Square credit card readers are in thousands of stores and restaurants, but the company realizes there are industries where its software isn’t appropriate. That’s why today it introduced the Square Reader SDK, which allows developers to write their own iOS or Android applications to communicate with Square’s point-of-sale machines.

This is the company’s way of getting into industries like transportation and health care.

The iOS Low Power Mode is fantastic, letting you squeeze the most possible uptime from your iPhone or iPad. But what about the Mac? Why isn’t there a Low Power Mode for MacBooks? After all, they’re just as likely to be used away from power as an iPad.

Well, here’s some good news. Using third-party software, it’s easy to put your Mac into Low Power Mode whenever you like. You can get around a third more battery life using an app called Turbo Boost Switcher.

Apple’s market capitalization passed $1 trillion today. It’s hard to wrap your head around such a large number, so let’s do some comparisons.

But be warned, you might have a hard time believing how much bigger Apple is than some other companies. Or entire industries.

Apple’s plans for the historic Tower Theatre store were revealed today, showcasing how the iPhone-maker plans to turn the Los Angeles location into one of its main flagship stores.

Tower Theatre was one of the first buildings in L.A. with air conditioning, an aspect that intrigued Apple when it started making plans. Instead of constructing a perfect glass box store, Apple plans to keep a lot of the building’s historical aspects intact.

Fortnite’s latest list of challenges is live in Battle Royale.

As usual, there are seven to complete — four easy and three hard — that will earn you a total of 50 Battle Stars. Three are available to all for free, but you will need to purchase the season five Battle Pass to access the other four.

Here’s our guide to completing each one.

You already know how to take a screenshot on the Mac: You hit either ⌘⇧3 (to capture the entire Mac screen) or ⌘⇧4 (to bring up a crosshairs to select a part of the screen). But did you know that there’s a third option that will snap a fancy picture of a single app window, complete with a classy drop shadow and a clean white background?

Prepare yourself for screenshot glory!

There was a time the glory days of the iPad seemed over. Sales declined quarter after quarter. Then the iPad Pro line debuted, and now Apple has seen six straight quarters of increasing tablet shipments.

That’s not true for rival device makers. Samsung tablets haven’t experienced a quarterly shipment increase since at least 2016.  

The long race to see which U.S. tech giant will become the first company worth $1 trillion is finally over.

Apple won.

Some frustrated creatives believe Apple is abandoning them and will point to the removal of the SD card slot on the MacBook Pro as one example. A new high-speed card reader by Satechi could ease that anxiety.

The brushed aluminum Type-C Micro/SD reader will be especially valuable to photographers and videographers routinely pausing their workflow to transfer large, high-resolution files. This reader is equipped with UHS-II, which carries a transfer rate of 312 MB/s.

The smart speaker contest may be a two-horse race between the Amazon Echo and Google Home, but Apple’s HomePod is starting to carve out a share as well.

According to new research from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, the total smart speaker market has now reached 50 million units in the United States. Among the installed base of U.S. devices, Amazon has 70 percent, Google has 24 percent and Apple has 6 percent.

Getting a website going takes a lot of work. First, you need a place to host it. Then, you need to actually build the thing. And you definitely need to optimize your site for SEO so people actually can find it.

That’s a lot, but with this bundle you get all of the above — for life!

Apple is working with Chinese telecoms firms to find a way to cut down the amount of iMessage spam customers in the country receive.

Apple has recently been under fire by state-controlled Chinese media for supposedly allowing users to be bombarded with illicit content through its iMessages. These are said to include gambling ads (illegal in China, aside from state lotteries), pornography, and counterfeit goods.

If you think your Facebook news feed couldn’t possibly get any messier, think again. As of today, users will see start seeing playable game demos as they scroll their Facebook timelines.

The demos will let you enjoy sections of a game before downloading it to your device, Facebook says. Angry Birds developer Rovio is already reaping the benefits of playable ads.

Microsoft’s latest competitor to the iPad, the more affordable Surface Go, is now available to order.

Prices start at just $399 in the U.S., and for that you get an Intel Pentium Gold processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a 10-inch PixelSense display. You can also enjoy Windows 10 in the lightweight S mode.

This year’s iPad Pro will boast Face ID and a new iPhone X-style bezel-less design, code and assets hidden in the iOS 12 developer beta seemingly confirms.

The asset relating to the new asset was discovered in the battery usage user interface part of the new developer beta. It’s an icon depicting an iPad without home button and much thinner bezels.

Apple has confirmed plans to drop apps and in-app purchases from its iTunes Affiliate Program by October 1.

The company feels that commissions are no longer necessary following the launch of its redesigned App Store, which has improved app discovery. However, everyone else believes it’s an ignorant and shortsighted move that won’t be good for anyone but Apple.

The smartwatch competition has come down to just two players: Apple Watch and Fitbit. They leave Samsung and other wearables makers well behind.

And in the second quarter of this year, Apple stayed far ahead of even Fitbit.

For a person who famously said he doesn’t like to invest in tech stocks, Warren Buffett has done pretty well with Apple.

Following the company’s amazing quarterly earnings this week, Buffett’s shares in Apple have proven to be an insanely smart bet. How smart? Thanks to the 6 percent spike in Apple stock yesterday, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway firm likely made upward of $2.6 billion in a single day.

Apple may have just reported yet another record quarter, but there’s a potential dark cloud lurking on the horizon in the form of the impending China trade war.

Not only has Tim Cook been outspoken about China being Apple’s future biggest market, but Apple also relies on China for the majority of its manufacturing. In other words, Apple has a problem — and in this case it’s a problem that could be passed onto you, the customer.

Apple has been ordered to pay out $145.1 million in damages for infringing on patents held by the Canadian patent licensing company WiLan.

A federal jury in San Diego, California ruled that the iPhone infringed on two WiLan patents. These “8,457,145” and “8,537,757” patents relate to wireless communications tech — specifically bandwidth request protocols in a wireless communication system and adaptive call admission control.

The company we know as Strapple (a company featured in Cult of Mac’s Watch Store) sounded a bit too much like the maker of Apple Watch. The tiny brand speedily changed its name to Strapa and doubled-down with the release of one of its most striking Apple Watch bands yet — the Primus.

Strapa explains Apple’s (minor) involvement in its sudden name change and site relaunch. During this transition, this company continues to make some of the best leather bands we’ve worn. The Primus Apple Watch Band is the latest in Strapa’s lineup.

Lisa Brennan Jobs, the oldest daughter of Steve Jobs, is coming out with her first book next month. Part of the story grapples with their complicated relationship. (He denied being her father at first.)

In an excerpt from her book, Small Fry, posted today, Lisa Brennan Jobs gives glimpses into some of her dad’s last months. She also talks about how it affected her psyche when he named the Lisa computer after her but didn’t admit it to her until she was 27.

Investors rushed to buy Apple stock today, pushing the share price up almost 6 percent. That added a whopping $55 billion to the company’s market capitalization.

Apple is still a bit short of the much-hyped $1 trillion valuation, but moved noticeably closer today.

Samsung just unveiled the first high-end Android tablet in years: With a 10.5-inch screen and a $649.99 price, the Galaxy Tab S4 takes aim squarely at the iPad Pro. As with Apple’s tablet, there’s an optional keyboard ($150) to turn this Android model into a 2-in-1 laptop.

We compare the two to highlight the differences.

Apple’s biggest keynote of the year is quickly approaching and, while the company hasn’t revealed the date, we have a pretty good idea of when exactly the 2018 iPhone lineup will be revealed.

After analyzing the dates of Apple’s previous unveilings and the 2018 calendar, it seems pretty likely the keynote will fall during the second week of September.