iPhone - page 24

This week’s Cult of Mac giveaway prize is a mophie 3-in-1 MagSafe travel charger that retails for $149.95. The compact charger is perfect for anyone with a busy schedule who’s on the go. You can charge multiple devices simultaneously at maximum speed with this great fold-up Apple accessory.

The 3-in-1 charger can juice up an iPhone, an Apple Watch and AirPods all at once. It comes with a handy travel pouch to keep everything securely together, plus a USB-C cable and a wall adapter. Enter below for your chance to win — we’re giving away three of these excellent travel chargers.

iOS 17.2 will introduce a new way for sharing boarding passes, tickets and other passes stored in the Wallet app.

Like NameDrop, the iOS feature that lets owners easily share contact info, the new way to share passes will require bringing your iPhone close to the top of another iPhone with the Wallet app open.

Apple reportedly plans to use upgraded microphones on the iPhone 16 series for a better Siri experience. The new mics might feature a better signal-to-noise ratio and improved water resistance.

The improved hardware likely would boost manufacturing costs for Apple. But a better Siri — fortified with artificial intelligence — could gives Apple’s reputation a boost when it comes to AI.

The upcoming iOS 17.2 update will add Qi2 support to older iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 models. Based on MagSafe, Qi2 is the next-generation wireless charging standard.

Announced at CES 2023 by the Wireless Charging Consortium, Qi2 uses a Magnetic Power Profile with an Extended Power Profile for faster charging and better efficiency.

The number of iPhones running some version of iOS 17 passed a milestone. The total recently topped 60%, according to an analytics firm.

Users were initially slow to make the jump past iOS 16, but a solid majority have now done so.

Twelve South’s new 2-in-1 Butterfly MagSafe Charger folds into a tiny footprint, fast-charges MagSafe iPhones and Apple Watches, and can serve as a kickstand for your handset, as well.

The cool gadget, which you can get directly from Twelve South or Apple, looks like a winner and is priced as such, at a steep $129.95.

If you haven’t tried a multi-device charging stand, you’re missing out. There’s nothing like the convenience of plopping your Apple devices — iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods — in one place like a side table or night stand to top them off.

And right now you can get up to 47% off SwitchEasy’s 4-in-1 and 2-in-1 magnetic wireless charging stands in the Cult of Mac Store.

Parents are mistakenly being warned that they need to quickly deactivate iOS 17’s NameDrop feature on their children’s iPhones. The warnings claim that it’s causing the devices to broadcast their contact information to anyone nearby.

This simply isn’t true.

Cyber Monday at the Cult of Mac store is a massive event you won’t want to miss. We’ve got deals on all kinds of accessories for all your Apple gear.

Get ready for incredible discounts, with savings of up to 75% on selected brands including Elago, Elkson, Mifa, Rilee & Lo, Laut, and many others. Don’t miss out on these fantastic offers!

Elago’s awesome accessories for iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods are now available at 30% off through the Cult of Mac Store. All you need to do is add Elago products to your cart and 30% discount will automatically be added.

You can save on brilliant retro charging stands inspired by iconic devices like the original Macintosh and Game Boy, Apple Watch bands, iPhone cases, AirPods bumpers, and lots more. There’s also 30% off Elago’s new Apple Pencil cover.

This discount ends at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Monday, November 27 (Cyber Monday), so enjoy it while you can.

The European Parliament voted Tuesday to approve a strong right-to-repair proposal. It aims to make consumer electronic goods more repairable, with companies required to prioritize repairability over replacement.

The draft legislation still needs to go through negotiations between the Parliament and the Council before it can go into effect.

Following a recipe in the kitchen? Assembling furniture via online instructions? Taking a hands-free call in the tub? Sometimes you need to put your iPhone where you can see it, or talk via speaker, without holding it — and that’s when a magnetic wall mount comes in handy.

SwitchEasy sells two such mounts in the Cult of Mac Store, and through December 1 you can get a third one free when you buy two of the handy devices.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Tests performed on the M3 MacBook Pros reveal the performance-crushing effects of thermal throttling and skimpy RAM. Erfon is not impressed!

