Google’s ready to take on Apple Pay with a new mobile payments platform called Android Pay. It will work over NFC, and it will come with an API that will allow third-party developers to integrate the service into their own Android apps.
Apple needs its watch to be big in China. Photo: EastTouch
Ahead of Apple’s March 9 event, the Apple Watch has popped up in another non-tech magazine, boasting some fashion shots of it being worn by a male model. The magazine is East Touch, a Hong Kong-based Cantonese magazine aimed at (predominantly female) readers between the ages of 20-30, and covering mainly celebrity, fashion and entertainment news stories.
This is just the latest fashion publication to feature a look at the Apple Watch, following shortly after the devices was profiled with a multipage spread in the March issue of Vogue.
Astronaut Terry Virts tweeted from the International Space Station this special salute to the late Leonard Nimoy. Photo: Terry Virts/Twitter
Leonard Nimoy’s portrayal of unflappable calm and logic during dangerous space travels on TV and in movies inspired those whose stage is actual space.
NASA is mourning the loss of Nimoy as if Mr. Spock was one of their own. Since news of Nimoy’s passing Friday, astronauts have tweeted, uploaded a YouTube video tribute and issued statements, thanking the iconic Star Trek actor for the courage to “boldly go” into professions involving space exploration.
One of the more touching tributes came from astronaut Terry Virts, who tweeted a photo of his hand in Spock’s iconic “Live Long and Prosper” gesture at a window in the International Space Station looking over Earth.
I want extra pockets without having to wear goofy cargo pants. So while perusing one of my favorite guy websites, Everyday Carry, I came across a little bag made by Koyono called the bolstr bag.
It's perfect for tooling around Chicago, allowing me to discreetly store a phone, iPad mini, notebook and point-and-shoot camera. Plus, its slim design and asymmetrical shape look way cooler than knee-level flapped pockets on either leg.
The bolstr small carry bag comes in a variety of colors and left- or right-side orientations (as a lefty, I appreciate this design consideration). — David Pierini
Apple may as well run Cupertino. Photo: Benjamin Feenstra Photo: Benjamin Feenstra
A previously quiet town in California, today Cupertino is synonymous with Apple in the same way that Redmond is with Microsoft, Compton is with rapper and Beats founder Dr. Dre, and Gotham City is associated with Batman.
A fascinating new article for the Columbus Dispatchreveals the double-edged sword of being a town so closely tied in with the rise-and-fall fortunes of a single company. While it’s certainly great when times are good, it also means that a major stumble could have major repercussions for the 58,000-person city Steve Jobs grew up in and called home.
With the long-awaited “spaceship” Apple Campus 2 set for completion in 2016, Cupertino’s reliance on Apple is only going to increase over the coming years. And one thing’s for sure: the once sleepy city needs Apple a whole lot more than Apple needs it!
Apple’s Touch ID sensor has been the best and most reliable fingerprint scanner since it made its debut in the iPhone 5s, but competing products announced at Mobile World Congress this week could give the Cupertino company some concern.
Not only has Samsung made huge improvements to its own fingerprint sensor for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, but Qualcomm has delivered an even more impressive alternative called Sense ID that works through aluminum, stainless steel, and more.
Could Apple have to change the iPhone's name in one of its potentially biggest upcoming markets? Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac Photo:
After China, India is the next big frontier for Apple: with a massive 1.2 billion citizens, and an impressively growing smartphone market that is far from saturated.
So far Apple has had great success in the country, as the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have sold roughly twice the volume of previous generation iPhones, and Apple has even proved willing to take a short-term hit on the earnings front to get more iPhones into people’s hands in the long run.
But one company isn’t happy about the iPhone’s success in India — and it’s doubling its efforts to get Apple barred from using the popular smartphone name in the country altogether.
Anyone else excited about the Apple Car? Apple's lawyers certainly are. Photo: Cult of Mac/USPTO
Whether Apple is actually building a car, or it’s just a controlled leak to show that the company has more planned after the Apple Watch, isn’t known yet. What is sure, though, is that Apple is now legally covered if it wants to slap its name and logo onto an automobile.
Using its regular law firm Baker & McKenzie in Zurich, Apple recently expanded its corporate description to not just include the current array of watches, smartphones, tablets and computers, but vehicles, too. And Apple’s lawyers aren’t taking any chances, either. Apple aircraft, anyone?
Apple’s new ad campaign might be its best yet, especially if you’re one of the iPhone owners that’s about to have your photo on a billboard.
