iPhone - page 5

iPhone Tap to Pay expands to France

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Tap to Pay on iPhone empowers businesses to securely accept Apple Pay, contactless credit and debit cards, and other digital wallets by using an iPhone and a partner-enabled iOS app.
Tap to Pay enables businesses to use an iPhone to securely accept Apple Pay, contactless credit and debit cards, and other digital wallets.
Photo: Apple

French iPhone users now have access to Tap to Pay, which enables businesses to accept contactless payments from credit cards directly on their iOS handset – no additional hardware required.

The service has been gradually roiling out around the world since it launched in 2022.

Use Live Voicemail and Silence Unknown Callers together for call-free bliss

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Talk After The Beep
Don’t want to miss those important calls about my Lightning cable wholesaling business.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

With Live Voicemail, a new feature in iOS 17, you don’t need to pick up your iPhone midcall to see who’s calling or what they want. You can see a transcription of their voicemail message as it’s being recorded — and pick up at any point, if the call turns out to be important. This feature proves transformative for introverts who only want to answer a phone call if strictly necessary.

Even better, Live Voicemail pairs very well with another iOS feature, Silence Unknown Callers. With both of these turned on, unwanted calls will be far less intrusive, but you will still be able to pick up the important calls as they come in.

Here’s how to use Live Voicemail to avoid phone spam and other annoyances without missing crucial calls.

Sideloading iPhone apps could arrive in the EU next year

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App Store
Europeans will soon be able to make an end run around the App Store by sideloading iPhone applications.
Image: Apple/Cult of Mac

The good news is that iPhone could finally allow users to install applications directly starting in 2024, according to a reliable source. The bad news is that being able to go without the App Store will only be an option in Europe.

To be clear, sideloading is required by EU law so it’s definitely happening. The timing isn’t clear, though.

Even more reasons Humane’s Ai Pin is a total bust

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On-screen text says
Why Humane's introductory video for the Ai Pin begins with co-founder Imran Chaudhri shuffling a series of boxes stacked like a snowman I do not understand. And that is just the first five seconds of the dreadful presentation.
Photo: Humane

In a tedious and awkward 10-minute video released Thursday, buzzy startup Humane gave a more thorough introduction of its Ai Pin. The video all but confirms my feelings that we are seeing the next hilarious Silicon Valley failure play out in real time.

Since co-founder Imran Chaudhri’s TED Talk earlier this year, where we got a vague introduction to the supposed iPhone-killer’s features, there remained a slim chance — one in a hundred — that the then-unnamed device wasn’t a total waste.

Any ounce of doubt has been washed away as this new video doubles down on the Ai Pin’s flaws and walks back its only positives. In fact, the introductory video clearly demonstrates why the device will fail: The AI gave completely wrong answers and provided no way to check their accuracy. It’s absolutely untrustworthy.

Humane unveils Ai Pin: Is it an iPhone killer or damp squib?

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Humane AI Pin
The Humane AI Pin goes on your clothing and may or may not replace your iPhone.
Photo: Humane

After months of cryptic hints and teasing demos, startup Humane finally put its supposedly iPhone-killing Ai Pin on sale Thursday for $700, plus subscription costs.

You pin it to your clothes and interact with it through voice, touch control, gestures and laser projections on your hand.

The question is, will this thing really kill the iPhone? To those who don’t like talking to devices except when absolutely necessary, it must seem unlikely.

How to ping an Apple Watch from an iPhone

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Where’d My Watch End Up?
It's not easy to find in a pile of miscellaneous clutter.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

Finally, you can ping a lost Apple Watch from your iPhone — thanks to iOS 17 and watchOS 10. The reverse has always been a cool feature of Apple Watch: locating the iPhone you set down somewhere nearby, surely.

If you take your Apple Watch off at the end of the day, forgetting to throw it on the charger, you may not remember where you left it the following morning. Now, you can find a lost Apple Watch from your iPhone. Here’s how it works.

Apple gets ready to make much better batteries

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iPhone and other Apple devices may have much better batteries within a couple of years.
iPhone and other Apple devices may have much better batteries within a couple of years.
Photo: PBKreviews

Apple is developing greatly improved batteries for its future devices, according to a new report. It appears the iPhone-maker wants to create a custom process in-house and own it — rather than outsourcing — just like it did with Apple silicon chips.

Apple accessories blowout sale: Get up to 90% off iPhone cases and more

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Woot Apple accessories sale
Here's your chance to bag great deals on Apple accessories.
Photo: Woot!

Amazon bargain site Woot! launched an Apple accessories sale with something for almost everyone — and deals as good as 90% off certain iPhone cases and 61% off an Apple Thunderbolt 3 Pro cable.

