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Governments start crackdown on smartphone use in schools

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iPhone X standing
There's growing concern about the effects of mobile devices on young people.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The government of southeastern Australian state, New South Wales, has said that it plans to carry out a comprehensive review of smartphone use in schools. This will look at the effects of smartphones on kids in school, both in and out classrooms.

Why is that significant? Because, building on the growing concern about smartphone addiction, it represents a developing trend focused on cracking down on the use of phones. And New South Wales isn’t the only place doing this.

Apple Pay gets you cheaper, faster service at summer festivals

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Apple Pay iPhone
Yet another reason to use Apple Pay.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

If you aren’t already using Apple Pay, you should be. Not only does it make shopping easier, but it can also save you money on all kinds of purchases every week. And now, Apple Pay users are getting faster service on discounted food and drink at concerts and festivals.

Apple Pay “fast lanes” have started popping up at concessions stands, helping users avoid the lengthy lines.

Cupertino postpones vote on ‘head tax’ on Apple employees

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Apple leases new offices near to Apple Park
Cupertino decided to not raise additional taxes this year on employees working at Apple Park.
Photo: Duncan Sinfield

Cupertino’s city government decided to ask voters next year whether it should charge businesses a tax on every worker. Apple is the city’s largest employer, so most of the cost would have fallen on the iPhone maker.

The original plan, while vague, was to use the additional revenue to create more affordable housing options and improve Cupertino’s transit system.

Facebook finally going to charge you for some content

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Facebook subscription fees are coming.
Declutter My Home is one of a handful of Facebook groups that get to test charging subscription fees.
Photo: Facebook

A pilot project allows people who run Facebook groups to charge subscription fees for the content they create. During the testing process, this is an option for a limited number of group admins.

The fees can range from $4.99 to $29.99 a month. Facebook isn’t taking a share of the revenue.

This Steve Jobs business card is a pricey addition to your Rolodex

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Steve Jobs business card
A Steve Jobs Apple business card and three sheets of letterhead is for sale on eBay.
Photo: MG Service/eBay

It’s hard to imagine Steve Jobs ever needing to pass out business cards. But even for titans of industry, business cards were standard issue and if you happened to have one from Jobs, its worth a few bucks.

A seller on eBay is hoping to get $9,000 for a couple of Jobs business cards and a few sheets of his Apple letterhead stationary.

How to control your HomePod’s up-next queue from your iPhone

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The HomePod -- a beautiful body with the brain of an idiot.
Apple wants to make a bigger mark on your home.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Siri on HomePod is acceptable for quickly playing an album or a playlist, or even for adding a track to the existing up-next queue. But what if you want to switch the order of some songs in that queue, or delete tracks? Or maybe just use your iPhone to skip tracks, or control the volume of your HomePod without having to talk to the damn thing all the time?

Today we shall find out how.

Exploding phone blamed for Malaysian VC’s death

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iPhone fire
It's very rare, but smartphones can catch fire. They aren't known to explode powerfully enough to kill someone, though.
Photo: Langley Township Fire Department

A Malaysian man perished in a fire in his bedroom, but his family and his company say he was actually killed when the phone charging near his bed exploded.

“He had two phones, one Blackberry and a Huawei. We don’t know which one exploded,” said the brother-in-law of Nazrin Hassan, the CEO of a venture capital fund.

Apple inks deal for kids’ shows with Sesame Workshop

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Sesame Workshop
Apple is going to get its own puppet show.
Photo: Sesame Workshop

Apple is getting its own kids’ TV series with talking puppets.

The iPhone-maker and Sesame Workshop have reportedly inked a deal that will bring a slate of new kids’ programming to the company’s worldwide video project. But don’t expect to see Big Bird and the Sesame Street gang.

macOS Mojave easter egg scrambles your desktop with a single click

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macOS Mojave Mess Up easter egg
I swear, we didn't make this up. There really is a "Mess Up" feature in macOS Mojave.
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

Surely you’ve said to yourself, “My Mac desktop is messy, but it could be messier.” No? Well, someone at Apple has, and built a tool into the macOS Mojave beta to disorganize everything on your desktop.

This easter egg is almost certainly a feature needed during testing, but it’s also a sign that the Apple developers are willing to have a bit of fun.

Fortnite files hint at 2 brand new game modes

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Fortnite
Team Rumble just got a lot better.
Photo: Epic Games

Fortnite gets new limited-time game modes every week, but for a while now, those game modes have been improved versions of modes we’ve already played. That could be about to change.

Files reveal two brand new game modes coming to Battle Royale. “Tactics Showdown” and “Ground Game” will completely change the way you play. It’s not all about building anymore!

Microsoft fights Apple News with its latest iOS app

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Microsoft News on iOS
Meet Microsoft News for iOS.
Photo: Microsoft

Apple and now Google offer their very own News apps for iOS, but if you don’t like either, there’s now another option: Microsoft News.

Available today as a rebranded MSN app, the service provides users with curated news from more than 1,000 “premium publishers” and over 3,000 brands in major global markets.

Apple employees voice frustration with work culture under Tim Cook

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Tim Cook
Not everyone is happy at Apple under CEO Tim Cook.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Maybe it was the standing desks. Apple employees are voicing growing discontent for the workplace under boss Tim Cook, according to employee surveys ranking the top 100 CEOs.

