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Watch today’s big Google I/O keynote live right here

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Google IO 2018
Google I/O starts today!
Photo: Google

Google I/O 2018 kicks off today in Mountain View, California. The two day event starts with a big Google keynote that will see the company lay out its plans for the future of its biggest products, including Android and Chrome OS.

You can watch the whole thing live right here from 10 a.m. Pacific.

Philips Hue update makes colorful lighting even easier

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Philips Lights
Controlling your lighting just got easier.
Photo: Philips

If you’ve got Philips Hue lighting in your home then you’ll want to make sure to upgrade to the latest version of the associated iOS app.

Making the company’s smart home lighting even smarter — both figuratively and literally — the app has received a visual overhaul, along with a number of nifty new features. And the gratefully received return of an old favorite.

A round Apple Watch isn’t totally out of the question

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Round Apple Watch
Would you buy a round Apple Watch?
Photo: Aicion

The Apple Watch has come a long way since it was first introduced back in 2015. One thing it hasn’t done? Gone circular, with Apple instead opting to stick with its rectangular display for all iterations of the wearable device.

But that could (possibly) one day change, based on a granted Apple patent that was published earlier today.

Twitter tests ‘Secret’ encrypted messaging feature

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Twitter has changed its mind on deleting inactive user accounts (for now)
Twitter is crushing dreams in 2020.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Twitter is testing a “Secret” messaging feature that will protect users’ private messages with end-to-end encryption. The feature has already been baked into the Twitter app for Android, but it hasn’t yet been activated inside a public release.

Foxconn wants a piece of Apple’s future MicroLED plans

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Theater Mode finally makes its way to Apple Watch in watchOS 3.2 beta 1.
Apple is interested in MicroLED tech for future Apple Watches -- among other things.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple is reportedly going all-in on MicroLED displays, and long-time supplier Foxconn wants to get in on the action!

According to a new report, the Foxconn Group recently took a 7.32 percent share in the company Epileds Technologies, and aims to soon buy anoter 20 million shares to become its largest shareholder. Epileds is one of only a couple of Taiwan-based LED firms that have valuable RGB technological capabilities key to MicroLED technology.

Supersized iPhone X display will be whole inch bigger than iPhone 8 Plus

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iphone x
iPhone X Plus will boast an impressive 6.5-inch OLED display.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The larger iPhone X Plus will be roughly the same size as the current 5.5-inch iPhone 8 Plus, a new report claims. Despite that, its greatly reduced bezel will give it a screen size of 6.5 inches, making it by far Apple’s largest-ever iPhone display.

By comparison, the current iPhone X measures 5.8 inches on the diagonal. The first iPhone, released back in 2007, had a display of just 3.5 inches.

Bill Gates admits ‘Apple’s an amazing company’

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Bill Gates praises Apple
Bill Gates, who once headed Apple's arch rival, now has nothing but positive things to say about the company.
Screencap: CNBC

The co-founder of Microsoft joined the chorus of voices speaking positively about Apple today. Bill Gates’ relationship with Apple goes back to the very dawn of the company, and he and Steve Jobs were the best of frenemies.

Now that he’s a philanthropist rather the CEO of Microsoft he can speak openly about a former rival.

Microsoft Your Phone app lets your PC and iPhone work better together

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Microsoft Your Phone
With Microsoft Your Phone, your iPhone's text messages and notifications can appear on your PC.
Photo: Microsoft

Microsoft unveiled an app today designed to allow Windows users to  show the text messages and notifications from their smartphone. Plus, Your Phone will make moving images between phone and PC easier.

Also at its Build 2018 developer conference, the company announced that the new Windows Timeline is coming to  iPhone and iPad.

15 Apple Watch-inspired gifts for Mom [Mother’s Day Gift Guide]

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mom
The editors of Cult of Mac Watch Store have rounded up a beautiful collection of Apple Watch bands, chargers and stands specifically picked for Mom in our Mother's Day Gift Guide.  
Photo: Bezels & Bytes

Mother’s Day is on Sunday, May 13 — mark that down and prepare to pay homage to the woman who gave you life. How about a little something for her Apple Watch?

Cult of Mac has rounded up a beautiful collection of Apple Watch bands, chargers and stands specifically picked for Mom in our Mother’s Day Gift Guide.

If you mother is a nerd, a Luddite, a traveler or style maven, we’ve got you covered. There’s a unique gift for every Apple Watch-loving momma out there, and we can vet for the quality and popularity of these bands and stands. Check out Cult of Mac Watch Store’s Mother’s Day Gift Guide.

All app updates must support iPhone X screen, iOS 11 SDK

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Developers must support iPhone X screen iOS 11 SDK
When developers update their apps, they must support the iPhone X screen and use the iOS 11 SDK,
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Apple just put its foot down about supporting its latest tech. Starting in July, every update submitted to the App Store must take full advantage of the iPhone X’s Super Retina display. They also must be built with the iOS 11 SDK.

Support for the unusually-shaped iPhone X screen has been happening gradually, but expect a rush in the coming weeks.  

Apple closes in on $1 trillion market cap

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European Commission could get even tougher on tech in 2020
Warren Buffet wants to buy 100% of Apple.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The race to become the world’s first $1 trillion company is nearly complete with Apple share prices soaring on the stock market today.

