News - page 226

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Everyone’s raving about the new M2-powered MacBook Air — and so are we. Although Erfon just bought a different Apple laptop (and offers up a pro tip for anybody thinking of getting the hot new MBA).

Also on The CultCast:

• Bye-bye, Jony Ive. We’re gonna miss ya. Mostly.
• The emoji people scrape the bottom of the barrel.
• Toys are about to get personal (but brace yourself for disfigured plastic selfies).
• BMW foists an outrageous subscription plan on car buyers.

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 livestream, embedded below.

Our sponsor: CultCloth

Get the only cleaning cloth you need: CultCloth!

Skate through off-limit areas, tagging objectives and evading the guard – that’s what Subway Surfers Tag is all about.

The game debuted Friday on the Apple Arcade gaming service. It’s playable on a variety of Apple computers, including iPhone and Mac.

It looks like Humane’s upcoming iPhone-killer will be a laser-projection system after all, based on a cryptic teaser video that dropped Friday.

Humane is a San Francisco startup staffed with a glittering roster of ex-Apple talent, many of whom were instrumental in developing the original iPhone.

The company hasn’t yet announced its first product, but patents hint Humane is working on a smart, screenless device that projects information onto the environment around the user.

Those in the market for a M2 MacBook Air should be aware that the base model with 256GB of storage reportedly will have slower performance when moving large files and when multitasking than versions of the new laptop with more storage capacity.

Apple says real world performance isn’t affected, but benchmarks show the base model is slower even than its M1 predecessor for some tasks.

Sometimes you see a pristine computer setup flaunted on social media and you think, how is that even real? Is it staged? Is it a render? At the very least, it looks like they left out all the cables for the photograph. But that’s not necessarily the case.

A lot of us live with messy setups, in part due to cable clutter. But neatening things up doesn’t have to be next-to impossible, as today’s featured Mac mini setup demonstrates.

July 15, 1998: Apple reports its third profitable quarter after the return of Steve Jobs, continuing the company’s remarkable turnaround.

Cupertino earns $101 million for the quarter, largely thanks to the success of the Power Mac G3. In the same quarter a year earlier, Apple lost $56 million. This marks the first time in three years that the company managed three straight profitable quarters.

Apple Music Sessions are newly recorded live tracks and videos available only on Apple’s streaming music service. The recordings will be from current stars and emerging artists.

Sessions are starting off in Nashville with Carrie Underwood, Tenille Townes and others, but Apple promises to expand to other music genres soon.

Continue reading

Missed out on buying the 16-inch MacBook Pro for Prime Day? Worry not, as Amazon is still offering a whopping $250 off on the lineup.

The deal drops the price of the entry-level 16-inch MacBook Pro to just $2,249 — down from $2,499. A similar discount is also available on the more powerful M1 Max model, dropping its price to a new low.

Apple’s new M2 MacBook Air is now arriving for preorder customers in Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Europe. It will also be available for in-store pickup starting today in most major markets of the world.

Apple’s svelte M2 MacBook Air has received rave reviews for its excellent performance and long battery life.

Celebrating its “10-year Nanoversary,” Nanoleaf put out a special edition of its Shapes smart-lighting panels. It’s a new all -black color option: Ultra Black Shapes Triangles.

Like the other colors, the new set works with HomeKit as part of your smart-home lighting.

The iPhone 14 is reportedly already in the test production phase. That puts Apple’s next-gen smartphone on schedule to launch in September, as expected.

But, in a separate report, an industry analyst warns that one version of the 2022 iPhone may be in short supply when it launches.

In new Apple TV+ documentary series Gutsy, Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter Chelsea Clinton will interview women the pair find inspirational.

The eight-part docuseries, based on the Clintons’ bestseller The Book of Gutsy Women, will premiere September 9, Apple said Thursday in a press release.

Google’s Chrome OS Flex is now ready to revive Macs that are too elderly to run the latest macOS version. That includes models as far back as 2010. It turns the Mac into a Chromebook, but at least it’s an up-to-date one.

