News - page 714

The holiday shopping season has rudely crept up on us, which means it’s time to start buying for friends and loved ones who have been good this year. Fortunately for you, Cult of Mac is here to help.

Our gift guides are full of great products Apple fans are sure to love. We’ve hand-picked awesome accessories and glorious gadgets that we all use and recommend, so you know your money is being well-spent.

This guide focuses on the iPad lovers in your life, and there’s something to suit every budget.

Take a deep breath and learn how to get the most out of your Apple Watch with a pair of handy how-tos. Every Apple Watch owner can take advantage of Apple’s stress-busting Breathe app. However, you’ll need a Series 4 (and this week’s watchOS update) to get in on the ECG action.

Get those how-tos and the week’s best Apple news and reviews — including an expose on Apple’s biologically bogus squid emoji — in your free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Download it now on iTunes. Or keep reading for the week’s best Apple news, reviews and how-tos. (Plus, enter to win a set of rugged iPhone XS Max cases.)

If you’re in the market for an iPad Pro, but working on a budget, B&H Photo Video is currently offering the 2017 12.9-inch iPad Pro at an amazing discount. With savings ranging from $220 to $330 off, you can pick up last year’s biggest tablets for hundreds less than their 2018 counterparts.

With B&H’s current offering, you can get a 2nd Generation (2017) 12.9-inch iPad Pro with 64GB of storage and Wi-Fi for $579 (a $230 savings). Or get the fully loaded Wi-Fi + Cellular model with 512GB for a cool $999 (a $280 savings).

The best deal of the bunch, coming in at $330 off, is the 256GB Wi-Fi + Cellular model for $749.

Apple has made another high-profile hire that could help the company gain a stronger foothold in the healthcare space.

Former Mango Health CEO Jason Oberfest left his highly-regarded startup last month. At the time, Mango Health only named a replacement but didn’t say where Oberfest was headed to. Now we have news that he has joined Apple as a member of its health team.

A new version of the Beddit sleep monitor launched today. This is the first version since Apple acquired the company making this accessory last year, and the result is better  hardware and software, though few new features.

The iPhone XR received the highest rating ever for a single-cam smartphone tested by image lab DxOMark.

Apple’s budget option for 2018 held its own against the more-expensive iPhone XS Max in a number of categories. Its score of 101 comes in just four points below that of the iPhone XS Max. And it’s three points better than the Google Pixel 2.

Richard Gere could be the next actor to participate in one of Apple’s original TV shows. According to a new report, Apple is in the process of signing a series starring the Pretty Woman actor, written by Homeland scribe Howard Gordon.

The eight-episode series would follow two elderly friends and Vietnam veterans, whose life is thrown into disarray when a woman they both loved 50 years earlier is killed in a car accident.

Qualcomm president Cristiano Amon says that, one way or another, the battle between his company and Apple is coming to an end soon.

“We feel like we are probably near the end of this game — we have a lot of legal milestones approaching,” Cristiano Amon told Yahoo Finance. “We see 2019 as having events that will drive resolution one way or another.” Unless an agreement is reached, the two companies are currently set to face off in court in April.

Apple has reportedly acquired U.K.-based music creative services and artist development company Platoon.

The company has history with Apple, being co-founded by former Apple live events and artist relations exec Denzyl Feigelson. Described as “a platform for fearless creatives,” Platoon has helped develop a number of early stage artists in the U.S. and UK since launching in 2016.

Apple’s apparently taking its “fire drill” approach to pushing the iPhone XR and XS seriously. As noted by developer Steve Lederer on Twitter, Apple recently sent out a push notification prompting users to upgrade to the iPhone XR or XS.

This was sent out to people on Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program, so it’s not really breaking Apple’s own App Store rules stating that apps should not send unsolicited spam to customers. However, it’s also not the kind of soft sell we’d usually expect from Apple.

Australia’s population may be less than 10 percent of the United States’ but its new anti-privacy laws could still have Silicon Valley tech giants quaking in their boots.

The country’s newly passed laws mean that law enforcement officials are allowed to access encrypted messages when required. That affects companies including Google, Facebook, Twitter, and, yes, Apple.

At Apple’s developer conference in June, Lego demonstrated an app built with ARkit that placed real Lego sets in virtual environments. The first version of that software just launched today.

