Steve Jobs’ on-stage iPad pitch to customers saw him relaxing in a luxury chair. His brief to Apple engineers actually building the iPad? “I want a single piece of glass I can use to read email on the toilet.”
That’s according to Imran Chaudhri, a 21-year Apple veteran, now chairman and president of Humane. Chaudhri was responding to a recent article about the iPad’s origins which appeared in the New York Times.
If you have a Mac with a Touch Bar, do this right now. Hold down the Option key (⌥), and tap the volume icon in the Touch Bar. For non-Touch Bar-using readers, this is what happened: The Mac’s Sound Preferences launched instantly.
This is such a typical Mac feature that it should be obvious. But when I shared this tip with fellow Touch Bar aficionado and Cult of Mac writer Graham Bower, he was all like, “Oh!” and, “That’s pretty neat!”
So, what other tricks can be done with the Option key and the Touch Bar?
macOS 10.15 Catalina is ruthless about launching unknown apps. Unless your app comes direct from the App Store, or the app’s developer got the app notarized by Apple, it won’t launch. Double click on it, and you’ll see a warning — and nothing else. There’s no option to say you trust the app and launch it despite Catalina’s warnings.
But you can still launch those apps. It’s just that Apple hides the controls in the hope that you’ll give up. It’s petty, and it shows a lack of respect for you, the user. However, it’s also dead easy to fix this problem. Let’s see how to launch any app on macOS Catalina.
Maybe my favorite Continuity feature is Apple Watch Unlock for the Mac. Once you set it up, you’ll never need to enter your password to unlock your Mac ever again — not until you restart it, anyway. It’s one of the best examples of Apple’s It Just Works™ philosophy, and it will change the way you use your Mac.
This week on The CultCast: The Mac Pro isn’t just a beauty, it’s also a beast. We cover our first impressions, plus discuss some of the insane upgrades available for Apple’s new powerhouse Mac. Plus, we reveal more of our favorite tech, shows, movies and more in our Best of the Year picks, part 2!
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A foldable iPhone is probably somewhere in Apple’s future, but a concept designer shows us just how amazing it might look today.
The flexible display allows this dream device to be both phone and small tablet.
It may have nothing to do with Jony Ive leaving the company, but Apple has been adding buttons back to its devices. It’s a slow start, but hopefully it’s the beginning of a trend. The new 16-inch MacBook Pro added an Escape key, and a separate power button (you can press the Touch ID button). Plus, the recently introduced iPhone 11 battery case added a dedicated camera button.
After what seems like decades of removing useful hardware features, is Apple finally seeing the error of its ways? And, if so, what buttons would we like to see next? Let’s take a look at the current lay of the land.
You can sign a PDF on your Mac using the giant MacBook trackpad, and you can mark up PDFs and screenshots, too. But all that stuff is much easier on the iPad, especially if you have an Apple Pencil. The problem is getting it there. But in macOS Catalina, you don’t have to “get it” anywhere. Screenshots and PDFs magically show up on nearby iPads, where you can sign them or mark them up. Then you can return them to your Mac. These features are called Continuity Sketch and Continuity Markup, and they’re killer.
You know how the UPS guy holds up his brown scanner box for you to sign? PDF markup is like that, only on your iPad — and you never feel guilty about ordering too many parcels.
Many wireless chargers are designed to serve three mobile devices. The RapidX MyPort is made to selflessly serve one device in three different ways.
MyPort is first a smartphone stand to wirelessly charge your iPhone. But the vertical charging element has a restless side. It begs to be detached from the base to travel as a companion to your iPhone. It works as a portable wireless charger. And, with its two USB ports (one USB-A, one USB-C), it becomes a quick-charging wired power bank.
There has been much handwaving over the $5,999 price tag on the 2019 Mac Pro. It’s often been criticized for being Apple’s expensive computer ever.
But it’s not. And it’s not even close, if you factor in inflation. Many of the early Macs cost much more than $6,000 in today’s dollars.
If you want to add four wheels to your already-expensive Mac Pro, then they’ll cost you almost $100 apiece. Not that you can even buy them separately. You have to specify the $400 option when you buy. The wheels are a part of the Mac Pro’s steel frame, so there’s no way to add them after purchase.
Or is there? We found five good options to let you wheel your Mac Pro around the office, or to perhaps grab the power cable and take the new computer out for a walk like a dog. Or even to sit on the thing and take it for a spin, go-kart-style, down the nearest hill.
We want to put free copies of The Cult of Mac 2nd Edition on 10 coffee tables across the United States.
