Struggling to understand how Apple stock erased more value in the last six weeks than it made in its first quarter-century?
It’s bloody complicated, but these five reasons help explain Apple’s plunging stock price.
The latest iPad Pro includes the most significant changes Apple has made to its tablets in years. There’s USB-C instead of Lightning, Face ID instead of Touch ID, and the device is more portable. In some ways it’s better than a MacBook.
But that’s not to say Apple got everything right. The 2018 iPad Pro has problems noticeable enough to leave me questioning whether I made the right decision buying one.
Author’s Note Sept. 26, 2019: The release of iPadOS 13 brought so many new features that it removed nearly all my regrets about the iPad Pro. The addition of mouse support and full access to drives plugged into the USB-C port are game changers. And giving apps the ability to open multiple windows simultaneously greatly simplifies my workflow. It seems Apple took the unusual route of waiting about 9 months after the iPad Pro’s debut to introduce a software update that makes the tablet shine.
In short, many of the regrets listed here are no longer relevant in 2019.
Find My AirPods isn’t your only line of defense against a lost AirPod catastrophe anymore. Twelve South’s AirSnap is a full-grain leather case tailored to protect your AirPods while also keeping them close at hand.
AirSnap protects both your AirPods and charging case from getting nicked, scratched and dirty while floating around your desk, computer bag, or purse. Plus, it’s available at the Cult of Mac Watch Store just in time to make a great stocking stuffer this holiday season.
Are you a late-night movie watcher with sensitive neighbors? Do you hate watching your Apple TV with the volume set too low? Then you might love today’s tip. Did you know that you can use your AirPods with your Apple TV? Sure you did. But did you also know that you don’t need to dig around in your Apple TV’s menus to hook them up? There’s a Siri Remote shortcut that makes switching ultra-convenient.
Even a 15-inch MacBook Pro screen feels cramped when compared to a big desktop display. Too bad toting around a second screen for your laptop isn’t practical.
But maybe it is. Luna Display is a tiny wireless adapter that lets an iPad act as an external display for a Mac. We tested this accessory to see how well it lives up to its promise of a hassle-free way of extending our MacBook screen when on the go. Read on to find out how it did.
Apple’s iBooks app became the Books app in iOS 12, and got a whole lot better. From the library through to the built-in book store, it’s better in every way. It even has a dark mode, perfect for browsing and reading late at night.
But Books’ dark mode doesn’t work the way you might think. For instance, how in the dickens do you switch the dark mode on and off?
This week on The CultCast: Did you know about Apple’s super-secret special return and exchange policy? We’ll tell you what it is, and how to use it if you’re unhappy with your Apple purchase but outside your 14-day return window. Plus: A quest to trade up — the stories of three MacBook Pro owners trying to get Apple to trade in their newly purchased 2018 MacBook Pros for models with the brand new, smoking-fast Vega 20 GPUs. And finally, and most importantly: Happy Thanksgiving!
Our thanks to Gantri for supporting this episode. Gantri’s 3D-printed lights are both beautiful and affordable. Check them out in AR at gantri.com/cultcast, and use code CultCast at checkout for $20 off.
The Steve Jobs Theater has earned an award for Structural Artistry from The Institute of Structural Engineers.
Located on the Apple Park campus and opened last September, the theater received recognition for being the largest structure in the world solely supported by glass, and for the way in which pipes and other systems have been integrated into its roof.
This weekend, you’re “enjoying” some extended time with your family. After you’ve fixed their devices, and taught them that the battery of their iPhone lasts way longer if they don’t leave the damn screen on the whole time, you might decide to swap some photos. You may grab the your old childhood snaps off your mother’s iPad, or photos of the family recipe book off your father’s iPhone.
There are a few ways to do this — slow, fast and faster, wired or wireless. Let’s see how to transfer photos between iPhones and iPads.
It may sound like a crazy Mad Lib, but it’s not: Queen guitarist Brian May really has taken to Instagram to pen a lengthy rant about Apple’s UBC-C connector.
May dramatically declares that “This is one of the reasons my love for Apple is turning to hatred.” And, from the look of the comments, it seems that quite a few people agree with him.
The iPhone X had one of the shortest lifespans of any iPhone Apple has ever made, being cancelled when Apple introduced its next-gen handsets back in September. However, according to a new report, Apple is restarting production on last year’s iPhone model in certain markets.
And it may all have to do with a lack of demand for some of the newer iPhones.
Apple has spent upwards of $1 billion creating original TV shows, but as of yet it hasn’t revealed exactly how it plans to get these in front of users. One idea? That it could release a streaming dongle, similar to Google’s Chromecast and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick.
This could be a lower cost entry point into the streaming TV market — since both Amazon and Google’s offerings cost under $50, compared to $180 for the Apple TV.
I have a friend who came back to the iPad with the iPad Pro, and the first thing he started whining about was that there’s no way to create a local folder in the Files app. He doesn’t want to store everything in iCloud. Which reminded me of this great feature. All of Apple’s big iOS Apps — Pages, GarageBand, Numbers, and so on — let you choose where they store their files. The default is iCloud Drive, but you can choose pretty much any place you like, from Dropbox, to your iPad itself, to pretty much any third-party storage app. Let’s see how it works.
