama Shakes, who used the photo- and video-sharing platform to give a fan a guitar lesson.
Vacation films used to be something to fear. The blurry Super 8 home movie from the lake or the two-hour slide show of the neighbor’s trip to the Badlands would quickly put us to sleep (although we might have preferred death).
But these days, anyone can shoot and edit their vacation films with cinematic flair thanks to the latest smartphones and software that gives us tools that once required a film school degree. Just look at these stunning videos and you’ll see state-of-the-art summer memories, circa 2015.
Apple is looking to bring fighter-jet technology to your car’s dashboard, according to a new report that claims the iPhone maker is working on a 27- to 50-inch heads-up display for automobiles that will be completely controlled by gestures.
We already knew that Apple has taken an interest in how its third-party partners present their wares in the Apple Store, but a leaked memo is describing just how seriously the company is taking this new initiative.
Other than the clean white background that it’s so fond of, Apple is also asking vendors to pay attention to the typefaces they use and even the angles from which they photograph their products.
So it turns out Apple is controlling and particular. Who knew?
Apple’s new Wallet app replaces Passbook in iOS 9, currently in public beta. Just like Passbook, when you wave your iPhone at an Apple Pay kiosk, it will only let you choose your default credit card and pay for the goods or services you bought.
In iOS 9 beta, you’ll also be able to choose any of your other provisioned credit cards from your Apple Pay account without even unlocking your iPhone or accessing the Wallet app.
Here’s how.
Along with the public release of iOS 8.4.1, which added lots of fixes for Apple Music and Beats 1, Apple also has a bevy of iTunes improvements ready today.
Apple just released iTunes 12.2.2, and the update makes using Beats 1 and Apple Music in iTunes a slightly less horrible experience.
We’re eagerly anticipating iOS 9 next month, but Apple’s got a few more fixes to give us in iOS 8.4.1, which is likely the final mobile upgrade to iOS 8.
Apple released iOS 8.4.1 to the public this morning, bringing with it a number of performance enhancements and bug fixes, plus some nice updates for Apple Music and Beats 1.
After announcing its new Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ in New York City this morning, Samsung promised the next big thing is right around the corner.
The South Korean company was referring to its new Gear S2 smartwatch — its first with a round display — which will get its full reveal on September 3.
Mac users can now use Windows 10 on their OS X machines, thanks to an update for Boot Camp released by Apple this morning.The new Boot Camp 6 update is still propagating through Apple’s servers, but some users have found the update is available on Windows partitions in BootCamp.
Samsung’s new phablets aren’t the only thing we got out of its Unpacked event in New York City today; the South Korean company also announced a launch date for its new mobile payments service. Samsung Pay will be coming to take on Apple Pay in the U.S. on September 28.
There was no selfie stick, no hashtags and no sharing with his BFF. In fact, when Robert Cornelius took his historic selfie, he sat still as a stone for 15 minutes, then watched the photo slowly appear on a silver-plated sheet of copper as he breathed in dangerous mercury fumes.
That was instant gratification in 1839.
Cornelius, using a wooden box fitted with an opera glass, likely deserves credit for taking the world’s first selfie. He didn’t make the picture out of vanity, but as an experiment to test a silver-plating method for the daguerreotype photographic process, which had been introduced worldwide just three months before Cornelius’ self-portrait.
iOS 9 brings a bunch of battery-boosting features, most of which work right out of the box. But there’s one battery-saving feature you’ll have to enable yourself.
Called Low Power Mode, this new feature should prove super-useful when you need to eke out just a bit more time with your device — provided you’re not doing anything intense.
I like strategy games as much as the next person, but they’re all missing something. Like maybe they could use a pink bunny that tickles opposing pieces to death, or a little, blue, tentacled … thing that can distract enemies with its soothing singing voice. And for good measure, maybe they could throw in a green guy who can fire deadly shots out of his head and an orange monster that eats lightning and fireballs.
Picorama has all those things, and it’s as weird, silly and fun as it sounds. But the iOS game’s innocent art and adorable characters belie a title that will quickly test your strategic and problem-solving skills and have you staring at your iPhone or iPad trying to plan your next move.
The Apple Watch is the most functional smartwatch you can slap on your wrist, but when it comes to style, it still leaves a lot to be desired. Russian design team Feld & Volk is ready to fix that, though, with an Apple Watch concept that draws upon the latest watchmaking trends used by top manufacturers.
Twitter has finally delivered on its promise to remove the 140-character limit from direct messages, so you’ll no longer have to send several of them when you’re feeling chatty. The new 10,000-character limit will be available on the web, and in first- and third-party Twitter apps.
App developers are fighting what seems like a losing battle against software pirates, but some of them are finding new ways to deter users from downloading their latest titles illegally.
Noodlecake, the publisher behind games like Super Stickman Golf and Mikey Shorts, has created the ultimate troll for those who choose not to pay for its newest game: a pirate version that’s impossible to beat.
We’re used to having virtual assistants like Cortana diss Siri, but it’s not every day you hear one Siri voice insult another.
Now Siri’s original U.K. male voice — actor Jon Briggs, who also performed on the U.K. version of the Weakest Link — is hitting out at his replacement, calling the new British male Siri “a little insipid if I’m honest.”
Apple updated its Apple Store app for iPhone and iPad today to include support for something it probably should have supported a long time ago: gift cards. If you have an Apple Store gift card – or multiple gift cards – you can now successfully apply them to an order within the app.
iCloud Drive is a Dropbox and Google Drive-type service from Apple that lets you store documents in the cloud, making it super easy to synchronize them between your iOS and OS X devices.
You can access it on your Mac with an icon that shows all the documents you’ve stored in iCloud in a folder-like structure.
Prior to iOS 9, in order to access these documents on your iPhone or iPad, you’d need to open an app that supported iCloud Drive on your device.
Not anymore. iOS 9 comes with its own iCloud Drive app, and here’s how to enable it.
The snobby photographer inside me is offended whenever someone suggests that good photography is the result of owning “a really good camera.” Give me a little credit for anticipating and recognizing the good light, composition and human dynamics unfolding before me.