Sometimes Siri isn’t around to help you manage your smart home. The new Elgato Eve Button puts your HomeKit-enabled devices and scenes at your fingertips when you don’t have your smartphone at the ready.
The new HomeKit controller also means guests or kids can easily turn on the lights, lock the doors or whatever else needs doing — all with a quick press on the Eve Button.
If you want a HomeKit-compatible electrical outlet, but don’t want an ugly wall wart jutting out of your conventional plug, you’re about to get a new option. The ConnectSense Smart In-Wall Outlet will work like other smart plugs. But it looks like the ordinary power outlets hardwired into your walls.
You’ve got your Apple Watch, you lucky devil. Now it’s time to tweak it to make it as personal as possible with these Apple Watch setup tips.
Although Apple walks you through many of the basic steps, there are plenty of choices to be made before you’ll be able to squeeze maximum utility and joy out of your sleek, stylish smartwatch.
Cult of Mac’s roundup shows you exactly how to make the most out of your new favorite gadget.
While many Apple Watch bands put fashion front and center, the Nomad Sport Strap embraces the wearable’s exercise potential. This wide, black silicone strap makes the Apple Watch look less like a smartwatch and more like a hard-core fitness tracker.
Want your smartphone of the future to look like the Ghost of iPhone Past? If so, this case is for you. It makes even Apple’s latest, greatest iPhone X look like the device that started this whole crazy smartphone thing.
Canadian rocker Neil Young, an outspoken promoter of high-definition audio, calls out Apple in his latest diatribe about declining standards in the streaming music biz.
While ripping Apple Music for distributing what he calls “low-quality audio,” he throws down the gauntlet and challenges Apple to make music great again.
If you use the new 10.5-inch iPad Pro, you know it’s got the power to replace a MacBook for some tasks (especially if you’re running iOS 11, which gives your iPad superpowers).
The Logitech Slim Combo case, with a clamshell design and a complete keyboard, makes your iPad Pro seem even more like a laptop than ever. It’s not all super-portable bliss, though. A couple of strange design choices make you painfully aware that the Slim Combo isn’t an Apple product.
Here’s one for the crazy cat ladies: The Stitched iPhone case works like a lint roller to remove hair, dust and other undesirable detritus from your clothes.
We’ve seen a lot of iPhone cases over the years, but never one like this!
When it comes to fashion, it’s hard to beat basic black. However, sometimes you want a little something extra — a design that adds subtle interest without going over the top. The Clessant Black Barenia Apple Watch band does the trick, thanks to fine off-white stitching that looks almost like racing stripes.
Upgrading to iPhone X means facing a learning curve. Since Apple’s futuristic phone forgoes the familiar home button, iPhone X owners must learn a bunch of gestures.
Apple wants to make the transition as smooth as possible, so the company just uploaded a video to ease the pain of any iPhone X owner shellshocked by all that bright, shiny newness.
Anybody who thinks Apple can’t innovate should look in awe at the fecal hurricane whipped up by the company’s unorthodox iPhone X marketing plan.
By giving popular YouTubers early access to the next-gen iPhone, and allowing them to “scoop” the old-school journalists traditionally granted such preferential treatment, Cupertino upended the typical review cycle.
Apple apparently bruised a few fragile egos in the process. Frankly, it’s hilarious watching the ensuing media meltdown.
You know that completely satisfied feeling you get when you first lay your hands on a truly luxurious product? Maybe you remember that special moment when you peeled off the plastic covering from a pristine Apple product. Or when you first slid behind the wheel of an outrageous European sports car (with the requisite leather interior).
Nobody necessarily needs that level of luxury. But sometimes you want to treat yourself (or a friend) to the very best. I totally got that lavish feeling when I first saw a Woolnut leather sleeve for MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.
Whether they are rebuilding vintage motorcycles or crafting Apple Watch straps, the folks at E3 Supply Co. do everything by hand. It’s not that they can’t afford fancy robots to get the job done — the small team of three prefers to do things this way.
Whether working from their shop in Brooklyn, New York, or from the mini leather workshop in the back of their customized 1977 Toyota Chinook, they do things the old-fashioned way. And now Cult of Mac is thrilled to offer E3 Supply’s handcrafted leather Apple Watch bands in our Watch Store.
