It's so close you can almost taste it! Photo: SonyIt’s so close you can almost taste it! Photo: Sony
Sony is giving PlayStation 4 owners the ability to play their favorite games on Mac and PC. Its latest firmware update for the PS4, which will roll out to all tomorrow, introduces Remote Play for desktops for the first time — plus other new features.
Have you picked up a cheap iPad Pro yet? Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
When it comes to charging 12.9-inch iPad Pro, you’re going to be better off thinking outside the box (it came in).
The larger, 29-watt USB-C charger is the one that should have come with the iPad Pro in the first place. It blows the 12-watt included charger out of the water so hard, you’re going to want to get one right now.
Safari will be kinder to MacBook Pro battery life. Photo: Apple
You can get a taste of the future of Safari on the Mac today, thanks to the release of the new Safari Technology Preview from Apple that gives regular users and developers an easy way to test new features and improvements that are coming soon to the web browser.
The new stand-alone app for OS X can be downloaded and used for free by anyone, and includes a cutting-edge version of the WebKit browser engine that is still in development. It’s a great way for web developers to get ahead on new features by testing them before they’re public.
Safari Technology Preview can be used side-by-side with the regular version of Safari to test for behavioral issues. It also includes new improvements for Web Inspector.
Apple is not quite done tinkering with OS X 10.11.4 before its public release.
The company seeded the seventh beta of OS X 10.11.4 to developers this morning, a little over a week after Apple released the last beta for the desktop operating system.
Mac users needn’t bother pre-ordering an Oculus Rift headset because they can’t use it. According to Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, that’s because none of the machines Apple offers are powerful enough to meet its recommended specifications.
They’re not powerful enough to play the latest games at high-settings, either. Even if you spend thousands on a high-end Mac Pro, you’re going to be disappointed with its gaming prowess — especially if you want to drink in some of those sweet, sweet 4K graphics.
So, is it about time Apple built a Mac that’s good for gaming?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over this and more!
The Microsoft Surface Book is a tablet and laptop in one. Photo: Microsoft.
Microsoft is taking a page out of Apple’s marketing playbook for its newest ads promoting the Surface Book, and the company threw in a few digs at the Mac while they were at it.
Rather than just focusing on the product, Microsoft’s new ads add a human touch by focusing on how the device has changed some professionals’ workflow. First up is photography Tim Flach, who uses a Surface Book and Surface Pen to precisely edit his incredible animal photography. If owning a Surface Book gave me killer shots just like Flach, I’d ditch my Mac too.
“Being able to use a pen like this on the screen directly with the image gives me a different relationship to it,” says Flach. “And I just can’t do that on my Mac.”
You now have to pay more for the best Netflix package. Photo: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac
When you’re binge-watching a show like Walking Dead or Person of Interest on Netflix, you may at times need to get up for a snack or bathroom break (or both).
Fumbling around for the mouse to bring up the playback overlay is fine, but using the keyboard to pause your streaming media is much faster. Here are five hidden keyboard shortcuts that will put you in charge of your Netflix experience.
Torrenters beware! The first ransomware attack on Mac users in the wild has been discovered, “courtesy” of Transmission, a BitTorrent client for Mac.
The torrent service received a major update last week, but it unfortunately the new software happened to be infected with ransomware, which went on to quietly install itself on the the Macs of everyone who downloaded the update from Transmission’s website.
Thin is in, baby. Cover Design: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac
With Bendgate not that far behind us, is it really wise for Apple to contemplate an even thinner iPhone?
Sure, it’s an easy selling point for new iPhones, but thinner can also mean more bendable. Take a look at this age-old Apple theme in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, along with 10 fantastically useful mobile Safari tips, a way to find out if you’ve been infected by sneaky adware, five amazingly great new iOS games, and some awesome product reviews to help inform your purchasing plans.
All this, and much much more, in Cult of Mac Magazine, free for your perusal right now.
Oculus Rift most likely won’t be coming to Mac any time soon, according to Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey, who says an Apple-compatible version of the virtual reality headset won’t arrive until Cupertino decides to “release a good computer.”
As this, err, slow-moving creepy crawly shows. Photo: Microsoft
The rivalry between Apple and Microsoft may not be as fierce as it once was, but that’s not stopped the long-time Apple frenemy from firing shots in Cupertino’s direction in its latest series of ads for Windows 10.
Presented by two insect educators called “The Bug Chicks” (because, obviously, Windows and bugs go together perfectly!), the ads look at various features that Apple computers just don’t offer yet. You know, like that whole “blue screen of death” lark.
One of these ports might not work anymore if you recently installed an OS X update. Photo: Apple
Did your Mac’s Ethernet port mysteriously stop working recently? If so, you could have fallen afoul of a nasty bug that was introduced in a recent OS X security update. Here’s how to fix it.
Wonder what Siri for Mac will be like? To find out, you’ll have to wait for OS X 10.12, code named Fiji, to land later this year. But here’s the next best thing: a concept video that makes us want Siri on the Mac right this second.
