Sound sync woes will be a thing of the past. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Been thinking about cutting the cable cord? Well, here’s a good way to do it in one fell swoop: Snag a sweet deal on a super-sharp Apple TV 4K with four months of DirecTV Now.
You’ll also find great buys on iPads, iMacs and MacBooks in this week’s roundup of the best Apple deals.
iPhone X sales are booming. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
The battle between Apple and Qualcomm and Apple is turning downright nasty.
Hot on the heels of Apple’s counter-lawsuit, Qualcomm has filed three new patent infringement claims against the iPhone-maker. It is also seeking a ban on the import of all AT&T and T-Mobile iPhone X and iPhone 8 units in the US which could cause major headaches for Apple.
Look! Another new charging mat, this time on Kickstarter. This one is call Funxim, which sounds dirty in a way I can’t quite determine. Funxim lets you charge an iPhone and an Apple Watch at the same time, and is oval-shaped, which –as we shall see in a moment — seems to be quite important.
This is one app you may want to download. Photo: Apple
The Apple Watch just got a whole lot more indispensable! Today, two major heart-related developments mean Apple’s wearable device could one day save your life.
Firstly, Apple teamed up with Stanford Medicine to launch an Apple Watch heart app that looks for deadly atrial fibrillation. It alerts users when they experience irregular heart rhythms, and can actually get them help.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration finally approved AliveCor’s Kardiaband EKG reader. It’s the first medical device accessory for the Apple Watch.
A new High Sierra beta is available now. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple’s quick fix for a major security flaw in macOS High Sierra has resulted in another issue for some users. The update introduces yet another bug that breaks file sharing, but Apple has published instructions on how to repair it.
Apple is doing more and more of its chip design work in-house. Photo: Intel
Apple is busy designing its own power management chips for use in future iPhones, which could debut as soon as next year, a new report claims.
The new chips would reportedly be the most advanced power management chips in the industry. They will boast superior processing abilities, allowing them to better monitor and control power consumption — thereby letting iPhones and iPads deliver better performance on lower power consumption.
More than 400 Apple Stores around the world will sport red logos next week, while every Apple Pay transaction will result in a donation to the Global Fund. Apple will also promote apps and games that support (RED).
iPhones suffer fewer issues, claims new report. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
The “failure rate” of Android devices is nearly double that of iOS device, although iOS apps crash 7x more frequently than Android apps.
Those are two of the findings from respected mobile diagnostics experts Blancco Technology Group, who have just released their latest mobile device performance and health report.
Get the latest version of Edge today. Photo: Microsoft
Microsoft Edge for iOS is now available to download from the App Store. The web browser entered beta testing in early October, but you needed a Windows 10 PC to get your hands on it. Now it is available to anyone with an iPhone.
Qualcomm claims that the 2017 iPhones are violating its patents. Photo: Apple
Hot on the heels of Apple suing Qualcomm over its Snapdragon processors, Qualcomm has fired back by filing a patent lawsuit (a counter-countersuit?) against Apple for technology in the iPhone 8 and iPhone X.
Qualcomm filed its grievance with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. It singles out five patents that Apple is allegedly infringing on — including tech related to radio frequency transceivers, power management in mobile CPUs, image enhancement using depth-based data, and more.
Jimmy Iovine’s days at Apple are numbered. Photo: Apple
Spotify is in for a rough future, according to Apple’s Jimmy Iovine, who is warning the music industry not to place too much faith in the tech industry.
Iovine sat down for a new interview where he discussed the future of the music industry. According to the Apple Music boss, record labels are “100 percent” overly optimistic about where things are headed with technology.
DropStream streams any video or audio straight to Apple TV. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
You can snap photos of your iPhone, edit them on your iPad, and view them on your giant-screen iMac, with everything almost instantaneously in sync. But what if you have a video clip that you want to watch on your Apple TV? Oh man, maybe it’s best not to even ask. Now, though, there’s an app that lets you do just that: DropStream.
DropStream’s function is right there in its name. You drop a movie onto its Mac window, and the movie starts playing on your Apple TV (or Chromecast). You don’t have to convert it to the right format, or add it to iTunes, or anything like that. It just, as they say, works.