Also on The CultCast:

• Apple shocks everyone by pledging to support Rich Communication Services for better texting between iPhones and Android devices.
• Griffin runs down some of the most interesting new features coming soon in iOS 17.2.
• Apple reportedly plans to overhaul the iPad lineup next year, and a mammoth 12.9-inch iPad Air is apparently on the menu.
• If the iPhone 16 gets exclusive AI features, will Siri really get smarter? We’re extremely skeptical.

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.

One of the best ways to use MagSafe on iPhone is to make it carry your wallet. It means you don’t have to remember to pick up multiple items every time you leave the house, and it ensures that you always have access to credit and ID cards that you can’t carry virtually in the Apple Wallet app.

Now that we’ve had MagSafe for a few years, there are lots of great wallets to choose from. Here are six of the best that you can slap onto the back of your iPhone today.

mophie added fast charging for Apple Watch and a more sustainable design to its popular folding 3-in-1 MagSafe travel charger, the company said Wednesday.

So now the well-loved travel accessory gives you fast MagSafe charging for iPhone and quicker charging for your wearable.

French iPhone users now have access to Tap to Pay, which enables businesses to accept contactless payments from credit cards directly on their iOS handset – no additional hardware required.

The service has been gradually roiling out around the world since it launched in 2022.

The good news is that iPhone could finally allow users to install applications directly starting in 2024, according to a reliable source. The bad news is that being able to go without the App Store will only be an option in Europe.

To be clear, sideloading is required by EU law so it’s definitely happening. The timing isn’t clear, though.

In a tedious and awkward 10-minute video released Thursday, buzzy startup Humane gave a more thorough introduction of its Ai Pin. The video all but confirms my feelings that we are seeing the next hilarious Silicon Valley failure play out in real time.

Since co-founder Imran Chaudhri’s TED Talk earlier this year, where we got a vague introduction to the supposed iPhone-killer’s features, there remained a slim chance — one in a hundred — that the then-unnamed device wasn’t a total waste.

Any ounce of doubt has been washed away as this new video doubles down on the Ai Pin’s flaws and walks back its only positives. In fact, the introductory video clearly demonstrates why the device will fail: The AI gave completely wrong answers and provided no way to check their accuracy. It’s absolutely untrustworthy. This highlights the broader concerns surrounding Humane AI and its ability to provide reliable and accurate assistance.

After months of cryptic hints and teasing demos, startup Humane finally put its supposedly iPhone-killing Ai Pin on sale Thursday for $700, plus subscription costs.

You pin it to your clothes and interact with it through voice, touch control, gestures, and laser projections on your hand. However, despite its ambitious goals, the reality of AI pins has been met with skepticism due to performance issues and limitations.

The question is, will this thing really kill the iPhone? To those who don’t like talking to devices except when absolutely necessary, it must seem unlikely.

Apple is developing greatly improved batteries for its future devices, according to a new report. It appears the iPhone-maker wants to create a custom process in-house and own it — rather than outsourcing — just like it did with Apple silicon chips.

Amazon bargain site Woot! launched an Apple accessories sale with something for almost everyone — and deals as good as 90% off certain iPhone cases and 61% off an Apple Thunderbolt 3 Pro cable.

But with 49 products on sale, that’s just a taste. Act fast, the sale ends November 10 at 9:59 p.m. PT.

Journey recently unleashed an odd-but-useful beast — “the world’s first 4-in-1 laptop sleeve” with wireless charging, aka the Journey Nexa.

Journey Nexa Laptop Sleeve with Wireless Charging is a 4-in-1 device — MacBook sleeve, wireless charger for iPhone and AirPods, mouse pad and desk mat. But I found space limits it when you try to use it four ways at once, and it could benefit from some other improvements.

Anyone with an iPhone 15 Pro should install iOS 17.1 when it launches this week, especially if their new handset seems to be suffering from screen burn-in. Turns out it’s not a hardware problem but the result of a software bug that gets fixed by the upcoming update.

Plus, there are other new features coming in iOS 17.1.

Apple has developed a new way to wirelessly update iPhones in its retail stores without opening their boxes. This will ensure all iPhones sold are running the latest iOS release.

Apple could roll out the technology to its retail stores before the end of the year.

There are a lot of awesome features in iOS 17 — Contact Posters, StandBy, Safari profiles, shared passwords and much, much more. Here’s a simple to-do list on how to make the most of Cupertino’s latest and greatest iPhone operating system.