Trying to get your canine BFF to look at your iPhone to capture the loving bond between the two of you is difficult, if not downright impossible.
Luckily, this new attachment for your iPhone or other smartphone, called the Pooch Selfie (because of course it is), is going to the dogs.
We received a message today on our Cult of Mac Facebook page asking about calls showing up on an iPad when the call originated on an iPhone.
There are a couple of different places to turn this feature off so you’re not juggling all your iPads and MacBooks when you make or receive phone calls.
It’s true: Power strips are the least-sexy of gadgets to talk about. This Satechi Aluminum Power Strip with USB, however, is as gorgeous as it gets in this admittedly prosaic product category.
In a landmark decision Tuesday, the European Court of Justice ruled that European Union regulators can override the Safe Harbor agreement, a 15-year-old accord that has — until now — allowed Apple, Google, Facebook, and about 4,500 other U.S. companies to transfer data from European users to the U.S.
The court believes that the current agreement violates European citizens’ right to privacy by exposing their private data to the U.S. government through the American companies’ cooperation with U.S. intelligence agencies.
Let’s be honest: there are a handful of sites that you visit a lot, open in tabs in Safari.
If you want to keep these tabs ready to go in every Safari window you open, even after you’ve quit Safari and re-launched it, you can use El Capitan’s new tab pinning feature to keep pages “open, up to date, and easily accessible.”
The sites you pin will stay active in the background, pinned to the left side of your tab bar. Here’s how to create (and get rid of) pinned tabs in Safari.
I wonder how many actual hours I’ve wasted sitting on hold, navigating audio phone menus and arguing with cable company representatives over why I want to cancel my service. I’m betting it’s a lot, and I’m betting that you have been victim to this ridiculous gate-keeping system, too.
AirPaper, a new internet service out of the San Francisco Bay Area, will cancel your Comcast cable subscription — one of the hardest plans to cancel — for just five bucks.
Sometimes you need to use your entire screen at once, like when you’re working on a serious photo-retouching project or need more screen real estate for an epic GarageBand session and you don’t want to maximize the app you’re using.
If you’ve ever wanted to regain a little bit of space on your Mac’s screen, the time is right to make sure you’re running the latest version of OS X, El Capitan. It will let you hide the menu bar up top to give you more space to work with.
Here’s how to have your menu bar hide itself when you’re not using it.
The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus came out last week, and it’s been a fun ride getting to know what makes these sexy beasts tick.
Check out this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine for all the tips, tricks, reviews, news, and just plain great content with yet another digital issue of your favorite magazine.
Download the brand new Cult of Mac Magazine app from iTunes right now, and you’ll get all this, and more, absolutely free.
Ever wish you could watch all those great Key & Peele or Inside Amy Schumer clips from YouTube on the big television in the living room?
Sometimes the small screen on your MacBook just isn’t large enough to contain all that hilarity. It’s times like these that you’ll want to send video to that massive HDTV, and El Capitan makes it even easier with a new AirPlay feature.
Here’s how to beam your favorite clips to your favorite screen.
Every now and then, I need to FaceTime with someone. Holding my iPhone still is kind of a challenge when I’m chatting, plus I can’t gesticulate wildly when I’m keeping the iPhone upright with my hands. The folks at Kanex have me covered thanks to this slickly designed aluminum dock for iPhone 6 or 6 Plus (and I’m pretty sure it will work with the newer “s” models, as well).
There’s never been a more confusing time to buy an iPhone.
If you’re looking for the best deal on a new iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus, you have tons of options. From Apple to AT&T, Verizon to T-Mobile, carriers and retailers have expanded their options for buying a new iPhone. That, plus an upheaval in traditional cellphone pricing and plans led by T-Mobile, has us all rather confused.
Where can you find a comparison of all the major US options? Right here, of course. We spent the time with our spreadsheets and the websites of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Apple, T-Mobile, Cricket Wireless, Boost Mobile, and (yes) Consumer Cellular to help you cut through the confusion and find the best iPhone purchase plan for you.
This is a comparison of buying your iPhone 6s, not the coverage or monthly cost of phone calls, text or data on any specific carriers, though that will factor in to your choice, of course.
Apple has just signed a deal to take on a new innovative office building in Sunnyvale, a northern California community that the Cupertino-based company has been keen on inhabiting for a while now.
The agreement is with Landbank Investment LLC’s planned Central & Wolfe campus, a curvy building that’s planned to look out of this world when its 777,000-square-feet of office space on an 18-acre site is completed. It should, if Apple uses the current plan as is, also include 90,000 square-feet of rooftop garden spaces and over two miles of walking and bike paths on the ground level.
If you’ve been having trouble with Apple’s Game Center after upgrading to iOS 9, you’re not alone.
Read Apple’s discussion forums and you’ll find 14 pages of comments from disgruntled gamers complaining about — and trying to solve — this rather massive issue.
iOS 9’s Wi-Fi Assist feature helps when you’re connected to a slow Wi-Fi connection by kicking in your cellular data network to help things seem a bit snappier.
The problem is that it can also rack up some data charges if you end up going over your data cap. If you’ve got a limited data plan with your wireless carrier, you’ll want to find this iOS 9 setting, which is on by default, and kind of buried in the Settings.
