John Brownlee - page 2

How to animate iOS 9’s app icons

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Here's how to animated iOS's app icons.
Here's how to animate iOS app icons on your homescreen.
Photo: Apple

By default, iOS doesn’t support animated icons, although there are a few exceptions: the Clock app, for example, or the way the Settings icon used to animate when you were downloading an OTA update. But wouldn’t it be great if every icon on your homescreen animated? Yes, it would … but unfortunately, only jailbreakers can make that happen.

Keep iOS 9 Low Power Mode on indefinitely with this jailbreak tweak

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iOS 9's Low Power Mode significantly reduces iPhone battery drain.
Photo: George Tinari/Cult of Mac

Low Battery Mode might be my favorite thing about iOS 9. It radically improves battery life on an iPhone when your device dips down to 20%.

The only problem? Once your iPhone charges a sufficient amount, Low Battery Mode automatically switches off. Which is a shame, because if you kept Low Battery Mode on all the time, you could eke out hours more battery life from iOS.

Sadly, iOS 9 doesn’t let you keep Low Battery Mode on all the time. But if you’ve got a jailbroken device? That functionality is just an install away.

Daimler’s CEO sounds scared of the Apple Car

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Apple Car might be coming, but will it be special?
Apple Car might be coming, but will it be special?
Image: Aristomenis Tsirbas/Freelancer

Although Steve Zadesky may be leaving Cupertino, Project Titan (the so-called Apple Car project) is apparently progressing at a fast enough rate that the German auto industry is starting to get scared.

Ask the CEO of Germany’s Daimler AG, owner of Mercedes-Benz, who says that after visiting Silicon Valley, he’s starting to get worried: companies like Apple are further along with their automobile plans than he thought.

Apple engineer says Safari t.co Twitter fix on the way

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T.co links work in every browser. except Safari.
T.co links work in every browser. except Safari.
Photo:

If you browse Twitter on Safari, there’s a longstanding obnoxious bug where Safari won’t full resolve shortened t.co links. That results in an error message: “Safari can’t open the page because the server where this page is located is not responding.”

Good news, though. Apple’s finally going to fix it.

Apple’s iPhone 5se allegedly pictured on camera next to the iPhone 5

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The iPhone 5 on the left, the iPhone 5se on the right.
The iPhone 5 on the left, the iPhone 5se on the right.
Photo: Onemorething.nl

Just a couple days ago, we heard some of the strongest evidence yet that Apple would soon release a new 4-inch iPhone, supposedly called the iPhone 5se. Now we’ve got a shot of what it allegedly looks like in direct comparison  to the iPhone 5. And surprise! The supposed iPhone 5se is plenty sexy.

Why Intel should be scared of the iPad Pro’s A9X chip

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iPad Pro
Bag a bargain iPad Pro today.
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac

Although we’ve been skeptical of the idea of ARM-based Macs in the past, rumors have been heating up that Apple will switch to ARM processors for all Macs this year due to massive performance gains. But as great as Apple’s A-series chips are, are they really ready to power Macs?

The answer isn’t entirely clear-cut, but a new series of benchmarks suggest that Apple’s ARM chips are starting to compete with Intel’s Core M chips, which power the 12-inch Retina MacBook. If this pace keeps up, iPads might be faster than Macs in just a few generations.

Former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld is now an iPhone developer

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Donald Rumsfeld's first iPhone game is a version of solitaire played by Winston Churchill.
Donald Rumsfeld's first iPhone game is a version of solitaire played by Winston Churchill.
Photo: Churchill Solitaire

Former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, one of the key individuals responsible for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, is now an iPhone game developer.

His first app, though, doesn’t boast his name, but British prime minister Winston Churchill’s. Even weirder? It’s a solitaire game.

How to use Picture in Picture mode to watch YouTube on iPad

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YouTube videos come to Picture in Picture mode on iOS 9, thanks to Corner Tube.
YouTube videos come to Picture in Picture mode on iOS 9, thanks to Corner Tube.
Photo: App Advice

Picture in Picture mode is one of the best features of iOS 9. On iPads, it lets you continue to watch a video from one app (say, Netflix) in the corner of your screen, even while you’re browsing a webpage, reading your email, and so on.