Your Mac is about to get a new virtual assistant. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Siri spread from the iPhone to the Apple Watch and Apple TV in 2015, but this may finally be the year Apple’s virtual assistant lands on Mac.
Apple is planning to make Siri this year’s big OS X feature, according to a new report that claims Siri integration into OS X 10.12 will be unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
'Appy weekend everyone! Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
The weekend is halfway over and — if the weather in your area is anything as dismal as it is in mine — thoughts naturally turn to amusing ourselves with the latest apps.
But which ones to sample? Whether you’re looking for a clever translation app, one of the best games of the year so far, or a nifty tool for blasting music from any Bluetooth speaker in your house, we’ve got something for you.
Apple takes on the FBI. Cover Design: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac
Tim Cook sparked an internet controversy when he penned his open letter to Apple customers about why the tech giant was pushing back against a court order to create an FBI-friendly version of its iOS software.
Find out more about Apple’s epic battle over iPhone encryption, along with how to unlock your iPhones secret emoticons, 10 hard drive space-saving tips, the best news and RSS apps for your iOS devices, and a bit about John McAfee’s bid to hack the iPhone for the FBI.
All that and much more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine. Here are the top stories this week.
Fluid Browser comes in handy for graphic design. And workplace distraction. Photo: George Tinari/Cult of Mac
With iOS 9, Apple introduced a whole slew of multitasking features including picture-in-picture, so I can watch a video while using another app. Even though this was technically already possible on the Mac, there hasn’t been an easy way to get a video to overlay another window so I can focus on both at the same time. Well the new Fluid Browser solves that problem, quite magnificently I might add.
Fluid is its own web browser, but it’s not meant to replace Safari or Chrome for my main usage. Instead, I open up Fluid and go to a website where I want to play video, like YouTube or Netflix. The video itself will enlarge to fit the width of the browser window. Then magically, if I click somewhere else on my desktop, Fluid will float above the other windows and even has adjustable opacity so I can make the video as prominent on screen as I want.
Rogue Amoeba's AirFoil just got a lot more powerful. Photo: Rogue Amoeba
Rogue Amoeba’s AirFoil has long been one of the Mac apps we can’t live without. The app allows Mac users to pump audio on an app-by-app basis to any AirPlay speaker within range.
Now, AirFoil 5 is here. And it’s a huge update. Not only does it introduce functionality that allows AirFoil to send audio to Bluetooth speakers and headphones (not just AirPlay devices, like the Apple TV), it can also send audio to multiple speaker groups at once.
Firewatch is already raising the bar for 2016. Photo: Campo Santo
If you’ve forgotten why it’s great to be a gamer, you just have to take one look at Firewatch.
The first-person mystery set in the Wyoming wilderness is a visual masterpiece that’s being praised by just about everyone — and you can get it today on Mac, PC, Linux, and PlayStation 4.
Apple has unleashed a huge batch of beta updates today for all of its platforms today, including a new beta build of OS X El Capitan 10.11.4 that promises to squash more bugs and bring better performance than ever to your Mac.
Excuse me, where's the trash? Photo: HahaBird/Imgur
We’ve seen old busted Macs get transformed into everything from aquariums to planters, but have you ever seen a Mac go from the dumpster to a trash can you can toss all your rubbish in?
One Redditor has created a trash can fit for Steve Jobs by taking a Macintosh that had been sitting in his attic for 15 years and giving it a second life as a receptacle for all his garbage, complete with a swinging door that looks just like a Mac display.
Find out when your Mac is looking at your location data. Photo: Apple
As our digital lives converge across mobile and desktop devices like our iPhones and Macbooks, we rely on them knowing where we are at any given time. Safari suggestions, for example, count on knowing your location, as do any Maps searches or such.
You might want to know when your Location data is being used, however, for privacy reason. If you enable the Location Services menu bar, you’ll be able to see when any app is accessing your private location data, making it more possible to lock down any sources you don’t want using it.
The rest of the PC industry may be shrinking, but Apple thinks different. Photo: Apple
The rest of the PC industry may be crashing, but Apple expects Mac sales to remain relatively stable in 2016 — with sources in the supply chain claiming that Mac-series product shipments are likely to remain around the 20 million unit mark this year.
El Capitan's third big update brings performance enhancements and bug fixes. Photo: Apple
The newest build of OS X El Capitan is now available to the public after undergoing a month of beta testing.
OS X 10.11.3 can now be downloaded and installed by all Mac users with supported hardware. It’s a free update that promises to bring a number of enhancements, including performance improvements and tons of bug fixes.
Apple's Mac business is still growing... but how? Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple was the only computer maker that didn’t endure a blue Christmas, with Mac sales up 3 percent year-over-year as worldwide PC shipments declined. But for how long can the Mac business continue to fight on, immune to the growing thread from other industries?
Smartphones and tablets are now capable at handling many of our daily tasks, and every year they get better. Will the iPad Pro ever be powerful enough to replace your iMac, or will we forever be reliant on powerful processors and dedicated GPUs?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Macas we battle it out over these questions and more!