8 optimistic takeaways from Apple’s slumptastic earnings call

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Is it time for Apple to get spiritual?
Is it time for Apple to get spiritual?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac (original image: Wired)

With quarterly revenue declining for the first time in more than a decade, Apple execs Tim Cook and Luca Maestri put on their game faces during today’s Apple earnings call to tell us why things aren’t really all that bad in Cupertino.

The sad truth is that slumping iPhone sales, which joined the iPad and Mac lineups in the down column, will likely take a toll on Apple’s image — and on its stock price.

Still, there were plenty of other intriguing and optimism-inspiring things we heard during Apple’s Q2 2016 earnings call. Here are the most important takeaways from this historic Apple moment.

Tweak this OS X setting to make games run better

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Boost your gaming performance with this simple trick.
Boost your gaming performance with this simple trick.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac (original photo: Alejandro Escamilla/Unsplash CC)

When you’re running a video game on your Retina Mac, the highest resolution can bog things down onscreen, making it tough to play smoothly.

Typically, we suggest trying to use your game’s options panel to reduce the fancy graphics to get smoother performance, like increased frame rate and better draw rates.

If that doesn’t appeal, or your game doesn’t include the option, there’s another way to constrain the resolution and make games run more smoothly on a Retina Mac.

8 killer Instagram tips and tricks

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InstagramCloseiPhone
Become an Insta-master with these killer Instagram tips and tricks.
Photo: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

Make the most of your Instagram feed with these eight killer Instagram tips and tricks that will make you an Insta-master.

Learn how to put together video in the Instagram app itself, keep stalkers off your Instagram feed, find amazing photos near your current location, and much more.

New MacBooks, Prince’s legacy, Apple Watch tips and more

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New MacBooks have us a bit underwhelmed.
New MacBooks have us a bit underwhelmed.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Faster processors, speedier memory, longer battery life and a rose gold finish — what more do we need from a new MacBook? We love Apple gear, but it’s possible we’re getting addicted to the “wow” factor.

Add that to Prince’s untimely death, and the dearth of streaming options for listening to his music, and we’ve got a lot to talk about. It’s all in this week’s free Cult of Mac Magazine, along with reviews of Amazon’s new Echo smart speakers and 12 awesome Apple Watch tricks that prove Cupertino’s wearable doesn’t need a “killer app.”

Here are this week’s top stories.

Floating speaker rises above its gimmick with great sound [Reviews]

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The floating speaker part is fun, but it's the killer sound that makes it worth every penny.
The floating speaker part is fun, but it's the killer sound that makes it worth every penny.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Best List: Mars Bluetooth floating speaker by Crazybaby

The Mars Bluetooth speaker has a fairly reliable gimmick: the top part — which looks like a little UFO from an old sci-fi flick — floats above the bottom cylinder. It’s a cool visual trick managed by some fairly strong magnets, but it’s just that: a fun gimmick.

What’s surprising, though, is just how great this speaker sounds. It fills my house with deep bass thanks to the subwoofer abilities of that lower section of the speaker, and the UFO attachment flies proud while reproducing the rest of the sonic spectrum with highs and mids that don’t get lost in the bass response, but are also not too brittle.

Turn this floating speaker up and you’ve got a serious powerhouse Bluetooth speaker that just cries out to be admired by everyone at the party.

13 awesome Apple Watch tricks that prove it doesn’t need a ‘killer app’

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Apple Watch is a killer device, even without a
Apple Watch is a killer device, even without a "killer app."
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

The Apple Watch doesn’t need to prove itself to you. And contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t need a “killer app” to make it indispensable.

In fact, the Apple Watch is an awesome device all on its own, with a ton of tricks up its sleeve, like controlling your big screen TV and finding your iPhone, even in the dark.

Here are 13 killer things you can do with an Apple Watch that prove it’s worthy of a place on your wrist.

Prince reigns on iTunes just hours after his passing

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Prince
There's a lot of singing along with Prince going on today.
Photo: Jimi Hughes/Wikipedia CC

Just hours after the great musician’s passing, Prince reigns supreme on the top albums, songs and music videos on iTunes.

You may not be able to stream his incredible volume of hits on Apple Music or Spotify, but it seems as if his fans don’t care, with iTunes purchases rocking Prince’s tunes to the top of the charts.

Prince is dead, but don’t bother searching Apple Music for his tunes

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Prince is dead, but his music lives on. Just not on Apple Music.
Prince is dead, but his music lives on. Just not on Apple Music.
Photo: Scott Penner/Flickr CC

As news of Prince’s unexpected death spread today, shocked fans hoping to stream his tunes on Apple Music came up empty.

