Believe it or not, a 16-year-old high school student may have been the first to fully reverse-engineer iMessage and turn green Android text bubbles blue on iPhones with the new Beeper Mini app, released Tuesday.
The text messaging world is buzzing over it, wondering how it may avoid security pitfalls like other recent attempts to merge the two texting worlds — and puzzling over whether Apple may put a stop to this incursion into its “walled garden.”
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.
Epic sci-fi series Foundation, a wildly successful adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s award-winning stories of a galactic empire in decline, will return for a third season, Apple TV+ said Tuesday.
And that’s causing much rejoicing on our own humble planet.
Looking to gift a new MacBook to your loved one this Christmas? The M1 MacBook Air is the perfect gift, and you can grab one right now at its lowest-ever price of $749.99 after a $250 off.
This includes an additional $50 discount after applying a coupon on Amazon’s listing. You could not get the laptop at this tempting price even during Black Friday.
Attention iPhone 14 owners: Don’t miss the SwitchEasy sale on all iPhone 14 cases and accessories in the Cult of Mac Store. You can save 20% on any of 10 different cases to protect and dress up your fabulous Apple handset.
The cases cover the bases from tough and functional to highly decorative. There are regular cases as well as MagSafe options. Check out some highlights below. And 20% off saves you about $6 on many of the cases.
Apple honored Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus with the Apple Podcasts Award, given each year to honor a show that demonstrates quality and innovation in podcasting.
In the series, the actress and comedian interviews older women about their lives.
Battersea Power Station, home of London’s latest Apple retail store, is decorated for Christmas with an enormous moving art display projected on the front. Reasonably named “Bigger Christmas Trees,” it was created by artist David Hockney on an iPad.
The art installation will continue each evening until December 25.
Apple’s AirTag item tracker can help anyone who keeps misplacing things, and it’s currently available at a tasty 12% discount.
It’s good timing: With the holiday season apron us, an AirTag makes a nice present.
Two of the best shows on Apple TV+ have been canceled. Animated musical comedy Central Park and basketball drama Swagger have not been renewed for new seasons.
The creators of the shows confirmed the cancellations on social media over the weekend.
A software engineer drives a Studio Display with an M2 Pro MacBook Pro in their enviable computer setup. And while some folks questioned the use of Apple’s pricey 5K display because of its relatively low refresh rate, the setup’s user praised the monitor highly.
Check out the advice the engineer got about setup improvements and see all their gear in the list below.
Martin Scorsese’s epic film Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone, will become available for purchase or rental on video-on-demand services including Apple TV in more than 100 countries Tuesday.
So as of Tuesday, you can buy or rent it on Apple TV and other VOD services, but Apple TV+ subscribers can’t watch it for free yet (date pending).
From the “better late than never” category, a version of the Zoom video conferencing app has launched for Apple TV. This means it’s now easier to make Zoom calls using a TV’s large display.
Turns out the long wait was actually Apple’s fault.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: It sounds like Apple’s partnership with Goldman Sachs is on the rocks. What does that mean for the future of Apple Card?
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.
Apple showed off its Apple silicon lab to media for the first time recently, allowing unusual access along with video interviews with executives about Cupertino’s major chipmaking strides in recent years, culminating in the current M3 series.
“One of the most, if not the most, profound change at Apple, certainly in our products over the last 20 years, is how we now do so many of those technologies in-house,” Apple’s Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternus said in one interview.
As we ring in the first day of December, let us toast winter. More specifically, let us toast what a user calls their “winter edition” computer setup in Berlin, Germany, featuring a powerful MacBook Pro, a gorgeous 5K display, a cool mechanical keyboard and the best tool of all for toasting — a bottle of extremely good, peat-forward scotch from Islay, Scotland.
Missed out on buying the 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro during Black Friday or Cyber Monday? You are in luck, as the laptop is now available for an even lower price.
Best Buy is taking up to $250 off the M3 MacBook Pro, making it a great time to buy one.
There’s good news for those who subscribe to both Apple TV+ and Paramount+. Friday brought word of a potential bundle of these streaming video services that would save subscribers money.
If the unconfirmed report pans out, it’ll be the first such deal for Apple TV+.
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.
A bride in England recently snapped an iPhone photo of herself trying on a wedding dress in front of mirrors. She was shocked to find her reflection looked different in each one.
That may sound like a disturbance you’d see in dark sci-fi series Black Mirror, but it’s actually a rare but understandable result of a computational-photography error.
Apple reportedly will bring the iPhone 15 Pro’s Action button to the entire iPhone 16 lineup next year. It will seemingly be a capacitive button and pack a lot of additional functionality.
The new rumor indicates the iPhone 16’s Action button will use a force sensor, allowing it to detect changes in pressure.
Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo are set to star as dueling detectives in Criminal Record, a crime drama premiering on Apple TV+ in a few weeks.
The trailer for the series dropped Thursday, offering an early look at the eight-episode series.
Apple released iOS 17.1.2 and macOS Sonoma 14.1.2 on Thursday. These are security patches for bugs that have been actively exploited by hackers. As such, they come strongly recommended.
iPadOS 17.1.2 was also released to take care of the same issues.
The new Personal Voice feature in iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma can restore a person’s voice even after they lose it for any reason.
Apple demonstrated that quite well Thursday in an article and video featuring a disability advocate suffering facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD).
MacBook Air performs well without a MacBook Pro’s cooling fan, but now a tiny cooling chip can bridge the difference between the two laptops, according to a new report.
The thin membrane-based AirJet chip fits in Apple’s lightest laptop and boosts its performance when needed. Too bad you can’t just buy it and install it.