Simply called “Shot on iPhone,” it’s hard to call Apple’s campaign an ad at all — at least in the traditional sense. Apple crowdsourced photos shot with the iPhone by normal people around the world, and the result is a testament to just how incredible iPhone photography has become.
The Apple Watch will have a special battery-saving feature that will essentially turn it into a basic timepiece.
The previously unreleased detail about the smartwatch’s functionality showed up Sunday in a New York Times story that digs into Apple’s development of the long-awaited wearable.
Samsung’s love affair with cheap, tacky plastic is on hold for its stunning new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.
Unveiled today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the new handsets pull out all the stops in an effort to reverse Samsung’s declining smartphone sales and mount a new challenge against Apple’s most popular iPhones to date.
They sport all-new designs made out of premium materials, and vastly improved software that promises a better user experience. But they aren’t without their own compromises.
Cult of Mac Deals has dozens of offers on superior items that sizzle with savings. Start a business, charge your phone, get invaluable web analytics, and more and save up to 96% off their regular prices. Hurry though, these won’t be around forever.
The One M9 isn’t the only exciting new product HTC has to show off in Barcelona today. The Taiwanese company also announced Vive, a new standalone virtual reality headset developed in partnership with Valve that wants to change the way you game — and more.
This week: Apple might be eyeing 2020 for their first car, but you can catch our most wanted features and price expectations right now. Plus: Cupertino pay massive bonuses to poach top talent; the insane acceleration of Tesla’s new electric car; the new and notable from iOS 8.3 beta; Toyota says “no thanks” to CarPlay; and finally, your listener questions, answered!
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It’s the weekend, and Cult of Mac is here to bring you a roundup of all the app goodness you might have missed from the last week.
VLC makes its triumphant return to the App Store, a great printing tool becomes Apple’s free app of the week, a premium todo app goes universal, and more.
Without further ado, here are this week’s awesome apps!
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Designed by who in where? Photo: Android Authority
Forget Comcast, ZTE takes the cake with the most blatant Apple-ripoff-of-the-month award. The Chinese company’s latest handset, the Blade S6, is clearly… inspired by the iPhone.
We get slammed 24/7 with new Apple rumors. Some are accurate, most are not. To give you a clue about what’s really coming out of Cupertino in the future, we’re busting out our rumor debunker each week to blow up the nonsense.
This week the Apple Watch rumors have reached a crescendo as invites to a not-so-mysterious event in March were released. Will the Apple Watch really launch with 100,000 apps? Will demand for the gold Apple Watch wreak havoc on the world’s gold supply? And don’t forget about the Apple car either. New rumors are claiming Samsung could be the biggest boost or roadblock for project Titan.
Find out the truth behind the week’s wildest Apple rumors below:
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Samsung’s three-sided display may make the Galaxy S6 Edge a little different, but it won’t be the most unique smartphone at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.
Monohm, a company based in Berkeley, California, that makes “heirloom electronics,” will announce a perfectly round smartphone called the Runcible that’s designed to look like a pocket watch.
Key Smart, right, removes the bulk from your pocket and organizes your keys into a slim handle. Photo: Key Smart
At our current place on the evolutionary chart, we are a species that carries more things in the pockets of tighter pants.
Michael Tunney understood this every time he went to a bar and saw patrons pull out their cell phones and bulky wads of keys before sitting down. Tunney, himself bothered by keys in the pocket, set out to solve this problem.
The 28-year-old Chicagoan with a manufacturing engineer background invented Key Smart, a holder that keeps keys from jabbing your thigh and removes the unsightly pocket bulge out of form-fitting pants.
Think of a Swiss Army knife, but with keys that fold out of a slim handle.
Fancy a .app web address? You’re going to be buying it from Google. The search giant has splashed out just over $25 million on the entire .app web domain, which is around $19 million more than any other company has paid for a top-level domain so far.
iOS developers are constantly spitting on Android. But that’s not necessarily the way it should be. The developers behind iA Writer, one of the most beautiful distraction-free writing apps for iOS and Mac, have just ported their app to Android. And they seem really positive about Android so far.
Tweetbot is ready for an upgrade. Photo: Mark Jardine
Many of us have been eagerly awaiting a new version of Tweetbot for iPad for quite a while now, as well as an updated version of Tweetbot for Mac. The wait seems like it’s drawing to a close though. Today, developer Tapbots shared some updates, giving us a roadmap for the next updates to both Tweetbots for Mac and Tweetbot for iOS.