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Xiaomi executive Hugo Barra doesn’t put much stock in what he calls the “copycat melodrama” surrounding the company’s products, which bear more than a passing resemblance to Apple’s hardware.

Barra gave his thoughts on the matter to Bloomberg’s Emily Chang. He says that the criticism is not so much because Xiaomi’s stuff looks like Apple’s stuff but rather because “every smartphone these days kinda looks like every other smartphone.”

You can see the whole clip below.

Most every app I’ve installed on my Apple Watch brings some sort of Glance along with it. While that’s a neato-keen thing to put in your App description to sell more apps, I’m not convinced that every app I have needs to be on my wrist.

Nuzzle, Words with Friends, Tile, Fandango, Foursquare: These are all apps I surely do not need or want on my Apple Watch.

Here’s how to clean up your Apple Watch Glances section for a much more focused and clear informational workflow. Because seriously, how many swipes do I need to get to the battery Glance?

People (likely men) who are down with porn and not embarrassed about watching it through a hunk of cardboard on their heads are about to have a very good day.

A new adult-entertainment site launched today that is specifically geared toward virtual-reality gear like Google Cardboard, which means that the iPhone can now become part of an even less subtle way than usual of looking at pictures of naked people.

Sometimes the future is a fuzzy picture. This was literally true when looking at a 0.3-megapixel image produced by one of the first consumer digital cameras, Apple’s doomed QuickTake.

 Launched in 1994, the QuickTake didn’t exactly take off. The bulky behemoth looked like a pair of binoculars. There was no preview screen, so when your camera was full — after just eight pictures at the highest resolution — you had to plug the gadget into your Mac to look at your photos.

Enlarged beyond the size of a postage stamp, the pictures weren’t very sharp. Photographers scoffed that digital files would never record the detail of film.

After three models and three years of modest sales, the QuickTake was scrapped in 1997 along with other non-computer products when Steve Jobs returned to the company.

An iOS scam designed to cheat people out of money is being reported by users in both the United States and the U.K.

A number of iPhone and iPad users have received pop-up notifications on their devices informing them that iOS has crashed, that their personal data is being stolen by a third party, and that the only way to solve the problem is (surprise!) to pay between $19 and $80 for a fix.

Sounds legit. Where do we send our money?

How big a fan of Hellboy are you?

If you answered, “Such a big fan that I wish ‘Hellboy’ were a language I could speak all the time — if only someone would make a keyboard to that effect,” you’re in luck because custom keyboard designer Swype has teamed up with publisher Dark Horse Comics to bring both Red and samurai rabbit Usagi Yojimbo to your iMessages.

Apple Pay dropped in the U.K. this week, and iPhone 6 and Apple Watch users can employ the touchless payment method to travel on a variety of public transports, including subway, London Overground, busses, and trams. But public agency Transport for London has issued an advisory to those who wish to pay for their commute with the power of living in the future:

Make sure your devices have enough juice to get you where you’re going, or it’ll cost you.

Today’s iPod refresh came as an odd surprise to some and maybe even a long-awaited update to others. Now that the iPod line is finally up-to-date after being dormant for a few years, you might even be considering buying one.

Regardless of how you feel, do yourself a favor: Don’t buy one.

That Slice data? Totally misleading, says analyst Mark Hibben.

Instead, he says, Apple sold over 4.5 million Apple Watches in two months of the June fiscal quarter. That’s way more than the 1 million units of the original iPhone Apple sold when it first launched in 2007.

“Apple Watch has a bright future,” writes Hibben, “despite what some market research polls might indicate. In its launch quarter, Watch will add about $2 billion in revenue to Apple’s top line.”

With numbers like that, even Apple can’t call the Apple Watch a hobby.

After a short amount of time offline, the Apple Online Store is back up and running — selling a refreshed line of iPods, featuring some feature upgrades, and a nifty new gold color option.

Apple has released new iPod shuffle, nano, and touch devices, representing the first major upgrade for the product lines since way back in 2012. While the shuffle and nano both get the new gold color — alongside five other color options — the biggest upgrade is reserved for the iPod touch.

Steve Jobs passed away almost four years ago, and people are still unveiling tributes to Apple’s late co-founder.

The latest is from a Shanghai company that created a gold bust of Jobs to greet employees as they sign in for work each day. The idea behind it is reportedly to “[inspire] in employees Jobs’s insistence on finding the best way to do something.”

Like sign in to work, presumably.

A new report suggests that the Apple Watch’s maker has sold its wearable short when it comes to its performance in water.

Developer Craig Hockenberry says that the wearable works (mostly) fine in liquid and knows because he swims with his smartwatch regularly. In the ocean.

Where sharks live.

Look, you wouldn’t put a “Git-R-Done” bumper sticker on a Lamborghini. So why would you muck up the chic of an iPhone with a garish or absurd case like the ones on this list?