But with 49 products on sale, that’s just a taste. Act fast, the sale ends November 10 at 9:59 p.m. PT.

MacBook sleeve streamlines daily carry with iPhone and AirPods charging [Review] ★★★

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As you can see, you have to push the other gear around if you want to use Nexa as a mouse pad.★★★
As you can see, you have to push the other gear around if you want to use Nexa as a mouse pad.
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac

Journey recently unleashed an odd-but-useful beast — “the world’s first 4-in-1 laptop sleeve” with wireless charging, aka the Journey Nexa.

Journey Nexa Laptop Sleeve with Wireless Charging is a 4-in-1 device — MacBook sleeve, wireless charger for iPhone and AirPods, mouse pad and desk mat. But I found space limits it when you try to use it four ways at once, and it could benefit from some other improvements.

Today in Apple history: Time crowns iPhone ‘invention of the year’

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TIMEcover
The iPhone was immediately recognized as a breakthrough device.
Photo: Time

November 1: Today in Apple history: Time magazine crowns the iPhone 2007's 'invention of the year' November 1, 2007: Six months after Steve Jobs showed it off, the original iPhone becomes Time magazine’s “best invention of the year.”

The iPhone stands out from the rest of 2007’s gadget pack, which includes the Nikon Coolpix S51c digital camera, the Netgear SPH200W Wi-Fi Phone and the Samsung P2 music player. Remember those? (Yeah, we thought not.)

iOS 17.1 fixes weird iPhone 15 Pro screen ‘burn-in’ problem

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iPhone 15 screen burn-in isn't really
This isn't screen burn-in. It's an image retention problem that's fixed by iOS 17.1.
Photo: spriteice/Reddit

Anyone with an iPhone 15 Pro should install iOS 17.1 when it launches this week, especially if their new handset seems to be suffering from screen burn-in. Turns out it’s not a hardware problem but the result of a software bug that gets fixed by the upcoming update.

Plus, there are other new features coming in iOS 17.1.

Save your iPhone by unlocking with an old passcode

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Can I Get A Little Help Here?
In iOS 17, you have an easier path forward if you forget your iPhone's new passcode.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac/Pexels

If you forget your new iPhone passcode, you can reset it with your old one for up to three days later. This can save you hours of trying to remember the new passcode, or worse, resetting your phone from a backup.

You just have to tap Forgot Passcode? on the Lock Screen after you enter it several incorrect times.

Keep reading for a detailed walkthrough. And don’t worry — if you change your passcode intentionally to keep someone out, you can instantly expire your old one.

Apple Stores will soon wirelessly update unsold iPhones without opening the boxes

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iPhone 15 and 15 Plus review: Pro features for less
The next iPhone you buy from Apple's store could be running the latest iOS release.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Apple has developed a new way to wirelessly update iPhones in its retail stores without opening their boxes. This will ensure all iPhones sold are running the latest iOS release.

Apple could roll out the technology to its retail stores before the end of the year.

10 tweaks to make iOS 17 awesome

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What Do I Do Now?
Finally, you’re on iOS 17. What’s next?
Image: Apple/D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

There are a lot of awesome features in iOS 17 — Contact Posters, StandBy, Safari profiles, shared passwords and much, much more. Here’s a simple to-do list on how to make the most of Cupertino’s latest and greatest iPhone operating system.

iOS 17.1 scheduled to launch in less than 2 weeks

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iPhone with iOS 17 logo
iOS 17.1 will be here before November.
Image: Rajesh Pandey/Cult of Mac

We now know the last possible day Apple will release iOS 17.1: Wednesday, October 24.

That is the date by which the iPhone-maker committed to introducing an update that reduces the amount of electromagnetic radiation emitted by the iPhone 12, as required by a French regulatory agency. And that update is part of iOS 17.1.

How to stop Siri from randomly activating all the damn time

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An Apple Watch with Siri Activated and the caption:
Siri always interrupts at the wrong time.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

How can you stop Siri from randomly turning on? As if Siri’s unhelpful answers were not irritating enough when you actually want them, Siri often interrupts a conversation, meeting or TV show when you haven’t asked for anything at all.

Yes, Siri can be helpful — we previously covered six surprisingly useful things Siri can do — but it can oftentimes be an unwelcome guest, activating when you want it to zip it. And now in iOS 17, it’s going to activate every time it hears “Siri,” not just “Hey Siri.”

How do you stop Siri from activating all the time?

Speed up Haptic Touch with this hidden iPhone setting in iOS 17 [Pro Tip]

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Make your phone snappier
Speed up this common gesture on your iPhone.
Image: Apple/D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

Pro tip bug This hidden setting in iOS 17 will speed up Haptic Touch, the fantastic feature that lets you preview links and bring up option menus on your iPhone.

