David Snow - page 50

Need a portable charger to juice up your iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch pretty much anywhere? Enter our new giveaway! Through January 31, Cult of Mac and Kuxiu offer users worldwide the chance to win a sleek Kuxiu X55 3-in-1 Foldable Magnetic Wireless Charger and Stand.

The little three-way charging stand, which folds up small enough to slip into a pocket, normally retails for $79.99. It and other products are on sale now for Valentine’s Day, but wouldn’t you rather just win one? Enter the giveaway below. X55 stands will go to three lucky winners worldwide.

If you don’t want to go “nearly nude” with your iPhone 15, check out Laut’s supremely stylish and highly protective cases for the handsets.

You can shop all 14 products in the Laut collection, including 11 cases, two screen protectors and one lens protector for iPhone 15, in the Cult of Mac Store. See some highlights below.

Apple’s popular 15-inch M2 MacBook Air once again hit its lowest-ever price, sliding down to $999 at Best Buy on Monday for the base model.

And while that’s for the entry-level configuration with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD, a few different configurations are $300 off, so you can add unified memory and/or storage space and still save a bundle.

One of the most popular, critically acclaimed and flat-out weird shows on Apple TV+ — the darkly comedic workplace thriller Severance — has resumed production on season two after pausing for the recent writers strike.

Apple posted on X (formerly Twitter) about it Monday. Take a look below.

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Major League Soccer’s 29th season kicks off February 21 on MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app, but fans can subscribe to the service starting Monday, Apple said.

International superstar Lionel Messi joined Inter Miami CF late last season, so 2024 will see his first full season with the club, and fans can also check out a variety of exclusive content.

With all the computer setups out there with two, three and even five displays, sometimes you’ll see them stacked. But a dual-Studio Display setup that stacks one on top of the other is a rarity.

Today’s Mac Studio user, who is also an avid PlayStation 5 and Ninendo Switch gamer, said the stacked displays work well and don’t cause any neck pain from looking up all the time.

Believe it or not, a video game you know and love could turn into a fulfilling, lifelong career. And we’re not just talking about esports, where pro gamers compete for cash and prestige. For instance, driving simulator Gran Turismo could set you up for success on a real racetrack. Or factory simulator Satisfactory could prepare you for a role in project management.

If you’re the proud owner of an iPad, you should get yourself a stylus that will help you write and draw well on the tablet. But an Apple Pencil 2 will set you back $129 (if you don’t find a good sale). So how about something just about as good for less than half the price? Enter SwitchEasy’s EasyPencil Pro.

Check out the SwitchEasy Sale in the Cult of Mac Store to get 20% off two versions of the stylus, plus extra tips for writing and drawing.

Shazam, Apple’s popular app that can name any song in seconds, added a cool new feature Thursday in version 17.3 — it now works even when you wear headphones.

And that’s true for music playing around you or within apps like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, Apple said.

Paired for stereo sound, two full-size HomePod smart speakers — the original or second generation — are a thing of auditory beauty. And they don’t just sound great, they look good, too. Yet we don’t see paired HomePods much in computer setups (HomePod minis yes, the big ones, no).

Today’s MacBook Pro setup takes full advantage of Apple audio, however, and the user couldn’t be happier. Well, except with Siri, that is. Check out their setup’s cheerful day version (above) and moody night version (below).

Apple eased up on longstanding App Store limitations on how iOS apps can deliver experiences to iPhone and iPad users, including streaming games and mini-programs, the company indicated Thursday. Developers like gaming companies can now submit a single app with the ability to stream all games in a catalog, rather than one app per game.

Accompanying these options will be new analytics reports for developers starting in March, plus new sign-in options they can include with apps.

Just as Apple overtook Samsung as the worldwide smartphone leader in 2023, iPhone also became China’s favorite smartphone during that timeframe, according to a new report Thursday from International Data Tracker (IDC).

Apple captured 17.3% of China’s smartphone market in 2023, up from 16.8% in 2022 — albeit in a shrinking marketplace where smartphone shipments declined 5% overall, but with signs of recovery showing up late in the year.

Juuk makes Vitero aluminum Apple Watch bands in Hong Kong, providing them to several high-end Swiss watch brands. But you can get one — or more than one — straight from the Cult of Mac Store.