Trading of AAPL stock hit 187.60 per share during the morning trading hours today, putting the company just $55 billion under the coveted $1 trillion market cap mark.

Casetify’s nylon Apple Watch bands hit all the marks

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casetify
These fabric-like, breathable nylon Apple Watch nylon bands from Casetify are comfortable and long-lasting.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Nylon bands for Apple Watch are in high demand for their comfort and versatility. Add in great engineering and style, and you’ve got the ideal strap to fit your everyday needs.

Enter Casetify, a company that believes in being radically unique, creating beautifully designed, made-to-order products that are hand-inspected from beginning to end.

The company recently launched its line of Nylon Fabric Bands for Apple Watch, and we’re now featuring them all in our Watch Store. A great value at $40!

Apple just squashing bugs with latest iOS and macOS betas

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Messages in iCloud is a new feature coming to iPhone, iPad, Mac
Messages in iCloud is a new feature coming to three of the five types of Apple computer. It's still in beta, though.
Photo: Apple

The fourth beta of the next versions of iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS just became available for developers. Apple has apparently reached the point where it’s not adding new features to these, but is fixing bugs.

It’s possible features could be removed from the various betas, though.

Retrobatch for Mac means you can finally ditch Photoshop

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retrobatch
Even Retrobatch's icon is fantastic.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Acorn is one of the two best1 Mac image editors for normal humans. Retrobatch, from the same developer, is a batch-processor for images, letting you build simple or fancy workflows that can do pretty much anything to your images, automatically. If you regularly resize photos, remove location data, add watermarks, or anything else, this is for you.

Even crazier is Retrobatch’s machine-learning component, which can apply filters and operations based on what it sees in the image. For instance, you could drop a folder of images onto Retrobatch, and it would check them all and only apply filters to pictures of hot dogs. That’s right. It can detect pictures of hot dogs.

Thanos arrives to blow up Fortnite

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Get ready for Thanos in Fortnite
Bet you weren't expecting Thanos in Fortnite. But find the Infinity Gauntlet and become the Mad Titan.
Photo: Marvel

Thanos isn’t just appearing in theaters everywhere, he’s also showing up in Fortnite. The villain of Avengers: Infinity War is crossing over into one of the most popular iOS games for a short time.

Even better, one player in each session transforms into Thanos to wield the Infinity Gauntlet.

Get ready for a triple-lens iPhone

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multi-camera smartphones
Imaging the iPhone with three lenses.
Photo: iDrop News/Martin Hajek

Just as you are scraping together the money for an iPhone with two camera lenses, Apple may be coming out with a triple-lens iPhone sometime next year.

A news story out of Taiwan about the rising revenues of two handset components makers buried that little nugget as it reported on an expected recovery of a sluggish smartphone sales across the globe.

Zoom through Apple’s spaceship parking garage

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Apple parking garage
A parking garage like no other.
Photo: DurangoLyft/YouTube

The design of parking garages rarely captures the imagination. But a dash-cam video of a parking facility at Apple’s spaceship campus will likely prompt a few ooh’s and ahh’s from design fans.

The three-and-a-half-minute video shot by a Lyft driver is worthy of narration from Apple design guru Johnny Ive and has all the hallmarks of a well-made Apple device: attractive simplicity, clean lines, and functional flow.

Hack a broken iPhone memory chip into a USB thumbdrive

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Put this iPhone memory chip into a USB drive

Screencap: Strange Parts

Scotty Allen loves to tinker. He followed up on his recent project manually expanding the storage capacity of his iPhone with a new trick: extracting an iPhone memory chip and converting it into a USB drive.

To be clear, Allen isn’t suggesting this is practical. Buying a USB drive is cheaper and vastly easier. But he sure seems to have fun doing it.

iOS 13 will boast great updates for iPad users

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ipad ios 11
Expect iOS 13 to bring significant new features to Apple's tablets, more so than iOS 12.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

iOS 12 is right around the corner, but iPad users should be thinking longer term. It’s iOS 13 “Yukon” in 2019 that’s expected to bring more new features to Apple’s tablet.

At the top of the list of the ability to work with multiple windows from the same application side-by-side. This would allow the user to, for example, have two Pages documents open next to each other.

Cult of Mac Magazine: Why everyone was so wrong about iPhone X, and more!

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cover
In this week's Cult of Mac Magazine: Everything you heard about iPhone X sales was wrong. In fact, it's Apple's most popular model.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine: Analysts have been extremely pessimistic about the iPhone X, with almost daily predictions that Apple’s top-of-the-line model was a flop. And they were all dead wrong. Tim Cook just said the iPhone X has been Apple’s best-selling model for every week since it launched, and that sales of all the company’s phones grew last quarter. How did the analysts get it so wrong?

You’ll find that story and more in this issue. Mother’s Day is around the corner on May 13, so check out our Watch Store’s Mother’s Day Gift Guide for on-time shipping. Get your free subscription to Cult of Mac Magazine from iTunes. Or read on for this week’s top stories.

Newton, Bias Amp 2, Overcast privacy, and other amazing apps of the week

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Awesome Apps
'Appy weekend.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

This week we look at the amazing new Bias Amp 2 for guitarists, which looks just awful on the big-screen iPad Pro, we see how the Newton email app has banished the “sent” mail folder, we check out the new privacy features in the Overcast podcast app, and find out how to duplicate our entire Instagram history on our own microblog.