The HomePod takes a lot of flak for being the dumbest smart speaker around, but it can do more than you might think. In today’s video, I’ll show you 20 HomePod tips you need to know.
(Just a quick heads-up: I’m going to be saying “Hey Siri” a few times in this video.)
When the entire mobile phone industry heads to Barcelona next week for Mobile World Congress 2018, there will be one notable absence: Apple.
Cupertino doesn’t do trade shows. Not even really big ones like MWC. Yet, despite its absence from the massive Spanish trade show, Apple’s influence will loom large over Barcelona’s beautiful horizons.
Here are five things Apple fans should look out for at MWC next week.
Owning an iPhone means owning the fact that you’ll have to constantly replace flimsy Lightning cables. Their soft white coating is prone to fraying and tearing, and of course they’re easy to lose. So it’s nice when high quality backup cables don’t cost high quality prices.
Somewhere after the launch of iOS 11, Apple tweaked Spotlight search to be way more useful. Now, when you search for a person, you can trigger a sub-search that lets you find everything you have on them, from emails, to iMessages, to their contact details, through WhatsApp messages, to calendar events. Anywhere that your selected contact exists on your iPhone or iPad will show up in the list.
And then, you can narrow the results with a sub search.
Building working apps means more than just knowing how to code. Sure, it takes that knowledge. But it also requires an understanding of design.
Stainless steel meticulously weaves its way through the Mesh Band for Apple Watch — Casetify’s answer to the significantly more expensive Milanese Loop by Apple. Casetify’s version is just as stylish and functional as the behemoth brand’s band, and now comes in two brand-new finishes: Iridescent and Gold (that matches the Series 3).
For penny-counters, you’ll save from $67 to $117 on Casetify’s silver and black stainless steel mesh bands, respectively, and gain three additional colors not offered by Apple: gold, rose gold and iridescent.
The Stainless Steel Mesh Bands are for both men and women. Check out the latest colors in our Watch Store, and read on to learn more.
Apple is working on upgraded AirPods with a new wireless chip and “Hey Siri” support, according to a new report.
The refresh will arrive “as early as this year,” according to sources familiar with the matter. A future refresh, pegged for early 2019, will also bring a water-resistant design.
Late last year, I switched password managers. I traded in trusty old 1Password for relative newcomer Dashlane, and I haven’t looked back.
Dashlane is a well-designed, fully functional and easy-to-use password manager that tops 1Password in one key respect: a Security Dashboard that makes it dead easy to track your online security and update it as necessary.
Apple has been given the go-ahead for two new iPads, hinting at an imminent refresh.
The company filed for approval with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), and both devices were granted permission this week. Apple has also been given approval to bring several iPhone and iPad “samples” into the region.
One of the best features for Apple’s new HomePod appears to be facing some big delays.
AirPlay 2.0 promises to give HomePod users the ability to stream the same song to different devices in different rooms from a single iPhone. But with the release of iOS 11.3 beta 3 this morning, Apple has decided to pull the feature from testing.
Do you want to grab a chunk of text from Safari and put it into your Notes app? Do you want to clip sections from a long Word document and comment on them in email? Or maybe you just want to collect snippets of text for research. If so, you should try drag-and-drop text on iPad.
It’s so easy and useful to put two apps side-by-side on one screen, and drag text between them, that you’ll wonder how you got by without it.
With HomePod, Apple finally made its first serious (or Siri-ous?) step into the smart speaker arena. It’s a game-changing device that comes at a premium price of about $350. But right now, you can win a HomePod through Cult of Mac Deals.
A sketchy rumor out of China claims Apple will unveil a new iPhone SE at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference.
The device is expected to pack a larger display and more powerful components, but no Face ID.
Apple is reportedly interested in building augmented reality glasses that work with its ARKit framework. Although such technology is likely a few years away, designer Taeyeon Kim has created a design concept for what such Apple Glasses may look like.
Check them out below.
Twitter has killed off its official desktop client for Mac. It’s no longer available to download, and if you already have it installed, it will stop working in less than a month. But don’t be sad; there are other Twitter clients for macOS that are significantly better.
