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Tim Cook’s announcement, White House hacked and the rest of this week’s hottest news

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Since Steve Jobs’ passing plenty of changes have occurred within Apple. In spite of all its differences, Tim Cook has managed to keep the essence of the company the same. With new iPhones, iPads, iMacs, Apple Watches and more more already announced, Tim Cook opened up his personal life to the public in a way we’ve never seen from an Apple CEO.

In today’s episode of Cult of Mac’s news roundup find out what exactly Cook revealed that got the world talking and every detail in-between. Hear about this story and more in this episode of the roundup.

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Woz is moving to Australia to become a professor

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Coming soon to a waxworks near you.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak standing with the Apple II. Photo: Robert Scoble
Photo: Robert Scoble

Steve Wozniak changed the world when he co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs to create the first personal computer. Now, after revolutionizing the tech world, he’s ready to impart his wisdom upon the top tech minds in Australia.

University of Technology, Sydney announced that it’s hired Woz on as an adjunct professor for the school, where he’ll start teaching in December.

Woz: Nobody on the Macintosh team wanted to work under Jobs again

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Steve Jobs has an enormous reputation for eking out every last drop of performance from his talented employees, but even in the early days of Apple, that maniacal drive for success came with the huge trade-off of driving away his closest friends that built the Macintosh with him.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak gave a brief interview with the Milwaukee Business Journal claiming his relationship with Jobs has been portrayed inaccurately by the media. The Apple co-founders have always been friends and Woz says the two never had an argument, but Woz can’t say the same for the other top engineers at Apple.

Woz was just too damn good at Tetris

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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was almost better at Tetris than building computers. Photo: Leonora Giovanazzi

Before fingers throbbed from marathon Candy Crush sagas, before Flappy Bird zoomed across iPad screens from Palo Alto to Manila, there was Tetris — and Stephen Gary Wozniak was its king.

Thirty years ago today, a Russian programmer named Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov created the massively popular and horrifically addictive game that became the first U.S.S.R. video game export to the United States. In a recent Gizmodo article celebrating Tetris’ popularity, Woz jumped into the comments to wax nostalgic about his love for Game Boy Tetris and shot of a little brag on his wizard-like skills at the game.

Just how damn good was he? I’ll let the champ speak for himself:

9 things every Apple fan should do at WWDC 2014

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The finishing touches are being put on Moscone West before the invasion of Apple developers hit. Here's what to do when you're not busy coding.

Image: KeilO

Segway tours are so last year now that Scoot has come out with iPhone-locked scooters. Not only is a scooter the best way to see San Francisco's landmarks, the tiny two-wheelers are more environmentally friendly than those huge double-decker tour buses. Just remember to book your reservation in advance because spots fill up quickly.

Location: 756 Natoma St., San Francisco

Image: Scoot Networks

Ditch the San Francisco fog for a few hours and head down the Peninsula to Apple’s headquarters in sunny Cupertino, California. Sneaking past security at the main entrance can be tricky if you’re dying to get a bite at Caffè Macs, but the Company Store is open to the public and it’s the only place in the world that sells Apple T-shirts, hats and other odd accessories.

Location: 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino

Image: Ryan B

Think you know absolutely everything there is to know about Apple hardware and software? Test your knowledge against Apple’s panel of experts at Stump the Experts, the weird WWDC quiz show where Apple employees (both current and former) take on your questions and award you with T-shirts and other swag if you manage to sneak a clever question past them.

Location: Tuesday, June 3, 6:30 p.m. in the Presidio Room

Image: Sebastian Müller

All that coding and partying means your java intake will hit all new highs during WWDC week, so why not duck into the trendiest coffee chain in San Francisco for a breather? Blue Bottle has some of the tastiest brew around and is VC-funded by the same dudes you'd love to have buy your app. Plus, there's an outpost within walking distance of Moscone Center. Be prepared to wait, though, as lines at this tiny shop can take 15 minutes or longer.

Location: 66 Mint Plaza, San Francisco

Image: Niall Kennedy

After keynotes at Moscone Center, you can often bump into off-duty Apple employees mingling at the W Hotel bar just across the street. Devs tell us The Chieftain bar is another popular watering hole during WWDC festivities. Keep a look out for unattended iPhone prototypes.

Location: W Hotel, 181 Third St., San Francisco

Image: The W San Francisco

Apple isn't expected to complete construction of its new spaceship campus until 2016. But if you want a peek at what the future holds, you can see the spot 13,000 Apple employees will call home with a quick drive-by tour of the former Hewlett-Packard grounds.

Location: 19091 Pruneridge Ave., Cupertino, California

Image: Ron Cervi

WWDC sessions will turn even the most feeble coders into app-making powerhouses, but this year Apple is relying on the power of the Force by bringing in David Filoni -- director of Star Wars: Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels -- to talk about his journey from fan to becoming one of the key creatives at Lucasfilm.