In the streaming era, the incredibly prolific musician — best known for his string of hits and Grammy Awards in the 1980s — is practically a ghost.

iPad port of magical miniatures game should be the next big thing [Reviews]

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Bring all the fun of an analog board game to your iPad.
Bring all the fun of an analog board game to your iPad.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

If I ran the world, Krosmaster Arena, a fabulously fun and deep strategy game that started out as a board game with delightfully sculpted miniature figures, would be topping the charts right alongside stuff like Clash Royale or Angry Birds.

Of course, I don’t, but I’m hoping each one of you reading this tries it out on your iPad so you can experience the joy of playing it digitally.

Apple postpones Q2 earnings report

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Apple investors will have to wait a day to hear the latest financials from the mother ship.
Apple investors will have to wait a day to hear the latest financials from the mother ship.
Photo: Apple

Apple has delayed its annual Q2 financial report by one day to April 26, 2016.

Apple’s investor site shared the news Wednesday, saying the postponement is out of respect for Bill “The Coach” Campbell, one of Steve Job’s favorite tech advisors and longtime Apple board member, who passed away earlier this week.

How to use Apple Watch to find your iPhone (even in the dark)

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Use your Apple Watch to find your iPhone, regardless of ambient illumination.
Use your Apple Watch to find your iPhone, regardless of ambient illumination.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

I’m willing to bet that you’ve misplaced your iPhone around the house before. I know I have; almost once a week I’m wondering where I set down that magical device. Is it in the bedroom? The kitchen? The (gasp) bathroom?

If you’ve got an Apple Watch, though, you can use its ping feature to find your iPhone with an audible sound, and even a flashing LED if you need it.

Here’s how.

How to get Apple Maps on your Apple TV (sort of)

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Plan your next trip from your couch.
Plan your next trip from your couch.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Have you ever tried to plan a trip with your posse while gathered around your iPhone? It’s kind of a mess. The tiny screen doesn’t really lend itself to larger viewings. Even an iPad is much smaller than one of those big-old paper maps we used to use to group plan.

If you want to use a big screen to find your way to a road trip this summer, perhaps TV Maps by Arno Appenzeller will do the trick, letting you plan a trip right on your giant screen TV.

This third-party Apple TV app will let you search a destination, get directions, and then send everything to the companion app on your iPhone, which will then launch Apple’s Map app to get you where you need to be.

Here’s how.

Clash of Clans maker warns gamers to play fair — or else

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Hit mobile game developer Supercell has a few words of warning for cheaters.
Hit mobile game developer Supercell has a few words of warning for cheaters.
Photo: Supercell

Quit cheating, or face the consequences, says top mobile developer Supercell, the team behind insanely popular games Clash of Clans and Clash Royale.

With the incredible popularity of these two top iOS mobile games, it’s no wonder that Supercell has had to crack down on cheaters.

Why Jony Ive has a chauffeur, speed up your Mac, get ripped with Apple Watch

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Why does Jony Ive ride around in a Bentley? Cult of Mac will tell you.
Why does Jony Ive ride around in a Bentley? Cult of Mac will tell you.
Cover Design: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Why does Jony Ive, Apple’s chief designer, ride around in a chauffeured Bentley? It’s not like he doesn’t enjoy driving. It’s not because he’s incredibly wealthy, either.

Our very own Leander Kahney thinks he’s got Ive’s ride along motivation down, and you can read all about it in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, along with great stories covering 8 ways to speed up your Mac, getting ripped with your Apple Watch, why a veteran designer’s departure from Apple matters, and how to use your own Bluetooth headphones with Apple TV for a much more private experience.

All that and much more in another awesome issue of Cult of Mac Magazine, available now for download.

Here are the week’s top stories.

Use free Snapseed on iPad to tune your photos to best effect

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Snapseed lets you tune up your photos with ease.
Snapseed lets you tune up your photos with ease.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Snapseed is a free image editing app from Google that has some fantastic editing tools to make any photo even better.

The killer feature here is the set of Tune Image tools that let you take a good photo and turn it into a great photo, right on your iPad, with very little effort.

Here’s a quick intro to these fantastic tools and how to make them tune your photos to best effect.

Apple looks to paid search to ‘improve’ discoverability on App Store

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App Store
Apple needs to help consumers find quality apps, and developers to sell them.
Photo: Parampreet Chanana/Pixabay

Apple seems to be looking to improve the way people find apps in the App Store. According to unnamed sources, paid search is one way Apple might both improve discoverability as well as make some money off the feature, like Google does on its own Google Play store.

Paid search would let developers pay Apple to more prominently display their apps in the App Store.

Instagram gets personal with ‘Videos You Might Like’

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Find more of what you like in new Instagram video section.
Find more of what you like in new Instagram video section.
Photo: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

Instagram gets personal in hopes of helping you find interesting shared videos much more easily with a new feature in the Explore area of its popular photo sharing service.

Called “Videos You Might Like,” the new personalized channel can be found in the Explore grid within the mobile app. Now you can spend less time slogging through the junk and get right to the good stuff.