Here’s our roundup of the best.
It’s President’s Day weekend — a great reason to offer some huge savings on top-brand Apple Watch bands over the holiday.
In a few clicks, you’ll find incredible savings on Apple Watch bands and accessories during Cult of Mac Watch Store’s biggest sale since Black Friday — three days of massive savings.
We’ve rounded up some amazing brands for this huge sale including: OleksynPrannyk, E3 Supply Co., Rilee & Lo, Strapa, Clessant, Just Mobile and more. These brands are offering up to 20 percent off regular prices!
Rest-assured that bands sold in our Watch Store are high-quality and recommended by Cult of Mac — we’ve touched, worn, reviewed and recommend everything we sell. Sale ends Monday at midnight. Happy shopping!
Apple’s HomePod arrives in homes today. It’s already sold out online, but if you’re lucky you might still snap one up in an Apple store. And you probably should, because the HomePod looks to be just about the best small speaker you can buy — in terms of musical performance, anyway.
If you want to find out how to set up and get the best of your new HomePod, or if you want to read a bit more before deciding whether to get one, you’re in the right place. Below you’ll find all our HomePod coverage: how-tos, reviews, tips and opinions.
Friends, HomePod is even better than the hype! It’s one of the best products Apple’s ever made. Don’t miss our discussion on The CultCast. Plus: HomePod versus the rivals; the big HomePod flaw you need to know about (one Apple is trying to downplay); how Apple plans to revamp its future software; and, is another new Apple product on the horizon? We think so, and we’ll tell you what it is.
Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. It’s simple to accept Apple Pay and sell your wares with your very own Squarespace.com website. Enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10% off any hosting plan.
There are boatloads of smart speakers out there, but nothing quite like HomePod.
Like many Apple products that came before it, HomePod is here to revolutionize an industry. It’s certainly not first to market, but Cupertino’s plan is to make all HomePod competitors insignificant. The new Apple smart speaker uses cutting-edge technology that delivers outstanding sound quality to do just that.
You can’t buy another speaker of this kind for $349. That price tag is not exactly cheap, but if you love music, HomePod should be at the top of your shopping list.
It’s hard to find a professional setting where Excel doesn’t play a role. So being skills in Microsoft’s flagship spreadsheet app aren’t just useful, they’re super marketable.
Shuffle and skipping are two great tools for listening to new music on your iPhone, using Apple Music. You can download lots of new music to your iPhone, then set it to shuffle while you take a walk. If you’re also wearing a pair of AirPods, a double tap on one of them will skip any tracks you don’t like. It’s a great way to listen to new music, with one big, annoying side-effect: You end up with lots of unwanted downloads cluttering up your iPhone.
But with one simple smart playlist, you can fix that right now.
We’d all rather that folks sent short messages via iMessage, or WhatsApp, or another civilized format that encourages brevity, but they insist on email. But what if your emails could pop up on your iPhone’s lock screen and be as easy to reply to as an iMessage. If you set it up right, your regular iPhone Mail app can do exactly that, using Push and VIP email. Let’s take a look.
It’s all very well to know how far you ran, cycled and swam. But the whole point of exercise is not just to clock the miles. It’s supposed to make you more fit. So, how do you know if all those sweaty miles are actually doing any good? One way is by measuring your heart rate recovery time.
Fortunately, watchOS 4 provides a reliable way to see this data, and thus monitor changes in your fitness level. Here’s how you can use Apple Watch to keep your workout goals on track.
Siri itself might be frustrating, but Hey Siri is great. And on the HomePod, the voice activation for your virtual assistant is even more impressive, because it hears you perfectly, even if you speak at normal volume while the music is hammering the walls, the floor, and your neighbors’ patience. Now it’s possible to have many Siri-equipped devices laying around a room, but somehow, when your say “Hey Siri,” only one device responds. Did you ever wonder how? Here’s the answer.
Even if you’ve got plenty of cash for an extra drive, storage space is not to be wasted. And one of the easiest ways to burn capacity is to let duplicate files stack up. Unfortunately, cleaning them up is a lot harder.