Cook’s spot on Glassdoor’s annual list was 96, down from 53 a year ago in what was the biggest fall for a tech CEO on the list.

Nuzzel highlights important news from your Twitter feed [50 Essential iOS Apps #28]

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Nuzzel news feed on iPhone
Nuzzel prioritizes the most talked about stories from Twitter.
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

50 Essential iOS Apps: NuzzelTwitter is a great way to stay up-to-date with the news. A well-curated Twitter feed can provide important updates on topics important to you. Sometimes, knowing what is most important can be a challenge as conversations, memes, and social commentary overwhelm actual news updates. With Nuzzel, you can view a summary of the news stories everyone is talking about. Best of all, it’s personalized to you.

Take a hands-on look at the Walkie-Talkie app with watchOS 5 beta 2

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watchOS 5
One of the Apple Watch's new compelling features.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

One of the big features of Apple’s watchOS 5 is the Apple Watch’s Talkie-Talkie app feature, which makes it easier to communicate with your friends from the comfort of your wrist.

While the feature won’t officially launched until later this year, it is fully operational in Apple’s newly launched watchOS 5 beta. Want to see how it works? Check out the video below.

How retail boss Angela Ahrendts took a risk joining Apple

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Angela Ahrendts.
Angela Ahrendts at last year's iPhone X keynote.
Photo: Apple

Apple’s leaders have a history of recruiting the folks they want by convincing them to think different with their career choices. Steve Jobs recruited former Apple CEO John Sculley by asking if he wanted to sell sugar water (a.k.a Pepsi) his whole life or come and change the world. Jobs later convinced Tim Cook to join Apple through his unorthodox approach to business.

Now, at Cannes Lions’ International Festival of Creativity in France, Apple’s retail boss Angela Ahrendts reveals how Cook convinced her to join Apple in 2013 — even though this meant turning her back on her previous job at Burberry.

Preorder Pokémon Quest for iOS today, download June 28

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Pokémon Quest iOS
Pokémon Quest is available now on Android and iOS.
Photo: The Pokémon Company

Pokémon Quest, a new free-to-play game from The Pokémon Company, is now available to preorder on iOS.

The game will make its official debut on June 28, offering exactly the same experience that Nintendo Switch owners have been enjoying since late May.

Get ready to start filling up that Pokédex!

Microsoft Edge for iOS is getting one huge improvement

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Microsoft Edge on iPhone
Microsoft Edge makes search even easier.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

Microsoft Edge has been slow to match Safari’s feature set since making its debut on iOS last November. But it’s about to get one big feature that was sorely lacking: a built-in ad blocker.

Adblock Plus integration will be available in an upcoming Edge update, alongside visual search, book reading improvements, and more.

iPhone might get caught in Trump tariffs after all

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Hong Kong police arrest smugglers with $1 million of iPhones and other devices
Most Apple products are assembled in China, and sell well there too, but U.S. iPhone tariffs could bring up the cost in this country.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

It was widely reported yesterday that iPhones assembled in China are safe from having tariffs placed on them by the Trump administration. Now the White House trade advisor says he’s unaware of any such exemption.

Import taxes placed on the import of iPhone units could significantly raise the cost of these devices, if Apple chooses to pass these costs on to consumers. 

Kristen Wiig drops out of Apple’s upcoming original comedy

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Kristen Wiig slayed us in Bridesmaids.
Wiig will play Cheetah in Wonder Woman 1984 instead.
Photo: Universal Pictures

Apple’s upcoming original comedy has lost its leading star.

Kristen Wiig has dropped out of Apple’s adaptation of You Think It, I’ll Say It due to scheduling conflicts with Wonder Woman 1984, according to a new report. Sources claim Apple is still planning to go ahead with the series.

Revenue royale! Fortnite rakes in $100 million on iOS

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Fortnite iOS 14
A veritable money-printing machine!
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

Love it for its easy point of entry, addictive gameplay, and constant stream of in-app purchase upgrades or hate it for… well, exactly the same reasons, there’s no denying Fortnite is pretty darn big right now.

How big? Big enough that, after just three months on iOS, it has already taken in $100 million in worldwide player spending on Apple’s mobile platform alone. No matter how you slice it, that’s very impressive.

Companies scrabbling to create Apple’s abandoned in-screen Touch ID

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iPhone
Coming soon to an iPhone near you? Probably not.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

How much influence does Apple have when it comes to which technologies get popular? Apparently enough that even those technologies Apple doesn’t use get a boost of credibility, courtesy of their association with the Cupertino tech giant.

At least, that’s our take-home message from a new report suggesting that a number of manufacturers are ramping up their development of in-display fingerprint sensors, the technology that Apple considered before settling on Face ID facial recognition instead for the iPhone X.

Apple Watch Series 4 models found in iOS 12 beta

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watchOS 5 Apple Watch
Apple Watch Series 4 might offer a larger display, with a new type of button.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

It shouldn’t shock anyone to hear that new Apple Watch models are coming soon. But a bit of confirmation is nice. That confirmation is buried in iOS 12 beta 2, released today. 

There are four additional Watches in the offing. Their internal identifiers seem to indicate that Apple isn’t shaking up its wearable offerings this year.