SAN FRANCISCO — Ultimate Ears’ punchy portable speakers just got smart. The new Blast and Megablast speakers bring built-in support for Alexa, Amazon’s voice-operated smart assistant.
Bringing the always-listening, voice-operated helper to a battery-powered speaker proved “nontrivial,” said Benjamin Falk, principal software product manager at UE, during a demo of the new speakers.
The most impressive feature of Google’s new Pixel Buds might not be their audio quality. As demonstrated during the Pixel 2 event today, they work as a real-time translation tool when combined with one of Google’s new phones.
“With Pixel Buds, I can use real-time Google Translate to have a natural conversation in 40 languages,” Google hardware product manager Juston Payne said during the event. “We’re letting you connect with the world around you in a more natural way, by rethinking how a headphone should work, connecting it to cloud-based machine learning and giving you access with the touch of a finger.”
Google’s new Home Max smart speaker wants to hit Apple’s upcoming HomePod where it hurts: in the ears and in the brains.
Home Max promises high-end audio, thanks to “premium hardware” and Google’s perpetual strong suit — artificial intelligence.
Sports-centric wireless headphone maker Jaybird is ready to make a run at AirPods.
The company just fired the starting gun for Jaybird Run, a set of totally wireless earbuds aimed at runners and other sports fanatics. They’re bigger than AirPods, and differ in significant ways. But for runners and other athletes, they could offer keen competition for Cupertino’s wireless earbuds.
Tim Cook calls the iPhone X and its Face ID system the “future of the smartphone.” We call it the current face of funny on Twitter.
Here are some of the best Face ID jokes we’ve seen.
Today’s iPhone X event was the most-spoiled Apple event ever, but Tim Cook and Co. still managed to whip out a few awesome surprises for the faithful.
Here are the things we didn’t see coming or couldn’t guess, even after months of rumors and leaks.
This post has been updated to include the latest info from the massive iOS 11 golden master leak.
Apple looks leakier than the White House these days. The latest unauthorized dump of info about upcoming Apple products comes in the form of a leaked golden master version of iOS 11.
Obtained late Friday by tech publications, the prematurely released final version of Apple’s mobile operating system reveals details about everything from the upcoming iPhones’ model names to dazzling new iOS wallpapers and details about the next Apple Watch.
Spoiler alert: If you want any surprises at all during next Tuesday’s Apple event, stop reading now.
The rumored Apple Watch with LTE may not work for phone calls, according to new research from a reliable Apple analyst. Instead, Apple will focus on improving the user experience with the untethered wearable.
That’s the main takeaway from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. However, his Wednesday research note offers other predictions about the upcoming hardware update.
Sick of those annoying bars that follow you around certain websites, urging you to share a story on Facebook? A new iOS app called Unobstruct lets you banish those “dickbars” forever.
The creator of the $1 app says he hopes it sends a clear message to web designers: Nobody wants these weapons of messy distraction.
The iPhone 8 might ditch Touch ID for 3-D facial scanning that could prove faster, easier and more secure than the fingerprint reader currently used for logins and payments.
The new security system, if perfected in time for the upcoming iPhone 8, also could help Apple get around a possible bottleneck in the production process.
It’s hard to put into words the iPhone’s massive impact on society over the past decade. But we tried! In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, we’ve rounded up our best coverage (including stories from our collaboration with Wired UK) of the iPhone’s 10th anniversary.
We’ve got insider stories about the development of breakthrough iPhone features, ultra-rare iPhone prototypes and much more for your reading pleasure. Get your free subscription to Cult of Mac Magazine from iTunes. Or read on for this week’s top stories.
I could be the poster boy for Apple’s “iPad problem.”
That problem, in a nutshell, is this: Even long-in-the-tooth iPads several generations old continue to work just fine for many everyday tasks. That, in turn, slows the upgrade cycle. iPad sales drop, and pundits pile on to declare that Apple is doomed. Again.
I’m one of those cheapskates who couldn’t be bothered to shell out for a new iPad over the past few years but a freak accident — and the surprisingly convincing unveiling of the 10.5-inch iPad Pro at last week’s Worldwide Developers Conference — finally coaxed me out of iPad complacency.
I’m thrilled I finally wised up. The new 10.5-inch iPad Pro is a beast of a machine that’s so fast, smooth and responsive that it makes me feel like I’m in a sci-fi movie interacting with a killer device that hasn’t been invented yet. It feels like the future!