Apple introduced audio sharing to Beats Studio Pro over-ear headphones in a firmware update Tuesday, a feature already known to AirPods Max and AirPods users. So once your Beats Studio Pro update over the air to firmware version 2C301, up from version 2B68 installed at launch, you can easily share what you listen to with family and friends via a connected iPhone or iPad.
A supposedly leaked Apple invite for the iPhone 16 event looks like a well-executed hoax. The date, the event title and even the fake invite’s color palette seemed to confirm previous leaks about Apple’s upcoming iPhone lineup. However, a video editor who goes by Lore claims he created the invite as a prank.
“Fun fact: i made the ‘leaked’ Apple Event invite in less than 10 minutes using figma and an Ai generated texture and i sent it to the leaker just because i was bored,” Lore wrote Tuesday on X.
In a message to Cult of Mac, Lore confirmed that he created the bogus invite mainly because he was “sick and had nothing to do.” Read Cult of Mac’s interview with the 14-year-old Italian video editor who fooled the internet with his fake iPhone 16 invite.
xMEMS Labs, creators of all-silicon micro speakers for earbuds and headphones, plan to roll out the xMEMS XMC-2400 µCooling chip, the company said Tuesday. It noted the 1mm xMEMS fan on a chip is the first all-silicon, active micro-cooling fan for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.
“Our revolutionary µCooling ‘fan-on-a-chip’ design comes at a critical time in mobile computing,” said Joseph Jiang, xMEMS CEO and co-founder. “Thermal management in ultra-mobile devices, which are beginning to run even more processor-intensive AI applications, is a massive challenge for manufacturers and consumers. Until XMC-2400, there’s been no active-cooling solution because the devices are so small and thin.”
The company declined to comment on whether it’s in talks with Apple as a client or partner with the new innovation. See our Q&A with xMEMS Labs below.
The dual-camera system in the two basic iPhone models is an unnecessary complication. The iPhone’s secondary Ultra Wide camera simply doesn’t get used enough to justify building it into a handset.
Apple should focus entirely on the primary camera — the only one most people ever use. The iPhone’s Ultra Wide camera just adds unnecessary bulk and expense.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Who cranked up production in the Apple rumor mill? We talk through the latest ones on this week’s show, and some of them sound pretty wild. Fresh details about the iPhone 16 Pro’s new camera button make it sound very cool. A rumored bigger iMac sounds very exciting. And an Apple skunkworks project — a $1,000-plus device that puts an iPad on a rotating robotic arm — sounds absolutely bizarre.
Also on The CultCast:
Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
Among the casing color options for the two iPhone 16 Pro models will supposedly be bronze titanium. The first image apparently showing this colorway leaked Friday.
The picture reveals the other three upcoming color options, too.
The iPhone 15 Pro’s customizable Action button lets you pick from several presets, including Accessibility — which lets you choose from 25 different accessibility features that you can toggle on or off. These features aren’t limited to the iPhone 15 Pro’s Action button, either. On any older iPhone, you can simply triple-click the side button to access those same 25 accessibility features.
Here are all 25 of the accessibility features you can assign to a button on your iPhone — and what they do.
The introduction of NFC and Secure Element (SE) APIs in iOS 18.1 unlocks new monetization opportunities for iOS app developers, Apple said Wednesday — though fees apply. But on the plus side, secure in-app near-field communication (NFC) transactions in iOS 18.1 will let devs integrate secure, contactless transactions directly within their apps on iPhone, independent of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet.
Correctly determining when soccer players are offside turns out to be surprisingly difficult. And the English Premier League turned to an unusual source for a fix: an offside-detection system powered by dozens of iPhones.
The same system might someday be used to track players in other sports, too.
You can go beyond the basics if you customize the iPhone’s Action button with shortcuts. You can make a fart sound, or get ChatGPT to help you write an email, or just about anything else you dream up.
Apple lets you assign the iPhone’s Action button to one of eight preassigned things — but if you choose Shortcut, you can do much more. Shortcuts offer a way to reach inside an app and automatically run a feature without opening it. With the iPhone 16’s Action button, you have a physical button you can press no matter what you’re doing on your phone, adding quick access to custom actions.
Some power users use the Action button to do incredibly useful (or frivolous) things. I’ll show you how to do the same — and also how you can trick your phone into assigning two or more shortcuts to the single Action button.
A button being added to the iPhone 16 Pro models is designed to act like the shutter button on DSLR cameras, according to information leaking out of Apple. That includes doing much more than simply taking pictures when pushed.