We’re excited! This week marks the launch of our brand-new Cult of Mac Magazine app, version 2.0!
We’ve redesigned it to make it even easier to get all of the best Cult of Mac content in a version that’s optimized for touchscreen displays. Just zoom in with your finger and thumb to pull up a story. When you get to the end, it will automatically bring up the next one.
We’ve created a special issue for you this week, as well, as we bring you our iPhone 6s Super Guide, chock-full of handy info on setting up that brand new shiny iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, along with a ton of great tips on using Apple’s latest iOS 9 like a crazy bossman.
Download the brand new Cult of Mac Magazine app from iTunes right now, and you’ll get all this, and more, absolutely free.
Here’s the rundown of our top stories this week:
You don’t have to press so hard on your expensive new iPhone 6s or 6s Plus to get the groundbreaking 3D Touch working easily.
We’ve all been looking forward to this killer UI upgrade, but some users say they’re worried about breaking their new iPhone screens because they’re pushing so hard to get the “pop” level of 3D Touch.
Here’s how to make this a little easier to use.
Facebook Messenger keeps buzzing at me while I’m in the app itself. It’s annoying.
It seems like I’m getting messaged more and more via Facebook Messenger these days as my buddies and family take to the mobile messaging platform to connect in real time.
But the incessant buzzing, when I’m right there staring at the conversation, has got to stop. Here’s how I did it.
iOS 9 was set to have a new feature that would let developers create smaller apps targeted to specific iPhone devices. Called App Slicing, it would allow developers to target specific devices with smaller versions of their apps, rather than just sending out bloated Universal apps that need all the assets for all device types, including iPads.
App Slicing has been delayed until an unspecified time in a “future software update,” according to Apple’s developer website.
Every day, it’s the same thing. Wake up to my iPhone blaring OK Go’s “I Won’t Let You Down” at me, then fumble the Tap to Snooze function (which never seems to work for me in the morning). It’s not as simple as an alarm clock, and the distraction of having your iPhone with you when you go to sleep at night is something I think we all can do without.
Apple Watch now has the answer, in the form of a new watchOS 2 feature, Nightstand mode.
Here’s how to use it to help you get your sorry butt out of bed in the morning.
Dave Justus is no stranger to writing video games, having written both Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us adventure game for Mac, PC and console, as well as the original Lifeline, a text-based story game that brought the epic struggles of an astronaut named Taylor to our wrists.
With the help of 3 Minute Games’ lead game designer Mars Jokela, Justus has created another massive adventure that still fits inside your Apple Watch. This time, however, you’ll have a conversation with Arika, a young woman with magical powers who needs your help to escape mortal danger.
Lifeline 2: Bloodline is a funny, moving, and above all human story that really plays to the strengths of the Apple Watch; it’s like having a text conversation (with a cheeky magician) from your wrist.
“We’ve built Lifeline 2 to be a bigger and richer experience,” says Jokela via email, “[but] the story is still focused on a likable, relatable character who desperately needs your help.”
If there’s one thing we could all benefit from, it’s more time in the day. Unfortunately, Time Travel on the new Apple Watch operating system, watchOS 2, won’t actually let you travel back in time to get a few extra hours of Netflix in, no matter which edition you purchased.
However, watchOS 2 does now include a new feature called Time Travel, which lets you see the past and future right on your wrist. You can check what the weather will be a few hours from now for your drive home, see if you’ve got any appointments later in the day, or just figure out what time the sun set yesterday to prove you were home before it got dark.
Either way, here’s how to Time Travel on your Apple Watch running watchOS 2.
I was so excited to have a color screen on my Apple Watch when I picked the Sport up this past April.
When I went through all the watch faces, though, I was rather underwhelmed; really, you have a bright, high-resolution monitor on your wrist and all you can do is put a moving moth or Mickey Mouse on it? Ugh.
Luckily, with watchOS 2, Apple’s made things just a little brighter and a little more animated. Here’s how to get these snappy new watch faces on your own Apple Watch.
Apple has now been affected by the worst security snafu in iOS history when it found that hundreds of apps, mostly in the Chinese App Store, have malicious code in them, called “XcodeGhost.”
Apple’s pulled the affected apps from the App Store to contain the security breach, but you’ll still need to take a few more steps to make sure your iOS devices aren’t affected. Here’s what you need to do.
I can’t stand the new lowercase keyboard in iOS 9. It’s a fairly useless change to begin with, as it doesn’t make anything easier.
Sure, it shows whether you’ve pressed the Shift key or not, but the new Shift key is also improved, making the lower-case option aesthetic rather than functional.
So, if you’re like me, here’s how to put that keyboard back to the way it “should” be.
We’re excited about all the cool new “whiz-bang” features in iOS 9 as well as the hundreds of tiny little improvements that will make your iPhone and iPad much better to use.
This week, we’re sharing that joy with you as we take a deep dive into iOS 9’s killer new features, how to upgrade the right way, an abundance of tiny tricks you need to know, and some of the best apps already rocking iOS 9.
Take a look at Cult of Mac Magazine to fill your head with all this great content.