Current rumor suggests that the next iPad Air will be even thinner than the last one.
And as we know from the release of the last iPhone, when something’s thinner… well, it’s likely to get bent.
So what will happen if Bendgate comes to the iPad? Our favorite concept designer Martin Hajek imagines the next iPad Air if it proves as pliable as the iPhone 6.
There are more images after the jump. What do you think?
Update: False alarm. As we suggested was a possibility, Philips was misunderstood by a reporter. They are actually just bundling Apple TV’s with new televisions, not building in the hardware.
We don’t know exactly what Apple plans on announcing next Thursday, but one thing’s for sure: It’s not just new iPads.
The tagline for the event — “It’s been far too long” — implies that we’re about to see a new version of a product that hasn’t been updated for a while.
One strong candidate is the Apple TV. But if a (possibly premature) announcement by consumer electronics company Philips is anything to go by, Apple might not just be giving the Apple TV a spec bump. Cupertino might announce instead that it will be integrating Apple TV hardware into third-party television sets!
When Twin Peaks mesmerized us with its weird mix of mystery, mysticism and Americana in the early ’90s, smartphones didn’t exist. But even if the iPhone had already conquered the world, it’s possible nobody in the small Pacific Northwest town that served as the show’s setting would have owned one.
The forested fantasyland of Twin Peaks was a purposely backward backdrop upon which series creators David Lynch and Mark Frost could project their twisted vision of the darkness that lurks below the wholesome surface of American society. While the show was set in 1989, the small-town setting was a deliberate throwback to ’50s-style innocence, which was quickly shattered by the discovery of a beautiful teen’s corpse.
When Twin Peaks resurfaces in 2016 on Showtime, the cultural landscape will have changed radically from where the series left off a quarter-century ago. What kind of fascinating freak show will Lynch and Frost craft as they bring the show into the digital age?
Before the iPhone 6 was officially announced, developers confirmed the higher resolution of the iPhone 6 by examining the beta for iOS 8, specifically in the way apps would prefer to load a 3x image over the 2x image on existing Retina Devices.
Now the iOS 8.1 beta is out, and developers are discovering that it will similarly call up 3x versions of many iPad UI assets, implying that the iPad could be seeing a resolution bump sometime soon.
Apple is throwing its name into the hat of big name tech companies trying to even the male-female ratio within high tech, by sending hundreds of its employees to recruit students attending this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference.
The three-day conference — this year celebrating its twentieth birthday — is dedicated to closing the gender gap that exists in technical jobs in Silicon Valley. It is named after Grace Hopper, a U.S. computer scientist who was one of the first programmers of World War II’s groundbreaking Harvard Mark I computer, and invented the first compiler for a computer programming language.
Other companies attending the conference include Google, Facebook and Microsoft.
When The Magazine ceases publication this December, owner Glenn Fleishman will be closing shop on an ambitious two-year experiment in digital publishing.
It’s not a total surprise — subscriptions were already on a downward trend when Fleishman transitioned from editor to owner of The Magazine after purchasing the publication from Marco Arment last year — and it’s not a total bummer, either.
In fact, Fleishman says he’s feeling pretty good about stopping here: he’s met his obligation to provide Kickstarter backers with their one-year subscriptions, and he’s ending this fascinating experiment while it’s still profitable.
“I’m even able to pay myself an ever-declining hourly rate for my time,” said Fleishman, who spoke with Cult of Mac about what went right, what went wrong, and his feelings about pulling the plug on a project that was his full-time job for the last year and a half.
In Apple’s invitation to the company’s October 16th Town Hall event at its Cupertino headquarters, the company’s tagline is: “It’s been way too long.”
This has prompted a lot of speculation. It hasn’t been too long since Apple’s last event, which was just a month ago. And there aren’t that many other Apple products that we haven’t seen updated in the last year, with the exception of Thunderbolt displays, which frankly aren’t important enough to reference in an Apple tagline that the whole world will scrutinize.
But here’s a good theory. What if the tagline doesn’t reference a single product, but a variation of product? What if we’re about to see the return of colored Macs?
