Cult of Mac Magazine: Strength is the missing Activity Ring on Apple Watch, and more!

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In this week's Cult of Mac magazine: Why doesn’t the Activity app track strength training?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine: The Activity Rings on your Apple Watch don’t provide a complete picture of your fitness. There is one important ring missing: Strength. The Rock didn’t get ripped just by standing up once an hour. And both the Exercise and Move rings essentially measure the same thing: cardio.

As any fitness expert will tell you, an effective workout program should combine cardio with strength training. Here’s why strength is currently Apple Watch’s weakness, and how you can use third-party apps to make sure it isn’t yours as well.

You’ll find that story and more in this issue. Get your free subscription to Cult of Mac Magazine from iTunes. Or read on for this week’s top stories.

Cult of Mac Magazine, Issue 244

strengthStrength is the missing Activity Ring
The Activity Rings on your Apple Watch don’t provide a complete picture of your fitness. There is one important ring missing: Strength. And both the Exercise and Move rings essentially measure the same thing: cardio. As any fitness expert will tell you, an effective workout program should combine cardio with strength training. Here’s why strength is currently Apple Watch’s weakness, and how you can use third-party apps to make sure it isn’t yours as well.

macWhy the iMac needs a total redesign
With the iMac not having had a substantial redesign since 2012, Apple’s all-in-one desktop is getting a bit dated. It’s time for Apple to give it an overhaul with a new iMac design that would get the world excited about Macs again. And, prove Apple remains committed to innovative computing.

iphoneiPhone SE 2 renders reveal glass back
New renders of the upcoming iPhone SE 2, which depict its gorgeous glass back, have been revealed. Olixar is already producing accessories for the device based on information it has gleaned from sources in China. Its new screen protector indicates the iPhone SE 2 will be a big surprise. It will have an edge-to-edge display just like iPhone X.

iPhone X Product Red WallpaperiPhone X Plus will have a 6.5″ OLED display
The larger iPhone X Plus will be roughly the same size as the current 5.5-inch iPhone 8 Plus, a new report claims. Its greatly reduced bezel will give it a screen size of 6.5 inches, making it by far Apple’s largest-ever iPhone display. By comparison, the current iPhone X measures 5.8 inches on the diagonal.

robotsHow to automatically troll telemarketers
There were 3.4 billion robocalls in April this year, and the chances are it feels like you got roughly half of those to your own phone. These calls aren’t just telemarketing anymore, either. Just like email spam, scams pervade these already-annoying automated calls. One way around this is to unplug your landline phone, and to ignore all phone calls to your iPhone (go to Settings > Notifications > Phone and switch off Allow Notifications).

timeUse Time Machine without AirPort or Time Capsule
Did you ever snap a photo of a magazine page, or capture a screenshot of text, and wish you could just copy and paste it like any normal text? Maybe it’s a photo of a recipe from a paper book, and you’d like to be able to search for it in future? The good news is that you can easily extract the text from a photo or screenshot, right there on your iPhone.

FFFButton-stud Apple Watch band will fit any wrist
Form Function Form takes customization to new levels in the design of its one-of-a-kind Button-Stud Apple Watch Band. This ingenious leather strap has 21 different size options! The company provides free size adjustments for the entirety of your life. We’ve added seven new leather colors to the Watch Store lineup!

astroAstro makes managing email easy
Email is a necessary evil. Whether it’s personal communications, work-related updates or the latest sale at your favorite store, email is something we deal with nearly every day. After trying dozens of email apps over the past eight years, Astro is the best email app I’ve come across, and the first that I both recommend and enjoy using.

xFloating solar lantern will charge your iPhone
Whether you’re camping, waiting out a power outage, or fixing your car on the side of the road at night, having a ready supply of light is handy indeed. Maybe the coolest lamp out there is the LuminAid PackLite.

Clever case makes carrying Apple Watch easy
Traveling with Apple Watch is a fairly simple affair: strap on your watch and go. Traveling with all the extra accessories, however, is a serious pain in the butt. There’s that 6-foot charging cable, for one, which always manages to get tangled up in my bag. Twelve South has an answer to this conundrum, and it’s called TimePorter. Now available for purchase from our Watch Store.

imageThis mini projector doesn’t need an outlet
The CINEMOOD Portable Movie Projector is a stand-alone mini projector that you can use pretty much anywhere. At just 3 inches wide, it projects images up to 12 feet across. It’s self-contained, too, so you don’t need to plug it into anything. No wonder it raised more than $170,000 on Indiegogo.

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