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For the first time in 11 years, I did not get Apple’s latest iPhone delivered to my door on launch day. I’ve been using an iPhone X since last November and I was still happy with it; I certainly didn’t see the need to drop another $999 on what seemed like a slightly better device.

But then I got the chance to use an iPhone XS Max.

I had the handset for just over a week, and I loved every second I spent with it. I was wrong to not upgrade this year, and it killed me to return the device to its rightful owner.

Here’s why I’m sorely missing the iPhone XS Max.

Today marks seven years since Steve Jobs passed away at the age of 56. Paying homage to his former boss, Apple CEO Tim Cook posted a message on Twitter in which he made clear how much Steve meant to him personally — and to Apple as a whole.

An iPhone gravestone spotted in Russia marks the final resting place of a young woman who reportedly worked in an Apple retail position.

A video posted online shows the iPhone-inspired grave marker. The unique monument boasts an Apple logo, side buttons and an image of the deceased 25-year-old on the screen. It’s the ultimate tribute to an Apple fan!

Despite Apple’s denials, it’s “highly plausible” that secret spy chips could have been planted on the company’s servers, said a former Apple hardware engineer.

Anna-Katrina Shedletsky, who spent nearly six years at Apple helping build several generations of iPod, iPhone and Apple Watch, said spy chips could have been slipped into the design of servers used for Apple’s iCloud services, as alleged in a Bloomberg Businessweek story.

“With my knowledge of hardware design, it’s entirely plausible to me,” she said. “It’s very highly plausible to me, and that’s scary if you think about it.”

In the event that your 2018 MacBook Pro or iMac Pro runs into problems outside warranty, would you try and save money by going to third-party repair shop? If so, Apple seemingly has some bad news for you.

According to a new report, Apple has introduced new software locks that will brick these machines if they’re operated on by anyone not using Apple’s proprietary diagnostic software. Failing to do so will, “result in an inoperative system and an incomplete repair.”

Update: Apple and Amazon both issued lengthy statements Thursday concerning the Chinese spy chip allegations. We updated this post to include those statements.

Apple denies that Chinese spy chips infiltrated its iCloud server hardware after claims that motherboards used by Apple, Amazon and dozens of other tech companies contained microchips used for surveillance purposes.

Cupertino insists the story is “wrong and misinformed.” Apple also says Chinese spying had nothing to do with the company’s decision to cut ties with a supplier.

You almost certainly know the shortcuts for snapping quick screenshots on your Mac. It’s ⇧⌘3 to capture the entire screen, and ⇧⌘4 to get a crosshairs cursor to select a section of the screen.

Now, there’s a new screenshot shortcut in town: ⇧⌘5. And boy is this fella fancy. If this were a western movie, ⇧⌘5 would be the young upstart blowing into town with a couple of Uzis and a pair of Kevlar chaps¹. Let’s check out Mojave screenshots.

If you use Apple’s magnificent GarageBand for iOS, you will come up against one frustration over and over again — exporting stems. Or rather, not exporting stems. “Stems” is a cool music-producer term for the individual tracks in a song, and it is common practice to export them separately to either edit them in another app or send them to other people.

GarageBand on iOS doesn’t do this. It’s inexplicable. But there’s a fast and easy way to grab the stems right from your GarageBand project. You just need a copy of the magnificent AudioShare app, which costs just $3.99. Here’s how to export GarageBand stems.

With our 50 Essential iOS Apps series, the goal was to help you find some of the best apps for iPhone and iPad. Picking the finest offerings from the more than 2.2 million iOS apps in Apple’s App Store proved challenging. But we highlighted apps that offer excellent features or make life easier in various ways.

To wrap up the series, we’ve sorted the apps by category to make the list easier to browse. We’re also showcasing Cult of Mac readers’ alternatives to our picks.

(You’ll find reader faves linked at the end of this post. That’s especially helpful since one of our must-have apps is about to die an unceremonious death.)

The iPhone XS Max camera is one of the best mobile cameras ever tested by the digital camera testing lab DxOMark. It’s just not as good as Huawei’s triple-camera P20 Pro, the tests show.

The XS Max scored a 105, four points less than the flagship of its Chinese competitor, a result only wonky photophiles are likely to debate ad nauseam.

The new S4 chip in the Apple Watch Series 4 is an absolute beast when it comes to processing power.

Apple didn’t brag too much about the S4 during its September keynote other than saying the chip is two times faster than last year’s model. There aren’t any benchmark scores for it. However, a developer recently put the S4 through some serious tests — and the results are insanely impressive

A fresh batch of new emoji are coming soon to your Mac, iPhone and iPad.

