Cult of Mac

Best List: FuelBox, a home and mobile charging system

There’s a secret magician lurking in our household. We never see them, but they somehow manage to disappear all our charging cables. It drives me batty. The kids, of course, deny any knowledge of the situation. Yet somehow it’s impossible to keep cables around the house. They just keep disappearing.

That’s why I like the FuelBox PowerStation, a charging system that combines a docking station/charging brick with a mobile battery pack. Both the docking station and the battery pack have built-in charging cables — both Lightning and mini-USB. No matter what, the cables can’t disappear.

Logitech’s $49 active stylus for iPad unveiled back in March just debuted. However, at this point the Crayon can only be purchased through Apple’s Education channel.

This accessory for students was created to be a cheaper alternative to the Apple Pencil, which schools can buy at $89.

Every day, millions of people watch more than a billion hours of video on YouTube. More than half of those views come from mobile devices.

From tutorials and tech reviews to vlogs and movie trailers, YouTube is the largest video sharing service in the world, growing at a rate of 300 hours of content every minute (that’s an average of 18,000 minutes being uploaded every minute of every day). If you’re not using the YouTube app to dive into this ocean of video content, you’re not doing it right.

Microsoft plans to take on Apple’s popular 9.7-inch iPad with a low-cost Surface tablet, according to a new report.

The device, which will be powered by Intel processors and priced at around $400, is expected to go on sale in the second half of 2018. It will be accompanied by more affordable versions of Microsoft’s keyboard cover, mouse, and Surface Pen.

Two franchises I love, Power Rangers and Street Fighter are crossing over for team-based real-time mobile fighting game, Power Rangers: Legacy Wars.

If you’ve been waiting since the 1990s to pit Chun-Li against the Pink Ranger or Akuma against Lord Zedd, today is your lucky day. Check out the action-packed trailer below.

Fortnite Battle Royale’s latest update has hit the App Store. Players have a new burst assault rifle to enjoy, as well as a new limited-time game mode. Epic Games has also added the ability to customize the game’s heads-up display on iPhone and iPad.

But it’s not all good news.

Own an iPhone? Live in a house or apartment? Then you’ve got a match made in heaven. The two can work in harmony, if you have the right accessories. So we’ve rounded up some of the coolest peripherals for bringing your home and phone together, including a wireless charging kit, a robotic vacuum cleaner, a Bluetooth audio hub, and more. Some of these are discounted by more than half off, so read on for more details:

If you love the design of the iPhone X, but yearn for the smaller form factor of the 2012-era iPhone 5s, you could well find yourself in luck this year.

According to a new report, Apple’s next-gen iPhone SE is set to be the same size as its predecessor, but boast the same edge-to-edge display and “notch” of the iPhone X. This would mean that it would have more screen real estate than the original iPhone SE, although the body would stay the same size.

PicoBrew’s new Pico U, which the company calls “the world’s first universal craft beverage brewing appliance,” does more than brew great beer. The “U” stands for “universal,” because the Pico U also makes kombucha, horchata and milk-based drinks, as well as tea and single-serving coffee.

It’s also small enough to fit on a kitchen countertop — and costs far less than its predecessors. Pico U offers so many brewing options, at a price that’s so attainable, that Donald Brewer, PicoBrew’s VP of sales, calls it the “Instant Pot for brewed beverages.”

Apple wants Samsung to cough up a whopping $1 billion in damages for infringing iPhone design patents.

The two companies again returned to court this week over the long-running dispute, which first began seven years ago. Apple told jurors that Samsung should hand over all the profit it made on four devices that were heavily inspired by the iPhone. Samsung’s lawyers disagree.

Id Software co-founder John Carmack was behind some of the most iconic computer game of the 1980s and 90s. This week, the legendary coder behind the smash hit games Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake shared some memories of working with Steve Jobs.

Writing on Facebook, Carmack described some of his interactions with Jobs over the years — for better and for worse.

WhatsApp is rolling out big improvements to group messaging that make it easier to manage your conversations, catch up on what you’ve missed, and more. It has also added enhanced controls for group admins.