After years of keeping the iPhone buttons to a minimum, the number continues to expand.
Flip a switch in iOS 18 and the Camera app will add music playing on an iPhone to the video being recorded on the device. It’s an easy way to add background music to a video.
Just be careful about copyright violations.
As if Siri’s unhelpful answers were not irritating enough when you actually want them, Siri often interrupts a conversation, meeting or TV show when you haven’t asked for anything at all. The good news is you make it stop — if you know how to deactivate Siri on your Apple devices.
keep reading or watch our video.
A federal judge should toss out an antitrust lawsuit accusing Apple of monopolizing the smartphone market because it “bears no relation to reality,” the iPhone giant said Thursday in a court filing. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have joined the lawsuit, according to a new report.
Apple expanded Emergency SOS via satellite to Japan. It allows iPhone users to communicate with emergency services from very remote locations.
The potentially life-saving feature works on all iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 models, and is already available in over a dozen other countries around the globe.
If you own an Apple device, it probably needs an operating system update. That includes iPhone, Mac, iPad Apple Watch … even Vision Pro. The hefty list of security-focused upgrades released Monday by Apple includes iOS 17.6, macOS Sonoma 14.6 and more.
They patch a list of more than two dozen vulnerabilities detailed on Apple’s security update page.
In a dramatic Emergency SOS via satellite rescue, Apple’s service led to a helicopter snatching up four women trapped on a glacier by wildfires last week in British Columbia, according to a report.
“In this instance, their cellphone literally saved their lives,” said a rescue manager.
Emergency platforms RapidSOS and Prepared recently shared their plans to integrate with the new Emergency SOS Live Video functionality in iOS 18. That means most 911 calls will include the option to share video with dispatchers, like a FaceTime call. And that will help responders assess the scene and prepare to help in the best way.
AltStore PAL, the first third-party app marketplace for iOS, now lets users install apps created by independent developers. The change, which arrived Wednesday in AltStore PAL version 2.1, makes previously restricted apps available to iPhone owners in the European Union.
“This means apps that have been rejected by the App Store — such as torrenting apps and virtual machines — have another path forward for the first time ever,” Riley Testut, developer of AltStore, told Cult of Mac.
The update is launching with a few third-party apps available now — iTorrent, qBitControl and PeopleDrop — “apps that are only possible with AltStore PAL,” according to Testut.
Apple could add a variable aperture to the iPhone 17’s primary camera. A variable aperture, commonly found in DSLRs and other high-end cameras, would allow the sensor to limit the light intake for higher-quality images.
It also would enable a better depth-of-field effect, with a nice background blur when taking close-up shots of a subject.
Apple is reportedly moving ahead with making an iPhone with a folding screen. If multiple unconfirmed reports from Tuesday turn out to be true, the first foldable iPhone could hit the market in 2026.
An iPhone Fold would be the first significant change to the standard “slab” design of iOS handsets since, well, ever.
A super-slim version of the iPhone 17 could stand out as the most expensive option in Apple’s lineup, even though it wouldn’t come with all the features of the Pro models in that same series.
Other specifications for 2025’s iPhone 17 series supposedly leaked out over the weekend as well.
Instead of an ordinary video demonstrating how useful MacBooks, iPads and iPhones are on a business trip, Apple presents another madcap adventure of the Underdogs.
The group is off to Thailand to have millions of boxes produced for their most difficult client, and everything possible goes wrong. Fortunately, it’s Apple gear to the rescue.
With the recently-released PC emulator UTM SE, you can now emulate Windows on iPad directly. You can revisit old PC games, just like how you can use Delta to play old Nintendo games. You can also install Mac OS 9 or Linux. With Ubuntu, Debian or other versions of Linux, you can run all kinds of open-source software for getting real work or programming projects done.
But bad news: You can’t use it to run macOS Sonoma on your iPad. There’s some confusion about this, but unfortunately the long-held dream of turning your iPad into a Mac will have to wait for another day.
Setting it up is a little finicky — but the reward of seeing that classic Windows XP desktop on your iPad can make it all worth it. Keep reading to see how it works.
Here are a few secret tricks and gestures that will help you get around your iPhone faster. These hidden gestures help you text pictures to your friends faster, scroll through big pages and screens, type special characters and use your phone one-handed.
This is a follow-up to an earlier article with three other secret iPhone gestures you need to know. Learn all of these gestures and you’ll feel like an iPhone power user.