Topping up your iPhone could be faster than ever this fall. Photo: Belkin
The 2018 iPhone lineup will pack improved charging technologies to make topping up faster than ever, according to a new report.
Apple might team up with new suppliers who can provide higher-powered charging components. The upgrade should finally allow the iPhone to compete with its Android rivals when it comes to charging speed.
Do Not Disturb is way better in iOS 12. Photo: Apple
Do Not Disturb gets a few great additions in iOS 12. These new features are very simple. However, they will make a big difference in how we use our phones — and how we interact with other people. Let’s take a look at the Do Not Disturb icon on iPhone to understand these changes better.
If you want to give your iPhone X a vintage vibe strap it into a Sena Racer case. Photo: Lewis Wallace/Cult of Mac
Best List: Racer iPhone X case by Sena
Even someone who doesn’t suffer from a Jony Ive-style obsession with slimness wants an iPhone case with style. The Sena Racer — a leather iPhone X case with a rad racing stripe running up its back — adds bulk for sure. But its pleasantly puffy profile throws off a vintage ’70s vibe that looks killer and feels good in your hand.
It offers protection, sure. But, more importantly, it makes your iPhone stand out in a sea of svelte sameness.
New running features coming in watchOS 5 are all about pace -- the Achilles' heel of Apple Watch. Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac
Apple took the wraps off watchOS 5 last week at WWDC, revealing loads of new features that we can look forward to this fall. Among them were some big improvements for runners: Cadence, Rolling Mile Pace and Custom Pace Alerts.
What I find most exciting about these new features is that I think they hint at a much-needed hardware upgrade coming in Apple Watch Series 4, which is expected to debut this fall. Here’s why.
DxO One is an entire camera module that elevates any iDevice's photo abilities to professional grade. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
Your iPhone and iPad come with amazing cameras built-in. But as mobile cameras improve, the standards for digital photo and video are rising too. So to catch up, there’s the DxO One.
GoodNotes 4 is perfect for writing notes, regardless of the topic. Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac
The iPad has become a workhorse in the last few years. Since the introduction of the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, the transition from pen and paper to digital note-taking is more feasible than ever. GoodNotes 4 is one of the best digital note-taking and document-annotation apps available on iOS.
Wave goodbye to physical buttons! Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
The next-gen Apple Watches have so far avoided physical redesigns in favor of under-the-hood improvements. That could change this year, however, according to a new report.
Sources in Apple’s supply chain claim that the Apple Watch Series 4 will replace the current physical buttons on the device for solid state buttons with haptic feedback. While the device will retain the same button configuration as existing Apple Watches, these buttons won’t physically click as before.
Nike+ Run Club offers detailed run tracking whether you're new to running or an experienced marathon runner. Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac
Running is a great form of exercise, regardless of your fitness level. Getting motivated to run is a different story. Some running apps are designed for run tracking, others offer training, or make exercise a game. Nike+ Run Club blends all three to get you started and keep you moving, from your first run to your thousandth mile, and beyond.
Catch our WWDC '18 reactions and best-of-show picks on our newest CultCast.
It may not have been action-packed, but this week’s WWDC was bursting with great stuff. Don’t miss our WWDC 2018 reactions on this week’s episode of The CultCast. Then stick around for our list of all the best new iOS 12, watchOS, and macOS features announced at the keynote.
Our thanks to Casper for supporting this episode. Learn why Casper makes the internet’s favorite mattress, and get $50 toward select mattresses at casper.com/cultcast.
Chrome has managed to display favicons since, like, forever. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
It’s 2018, and yet Safari still wouldn’t show you website icons, aka favicons, in its tabs. But that has — finally — changed. In both iOS 12 and macOS Mojave, Safari can now display favicons. All you need to do is toggle one setting.
Who cares? Well, favicons make it much easier to identify the site you want among a whole mess of open tabs. You can simply look for a site’s colorful logo icon, instead of squinting at a few letters of truncated text when trying to find the right tab.
Siri should be a lot smarter. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
In the battle of digital voice assistants, people often mock Siri for lagging behind competing products from Amazon and Google. During Monday’s WWDC 2018 keynote, Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, glossed over those failings, calling Siri the “world’s most-used digital assistant.”
What he neglected to mention was the increasing frustration of Siri users expecting more from a voice assistant. From simple requests returning inaccurate results to the inability to performthat he compound actions, Siri was in desperate need of attention going into WWDC. But will the Siri upgrades in iOS 12 do the trick?
Waze provides clear turn-by-turn navigation and alerts you to potential hazards. Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac
All across the country (and the world), people depend on cars to get from place to place. Unfortunately, not knowing where traffic is slow, or where a police officer is hiding, can cause serious delays. The Waze navigation app takes out the guesswork.
It tells drivers where traffic, construction or the 5-0 might turn a drive into a total bummer. Better yet, the navigation app’s huge user base means real-time data that lets you change course to avoid slowdowns.
Liberate your iPhone with these wireless charging solutions. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
Wires are out, wireless charging is in. Now pretty much every new phone can juice up without being plugged in, which is as convenient as it is cool. There are many options out there, so we’ve rounded up awesome deals on six different wireless charging solutions. Each is discounted by half off or more, read on for more details:
Apple's focus this year is on performance improvements in iOS 12, as well as improvements in macOS Mojave, not new features. And that's a good thing. Photo: Apple
Apple put on a good show for its WWDC keynote, but realistically it was a lot of hype without much substance. Dark Mode for macOS Mojave and Memojis for iOS 12 was about as exciting as it got. And you know what, that’s a good thing.