Here’s what you have to look forward to on iPhone today.

Remember how Apple was doomed earlier this year, and how the iPhone X was a massive flop — only for Apple to pull out a record March quarter and prove everyone wrong? Well, it seems that a large number of folks took the Apple failure narrative pretty seriously.

According to a new report, during the first three months of this year, institutional investors reduced their holdings in Apple at a greater rate than any time since the 2008 financial crisis. In total, that added up to around 153 million shares sold.

It may soon become easier to keep private some of the videos you watch in the YouTube app. Google is reportedly testing an Incognito mode for this service.

This is a confidentiality feature already common in web browsers, but not in video streaming. But many people use their iPhone’s YouTube to research topics they prefer not everyone know about. It can be as innocent as looking for help with a birthday gift.

The long-awaited 0.5.0 update launched for the iOS version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. It’s loaded with new features, including the Miramar desert map with additional vehicles and weapons.

PUBG is a popular combat game available for a variety of platforms, with a mobile version for iPad and iPhone. It’s one of the top competitors for Fortnite.

Cult of Mac Watch Store is proud to feature a growing and evolving collection of the best Apple Watch bands and accessories on the market. And, we’re excited to announce the latest addition to our curated collection of Apple Watch bands: Las Vegas-based Carterjett.

The result of this creative collaboration is Carterjett’s collection of well-made, great looking Apple Watch bands well-suited for sweat and outdoor activity yet stylish enough to take you into the evening. Best yet, these Apple Watch bands are easy on the wallet.

Apple News is getting some fresh competition today from it’s biggest rival in Silicon Valley today.

Google launched its new Google News app this afternoon that was revealed at Google I/O last week. The updated app brings an all-new UI that’s supposed to give you a faster, smarter briefing on the top news stories going on right now.

The Society for Information Display (SID) says the iPad Pro’s screen offers “significant technological advances.” The professional organization also called the panel in iPhone X “outstanding.”

Both devices are winners in SID’s 23rd annual Display Industry Awards.

On the Mac, you have long been able to tap on any word or phrase to look up a dictionary definition. Just click on the word using a three-finger tap on your trackpad, and the dictionary panel appears. But have you tried this recently? Today, in this simple popover panel, you can get full access to not just dictionary definitions, but news, Siri Knowledge, movie details, App Store listings, and lots more depending on what you’re looking up.

Let’s take a look.

When Apple decided to create a bezel-less iPhone, it needed a replacement for the fingerprint scanner in the Home button. The company decided to go with facial recognition, but also looked into embedding a Touch ID scanner into the display.

A holdover from this period is a patent the company received today.

Tweetbot has long been our favorite third-party Twitter client for a whole bunch of awesome reasons — and now there’s even more. Tweetbot 3 today landed on macOS, bringing night mode, GIF and video previews, timeline filters, and more.

What’s more, developer Tapbots promises that Tweetbot will continue to work even if Twitter rolls out its controversial clampdown on unofficial apps.

Looking for a new set of earbuds for the summer? Brainwavz Audio’s B200 earbuds deliver high-fidelity audio with impressive clarity and detail. Plus, their over-the-ear design won’t frustrate you by falling out.

Yes, picking these earbuds over AirPods means making a couple of big compromises. But after a few weeks of testing, these audiophile-grade earbuds won me over with their superior sound.

AirPods might be the best wireless earphones money can buy, but they don’t play nicely with everything. AirFly is a tiny gadget from Twelve South that changes that by making any device with a 3.5mm headphone jack AirPods-compatible.

There have been no shortage of days in court in the ongoing Samsung vs. Apple legal battle, which has raged since 2012. Something that is lacking? Unbiased jurors, apparently.

While a new round of courtroom drama kicked off this week, it apparently took a long time on day one to find jurors who were in a position to make a non-biased judgement. In all, multiple candidates were excused for various reasons of partiality. Here are some of them.

Buyers of the season four Battle Pass can now complete the week three challenges in Fortnite Battle Royale. There are seven altogether — four easy and three hard — which will earn you a total of 50 Battle Stars.

Here’s our guide to crushing each one.