Lego Ninjago AR lets players interact with certain Dragon Hunters sets. And two people can play together thanks to the multi-player capabilities added in ARkit 2.

2019 isn’t shaping up to be an good year for Apple. A survey of potential customers in the U.S. and in China found lower interest in iPhone than last year.

With the holidays right around the corner, you should have started your shopping by now. And if you’re anything like the rest of us, you’re already fed up of it. That’s why Cult of Mac is here to help.

Our handy holiday gift guides will help you pick out the perfect present for friends and loves ones. We’ve hand-picked all kinds of awesome accessories and gadgets that are worthy of your hard-earned cash — and guaranteed to fetch a smile.

This guide is for the iPhone fans in your life, and it includes something to suit every budget.

Apple shared two videos on YouTube this morning highlighting the life-saving power of the Apple Watch and its heart rate sensor. In one of the videos, numerous Apple Watch owners share their stories of how Apple Watch alerted them to a serious heart condition.

The videos come on the same day that Apple’s ECG feature on Apple Watch Series 4 was finally made available to the public. Tim Cook said in an interview today that improving people’s health will be Apple’s greatest contribution to mankind. After watching the two new videos, it’s easy to see that he’s probably right.

You might want to grab a tissue:

Apple’s Electrocardiogram (ECG) feature on the Apple Watch Series 4 is finally launching to the public today and according to Tim Cook, it could be one of the most important things his company ever does.

Tim Cook and Apple COO Jeff Williams are putting on a full-court media press today doing interviews with TIME and CBS This Morning. With hundreds of millions of iPhones in pockets around the world and watches on tens of millions of wrists, Apple says it has a responsibility to empower people with more information about their health.

Luminar, Skylum Software’s all-in-one photo editing program, will soon add more tools so photographers spend less time using it.

That may sound strange, but photographers would rather spend time behind the camera than in front of the computer. Skylum, formerly called Macphun, exists to make the complex tools for editing user-friendly.

If you’d had the foresight to invest in Apple and Microsoft back when they first went public, it’s no secret that you’d be sitting on a big old pile of cash today.

But which company would have made you more money? CNBC recently crunched the numbers and, well, the results are somewhat surprising.

ConnectSense, a company known for its HomeKit-friendly smart plug, has launched its next-generation device, the Smart Outlet2.

The outlet packs two Wi-Fi connected sockets that can be controlled individually via Apple’s Home app or the ConnectSense app.

‘Tis the season to be jolly — and, if you’re Apple, to try and pick up a few more Apple Pay stragglers before the year ends.

With that in mind, Apple has launched its special Apple Pay holiday offers, granting users an assortment of festive discounts from 19 different retailers. The discounts are available when you use Apple Pay in certain retailers’ apps or on the web, through December 19. Here’s what’s on offer:

The long-awaited ECG app is almost available on Apple Watch Series 4 (if you live in the U.S.) with watchOS 5.1.2.

It is the first wearable of its kind to offer this functionality, which promises to help uses detect atrial fibrillation — the most common form or irregular rhythm. Irregular heart rhythm notifications have also landed on Series 1 devices and later.

Grab your scarf and gloves because winter has arrived in Fortnite season seven.

The massive update brings big changes to the Battle Royale map, including zip lines that help you travel to and from high terrain. It also adds Stormwing planes, weapon and vehicle wraps, Creative Mode, and a brand new Battle Pass with more than 100 new rewards.

A vintage handwritten spec sheet in which Steve Jobs called the Apple-1 motherboard a “great deal” has failed to sell at auction.

The document, written in the mid-1970s, was up for auction as part of Bonham’s “History of Science and Technology, Including Space History” collection. Its asking price was $60,000. However, the bidding “only” reached up to $28,000, thereby failing to meet its reserve. A couple of historical Apple items did sell, but for less than expected.

The national nightmare that was “bagelgate” may be over, but Apple is apparently swimming into more controversial emoji territory. This time, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is pointing out that Apple’s squid emoji is physiologically incorrect.

Essentially, Apple’s lack of biological accuracy means that its squid emoji would, among other things, poop out of its face. For shame!

You can now use Siri to check up on product availability or the whereabouts of your latest orders, courtesy of the official Apple Store app for iOS.

Version 5.2 of the app adds new Siri Shortcuts support, letting you create custom voice commands to carry out these tasks without having to open the app.