Stories, the short-video format popularized by Snapchat, is making its way to YouTube.
Everyone from Instagram to Facebook Messenger has already copied Snapchat’s popular, so it should be little surprise that YouTube has decided to get in on the action too. The video platform revealed to creators today that it’s working on a new feature called “Reels” that is a lot like Stores. Only it comes with some major differences.
Andy Rubin allegedly dated a colleague at Google. Photo: Google
Essential founder Andy Rubin has stepped away from the company following claims he had an “inappropriate relationship” with a colleague while at Google.
Rubin’s leave of absence comes just three months after Essential launched its first smartphone. A statement from his representative denies any wrongdoing.
A macOS update adds support for Messages in iCloud. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple has rolled out a fix for a massive security flaw in macOS High Sierra.
The issue, disclosed on Tuesday, allows anyone to gain administrator access to your Mac without your login password. Apple asks users to install its latest update “as soon as possible.”
Currating your feed is about to get even easier. Photo: Lee Peterson/Cult of Mac
Reposting your favorite photos on Instagram is about to get a lot easier if a new feature that’s currently in testing makes it out to the public.
Instagram appears to be testing a button that allows users to “regram” button that allows users to share posts to their timeline. There’s no guarantee when the feature will make it out to the public, but it if it does, it could finally mean the end of horrible third-party reposting apps.
You can now enjoy podcasts in the iHeartRadio app for CarPlay. The new section becomes available after installing the latest iHeartRadio update on your iPhone.
The war between the two companies has raged throughout 2017. Photo: Qualcomm
Apple has filed a countersuit against Qualcomm in the latest twist in the battle between the two companies, which has run throughout 2017.
What Apple is alleging is that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon mobile phone chips, which power a range of Samsung and other Android handsets, run into conflict with Apple’s own earlier patents.
This is one of several games no longer available in the App Store! Photo: Duterterador
Apple is removing violent games from the App Store — at least when it comes to games that glorify violence against drug dealers and users in the Philippines, that is!
While a lot of us probably haven’t come across them, there is apparently a niche series of games that depict Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in a literal war on drugs. And seemingly the organisation “Asian Network of People who Use Drugs” (yes, that’s a real thing!) were none too happy about them.
Photos Companion will make file transfers easy. Photo: Microsoft
Microsoft plans to make it easier to transfer photos from iOS and Android devices to a Windows PC. Its upcoming Photos Companion app will make the process effortless, without the need for a cable.
Instagram is continuing its competition with Snapchat with its latest update, which lets user remix friends’ photos and then send them back.
To use the feature, when you view a photo message from friends, hit the camera icon at the bottom of the screen and capture a reply. Your reply then contains a sticker of the original message, which you can then move and resize, or add additional stickers, text, and drawings to.
Apple's autonomous vehicle project is still rolling. Photo: Google Earth
What do crop circles have to do with Apple? No, it’s not 1996 — when an Apple laptop was used to save the world from aliens in Independence Day.
Instead, a new report claims that an image on Google Earth depicts a former Fiat Chrysler Automobiles facility in Arizona that Apple may be using to test autonomous vehicles. A satellite image shows a “proving ground” with urban street configurations, such as crosswalks and intersections, which would be necessary for putting a self-driving vehicle through its paces.
Apple let a major security flaw slip through the cracks. Photo: Apple
A serious security flaw in macOS High Sierra has been exposed that allows anyone to gain full access to affected Macs without knowing the computer’s administrative password.
The bug appears to let someone log into the admin account on a Mac by simply typing “root” as the username while leaving the password field blank. Attackers could potentially exploit the bug to access locked Macs and gain access to personal information.
iOS 11.2 makes Control Center a bit better. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Developers received a new round of beta updates from Apple this morning after the company released the fifth beta build of iOS 11.2 along with new software for tvOS and macOS as well.
iOS 11.2 beta 2 comes more than a week after Apple seeded the last build to developers adding a bunch of tweaks to the iPhone and iPad.