What if your iPhone and iPad had a standard USB port instead of a Lightning one? Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
Apple has its Lightning connector and everyone else has USB. But EU regulators are considering whether they need to force a common standard for phone chargers.
The idea is to cut down on the 51,000 tons of old chargers and cables thrown away each year.
Want a possible early glimpse at what appears to be this year’s fancy new 6.5-inch iPhone X Plus and 6.1-inch LCD iPhone? Renowned Apple leaker Ben Geskin is here to help!
Geskin posted the images on Twitter. He describes the iPhones in the pictures as “dummy models,” meaning that they are models he has made based on leaked Apple schematics. Check out more images below.
Mix up your training and leave your iPhone at home with the new Nike Training Club app for Apple Watch.
With more than 180 workouts on offer, there’s always something new to try, whether you’re into strength training, yoga, endurance, or something else. It’s also completely free to enjoy.
A look inside the 2018 MacBook Pro finds plenty of bad news, but some good too. Photo: IFIXIT
Apple makes no attempt to have MacBook Pro models easy to repair. The ones released just a few days ago are no exception. We all have to hope that the redesigned key mechanism fixes the previous problems because the keyboard is solidly glued to the battery and speakers. And that’s just the most obvious way that Apple frustrates the do-it-yourself crowd.
But the news isn’t all bad. At least one version of the 2018 MacBook Pro boasts a major battery improvement.
Who needs third-party apps anyway? Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
It used to be that the first-party iOS apps were only used by people who didn’t care enough to download something better. Mail, Notes, Contacts, the Calendar — all of these were immediately dumped into a junk folder by experienced users, to be replaced with a proper app. But something happened along the way to 2018. Now, Apple’s apps are every bit as good as third-party apps. (Well, mostly. The Contacts app is still awful.)
Today we’ll take a look at a few of Apple’s surprise hits.
Animoji is ready for iPad in iOS 12. Photo: Steve Troughton-Smith
New evidence that confirms Apple is preparing a future iPad with Face ID has been spilled by the latest iOS 12 beta.
One developer has discovered that AvatarKit, the framework that powers Animoji, is now ready for iPad. It still requires a TrueDepth camera which can only be found in iPhone X for now, but it seems that will change when new iPads arrive this fall.
You can add any typeface to the apps on your iPhone or iPad. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Most of use just use the fonts that come supplied with the iOS apps we use every day. If you use Pages, you get a ton of built-in typeface options. But what if you use a notes app by a smaller developer that hasn’t licensed a bunch of fonts for their app? What if you have a favorite font, or even a font you designed yourself, that you want to use on your iPhone or iPad? Or maybe you opened up a Microsoft Word document in Pages and got the dreaded “missing font” warning?
Then there’s good news, because you can quite easily install fonts on your system, and they can be used by any app that supports them.
Topping up your iPhone could be faster than ever this fall. Photo: Belkin
The 2018 iPhone lineup will pack improved charging technologies to make topping up faster than ever, according to a new report.
Apple might team up with new suppliers who can provide higher-powered charging components. The upgrade should finally allow the iPhone to compete with its Android rivals when it comes to charging speed.
Two HomePods are better than one. Photo: Erfon Elijah/Cult of Mac
Stereo-pairing has been one of the most anticipated HomePod features and now that it has finally arrived, it was definitely worth the wait.
HomePod owners can now pair two or more speakers together to create rich stereo soundscapes in their house for an audio experience that’s unlike any other. CultCast producer Erfon Elijah went ears-on with the new feature and says his finely tuned ears were tingling with delight from the sounds HomePod can blast out. The 360-degree sound is so enveloping that it’s hard to tell where it’s even coming from.
The Mac's emoji panel is even better than the iOS emoji keyboard. Photo: Cult of Mac
Finding emoji on the iPhone and iPad is easy — you just tap the little emoji key in the corner of your keyboard, and there they are. Emoji are fully supported on the Mac, too, but where do you find them? If you don’t already know, then this trick is going to blow your mind, because it’s just as easy to get to the emoji panel on the Mac as it is on the iPhone.
The butterfly keyboard used in the MacBook Pro and MacBook has now drawn both a recall petition and a lawsuit. Photo: Apple
A lawsuit filed in federal court claims that the keyboard used in all the MacBook Pros and MacBooks made in the past few years is defective. The plaintiffs request that this be made into a class-action lawsuit, and that Apple be required to replace all the affected keyboards at no cost to users.
The lawsuit also requests punitive damages because, as the plaintiffs claim, Apple continued to build and sell laptops with the “butterfly” keyboard even though the company knew it was defective.
Google I/O 2018 was full of AI surprises. Photo: Google
Google just took the wraps off its big software lineup for 2018. If Apple executives were watching, there’s a lot they should be worried about.
Artificial intelligence has always been one of Google’s strengths over Apple. But in 2018, the search company is going all out, putting AI in everything. Pretty much every app the company has is getting some new machine-learning tricks in the next few weeks that make certain iOS features look ancient.
Check out the biggest announcements from this morning’s Google I/O keynote.
Google I/O 2018 is right around the corner. You may not be all that excited for it if you only ever use Apple devices, but you should be. Google’s plans for the future of its platforms could well shape the future of all smartphones, wearables, and more.