Both these operating systems have serious problems, and it’s far more important for Apple to spend a few months fixing them than adding new bells and whistles.
iOS 12 is shaping up to be one biggest software updates Apple’s ever released and it’s so stuffed with major and minor new additions there wasn’t time to go over a lot of them at the WWDC 2018 keynote.
We’ve been combing through the first iOS 12 beta looking for all the new goodies and have found some underrated new features that will totally change how you use your iPhone and iPad this fall.
These are the little iOS 12 features you need to know:
With its upcoming software, Apple addresses some Silicon Valley's most egregious abuses. Photo: Apple
After a particularly rough patch for the tech industry, Apple used yesterday’s WWDC keynote to atone for some of Silicon Valley’s biggest sins. The company showcased key features in its upcoming operating systems that reinforce the fact that it thinks different about how technology should work.
Undoubtedly eager to position itself as one of the good guys, Apple directly responded to some of the biggest tech scandals of the past year.
Time for bed. iOS 12 lets you choose who can disturb you. Photo: Apple
Maybe the most important new feature of iOS 12 is something that helps you to do less with your iPhone, not more.
If any other company had introduced Screen Time, the new system-wide toolset for limiting phone distractions, then it would (rightly) be dismissed as a gimmick, a sop to the increasing worries about phone addiction. But as is typical of Apple, Screen Time looks like it took a lot of work to get just right.
Screen Time may seem to be about combatting app addiction, and reducing the amount of time “wasted” on your iPhone. However, taken together with the new Do Not Disturb settings in iOS 12, it’s more about putting users back in control of their iPhones.
Near the end of Monday’s WWDC 2018 keynote, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi addressed a question that’s been circulating in the tech press for a while: Are Mac and iOS merging?
His answer was direct and unequivocal: “No.”
Then he delivered a “sneak peek” of Apple’s long-rumored cross-platform project codenamed “Marzipan.” In line with the past six months of rumors, the idea of the framework is to allow UIKit-based iOS apps to run natively on Mac. While that probably sounds exciting to Mac owners, it could yield an unwelcome unintended consequence. It could trigger a “lost year” for Mac apps.
Sketchnotes deliver all the WWDC 2018 keynote highlights the easy, visual way. Photo: Andy McNally/Cult of Mac
It is always exciting to capture the WWDC keynote in sketchnotes, and this year I filled up four pages of my notebook with drawings showcasing the biggest new features coming in iOS 12, macOS Mojave and watchOS 5.
As seen in my first sketchnote, above, iOS 12 makes performance on both old and new devices a priority. ARKit 2 brings more augmented reality goodness to Apple devices, including the ability for up to four people to share the same AR space at the same time.
For a quick and easy recap of the rest of the WWDC 2018 keynote highlights — plus a bonus sketchnote that proved kind of prescient — check out the rest below.
WWDC 2018 was packed with new software. Photo: Apple
Apple’s WWDC 2018 keynote lasted nearly 130 minutes and was jam-packed with new software goodies for developers and regular old Apple fanboys.
But if you were hoping to see some shiny new hardware unveiled at today’s event, you were in for some big disappointments. Apple is doubling down on its software game. And even though they didn’t have any new physical toys to show off, Tim Cook and company still managed to pull out some big surprises.
Data Protection is better than 10 padlocks for your iPhone. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
There’s a security setting in iOS that will erase everything on your iPhone, resetting it back to a blank, factory-state slate if you tap in the wrong passcode 10 times. It’s called Data Protection, and I never wrote a how to on this because I figured everyone would have it switched on. After all, who wouldn’t want that kind of excellent security if ever they lost their iPhone?
Heart Rate Variability will help make your workouts more effective Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac
Imagine if your Apple Watch could tell you which days were best for you to do a workout, and what kind of workout you should do. Well it can, sort of, thanks to a hidden feature that few people have yet discovered or know how to use.
Heart rate variability, or HRV, is a new metric that reveals your stress level and whether you have recovered from your last workout. It has been added to lots of high-end sports watches in recent years, including Apple Watch since watchOS 4 & iOS 11.
Here’s how you can use it to optimize your training, reduce your risk of injury, and know when to take a well-earned rest day.
For the first time in a long time, Apple is keeping its keynote surprises secret. Image: The CultCast
It’s been a tight ship over there at Apple, so for the first time in a long time, we know almost nothing about what will be announced at an Apple Keynote. But we think there’s a good case for new hardware come Monday, and on this week’s CultCast, we’ll tell you why. Plus, we’ll tell you everything we think we know about iOS 12, and stick around for our ears-on, gaping-jaw review of stereo HomePods.
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PDF Viewer uses iOS 11's Files browser to do its work. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
A month or so back I was searching for a PDF app that would use the native Files browser on the iPad, but add features not available in Files app’s built-in PDF viewer. The result of that search was PDF Viewer, an app that is almost impossible to find on Google, but which is simple enough to be perfect for many people.
Apple CEO Tim Cook on stage for WWDC 2018. Photo: Apple
Apple still has a bunch of new devices up its sleeve for 2018 — not including the new iPhone lineup — but we won’t see any of it at WWDC.
A new report claims we can expect refreshed MacBook and MacBook Pro models, a more affordable machine to replace the MacBook Air, a new iPad Pro with Face ID, and a new Apple Watch. However, we’ll have to wait until later in the year to get our hands on them.