Location: Moscone West's Presidio Room, Friday, 12:45 p.m.

Image:Toonami

WWDC's culminating event is not to be missed, as Apple locks down Yerba Buena Gardens with its own concert full of food, drinks and thousands of devs looking to make connections. Ok Go, Neon Trees, and Vampire Weekend have been among the list of previous performers.

Location:750 Howard St, San Francisco

Image: Stefan Haubold

Back when Apple was just Steve and Woz, the first 50 Apple 1s were assembled in the spare bedroom of this unassuming ranch house owned by Steve's parents. The operation expanded to the garage in 1975 before finding its first real office space. The iconic house is just a 10-minute drive from Apple HQ.

Location: 2066 Crist Drive, Los Altos, California

Image:Eric Johnson

Coding marathons, packed parties and more fanboys than should be legally permissible in one building await developers when Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off in San Francisco next week, and while the conference is serious business for most devs, who says you can’t have a little bit of fun too?

WWDC rips into high gear with a keynote on June 2nd followed by days of coding sessions, high-profile speakers, hands-on labs and tons of get togethers for developers of all sizes and backgrounds.

Sneaking in time to tour San Francisco is nearly impossible thanks to the stuffed scheduled at WWDC and nearby AltConf, but whether you’re coming to WWDC as a first timer or a seasoned vet, here are nine things every Apple fan must do at least once while visiting the Bay Area.

iPad gets super-sized and Woz sets the FCC straight, this week on The CultCast

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This week: two awesome Apple artifacts hit the auction block; Oompa-loompas leak pics of a super-sized iPad; forget headphones, the Beats acquisition could be all about video; Woz sets the FCC straight on net neutrality; iPad is where the Gov-er-na-tuh stores his shirtless selfies; a popular travel app you should definitely download, like, right now; and, is Apple building out their own content delivery network?

Heartily guffaw your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the audio adventure begin!

Our thanks to Smile Software for supporting this episode! If you haven’t tried TextExpander from Smile software, you’re missing out on one of the most useful apps available for the Mac. TextExpander saves you time and effort by expanding short abbreviations into frequently-used text and pictures, and it’s an application Erfon uses every single day. Try it out yourself for free at smilesoftware.com/cultcast.


Click on for the show notes.

Cult of Mac and iFixit Teardown the Original Macintosh 128k [Feature]

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128k Mac Teardown
Cult of Mac and iFixit teardown the 128k Macintosh

It’s the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Macintosh, and we wondered at Cult of Mac what can we do to celebrate? Then we thought, let’s dissect an original Macintosh and see what made it tick! There’s nothing like destruction in the persuit of knowledge.

In full retro spirit, we asked our friends at iFixit if they would help perform a special anniversary teardown of the 128k Mac. How does our silicon hero compare to modern Macs in terms of components, assembly and ease of repair? Of course being true geeks themselves, they jumped at the chance.

There was only one problem: where to find an original 128k Mac.

MMXIII – The Year in Vintage Apple Tech

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Vintage-Montage

In addition to all the new products of 2013, the past year was a whir of activity in the vintage Apple space. Apple may be content to only move forward and deny existence of any products older than seven years – what do you mean my first generation MacBook Pro is vintage??? – but the public has not forgotten them.

The biggest retro news of the year was probably the ascendancy of the Apple 1 on the auction block. In May, an Apple 1 fetched a record price of $671,000 at an auction in Germany – until just recently the highest price ever paid for a personal computer. Other Apple 1s sold this year in the $300,000 range, so if you are lucky enough to have one of these oldies-but-goodies in your attic, dig it out now!

The Second Life Of The World’s Oldest Working Macs

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Macintosh 128K prototype with Twiggy floppy disk drive (photo: Adam Goolevitch)

Old computers tend to lead sedentary lives. Parked in shelves and closets, maybe touched by the occasional dusting; the lucky ones still run old games from time to time. But sometimes one becomes a sensation.

The Twiggy Macintosh is a prototype Macintosh 128k that used a 5.25-inch disk drive. Long thought lost to history, two of these primordial Macinti were recently resurrected and returned to life in full working glory. Their rebirth brought about a rare reunion of the original Macintosh design team. And one of them recently repaid the effort by fetching about $40,000 at an auction.

They are — without a doubt — the oldest working Macs in the world.

Here is the story of their amazing journey.

Apple 1 Sold for $330k After Auction Close

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Apple 1 Sale
Working Apple 1 from the November 2013 Breker auction.

On Saturday Cult of Mac reported that a working Apple 1 failed to sell at auction in Germany, a notable result in the growing market for vintage Apple collectibles. It turns out that result was premature: the Apple 1 did sell for €246,000 ($330,000), after bidding on the item had closed.