The tagline for next week’s Apple media event is “It’s been way too long.” While that might be nothing more than a sarcastic nod to the fact that Cupertino announced the Apple Watch and iPhone 6 just last month, it could be a cryptic indication that we’ll see updates to some of the company’s neglected products.
Rumors suggest new iPads and Macs will share the stage at Apple’s October 16 event, and we’ll probably get OS X Yosemite’s release date and more talk about iOS 8 and Apple Pay, but what about the rest of the product lineup?
Here’s a look at Apple products currently languishing in update hell, along with some rumors and speculation about what the future might hold.
Apple isn’t quite done rolling out its new products for 2014, as the company just sent out invites to a special Town Hall event being held on its Cupertino campus on October 16th at 10AM PT.
The event comes just weeks after the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch were revealed, but the invites provide few clues about what they’re going to announce yet. The iPad Air is expected to get an update, and the rumor mill has spit out claims of a Retina iMac making an appearance too.
OS X Yosemite will also be introduced publicly at the event, and we could even see a new Mac Mini or some other goodies. All will be revealed soon when Tim Cook and the gang take the stage next Thursday. Cult of Mac will be liveblogging the event so stay tuned.
Want to pretend you're an Apple employee from the dark days before Steve Jobs made his return? These styrofoam and fiberglass signs hung from the east-facing side of Infinite Loop’s Building 3 between 1993 and 1997. They went under the hammer at British auction house Bonhams earlier this year, ultimately fetching $35,000.
Photo: Bonhams
Quanta Computer has reportedly started production on Apple’s ultra-thin 12-inch MacBook Air notebooks — although production challenges may mean that it doesn’t hit shelves under after Christmas.
Citing sources in Taiwan’s supply chain, the Digitimes report states that the new MacBook Air is slimmer than both the existing 11.6- and 13.3-inch models, and may well sport Retina displays.
This ambitiously slim form factor is pushing component makers to the limit, however, and currently yield rate is not satisfactory, which has resulted in low output. It is hoped that this will increase from November onwards, although this may not be enough to see the notebooks arrive for the holiday season.
New details have emerged about the surprise bankruptcy protection filing of GT Advanced Technologies, a.k.a. the company that was supplying Apple with its sapphire.
As per the Wall Street Journal, Apple agreed to lend GT Advanced a total of $578 million to help get its large sapphire factory in Arizona up and running, only for Cupertino to withhold the final $139 million payment it was due to make, for reasons which aren’t yet clear, but likely relate to the company’s failure to deliver sapphire to Apple’s satisfaction.
Nestled among the vintage globes, surgical drawings and reflecting telescopes at Bonhams New York’s upcoming “History of Science” auction are spectacular several Apple-related goodies.
Most impressive of all of these is an Apple 1 motherboard, circa 1976. Described as being in “superb overall condition,” this is the first computer ever built by Steve Wozniak under the Apple banner, prior to the far more successful and mainstream Apple II.
Only 200 units of the Apple I were ever made, although just 63 are thought to still survive — and only 15 of these are documented as having worked since 2000.
This is one of them.
A neat trick that allows old console emulators and other unapproved apps to be installed on iOS devices without jailbreaking is set to be wiped out with iOS 8.1. Apple has finally taken action against the “date trick” many users have long been taking advantage of, and it’s going to make playing your favorite SNES and Game Boy games much harder.
There are few Apple fans more enthusiastic than actor, author and TV presenter Stephen Fry, who even dedicates whole chapters of his autobiography to describing the impact the Macintosh had on his life. Fry was in Cupertino for the unveiling of the iPhone 6, 6 Plus and Apple Watch last month. Thoughts from the ever-eloquent thesp? “Want, want, want; drool, drool drool.”
That about sums it up.
Photo: Stephenfry.uk
Having the ability to switch from iOS to OS X on your iPad when you need to get real work done sounds like an awesome idea, but Apple’s full desktop operating system isn’t designed to be used with a touchscreen. That’s why a new rumor that claims the upcoming 12-inch iPad will run both platforms is just downright crazy.
