This week on The CultCast: The reviews are in, so let’s talk about iPhone 12! Plus: The honest truth about iPhone 12’s 5G; the original HomePod gets powerful new features, and Jony Ive gets a brand-new job.
And now, The CultCast has video! Or subscribe to our audio episodes if you don’t like our faces.
Everyone in Apple’s beta program is running a pre-release version of the next iOS version. Which is great, until you get a new iPhone or iPad. Then you can’t restore the new device from the backup made on your previous one because the old device is running a newer OS.
If you find yourself in this situation, don’t panic — there are a couple of possible solutions. We’ll walk you through both.
Elkson’s brilliant Quattro bumper case, which keeps your shiny new Apple Watch looking brand-new, is now available in green for the first time. Bag yours today from the Cult of Mac Store for just $11.99.
On the Rocks, the first Apple TV+ arthouse film, is an extremely winning combination of midlife crisis, comedy of remarriage, and road-trip movie.
Writer/director Sofia Coppola’s charmingly cynical, shaggy-dog anti-romance — which stars Bill Murray and Rashida Jones, and debuts today on Apple TV+ after a brief theatrical release — is a smart step toward filling out the streaming service’s growing library of original movies.
Apple now has its very own music channel, dubbed Apple Music TV, that streams music videos and more 24 hours a day. You can watch it on any Apple device (as long as you live in the U.S.) absolutely free.
Here’s how — and what you need to know.
In the words of Ron Burgundy, “That escalated quickly.” A day after short-form video streamer Quibi pivoted from a mobile-only approach to launch an Apple TV app, the beleaguered service announced it will shut down for good.
What lesson can we learn from Quibi’s glitzy, high-profile launch, only to crash and burn six months later? That the slow-but-steady, tortoise-like Apple TV+ strategy looks smarter than ever.
Apple must avoid following a path blazed by Google. Years ago, the search giant touted its “don’t be evil” policy. But somewhere along the line, Google lost track of that — and ended up getting sued Tuesday by the Justice Department.
Apple, which faces similar scrutiny by a variety of governmental bodies, has a chance now to drop some of its questionable policies. If it doesn’t, Cupertino could end up facing its own lawsuit(s).
The encouraging news is, Apple is mostly a good company, so a few tweaks now could easily head off much larger adjustments down the line. Court-ordered changes — like a forced sale of the App Store — could prove painful.
Here’s why Apple needs its own “don’t be evil” policy, along with some concrete steps Cupertino can take to prove that it’s actually a force for good in the world.
Apple’s iPad Air 4 will make its way into the hands of customers this Friday. Ahead of that date, embargoes on the first wave of “first impression” reviews have lifted.
The TL;DR conclusion? That this could well be Apple’s best tablet yet.
The new iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro bring 5G to Apple’s smartphones for the first time. But it comes at a cost to your battery.
In the first published battery tests, Tom’s Guide tested the new iPhones on both 4G and 5G, running both on the same screen brightness and loading up new sites every 30 seconds until they ran out of battery. Their conclusion? That 5G usage has a pretty major impact on battery life.
What’s old is apparently new. With Apple Music TV, the new streaming channel that plays music videos 24 hours a day, Cupertino created a 21st-century version of MTV that looks a lot like the 1980s.
The service — which is free to everyone in the United States, not just Apple Music subscribers — launched out of the blue Monday. More than a quarter century after the original MTV’s heyday, this is going to be fascinating to watch. Can it possibly work?
The first reviews of iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro landed online Tuesday, and the devices’ marquee feature — 5G wireless connectivity — largely went unnoticed.
Most reviewers said they could not properly take advantage of the next-gen networking, which Apple heavily promoted during last week’s iPhone 12 launch event. This makes 5G more of a hypothetical selling point than something the reviewers could personally recommend. (That’s not surprising, considering the current state of 5G in the United States.)
That said, the first impressions focus on both phones’ impressive new designs — and pay special attention to the premium feel of the iPhone 12 Pro. The reviewers also highlight MagSafe, the new magnetic connection system for cases, chargers and other accessories that Apple added to this year’s iPhones.
Here’s a look at the first iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 reviews.
Apple TV+ is the new home for all things Peanuts. That includes rights to stream the classic Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving specials starring Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the whole gang. In addition, new specials are in development just for this streaming service.
Many of the beloved classics will be available to all, not locked behind a paywall.
Just in time for election day, America’s real president makes a stump speech that’s part biography and part self-mythologizing letter to an equally mythic version of the state he calls home. Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You, like a lot of the Boss’ later albums, isn’t exactly groundbreaking or inventive. However, there’s a good reason his homespun coastal Americana never goes out of fashion. Nobody gets America like Springsteen.