Jony Ive understands self-expression and probably even appreciates when a person selects an iPhone case that puts them in touch with their inner selves. But when a case’s main function is to cushion a fall or fend off scratches, your next concerns should be how it fits in a pocket — and some taste.

And I don’t mean taste as in fried chicken. Apparently the Japanese are such big fans of Kentucky Fried Chicken, a product developer for the Colonel designed an iPhone 6 case shaped like a drumstick. Even better, it’s the size of one of those state fair turkey legs.

Apple Pay today makes its debut in the United Kingdom, nine months after it launched in the U.S., and it has been greeted by plenty of support from local banks. Those with a supported device can register their credit and debit cards now through the Passbook app on iOS.

The upcoming Suicide Squad movie may be the most gritty and in your face version of the world-saving team of supervillains, but it isn’t the only one around.

If you can’t wait until next year to see Task Force X in action, you have a few options available to see Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and their crazy friends right now in both live-action and animated forms. And they’re available online, so you can crank up your iPad or Apple TV and watch them right now.

We’ve heard about iPhone-related crime before, but here’s one that’s new: A U.K. man in London who was arrested by police after charging his iPhone on a train.

45-year-old artist Robin Lee was approached by a police community support officer on board the train last Friday, warned that he was “illegally extracting electricity.” When Lee arrived at his destination, police officers were waiting to arrest him.

Apple is getting one step closer to becoming its own record label by creating its own artistic content — having recently produced in-house music videos for top-name artists such as Drake, Eminem and Pharrell.
The videos — which include Em’s “Phenomonal” and Pharrell’s “Happy” — debuted on Apple Music. Future artists Apple will reportedly be producing videos for include M.I.A., Purity Ring, Diddy and James Bay.

Apple’s fitness apps are surprisingly limited given that is a core selling point of Apple Watch. Even basic features like mapping runs and challenging friends are currently missing. And from what we’ve seen so far, watchOS 2 won’t address these shortcomings.

Here’s my wish list of 10 things I’d like to see Apple do to get its fitness apps in shape.

We’re seeing a lot of reports across the Internet of Apple Watch owners getting some irritation from their wearables. We have a few likely culprits for these blights, including friction with the band; contact dermatitis from dirt, water, or soap getting stuck underneath; or allergic reactions to adhesives or nickel used in the smartwatch’s production.

Whatever the cause, however, the fact remains that wearable rashes are very real and not limited to Apple’s new smartwatch. Here are some of the most interesting (meaning disturbing and gross) pictures we’ve been able to turn up from the Internet.

As you may have heard, Apple released the public beta for OS X El Capitan yesterday. Since I tend to ignore the risks of beta software in favor of all the new features, I downloaded it on my mid-2011 MacBook Air. Do yourself a favor: don’t be like me. Understand and acknowledge the risks of beta software. It’ll save you time and data.

After outselling all Android Wear watches within 24 hours, Apple Watch looked set to be the device that would finally give smartwatches their big break. But according to a recent report, sales of Cupertino’s first wearable have since nosedived 90%.

It’s wise to take that report with a pinch of salt, but it got us thinking; if Apple’s first smartwatch really is a flop, which company can make a wearable worth wearing, and do wearable devices have a future at all?

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.

The iPad was once the future of computing. When it was launched in 2010, we all thought we were not going to be using desktop machine and laptops anymore.

But sales have been flat and declining for the last couple of years. It came out of the gate like a rocket and everyone bought one. The thing is, nobody has been upgrading them.

Learn about what I think are the reasons and a big change coming to iPads with this week’s Kahney’s Korner.

Cult of Mac’s Photo Famous series introduces you to the groundbreaking photographers featured in Apple’s “Shot on iPhone 6” ad campaign.

Brendan Ó Sé aimed his iPhone camera, composed on screen the wavy painted lines on a Copenhagen street and snapped the photo as four people entered the frame from different directions.

For reasons Ó Sé cannot explain, he titled the photo, God will send a sign. When he does, be prepared.

Not long after, Ó Sé received widespread attention for the photo after it was selected by Apple to be part of its “Shot on iPhone 6” advertising campaign. There were billboards in several countries, magazine ads, an international award and interview requests.

Ó Sé was not prepared. He was kind of floored.

Apple has a history of blasting fart apps from its App Store. But when is a fart just a fart, and when is it art?

Scott Kurtz, artist and writer of popular webcomic PvP, and his business partner Cory Casoni decided to find out with Farty Troll, a Flappy Bird clone about propelling a flatulent, blue giant named Skull through a maze of coffee cups using nothing but his own wind. Apple repeatedly rejected the app, but after a bit of straining and a lot of effort, it has finally come out.

It all started a year ago as part of Kurtz’s comic, which is about the employees of a magazine who were transitioning into game publishing.