Now through Dec. 20, the Cult of Mac website will accept entries to give away this Mac book that is every bit as beautiful as a MacBook. All you have to do is enter your email in the submission widget below.
While it is possible to get the Shortcuts app running in macOS Catalina via Catalyst, you can’t do much with it. But what about the next best thing? How about selecting something on your Mac, then tapping a shortcut on your iPhone, and then having the result show up back on your Mac?
I’ve been doing this for the past few weeks, and it’s not only a workaround, but a genuinely useful — and reliable — way to “run” iOS shortcuts on the Mac. Let’s get right into it.
The 2019 Mac Pro is the most customizable Apple computer we’ve seen in years. You can swap and upgrade almost every component — including its GPUs, memory, and more.
But you must do it properly. Apple’s new how-to videos take you through the upgrade process step-by-step to help ensure nothing goes wrong. And they make it look so simple.
A graphic artist excited about a rumored low-cost iOS model created a video for it. This is a wish list of features for the iPhone SE 2, which could debut in only a few months.
Watch it now:
You probably need a keyboard. If you have an iMac, then you already have the one Apple included the box. If you have an iPad or a MacBook, then you should have that thing up on a stand at eye level, with a keyboard and mouse/trackpad attached so you don’t kill your neck/back/wrists. And if you want a clicky keyboard that works great with all three, then pretty much your best (and only) option is the Keychron K2, a beautiful, solid little device that can work with just about any device you have.
A black-and-silver Magic Keyboard, Mouse 2 and Trackpad 2 debuted in Apple’s product lineup today, but only a fortunate few can order them. As it stands now, these accessories are only available for people who also buy a 2019 Mac Pro.
But that’s likely to change soon.
Panoramas are those super-wide, letterboxed strips of photos that look spectacular, and that are impossible to fit into Instagram. Maybe you already shoot a lot of panoramas, and maybe you even use the pano camera to create amazing glitch photos.
But did you consider that panoramas don’t have to be super-wide? They don’t even have to be horizontal. Let’s take a look at vertical panoramas — the iPhone photographer’s surprisingly great secret weapon.
The 2019 Mac Pro is finally available to order, with prices starting at $5,999. That’s not cheap … until you compare it to the cost of a maxed-out model with all the bells and whistles.
Add every available upgrade and Apple’s newest machine suddenly skyrockets to an eye-watering $52,748.
That’s $12,848 more than a Tesla Cybertruck!
The wait for the most powerful — and the most expensive — macOS computer ever just ended. Apple began taking orders for the 2019 Mac Pro this morning, after announcing the workstation that boasts a 28-core processor way back in June.
The companion 32-inch Pro Display XDR went up for sale today, too, also at a price that only professionals can afford.
If the Mac Pro is more computer than you need but the Mac mini isn’t enough, Animaionic is right up your alley. This super-sized Mac mini dock upgrades Apple’s miniature desktop into a graphics behemoth.
The holidays are near, and the season of gift-giving is here. Finding that perfect something for your loved ones can be tricky, but sometimes it’s the little things that really make the difference.
Whether it’s a stocking stuffer, a secret Santa gift or you just need something quick and easy, these are five excellent gift ideas to point you in the right direction.
We will never see a touchscreen Mac. Apple has made this clear over and over. Whenever one of its executives is asked about a touchscreen Mac in an interview, the answer is always the same: macOS is for trackpads, and iPadOS for is for touch. Combining them would compromise both.
I agree. While I do catch myself tapping the Mac’s screen from time to time, there’s no way I’d want the Mac redesigned for touch. For one thing, you’d lose all the accuracy of the mouse, because clicking targets would have to be big enough for your fingers. But it doesn’t matter, because Apple has already made a touch option for the Mac. It’s Sidecar, and it’s amazing.
Sidecar, which lets you use an iPad as an external display for your Mac, is an unexpectedly amazing new feature in macOS Catalina. You just move any window to the iPad, and there it is. You can either mouse over to that window with the Mac, just like using any other external display, or you can pick up an Apple Pencil, and use it in the Mac app, directly from the iPad’s screen. And, like any regular external display, you can choose where the iPad’s screen exists.
Today we’re going to see how to move the iPad’s screen from left to right in the Sidecar setup.
Forget your frustrations with the minimal number of ports on your MacBook or iPad Pro. The Brando 11-In-1 Hub Type-C Docking Stand lets you connect virtually any peripheral to your computer. There’s a trio of USB-A ports, Ethernet, HDMI and an SD card reader. And that’s only the start.
Get the full list, and see how well this multi-port stands up to real world use, in this review.