The free OS is targeted at businesses and schools, but it might become a way for individuals to bring some new life to their obsolete Macs.

The first reviews of the M2 MacBook Air praise its slimmer design and speedy M2 processor. “Apple’s near-perfect Mac,” says Engadget.

Sometimes reviews are a mix of positives and negatives. Not this time – reviewers found very little to criticize in Apple’s newest notebook.

Now that Jony Ive and Apple have finally severed ties completely, it’s time for Cupertino’s current Industrial Design team to get the recognition it deserves.

Ive’s old Industrial Design team at Apple has been doing stellar work in his absence, but without getting the full credit. As long as Ive was still an Apple consultant, the credit was muddied: Was this Ive’s work or someone else’s?

The just-launched Nothing Phone (1) is drawing a tremendous amount of attention even though it’s only a mid-range Android with some glowing bits. Android fans seem to really like the LED design on the back, but maybe they haven’t noticed that it’s mostly an Apple logo.

Intentional homage? Accident? Definitely hilarious!

If you own an iPad mini 6, Lululook’s magnetic stand can turn your tiny tablet into a miniature iMac. And this week, we’re teaming up with Lululook to give away five of these great stands, which retail for $80, to five lucky winners.

Enter below for your chance to win.

Some people dislike using a mouse. Others can’t fathom a trackpad. And believe it or not, some folks hate both. So what do they do to get their brilliant thoughts onto the computer screen?

Knowing it’s hard to get by in life on just a keyboard, what input device can they use in addition to it? As today’s featured computer setup illustrates, they might try using a certain tablet like it’s a cross between a trackpad and a mouse.

Released Wednesday, the first trailer for Five Days at Memorial depicts the agonizing decisions Hurricane Katrina forced on staff at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans in 2005. The storm itself was just the first of many horrors.

The drama series lands on Apple TV+ on August 12.

Amazon Prime Day 2022 is here, and Cult of Mac is showcasing the best Prime Day deals for Apple fans. The annual two-day sale runs July 12 and July 13, and there are lots of solid deals to be had, including the lowest-ever price on Apple TV 4K ($109), $279 Series 7 Apple Watch, AirPods Pro for $170, $299 iPad and much more.

Here are the best ones we’ve found so far.

The collection of emoji will grow in the coming months, with the 31 proposed new entries including a shaking face, a donkey, a jellyfish and hearts in a range of colors. The proposal also includes an array of left- and right-facing hands, which likely will be used to indicate high fives.

This is by far the shortest list of new emoji proposed in years. It seems the Unicode Consortium thinks the already available collection is close to complete.

Jony Ive’s 30-year partnership with Apple is over.

Ive and Apple have reportedly severed ties completely, ending a relationship that spanned more than three decades and resulted in some of Apple’s biggest products, including the iPhone, iMac, Apple Watch, spaceship campus, numerous retail stores and much more.

Apple likes the Mophie Speedport 45 enough to put the dual USB-C port wall charger on its online store.

This not surprising: Mophie’s new product offers more power than Apple’s recently launched equivalents, and it costs less.

Continue reading

The standards body behind Bluetooth technology said Tuesday the next-gen version first promoted two years ago is finally here. With Bluetooth LE Audio now complete, new headphones like the upcoming AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Max can incorporate an array of improvements.

Just to name a few, we can expect better sound, improved power efficiency and connectivity to an “unlimited” number of devices if Apple fully integrates the new standard.

Remember iOS 15.6 and macOS Monterey 12.5? While these have been overshadowed by iOS 16 and macOS Ventura, Apple hasn’t forgotten about them. They are nearing the end of beta testing, with release candidates going out to developers on Tuesday.

That means iOS 15.6 and macOS Monterey 12.5 are likely to debut July 19 or before. They’ll be joined by iPadOS 15.6, watchOS 8.7 and tvOS 15.6.