If you have a new 2018 iPad Pro, then you probably need a new USB-C hub. Without it, you can only plug in one accessory at a time, and that includes the charger. With a hub, you can plug in an almost unlimited number of USB devices (and other gear), plus provide power for everything at the same time.
The problem is, almost all USB-C docks are designed for laptop computers like the MacBook. They’re designed with short tails so they can sit on a desk next to the MacBook’s desk-level USB-C port, and plug in without trailing a long cable all over the place. But these short tails are terrible for the iPad — especially if you use the tablet on a stand.
They result in a dongle dangling from the iPad, trailing all the cables and accessories hooked up to the hub. This puts a strain on the USB-C port, and reduces mobility for the iPad. It also looks ridiculous. Ditto those docks that clip to the iPad itself. They’re a disaster waiting to happen. Fortunately, I have a better idea.
While many of us learn to swim at school, plenty of people never return to the pool as an adult. If that sounds familiar, but your shiny new Apple Watch Series 4 is tempting you to dip your toe in the water again, this guide to swimming with Apple Watch is for you.
We’ll take a look at what equipment you’ll need, how to use your watch for swimming, how to structure your workouts for maximum fitness gains, and how to track your progress in Apple’s Activity app.
Let’s dive in and start swimming with Apple Watch.
Got a long flight home this holiday season? Wish you could listen to in-flight TV with your AirPods? Want to hear the gym cardio machine’s TV audio with your wireless headphones?
Now you can, thanks to Twelve South’s AirFly — a tiny device that connects wireless headphones to wired audio jacks on planes, in fitness centers and anywhere else wired headphones were previously required. Just pair your wireless headphones with AirFly, plug it into the headphone jack, and you’re ready.
This wondrous little machine makes an excellent travel buddy and stocking stuffer this holiday season. Grab it from our Watch Store now!
Up until last year, if you plugged a pair of headphones into your Mac, the speakers were effectively disconnected. There was no way to send simultaneous audio stream to both headphones and speakers. Now, with modern T2-equipped Macs, you can double up on audio. For instance, you could have alerts sound through the built-in speakers, with music routed through the headphone jack, so you don’t get notifications interrupting your banging tunes.
The best part is that its really easy to set up. And, if you prefer the old behavior, you don’t have to do anything.
Today we’re going to make a Siri Shortcut that takes any text, converts it into English, and copies it to the clipboard. Never again will you have to struggle with a foreign menu on a web page, or a snippet of text from a non-English news site.
There are a few ways to translate text and websites on iOS, but this shortcut has two big advantages: It’s really, really fast, and it automatically copies the result to the clipboard. If you ever used the otherwise-excellent Microsoft Translate share extension, you will already be sick of having to manually select the result in a tiny window, and then use the share sheet again just to copy it.
In German, the boy’s name “Yohann” means “gift of god.” The same could be said about the Yohann MacBook stand, a sculptural walnut base divine in both look and function.
You may want to say a little prayer when you place your MacBook Pro on this elevating perch for the first time, though. You will wonder how this thing can support your rather expensive machine.
You no longer need to buy the iPhone XS or XS Max to take advantage of one of the best features on the new devices’ camera.
Google Photos pushed out an update this morning that allows any iPhone owner with a Portrait Mode camera to adjust the background blur after a photo has been taken.
iPod lovers have been waiting years for Apple to resurrect its portable music player, but a brilliant new concept case could give us the next best thing.
Designer Joyce Kang created a brilliant mockup of a case for Apple Watch that transforms it into a music player reminiscent of the original iPod. The tiny case even comes with a working click wheel — and still gives you access to Apple Watch’s best features!
Roli makes touch-sensitive controllers for music apps, and they come in Blocks, little modular units that can be snapped together via magnets to form bigger, better controllers. They’re kind of like Transformers for music. Now, Roli will now sell you a GarageBand-friendly version of its amazing Songmaker Kit, optimized for use with the Mac version of GarageBand.
But what if you already bought a Songmaker Kit? Should you return it and buy the new one? Nope. The hardware is exactly the same, all you need is a software update.
Today we’ll see what the Songmaker Kit GarageBand Edition can do, and find out how to update your own Blocks to use it.
An 11-inch iPad Pro and Apple Pencil were the focus of what seemed like a routine unboxing video. That is until the host used his bare hands to destroy both devices.
If you’re among the 2.7 million viewers to JerryRigEverything on YouTube, you’ve come to expect the unusual durability tests host Zach Nelson puts to the latest tech gadgets.
A pair of avid runners turned engineers have reinvented the watch band into something kind of genius, and we’ve got it in the Cult of Mac Watch Store.
Your Apple Watch provides a torrent of information – so why wear it in the same spot as the watch your great-grandfather wore? Putting key stats and info in your natural line of sight is not only easier to read, it’s easier to use and it’s safer.
This week on The CultCast: You need to be prepared if you want to lock down the best prices on the best gadgets this Black Friday. We’ll tell you the strategies to use to grab all the good deals most shoppers miss. Plus: The new MacBook Pro GPUs are a huge upgrade, but we’re pissed. (We’ll explain.) Also: Why Apple’s stock has fallen off a cliff. And we’ll wrap up with a Steve Jobs story so mundane, the internet has become fascinated with it.
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