News - page 2

Vulse app brings gestural and touch effects to guitar

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vulse for iPhone
Like an electronic whammy bar.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Vulse is a neat app for musicians. More specifically, it’s for guitarists. The app has been around for a while, but got a big old update this week that makes it worth a new look. The idea of the app is that you stick your iPhone onto your guitar, just below where you strum the strings, and then use a combination of wild flailing and screen-stroking to apply crazy effects on the fly.

These tiny guitar amps can be controlled by your iPhone

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laney iphone amp
So cute.
Photo: Laney

Laney’s new Mini-Laney and Mini-St-Lion are tiny, portable, desktop versions of the U.K. guitar-amp company’s popular full-sized amplifiers. They come in retro and modern styles, and mono or stereo versions. Plus, they can be hooked up to any amp-simulation software on your iPhone using a single cable.

Textor is the missing TextEdit for iOS [Review]

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textor
Textor is like TextEdit for iOS.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

On the Mac, you can quickly open up and edit any text file using TextEdit. And while there are a ton of great text-editing apps on the iPad and iPhone, none of them is quite as simple as the Mac’s built-in app. Until now, anyway: Textor combines the iOS 11 Files app with an ultra-simple text editor, making it possibly the quickest and easiest way to quickly view, edit and even create new text files on an iPhone or iPad.

This app can type every Unicode character ever on your iPhone

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Unichar works everywhere
A great new Unicode app.
Photo: Jordan Hipwell

On the Mac, you can type any character available in there Unicode standard, just by opening up the Emoji & Symbols viewer (Control-Command-Space) and picking the one you want. The selection on iOS is much more limited. Even finding an ellipsis is such an odyssey I can never remember whether it’s available or not. But UniChar changes that. It’s a Universal iOS app that brings every single Unicode character to your device.

Using iPhone X’s dark mode uses less than half the battery power

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grayscale iphone x dark mode
The iPhone X sips power in dark mode.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Did you read our guide to switching on the iPhone X’s Unofficial Battery Saver Dark Mode in order to stretch the battery life of your new iPhone X? Well, it turns out that blacking out as much of the screen as possible really can save a whole lot of juice. In testing, running the iPhone X in dark mode saves a staggering amount of battery power.

This is how the iPhone X’s Face ID views your face

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face mesh
What kind of face is Killian trying to pull here?
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

Did you ever wonder how Face ID sees you? After all, it has an incredibly complex set of eyes that project invisible dots onto your face, and then turns the results into a 3D representation of your head. If you want to know what that representation might look like, then check out the new Face Mesh tool in the latest update to MeasureKit, the AR measuring app.

Master your iPhone X with these tips, tricks and how-tos

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iPhone x unboxing
Fresh out of the box.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

The iPhone X is Apple’s most exciting iPhone in years. It packs an incredible portrait camera, ditches the home button so it can squeeze and iPhone Plus-sized screen into a regular-sized body, and adds Face ID.

If you want to read all about your new iPhone X, or to see what the fuss is before you purchase one, check out this roundup of all Cult of Mac’s iPhone X coverage.

Pushpin, the best Pinboard app on iOS, is back

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pinboard is back
Pushpin is back on iOS.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Just in time for Halloween, Pushpin is back from the dead! Pushpin was the best Pinboard bookmarking app on the iPhone and iPad, but it withered and sat in the store without updates since the iOS 9 days thanks, the developer says, to the arrival of a baby. Now, Pushpin is back, and with a few tweaks, it is just as great as ever.

Paperlogix reads paper documents and files them for you

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stack of Paperlogix
Scan and file your paper automatically with Paperlogix.
Photo: Ralf Steinberger/Flickr CC

Paperlogix is a yet another document scanner app for iPhone and iPad, but it has one big feature that really makes it stand out. Like all the other decent scanner apps, it uses the iPhone’s camera to capture scans, and then processes them, removing the background, squaring off your wonky framing, and rendering text in crisp black and white.

But Paperlogix goes one better. It can read your scans, and then file those scans based on what it finds. So, for instance, you could have it automatically file all your grocery receipts in one folder, or send all invoices to your accountant, all without doing any of the work yourself. It’s pretty neat stuff.

Apple tax forces Facebook to launch new tool only on Android

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Instant Articles
Facebook's subscriptions are coming to Android but not iOS.
Photo: Facebook

Apple’s 30% tax on in-app purchases could cause iPhone and iPad users to miss out on the next big news feature from Facebook.

In an effort to help make publishers more money, Facebook plans to launch a tool that helps websites sell subscriptions. All of the sales transactions will be done on the publishers’ websites, but Apple won’t approve the app unless it gets a cut.