This morning, Apple posted a teaser of over 70 new emoji that are being included in iOS 12.1 once it launches to the public. Some of the new characters include new smiley faces, a raccoon, llama, swan and new sports equipment.

Take a look at what to expect:

If you’re running macOS Mojave (and you really should be), probably one of the first things you did after installing it was to test Dark Mode. The new theme darkens the Mac interface and makes everything look cooler — apart from text, which is just harder to read.

But there’s no built-in way to have Dark Mode switch on automatically at sundown. That’s where NightOwl comes in. The free app switches your Mac between Dark Mode and the traditional lighter look automatically.

The fast and simple mobile browser from Opera is now available on iOS.

Opera Touch was built with gesture-based devices like the iPhone X and iPhone XS in mind, and it’s optimized for one-handed use on larger screens. It boasts a number of useful features, including Flow, which lets you share content with Opera on your desktop.

We know and love Ullu’s leather straps for Apple Watch, so much so that they are best-sellers in Cult of Mac’s Watch Store. The company’s bread and butter, however, is its popular iPhone cases.

Check out any of Ullu’s social media and you’ll witness tons of A-listers toting around their various iPhones in Ullu’s luxurious cases. From wallet and strappy to Ullu’s famous SnapOn and dual-iPhone cases, there’s a chic option for everyone.

Turns out the entire “Beautygate” controversy has been much ado about nothing.

Corners of the internet have been up in arms over a perceived flaw in the iPhone XS camera that makes people in selfies look better than they should. Apple is supposedly looking to “fix” the undisclosed beauty filter, but developers behind one of the best iOS camera apps revealed today that such a filter does not exist.

Apple Watch is pretty awesome at doing a lot of things. But mapping workouts isn’t one of them. At least, not until now. Back in 2016, I was pretty disappointed with the maps I got from my Apple Watch Series 2 (the first model that came with built-in GPS). When I tested it at my local running track, the maps it generated looked like random scribbles.

Fast-forward to today, and things look a whole lot better. Last week, I repeated that test with a shiny new Apple Watch Series 4 and got some very interesting results.

For many people, the new “For You” tab in Apple’s Photos app could become the default front page for their pictures. The new feature in iOS 12 gathers everything you care about — recent pictures, sharing activity, memories and something called “Featured Photos” — into one convenient spot.

Let’s check out the Photos For You tab and see what you can do with it.

Despite its many flaws, Siri is still useful for lots of tasks: Setting a coffee timer, adding a reminder, looking up a fact. But what I almost never want is Siri’s voice feedback.

Usually I’m looking at my iPhone when I use Siri, and I don’t use Hey Siri ever. What I want is to ask Siri a question, and have it answer, without all the usual smart-mouthed nonsense. Thankfully, there’s one setting that does just that: Mute Siri.

By Chris Brantner

With the Major League Baseball playoffs starting Tuesday, fans will be anxiously watching to see if their team advances and, eventually, who will bring home the World Series title.

Whether you have cable or not, you can still watch the entire MLB playoffs season from the Apple device of your choice. Here’s how to catch all the action on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac, etc.

Apple still hasn’t publicly revealed whether it’s working on an autonomous car, but a company started by former Apple engineers certainly is.

Opening up about its plans, startup Aeva has revealed that it is building a smart sensor that will help self-driving cars make sense of the world. And, from its sleek design to its mix of hardware and software magic, it totally looks like the kind of product Apple would design and make!

Apple could use a special “pure black” coating to hide the iPhone’s front-facing camera, one analyst claims.

This would allow the lens to blend into the notch so that it is almost invisible to the eye without impacting camera performance.

According to a new report, for the first time in the U.S. and possibly elsewhere, law enforcement recently accessed a suspect’s phone by using their face to unlock Face ID.

The incident took place on August 10, when the FBI searched the house of 28-year-old Ohio resident Grant Michalski, later charged with receiving and possessing child pornography. Michalski was told to put his face in front of the phone, thereby unlocking it. This allowed agents to look through his online chats, photos, and other material deemed worthy of investigation.

Apple stopped updating the iPad mini a few years ago because sales dropped off at the release of the first iPhone Plus model. Seems lots of people prefer a large-ish smartphone to a small tablet, even if the iPad is bigger than the iPhone.

And now there’s the iPhone XS Max, Apple’s biggest smartphone ever. So we explored using one as a replacement for an iPad mini 4.

This week on The CultCast: Beautygate — what it is, and why it’s undoubtedly the dumbest “gate” in the history of iPhone! Plus: How have we liked our first week with Apple Watch 4 and iPhone XS? We reveal all. And the shockingly low production price of the iPhone XS Max proves Apple owes us more storage space!

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