News - page 749

Juuk’s steel bands for Apple Watch have always impressed us. June is LGBT Pride Month, and Juuk’s hard-to-get Rainbow Ligero Apple Watch band in 42 mm is back in time for the celebrations.

After months in production, we’re happy to have the 42 mm Juuk Rainbow band in stock once more in addition to the 38 mm. Also, Juuk is donating $20 of proceeds for each Rainbow Ligero purchased to Amnesty International Hong Kong to support their efforts to combat discrimination.

Grab one for Pride! Check out the entire Ligero collection in our Watch Store, and read further to learn more.

4G LTE will soon be supplanted by something better, stronger, and faster. But before 5G can be rolled out, it had to pass an important hurdle: a final design needed to be agreed apron.

The 3GPP agreed on a standard this week, opening the way to significantly faster browsing and downloads.

Even though the iPhone X has proved very popular, its screen cutout nevertheless has critics. A rival phone maker unveiled a device that shows why Apple went with the design it did.

The Vivo NEX has a nearly edge-to-edge screen, with no notch in sight. This was accomplished by putting the front-facing camera on pop-out tab. An easily broken tab.

The FIFA World Cup, soccer/football’s quadrennial championship, kicked off this week in Russia, and literally billions around the world are watching. If you’re planning to actually attend one of the matches, be sure to leave behind your personal electronics.

This is the recommendation of both British and American government security services. They warn that the odds of your devices being hacked in Russia are very high.

This week we write a screen-play using text messages, make music out of random internet radio streams, and enjoy Apple’s own Voice Memos app, on the iPad at last.

If Dad wears Apple Watch, Cult of Mac Watch Store’s Father’s Day gift guide gives him what he wants.

We’ve rounded up Apple Watch bands and accessories at price points high, low and in between. Use this code at checkout for 10 percent off your purchase: DAD2018

In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine: In iOS 12 and macOS Mojave, Safari gets solid improvements that will win you back from Chrome — especially if you value your privacy. But while safeguarding your privacy and security on the web fuels many of Safari’s great new features, there’s much more Safari goodness to anticipate.

You’ll find that story and more in this issue. Get your free subscription to Cult of Mac Magazine from iTunes. Or read on for this week’s top stories.

Jaime Waydo is leaving Google’s Waymo for Apple. This should help silence anyone who doubts that Apple is serious about its autonomous car efforts.

Waydo describes her old job at this Alphabet subsidiary as “Helping make self driving cars a reality!” Presumably, that’s what she’ll be doing in her new position too.

In the latest sign that Cupertino is serious about video, Apple signed media superstar Oprah Winfrey to a multi-year deal. Cupertino’s growing original content team will work with the “Queen of All Media” to whip up original shows.

One retailer has already started taking preorders for new accessories made for this year’s “iPhone XI” and “iPhone XI Plus.”

Those are the names that will be given to Apple’s new flagships, according to one accessory maker. A more affordable device with a 6.1-inch LCD screen, believed to be called the “iPhone XS,” is also on the way.

We hope for Apple’s sake that these names are inaccurate.

Down the road, as you gaze into the monitor of a new iMac, the screen could gaze back.

Apple was awarded a patent Thursday by the United States Patent & Trademark Office for adjustable reflective display technology that can track your gestures, including eye and head movements.

Good luck finding your way with Apple Maps today.

The service is suffering a widespread outage that is preventing many users from using search or directions. The problem seems to be affecting iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac users around the world, but Apple says all services are operating normally.

UPDATE: As of Friday afternoon, whatever the earlier problem was, this service appears to be working normally again.

Some of us need to have email notifications enabled, but we don’t want our iPhone to ping every time a spam message hits out inbox. Gmail just got a big notifications upgrade that solves this problem.

Its official iOS app now uses artificial intelligence to provide notifications for your most important emails only.

Apple is reportedly negotiating with Cartoon Saloon, an Irish Oscar-nominated animation studio, for the distribution rights for what would be Apple’s first animated feature film.

A deal is supposedly close to being reached, although there are scant details beyond this. Cartoon Saloon has previously produced three Academy Award-nominated animations including Secret of Kells, The Breadwinner and Song of the Sea. Its preschool series, Puffin Rock can be found on Netflix, and is also popular in China.

Intel has reportedly started production of the new faster XMM 7560 modem chips for Apple’s 2018 iPhones, marking the first time Intel has manufactured modem chips in-house for Apple.

While Intel has supplied Apple with modem chips for the past couple of years, previously it has outsourced production to TSMC.

Apple’s more affordable iPhone models with LCD displays will remain its best-selling devices with the transition to OLED technology slower than expected.

A new report claims Apple will continue to offer an iPhone with an LCD in 2019 and beyond. One analyst warns that the iPhone lineup won’t switch to OLED displays entirely until 2020 at the earliest.

Apple’s brilliantly creative HomePod ad, directed by Being John Malkovich helmer Spike Jonze, has won a top prize at the Association of Independent Commercial Producers Show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The awards were handed out on Thursday night. Apple shared the “Advertising Excellence/Single Commercial category” top spot with the absolutely hilarious “It’s a Tide Ad” Super Bowl series of ads for Tide. If you haven’t seen Apple’s excellent HomePod ad before, you can check it out below.

Apple’s latest ad campaign focuses on how the Mac can be used by regular people to create music, make art, develop apps and more.

Like classic Apple campaigns such as the “Switch” ads of the early 2000s, or the long-running “Shot on iPhone” ads, the “Behind the Mac” ads focus on real Apple users — thereby making them feel more authentic. They also embrace Apple’s accessibility push, demonstrated through stories like legally blind photographer Bruce Hall, who uses Apple devices.

Check them out below.

There’s a new line of bags, totes, and sleeves on the Apple Store today. Rapha produced these just for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users.

Rapha is a sportswear brand focused on clothing and accessories related to road bicycle racing. Its new Apple offerings are aimed at commuters, though.

Apple put a feature in the first iOS 12 beta designed specifically to thwart iPhone unlocking tools that use the Lightning port to get access to the device. But Grayshift, maker of a prominent unlocking tool, says it already has a workaround.

This is good news for the many law enforcement agencies around the U.S.  who’ve invested in Grayshift’s GrayKey unlocker. It’s not so good for anyone who wants to be sure their iPhone can’t be hacked.

Updates to all the apps in the Apple iWork for iOS suite boast many additional features. Pages’ and Numbers’ ability to record, edit, and play audio is just the start. In both those, and Keynote too, an Apple Pencil can be used to select and scroll. And the are plenty more.

There are also enhancements in iWork for Mac.

An iPhone X was found in good working order after it survived an extreme drop test off of California’s tallest bridge last week.

With the video button on record, the glass-encased Apple flagship successfully filmed its own dizzying trip as it fell from about 1,000 feet and hit a rocky bottom. Cosmetically, the iPhone looks like a boxers face after 12 rounds of jabs and hooks.

Verizon just created a new top tier to its unlimited data plans. It was designed for “super users who want the most,” according to the carrier.

The Above Unlimited plan offers 75GB of unthrottled 4G LTE data, and 20GB of unthrottled hotspot data, for $95 a month.

Ark: Survival Evolved is now available on Android and iOS.

The popular survival game from Studio Wildcard is completely free-to-play and in-app purchases aren’t necessary. The only thing you need to worry about is staying alive in a world dominated by dinosaurs.

While you’re still missing the headphone jack on an iPhone, prepare your mind for a future Apple handset without the side buttons.

Apple applied for a patent this morning on squeeze detection sensors that could replace the input buttons and add “deformable” walls to the housing.