Harry Potter still has his magic… if by magic you mean the ability to make tons of money in a short amount of time. An augmented-reality game set in J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World pulled in nearly three million new players its first weekend. And they spent a lot of real muggle money.
The mayor of Seattle confirmed today that Apple is making a major play to move into Amazon and Microsoft’s backyard.
During a press conference today, Mayor Jenny A. Durkan revealed that Apple plans to increase its expansion into Seattle by hiring an additional 2,000 employees in the next five years.
There’s a innovative option for people who want to make the most of the limited number of USB-C ports on their MacBook or iPad Pro: the Minix Neo Storage is a 4-port hub that also includes up to 240GB of built-in storage. And the price for all this is under $100.
UPDATE: Cult of Mac has published a Minix Neo Storage review.
The clash of tech titans Apple and Facebook continued Monday when Mark Zuckerberg’s newest executive team hire called Apple an “exclusive club” serving only “aspirant consumers with the means to buy high-value hardware and services.”
Nick Clegg, Facebook’s new head of global affairs, didn’t mention Apple by name when he spoke to a group in Berlin today. He didn’t have to.
Only a small percentage of Spotify subscribers pay a portion of their monthly fees to the Apple Store. This weakens Spotify’s argument that Apple is using required revenue sharing to stifle its rival’s ability to compete in the music streaming business.
The first public beta of iOS 13 is finally available to public testers.
Apple launched iOS 13 public beta 1 and iPadOS public beta 1 this morning. The software gives everyone the opportunity to try out all the new features, like the system-wide Dark Mode that looks absolutely beautiful. However, you might not want to take the jump quite yet.
You no longer have to be a registered Apple developer to get macOS Catalina on your Mac.
Apple seeded out the first public beta for macOS 10.15 this morning, just one week after the company released the second beta to developers.
The long wait for Apple Card to launch might soon be over if the latest beta software from Apple is any indication.
iOS 12.4, which includes support for Apple Card, just got its fifth beta build today along with new beta builds for macOS 10.14.6 and watchOS 5.3.
There’s almost no room for doubt that this fall’s iPhone 11 will sport a trio of camera lenses. The latest leak come from case-maker Olixar, who has a reputation for accuracy about future Apple models.
But that’s the most significant change to expect from the 2019 round of iOS handsets.
Samsung fans will be pleased to hear that the ongoing Galaxy Fold delay won’t affect the launch of its upcoming Galaxy Note 10.
A company official has confirmed to Korean media outlets that its newest iPhone XS Max rival is on track for an August launch. The statement comes after some rumors suggested its arrival would be pushed back.
Microsoft is rumored to be working on a new dual-screen Surface tablet that will run Android apps.
The slate, which is codenamed Centaurus, will reportedly pack two 9-inch displays that fold together like a book. Supply chain sources expect it to launch in the first quarter or first half of 2020.
Former Microsoft CEO and Steve Jobs frenemy Bill Gates says his company massively missed out by failing to challenge Apple on smartphones.
Describing his “greatest mistake ever,” Gates said the failure to become Apple’s main competitor in the mobile space cost Microsoft $400 billion.
Apple has cancelled a contract with British company Nanoco. The company was working on technology that could have improved future iPhone cameras.
Nanoco is a leader in so-called “quantum dot” technology. This allows camera sensors to gather light with more efficiency than traditional silicon. However, Apple reportedly ditched plans after finding that the sensors would be too expensive to produce.
A suspected car thief in Miami was held at the scene until cops arrived by an enterprising iPhone owner. The Apple customer was able to trick the apparent crook by holding his iPhone like a gun.
Apple wants its suppliers to explore manufacturing outside of China — and it seems that many in its supply chain are listening.
According to a pair of new reports, Compal and Quanta, who make the iPad and MacBook for Apple, are looking overseas for future production.
This week’s Fortnite update will see a revamped revolver introduced to Battle Royale.
Epic is now teasing the weapon’s arrival in-game after it was first leaked out in the version 9.30 update files. It looks very different to the original revolver, but its short description suggests it will be functionally similar.
A new 16-inch MacBook Pro is coming this fall, according to analysts at IHS Markit. This would give it the largest screen size of any MacBook Pro model currently available. (Although it still would be smaller than the dearly departed 17-inch model.)
The analysts claim Apple will unleash the new laptop at the company’s September media event alongside the new iPhone.
Mario Royale, the fan-made game that brought the battle royale genre to the classic Super Mario Bros. universe, has been slapped with a takedown notice from Nintendo.
The good news is that the game isn’t dead. Its creator has swapped out Mario for a custom character and made a few other changes to avoid Nintendo’s wrath. You can still enjoy it in your browser for free.
Not every feature that makes the iPhone special is an immediately visible one like fancy new displays or new color options. Some of the things which make iOS great are under-the-hood features like its focus on encryption, privacy in the App Store — and even Apple’s sustainable focus on iPhone recycling.
Those are three of the topic highlighted in a series of new ads. Apple shared them to its YouTube channel in Australia over the weekend. Check them out:
This week, we make our music more magical with FabFilters on iOS, edit multiple streams of 4K video with Lumafusion 2, stay private with Guardian Firewall, and ridicule Microsoft’s Office to-do app, which has finally been released on the Mac.
Apple occasionally commissions artists to experiment with how far they can push iPhone cameras. The third video in this series features water moving in slow motion. It’s enthralling, and it’s all recorded on an iPhone XS.
Watch it now:
With close to two million applications in its software stores, Apple reportedly doesn’t have much time to devote to testing most new submissions. Details leaking out about the process show that a typical app either gets approved or blocked in 5 or 10 minutes.
A lot of them get blocked.
If you’re not ready to chance running the latest iOS 13 beta on your daily driver, let Cult of Mac take the risk for you. We found some great new features in iOS 13 beta 2 — along with some neat fixes and plenty of rough edges.
Find out what we liked (and what we didn’t) in this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine for iOS. Or hit the links for the usual roundup of top Apple news, reviews and how-tos.
The dutiful iPad has found itself in the middle of the United Kingdom’s bitter divide over leaving the European Union.
A freshly sworn-in member of European Parliament cried foul over being issued an iPad, implying to followers on Twitter the device was nothing more than a pricey perk.
But her grandstanding backfired when critics informed her that the iPad is a cost-saving tool for her to do her job.
Apple discontinued the AirPort line of wireless routers last year but continues to support them, including efforts to keep out hackers. The US government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a statement urging users of networking equipment to install a new firmware patch to block attacks.