The bands in the Juuk Vitero collection feature a strong sense of style, including several two-tone looks that are not for the timid.

After Killers of the Flower Moon attracted 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Apple and Paramount Pictures agreed to rerelease the historical crime drama in theaters starting Friday.

The film, directed by Martin Scorsese and written by him and Eric Roth, will see a limited run in 1,000+ locations worldwide, Apple said.

Ready to bag an Apple Watch with a working blood-oxygen sensor/app? While you can often find good deals on Amazon, the company’s bargain site, Woot, often does it one better. A good example would be Woot’s current deal on refurbished Apple Watch Series 8. You can get the GPS-only model for 34% off, at $264.99 — and it even comes with a one-year Apple warranty.

Amazon’s deals on that model fall a little short of Woot’s mark, but the parent site does offer one incredible deal — a GPS and cellular Apple Watch 8 at 46% off.

See how five Amazon and Woot deals on Apple Watch 8 compare below.

For the second time in as many weeks we’ve come across someone ditching a nice external display and keeping just one — and this time it’s to add a second powerful MacBook Pro used as both a computer and a secondary display. In fact, now it’s triple-display setup, but two of them are laptops on stands.

Right now you can get great deals on small-but-fierce M2 and M2 Pro Mac mini desktop computers at Amazon, thanks to a combination of price reductions and product-page coupons.

That means you can get between $80 and $123 off different versions of the machine, offering you a range of affordable prices and capabilities to choose from.

If you only want one charger for your smaller gadgets, Alogic’s new Matrix Ultimate is nearly ideal. You can use the 3-in-1 charger for iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch at home or easily take it with you on trips.

That’s because the solidly built folding portable charger has a removable power bank and Apple Watch charging puck, plus a very nice felt carrying case. And it comes with a power adapter and USB-C cable. It’s not cheap, but it’s quite useful.

After a disastrous mission, an astronaut returns to Earth to find parts of her life missing, and it appears a horrifying conspiracy may be to blame, according to the trailer Apple TV+ dropped Monday for the upcoming eight-part space-thriller series Constellation.

The streamer describes the series, which stars Noomi Rapace and Jonathan Banks, as an “action-packed space adventure,” but the trailer feels more like horror. Good thing Apple also calls it a “conspiracy-based psychological thriller.” It premieres February 21.

Artists have every reason to fear artificial intelligence (AI) models that might train on their artwork online without permission, essentially imitating it and potentially diluting its value.

A new free app called Nightshade — yeah, after the poisonous plant — is here to mess with AI models to deter trainers from doing that.

If you have a powerful custom desktop PC, why would you switch to a MacBook Pro? We’ve seen plenty of setups that opt to include both, but today’s setup made the swap and its user feels zero regrets.

The Mac laptop is just that powerful, and the option for mobile use proved irresistible.

Isn’t it great when someone on social media humbly displays a well put-together and complete computer setup that makes yours look like random debris? Well, at least it’s a good learning opportunity. And today’s MacBook Pro setup is an exceptional example, as it doesn’t look like “all that” — even though it is.

At a glance you might not guess that it packs about two dozen components, and the user is happy to explain how he uses most of them.

Apple Watch is a serious tool, but that doesn’t mean all its accessories need to be straight-faced. Elago excels at making lighthearted and charming retro-style accessories for Apple products, and its W9 Stand for Apple Watch is no different. It makes your wearable look like an old-school Mac.

Compatible with all Apple Watch series, from Ultra down through the smaller sizes, the W9 stand is available now in the Cult of Mac Store.

Highly respected British audio brand KEF released an “LT” version of its stellar, versatile AirPlay-ready LSX II speaker line this week, keeping most key features but dropping the price by about $300 to $400.

That doesn’t make them budget speakers by any means, at $999, but nobody shops KEF for that.

Seagate unveiled the world’s highest-capacity hard drive Wednesday with its Exos Mosaic 3+ HDD platform, hitting the 30TB mark for the first time, the company said. That’s enough space to store a thousand Blu-ray movies.

The company said it used several new technologies to get there, and its road map shows the arrival of even bigger storage devices in the coming years. And while businesses will certainly go for these megadrives, they will also be available to many kinds of end users and require no special hardware to read.