They will also tell us how Google intends to keep up with and fight Apple’s latest devices, including iPhone X, which is quite literally changing the face of Android-powered devices.
Here are five big things we’re expecting from this year’s Google I/O keynote, which kicks off on Tuesday, May 8.
Steve Jobs’ brief for iPad: A piece of glass for emailing on the toilet Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Ever since iOS 9, you’ve been able to block ads, trackers, and other content in Mobile Safari. But as websites fought back, and the content-blocker apps added yet more rules in return, the war escalated. Blocker apps started to hit Apple’s hard limit of 50,000 rules.
Probably the most popular and comprehensive blocker is 1Blocker, which just got superseded by 1Blocker X. The new app splits off itself into seven “extensions,” each of which have 50,000 rules, bringing the total to 350,000 rules.
This doesn’t just allow 1Blocker X to boast in the app store. It also allows whole new categories of content blocking. The new setup works slightly differently, so let’s see how to get things started.
Can new platformer Oddmar live up to Leo's Fortune? Photo: Senri & Mobge
The makers of superb 2014 game Leo’s Fortune are back with a new action platform game for iOS. Trading Leo for a cartoony world based on Norse mythology, Viking-themed platformer Oddmar lands in the App Store today.
Can this new iOS platformer repeat the success of its spiritual predecessor?
Apple might be planning cheaper HomePod to boost sales Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
HomePod sales have fallen well below expectations, according to one of the best Apple analysts in the game.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo told investors today that Apple is considering making a low-cost version of the HomePod in order to give disappointing sales a boost.
There's some free space right up there. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
MacOS High Sierra upgraded the Mac’s under-the-hood file system, replacing the decades-old HFS+ with the shiny new APFS. What this means for the user is way faster file copying, the ability to revert to previous versions of your documents, and several other neat features. But it also means that you may have a lot less free space left on your storage disk, thanks to APFS’ habit of using it to store special ‘dark matter.’Today we’ll learn what this dark matter is, and how to free up disk space.
Apple's new entry-level iPad is just the tip of the educational iceberg. Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac
CHICAGO — Apple’s vision for the future of the classroom is clear: Students armed with iPads and quality apps, and instructors leveraging creative teaching methods. Laying the groundwork for a combination of interactive group projects, immersive audio and video experiences, and some gamification, Apple thinks students will find greater success in schools through the use technology.
Facebook wants to know everything about you… Even where you've been. Photo: CC Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Your iPhone probably knows more about you than your husband or wife. It knows what websites you visit, and who’s in your VIP contact list. It knows your credit card numbers, and it knows what apps you like to read with your morning coffee. And it also knows where you are, at all times, and even what direction you’re moving in.
Apps like Facebook love to drain as much of this information as they can, but thanks to Apple’s privacy-first policy of giving control to you, the user, it’s easy to deny any app access to this sensitive data. Today we’ll see how to stop Facebook, or any other app, from tracking your location.
The iPad has an amazing split-screen mode. It’s called Split View, and it lets you use two apps side-by-side. On certain iPads, you can even float a third app over the top. Split View lets you drag and drop text, pictures, links and almost anything else between apps, just like on a Mac or PC. It’s also super-easy to use. Let’s see how.
Apple Music could be even prettier. Photo: Lior Azulay
iOS 12 will focus on fixing all the problems plaguing iPhone and iPad users. This concept imagines what it could do for Apple Music. It showcases a gorgeous new design with improved controls, and a dark mode that would be perfect for iPhone X.
Tweak this setting to make your iPhone speakers louder. (Works with iPad and iPod, too!) Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple improves the speakers in iPhones, iPads and iPods with each release — usually making them louder than the previous generation. Still, people constantly complain that iPhones are not loud enough.
In our latest Quick Tips video, I’ll show you a super-easy way to boost those tiny speakers. Check out the video below to see how to make iPhone speakers louder!
New HealthKit gadgets make health and fitness easier than ever. Photos: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac
BARCELONA, Spain — Smart sperm testers, body cavity inspectors, Bluetooth pillows, holographic jump ropes and contactless thermometers. It’s all just another day at Mobile World Congress, where more and more companies show off their new HealthKit-compatible gadgets.
If you want your iPhone to know absolutely everything about what’s going on with your body, these handy medical devices are for you. Here’s what they do — and why they’re cool.
Several spotlights. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Somewhere after the launch of iOS 11, Apple tweaked Spotlight search to be way more useful. Now, when you search for a person, you can trigger a sub-search that lets you find everything you have on them, from emails, to iMessages, to their contact details, through WhatsApp messages, to calendar events. Anywhere that your selected contact exists on your iPhone or iPad will show up in the list.
And then, you can narrow the results with a sub search.
Who wants to hear music like this? Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Shuffle and skipping are two great tools for listening to new music on your iPhone, using Apple Music. You can download lots of new music to your iPhone, then set it to shuffle while you take a walk. If you’re also wearing a pair of AirPods, a double tap on one of them will skip any tracks you don’t like. It’s a great way to listen to new music, with one big, annoying side-effect: You end up with lots of unwanted downloads cluttering up your iPhone.
But with one simple smart playlist, you can fix that right now.