If you use Haptic Touch all the time like I do, changing this setting will make your iPhone feel supercharged. It brings up handy shortcuts — hidden actions, content previews and contextual menus in a flash, saving you precious time as you tap around your screen.

Alternatively, if you find Haptic Touch annoying and trigger it accidentally all the time, you can slow down the time needed to activate the gesture. That way, a tap won’t be mistaken for a tap-and-hold.

Hands-on with 5 powerful accessibility features in iOS 17

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Awesome Features for the Rest of Us
What’s new in iOS accessibility? You might be surprised.
Image: Antonio Cruz/Wikimedia Commons/D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

If you haven’t looked at any of Apple’s accessibility features because you’re not blind or deaf, and don’t think they would make your life easier, you might be surprised.

Apple built a handful of accessibility features into iOS 17 that let people with various disabilities use the iPhone in new and unexpected ways. However, absolutely anyone can take advantage of these tools, which prove surprisingly helpful in certain situations.

You can already get live captions to watch videos silently, lock your phone into one app to keep people from snooping around, play soothing ocean or forest sounds and more.

In iOS 17, five accessibility features take things even further. Assistive Access simplifies your phone to its bare features to make it easier to use; Live Speech and Personal Voice let you type on the keyboard to speak using your own voice; Detection Mode and Point and Speak help you get around using your iPhone camera.

Our hands-on demo will show you what these features can do for you.

Check how many times your iPhone 15 battery has cycled

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iPhone 15 battery cycle count
Look in Settings to see the iPhone 15 battery cycle count.
Image: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

The iPhone 15 series shows the battery cycle count, helping users track the long-term “health” of the battery. Displaying this data is simple, though it’s somewhat hidden.

In addition, it’s also possible to see when the device was manufactured and first activated.

How to turn your iPhone into a smart display with StandBy

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The Smart Display You Already Own
Turn your iPhone into a smart display on your desk.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

StandBy is a headline iOS 17 feature that turns your iPhone into a smart display on your nightstand, at your desk or in the kitchen. It’s an attractive way to put your phone to work as a small information board or digital clock when you’re not using it.

Of course, it works best if you have a phone with an always-on display like the iPhone 14 or 15 Pro. However, it works on any iPhone with MagSafe running iOS 17. Best of all, StandBy remembers different preferences for different rooms, so you can set it up as a bedside clock in the bedroom, a digital photo frame in the living room, or a music controller in the kitchen. Here’s everything you can do with StandBy on your iPhone.

iOS 17 adoption moves at a trickle

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iPhone with an iOS 17 logo
Odds are your iPhone doesn't run iOS 17. Adoption of Apple's latest mobile operating system is downright anemic.
Photo: Cult of Mac

In the weeks since iOS 17 launched, just a small percentage of iPhone owners have adopted it, according to an analytics firm. This is despite the fact that the new version is freely available for every iPhone going back five years.

Users may have been made cautious by Apple’s need to rush out three patches to fix bugs since the big update.

How to stop your iPhone from blaring out emergency alerts

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Feds test nationwide phone emergency alert system
The U.S. government recently tested its emergency notification system. You can opt out of these messages.
Photo: FCC/FEMA

There’s a way to prevent your iPhone from blaring out a loud alarm whenever the feds or local governments use the Wireless Emergency Alerts system. Setting your device so it ignores these alerts is actually quite easy, though it is more complicated than putting your iPhone in Silent mode.

Here’s how.

Feds will test nationwide phone emergency alert system on Wednesday

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Feds test nationwide phone emergency alert system
Your iPhone will get an emergency alert Wednesday that looks a lot like this.
Photo: FCC/FEMA

iPhones and Androids in the United States will receive an emergency alert Wednesday, but it’s not anything to worry about. It will come from a couple of U.S. government agencies testing the Wireless Emergency Alerts system.

This isn’t the first time the system has been tested — the feds are required to check that the system works every few years.

In short, just ignore it. Also ignore the crazy conspiracy theories surrounding the test.

How to find your lost Apple TV remote

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Where’s The Clicker?
A modern solution to an age-old problem.
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

How can you find a lost Apple TV remote? Whether it’s wedged between the cushions or kicked far under the couch, a handy-dandy new feature in iOS 17 and tvOS 17 lets you find the remote using your iPhone.

The mind races when one imagines how many hours of human life might have been saved if everyone had this feature 30 years ago.

Sure, you can take the L and simply use your iPhone or Apple Watch to control your Apple TV. But I like having the physical remote on hand, too. Let me show you how to find it.