Upcoming Apple TV+ documentary Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You showcases the songs on his 20th album. While it won’t tell you anything you didn’t already suspect, you will find an incalculable kind of value in the songwriter’s company.
“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” has long been the Sesame Workshop’s modus operandi, and the second season of Apple TV+ kids show Helpsters is living proof that the strategy works.
The educational show, created by Odd Squad and Adventure Time writer Timothy McKeon, with music by longtime collaborator Paul Buckley, is long on charm and star power and short on filler.
Season two of Helpsters, which arrived on Apple TV+ Friday, is likely exactly what your kids need while you finally get around to doing the laundry. And you’ll laugh, too, at the litany of guest stars and the occasional elegant joke.
A rumored Apple TV with more of a focus on gaming allegedly won’t be out before the end of 2020. It’ll be a significant upgrade, with new features beyond a performance bump.
But it’s probably not on the list of devices to expect at an anticipated Apple November product launch event.
One of the biggest reasons to upgrade to iPhone 12 this year is for its 5G connectivity. It promises to be significantly faster than the 4G networks we’ve become accustomed to, making things like mobile gaming, content streaming, web browsing — basically everything you do online — better than ever.
You should be excited, but not too excited. 5G can be as spectacular as Apple led us to believe during this week’s iPhone 12 unveiling … but only if you can get good 5G coverage — and the right kind of 5G connection.
Allow us to explain what you need to know about 5G.
If rumors are to be believed, Apple is set to host yet another virtual event in November, making three in a row after September’s “Time Flies” iPad and Apple Watch event and October’s “Hi, Time” HomePod mini and iPhone 12 unveiling.
While the November event has yet to be officially announced, notorious Apple leaker Jon Prosser thinks he knows when it will be — and we don’t have long to wait.
Apple execs uttered the term “5G” so many times during Tuesday’s iPhone 12 unveiling that they could have triggered semantic satiation. (That’s when you hear something so many times that it starts to sound … really weird.)
If their repetition of the word didn’t burn 5G into your brain — or turn your gray matter into mush — the 5G supercuts that followed certainly will.
Nuheara IQbuds 2 Max aren’t typical wireless earbuds. Sure, they let you listen to music and podcasts, but that’s just the start. They have active noise cancellation when you want quiet. Or they help you hear in-person conversations better by filtering out background sounds.
I did real-world testing of these in-ear headphones designed for people whose hearing isn’t quite good as it used to be.
With a recent study showing the virus that causes COVID-19 can live up to 28 days on glass and stainless steel, it might be time to double down on your disinfectant efforts. Remind me again what iPhones are made of … oh, yeah, glass and metal. Yikes!
One easy way to sanitize your iPhone and other small items is to use a device like the Mophie UV Sanitizer with a built-in wireless charger. While the company doesn’t specifically claim that the device kills COVID-19 dead, another recent study showed definitively that ultraviolet light can kill the potentially deadly virus.
At some point, “better safe than sorry” comes into play.
The release of two upcoming Apple accessories may have just been rescheduled. AirTags item trackers jumped up, but AirPods Studio headphones slid back, according to information supposedly leaking out of Cupertino on Wednesday.
The LiDAR Scanner in the iPhone 12 Pro makes Apple’s new flagship device an augmented reality powerhouse. It enables the handset to make an accurate 3D map of its location into which virtual objects can then be placed.
However, the scanner apparently has been added to the iPhone 12 Pro models in a “build it and they will come” strategy. Apple didn’t show many specific applications demonstrating the benefits of the tech during Tuesday’s launch event for the device.
There was something big missing from Tuesday’s iPhone 12 event. And, no, I’m not talking about AirTags, AirPods Studio, a new Apple TV, Apple Silicon Macs or live attendees.
The thing that went missing was an “S” at the end of the new iPhones’ names. The demise of the naming convention to indicate alternate-year iPhones marked the end of an era. And it’s totally a good thing.
The iPhone 12 mini is, without a doubt, the iPhone I’ll be buying this year. In an upgrade cycle in which I fully expected the iPhone 12 Pro to win me over, the 12 mini emerged as my absolute favorite iPhone of Tuesday’s “Hi, Speed” event — and, perhaps, my most anticipated iPhone in years.
It’s a blend of classic iPhone and modern iPhone: the handset I’ve wanted since Apple devices started growing progressively bigger around the time CEO Tim Cook took the reins at Apple. Here’s what makes the iPhone 12 mini so compelling.
Apple’s “Hi, Speed” event included the company’s most critical release of 2020: the much-anticipated iPhone 12 series. And a long-awaited cheaper HomePod, too.
Here are the most important takeaways from Tuesday’s event to put these new products in context.