Use Pixelmator to add more of a good thing to your photos

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You can make a dreamy landscape like this in no time at all with Pixelmator.
You can make a dreamy landscape like this in no time at all with Pixelmator.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Imagine a photo of a young child, blowing bubbles into a gentle breeze. Wouldn’t it be an even better photo if there were more than one bubble in it? Because man, that kid is cute, but she sure can’t blow bubbles very well.

With Pixelmator, a fantastic photo editor on iOS and Mac, you can do just that with the clone tool.

Using it, though, as in any complex photo editing program, can be a little unintuitive. Here’s how to add more of a good thing to your photos with Pixelmator on the iPad.

How to never lose your car again with Tile

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Tile in the car is all sorts of useful.
Tile in the car is all sorts of useful.
Photo: Tile

I lose my car fairly regularly. Whenever I park in a lot larger than my driveway, I never seem to quite remember where I parked. It’s especially true in bigger venues that I haven’t visited before.

The folks over at Tile think they have a solution to find my parked car, though.

Here’s how to make sure you or I never lose our car again.

How to make a jaw-dropping collage on your iPad with Pixlr

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Make your own fun collage with Pixlr right on your iPad.
Make your own fun collage with Pixlr right on your iPad.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Don’t let the backlash against scrapbooking get you down — photo collages are fun. You can go to the store and buy a multi-framed monstrosity to put your hardcopy photos in and mount it on your wall, or you can use an app on your Mac or iPad to take some of the work out of it.

If you’re looking to make your own collage on your iPad, Pixlr is a fantastic choice, as it makes putting various photos together and adding fun effects incredibly simple and fun.

Here’s how.

Don’t wake the baby! Use Bluetooth headphones with Apple TV

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Use Bluetooth headphones to watch Apple TV quietly.
Use Bluetooth headphones to watch Apple TV quietly.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

If you’re anything like me, you knew that the new 4th-generation Apple TV supported Bluetooth devices like the Siri Remote, game controllers, and even keyboards, but you didn’t twig to the fact that it might also let you use Bluetooth headphones, too.

In point of fact, though, it does support them, letting you watch Netflix or game on your Apple TV without the sound of your activities waking the baby or a sleeping partner. How great is that?

Here’s how to set it up.

Your iPhone has traveled the distance of the moon and back to reach you

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That iPhone in your pocket is much more well-traveled than you are.
That iPhone in your pocket is much more well-traveled than you are.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The various parts in your iPhone have traveled a great distance to reach your pocket — combined, they’ve gone almost as far as to the moon and back.

That fancy Touch ID button on the front of your iPhone 6s, for example, inhabits a 12,000-mile footprint alone, what with the artificial sapphire crystal (originating in Changsha, China) that’s bonded to a metal ring (transported 550 miles from Jiangsu province) and then shipped to a semiconductor plant in Kaohsiung, Taiwan (another 1,000 miles).

The miles continue to rack up via parts sourced in Europe and shipped to Japan, then finally brought back to Foxconn in China. And that’s just a single, small, unsexy part of the iPhone.

iPhone SE and iPad Pro reviews, iPhone storage tips and more

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All the great new gear is here!
All the great new gear is here!
Cover Design: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The new iPhone SE is small but powerful and the new 9.7-inch iPad Pro is as satisfying a tablet as ever.

These two great new Apple products get their moment in the spotlight as we bring you iPhone SE and iPad Pro reviews in this week’s digital magazine.

Plus, we’ve got a ton of how-tos like finding hidden Facebook messages and freeing up precious iPhone space, more hardware reviews, and a bunch of news about our favorite company.

Head on down to see this week’s top stories, and be sure to check out your own copy of Cult of Mac Magazine this week.

Turn your iPad into a control center for your Mac with Quadro

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Control your Mac (or PC) from your iOS device with this slick new system.
Control your Mac (or PC) from your iOS device with this slick new system.
Photo: Quadro

I just used my iPad to control my MacBook Pro. I watched a video on YouTube, did some image manipulation with Lightroom and edited an essay in Microsoft Word, all without touching my laptop.

Sounds like something you’d expect with a screen sharing app, but Quadro makes it even simpler with a new iOS app that will let you connect to and control your Mac or PC with a grid of commands that look like something out of Star Trek.

Check out the video below to see how it works.

Ample charge and storage make iPhone battery case a clear winner [Reviews]

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This great battery case has power, style and extra storage.
This great battery case has power, style and extra storage.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Best List: Kuner iPhone battery case by KUKE

Even Apple admits that its powerful iPhones need a little extra battery boost from time to time. But if you’ve taken a look at the $99 devices, you might not be super convinced they’re worth the price, or even all that attractive.

The Kuner iPhone battery case really kicks the Smart Battery case’s butt: it’s thinner, prettier to look at, and even gives you extra storage space for videos, music and documents. Take that, Apple Smart Battery case.