Apple loves to tout how quickly people update to its newest software, but with iOS 8, many are choosing to hold back. The company’s own numbers show that only 1% of the iOS user base has upgraded to iOS 8 in the last two weeks.
Only 47% of users are on iOS 8 vs. 46% the week of September 21st. Adoption rates usually slow down as time wears on, but these unusually low numbers indicate that many are choosing to not upgrade to iOS 8. Unfortunately, Apple has given a few reasons why that’s the case.
As a prototype iPhone 6 on eBay shoots above $100,000, the seller is just dying to hear from Apple.
Although the company might cancel the auction, as it has done with several secret prototypes in the past, the seller is such an Apple fan that he’s more excited about hearing from Cupertino than collecting $100,000.
“I don’t think the bids are real at this point,” the seller told Cult of Mac. “I’m excited about Apple getting in touch because I have loved their company for so long and this is just such an amazing opportunity.”
The seller’s name is Alex. He’s 24, lives in Los Angeles, and works in sales and marketing. He unintentionally purchased the prototype iPhone for his mother.
Nintendo is probably never going to release its treasure trove of retro titles onto iOS any year soon, but if you want to experience the thrill of stumping tutrtles dead in Super Mario World on your gigantic iPhone 6 Plus display, there’s a simple hack that can make it happen.
SiOS – a new Super Nintendo Entertainment System emulator created by Lucas Mendes Meng – can be installed on any iOS 8.0.2 device and lower thanks to a little hack via iDeviceHypethat gives your iPhone access to SNES games like Super Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Quest, Yoshiland, and hundred of other ROMS. And you don’t even need a jailbreak.
Here’s how to play SNES games on your iPhone 6 right now:
1974's MITS Altair 8800 was the personal computer that started it all for a generation of techies. It was hardly the most accessible machine to ever come out of a garage, however.
Photo: classiccmp.org
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Sunday was the third anniversary of Steve Jobs’ death. I drove my family down from San Francisco to Palo Alto to see if anyone had left tributes at his house or the local Apple store, which were scenes of remarkable memorials following his death in 2011.
The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus may be killing it in terms of demand, but that’s just because they’re the hot new devices on the market, right?
Not according to industry sources, who claim that chip orders for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus devices have already exceeded 50 million units for the first quarter of 2015.
In real world terms, what that means is that Apple is forecasting that the iPhone 6 won’t slow down its sales domination one bit after the holiday season, since the Q1 2015 chip order is just as strong as the one for Q4 2014.
ROSEVILLE, California – This is where your electronics go to die.
In a nondescript, 200,000-square-foot warehouse 20 miles northeast of Sacramento, box after box of discarded electronics and parts sit at Sims Recycling Solutions, awaiting their date with the “mega-shredder” at the end of the line. That’s where four rows of 22 hardened-steel blades will rip and grind the metal housings and circuit boards into tiny chunks.
“We recycle almost everything,” said Bill Vasquez, Sims’ vice president of U.S. operations, during Cult of Mac’s recent tour of the facility. He said more than 99 percent of the materials that pass through Sims’ doors gets recycled. “Our focus is to divert everything from landfill as much as possible.”
Tim Cook, Phil Schiller and others who knew him have made public comments commemorating Steve Jobs, who passed away three years ago today.
Cook sent out two tweets, quoting Jobs from his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address as saying, “You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.” In the second message he said that he was in Grand Canyon National Park, backpacking and “thinking of SJ and his many gifts to the world.”
Apple co-founder and visionary CEO Steve Jobs passed away three years ago today, at the age of 56.
In addition to co-creating the company with Steve Wozniak in 1976, Jobs personally oversaw the creation of the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes and OS X — as well as funding Pixar during its rise to prominence.
While there are plenty of great videos featuring Jobs to mark the occcasion (anyone with the slightest bit of interest in working in tech should make a point of viewing all of his Apple keynotes) the below is one of my personal favorites. It features Jobs, less than three months into his 1997 return, talking at an internal meeting about his vision for taking the company forward.