A lot of cool video apps already support Picture in Picture mode, but curiously, Google’s YouTube app isn’t one of them. But if you want to watch YouTube in PiP mode, there’s another app you can try.

AT&T CEO thinks Apple should give up on protecting encryption

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Should Apple cave when it comes to encryption?
Should Apple cave when it comes to encryption?
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple is a fierce defender of its customers’ privacy, which is why every iPhone and iPad has its data encrypted by default. But according to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, Apple and CEO Tim Cook should show their bellies and let Congress decide whether encrypted data should be accessible through backdoors by government agencies.

Apple thinks this house is the Bermuda Triangle of lost iPhones

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Dozens of people have been told their lost iPhones are this house. But they're not.
Dozens of people have been told their lost iPhones are this house. But they're not.
Photo: Fusion

Find my iPhone is a fantastic way to recover your iPhone when it is lost or stolen. Most of the time. If you’re Christina Lee and Michael Saba, though, you hate Find my iPhone, because it has ruined your life.

For some reason, Apple constantly reports stolen or lost iPhones as coming from Saba and Lee’s small suburban Atlanta house… even though they are nowhere near by.

Is iOS 9.3 Night Shift toggle coming to Control Center?

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This official Apple image might prove Night Shift will be part of Control Center.
This official Apple image might prove Night Shift will be part of Control Center.
Photo: Apple

For our money, Night Shift is one of the coolest additions to iOS 9.3 beta 1. In fact, it could be the most important UI/UX improvement iOS has added in years.

Even the guys Apple ripped off to come up with the feature are cool with it. But it could get even better before iOS 9.3 is finally released to the general public.

The future of UI for iOS 10 … or iOS 20?

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This video has lots of great ideas about how iOS 10's UI should work.
This video has lots of great ideas about how iOS 10's UI should work.
Photo: Cult of Mac

A lot of “next-gen iPhone” concepts are pretty crappy. Whimsical fancies that have nothing to do with the reality of industrial design. And hey, that’s true of this iPhone 7 concept, which imagines an edge-to-edge display that totally ditches a physical home button. You will not see an iPhone like this anytime in the near future.

But that’s not to say the concept isn’t cool. Because eventually, Apple will release a full-screen iPhone. And when it does, this concept has a lot of cool ideas about how future iOS UIs will work, once the hardware catches up.

How to send app crash reports to OS X Notification Center

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Crash reports don't have to interrupt your Zen.
Crash reports don't have to interrupt your Zen.
Photo: Lifehacker

OS X is about as reliable as any operating system out there, but apps still can — and do — crash. When they do, they take up the entire middle of your screen, interrupting whatever you’re doing, even if the app that crashed was running in the background.

It’s a mild annoyance, true, but it doesn’t have to be an annoyance at all. Here’s how to push crash messages to Notification Center instead of the middle of your screen.

Apple investigates iPhone 6s models not correctly reporting battery life

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Apple is investigating battery issues for the iPhone 6s.
Apple is investigating battery issues for the iPhone 6s.
Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

If you have an iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus that’s not properly showing how much battery you have left, there’s good news and bad news. Bad news first? Apple doesn’t exactly know what’s causing the problem. Good news: They’re looking into it, and there’s a temporary fix.

Microsoft’s next iPhone app will be an iOS keyboard

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Microsoft's Word Flow keyboard is coming to iOS.
Microsoft's Word Flow keyboard is coming to iOS.
Photo: Windows Central

Under new CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft has been releasing all sorts of software for iOS, including Office and lesser apps like Microsoft Selfie. But the next app you install from Microsoft on your iPhone could be a replacement keyboard, ripped straight out of Windows Phone.

Expect the Apple Watch 2 in September, not March

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Round Apple Watch
Don’t expect new Apple Watch 2 hardware in March?
Photo: Oh NamKyung

If you’re expecting the second-gen Apple Watch to drop in March, think again. A new report suggests that while we might see new bands and partnerships announced in two months, a revised version of the Apple Watch hardware itself will not be on the table.