Apple’s ‘fast’ iPhone 8 charger isn’t as quick as you think

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charger
The MacBook's USB-C charger won't charge your iPhone much faster.
Photo: Maurizio Pesce/Flickr CC

The iPhones 8 and X both support Apple’s “fast-charging” option, which has been available on the iPad Pro since the first 13-inch model. Fast charging lets you use a powerful USB-C charger, along with a USB-C-to-Lightning cable, to charge your iPhone quicker than you can with the standard iPhone or iPad chargers.

But is it worth the $75 that those accessories will cost? Is charging really so much faster? According to tests run by software engineer and startup investor Dan Loewenherz, the answer is no.

Undisturbed takes control of your Mac’s Do Not Disturb mode

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Undisturbed
Undisturbed turns off those annoying red badges.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Do you know how to turn on your Mac’s Do Not Disturb mode? That’s right, you open up the Notification sidebar, pull down, and toggle the switch. It works great. Right up until you look at the Dock, or the app switcher, and see a bunch of big red badges hassling you to read your email or check your boss’ Slack messages.

That’s where Undisturbed comes in. It’s an app that improves Do Not Disturb, so you really don’t get disturbed.

Amazon is about to ruin its best Kindle model

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new Kindle oasis
That hot unibody is 50% heavier than the old model.
Photo: Amazon

The new Kindle Oasis was just launched, and it looks amazing. It has the same super-slim form as the current Oasis, along with the asymmetric shape and hardware page-change buttons, only now it also has a bigger 7-inch screen, better battery life, and it is waterproof. It’s even cheaper than the current model.

Luckily, this new Oasis doesn’t go on sale until the end of October, so you still have a few weeks to buy the old one while you still can.

This dongle fixes the jackless iPhone 7 for good

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amazon lightning iphone 7 dongle
Amazon is getting in on the iPhone dongle game.
Photo: Amazon

Apple’s obsession with lopping ports off its devices has spawned a whole industry of dangling dongles. Every time Apple removes hole to slim down an iPhone or a MacBook, or to make space for a bigger battery, somebody else fills that gap with an external widget that does the exact same thing, only messier and more expensive.

The latest in this dongle parade is the AmazonBasics Lightning to 3.5mm Headphone Jack Audio Adapter with Remote and Lightning Charging Port, a product whose name tells you almost everything you need to know.

This Pad & Quill leather MacBook bag will outlast anything you put in it

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pad and quill attache
You don't need a big beard to be a hipster.
Photo: Pad & Quill

If you want to crush your shoulder, and at the same time have all your gear and gadgets within easy reach, then a messenger bag is the way to go. Less formal than a briefcase, and less sporty than a backpack, a messenger bag is stylish and practical. And Pad & Quill’s Attache messenger bag is more stylish and practical than most. It’s a hand-stitched leather beauty which can swallow most of your Mac and iOS devices and accessories.

Bookbook CaddySack organizes your Mac’s chargers and dongles

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Bookbook Caddysack
Keep all your chargers and cables together when you leave the house.
Photo: TwelveSouth

Twelve South’s Bookbook Caddysack might sound like the babble of a sugared-up two-year-old, but it is in fact a super-handy gadget bag for travelers, or folks who spend a lot of time not at home or the office. It’s a little case that’s designed to hold all the chargers and other accessories you need for your various Apple devices.

Apple News publishers allowed to test Google DoubleClick ads

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Apple News
Apple News is about to get magazines too.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple is allowing select publishers to test Google DoubleClick ads on its News platform, according to a new report.

It’s said to be part of a plan to make the News app more lucrative for publishing partners, with many disappointed with its existing monetization opportunities.

Half app converts your JPEGs to space-saving HEIC files

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Use the Half app to convert JPG to HEIC, saving space without losing quality.
The Half app converts JPG to HEIC, saving space without losing quality.
Photo: Cult of Mac

The iPhones 7, 8 and X all capture images in the new HEIC format, which creates images much smaller than JPEGs, with the same quality.

All new images you snap, and movies you capture, will be saved in the new HIEC and HVEC (for movies) formats. But what if you want to convert your older images from JPEG to HEIC to save some space? That’s exactly what Half App does.

This wireless box turns your iPhone into a portable recording studio

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Spire studio
The Spire Studio looks super easy to use.
Photo: iZotope

If you’re a musician, there are plenty of ways to get recordings into your iPhone or iPad. Almost everyone uses either the Voice Notes or Music Memos to capture ideas, and there is a small universe of music apps for iOS, along with hardware to connect your instruments or high-quality microphones. But the Spire Studio hopes to make things easier by combining new hardware with an app, to make capturing audio super-simple.