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Apple could put OLED displays in all 2019 iPhones

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iPhone X
Ready to ditch your iPhone X already? There's still time to get a great price!
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

All iPhone models launching in 2019 will get an OLED display, according to a new report.

Apple is expected to finally ditch LCD displays entirely, however, one of three new handsets expected to arrive this September — the most affordable model — could have an improved LCD panel.

CarPlay and Android Auto are fast becoming standard for new cars

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CarPlay
CarPlay and Android Auto were found on roughly half of new cars sold in Q1.
Photo: Hyundai

Compared to iOS or even macOS, Apple’s CarPlay in-vehicle standard seems relatively minor in terms of importance. However, according to a new report, in-car systems such as this are rapidly becoming the norm.

In the first three months of this year, analysts at Canalys suggest that Apple’s CarPlay or Google’s Android Auto were available in 46 percent of new vehicles sold in Europe, and 52 percent of new vehicles sold in the U.S.

Pandora copies Spotify and Apple with $15 Family plan

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Pandora
Pandora's new plan lets up to six users listen to ad-free music.
Photo: Pandora

With around 5.18 million paying subscribers, Pandora is around one-tenth the size of Apple Music, which recently announced 50 million active users. But that’s not stopping it from doing its best to compete.

In order to compete with giants like Apple Music and Spotify, Pandora is matching their pricing with a $15-per-month Premium Family plan. The monthly subscription grants up to six family members access to the service with no ads, plus superior audio quality compared to Pandora’s free tier.

Celebrate Memorial Day with huge savings on Apple Watch bands

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We've selected many of our best brands for this sale including Nomad, Twelve South, Noreve, Strapa, Just Mobile. Trilotac and many more!
Photo: Noreve

Memorial Day weekend is no exception to the epic sales typically found on holiday weekends. In addition to a little R&R, why not spend a minute treating yourself to some great scores on Apple Watch bands?

Cult of Mac Watch Store’s Memorial Day Weekend Sale will offer up to 25 percent off the majority of our vendors. You’ll find great discounts on some of our most popular brands for Apple Watch straps, chargers and stands. Sale ends Monday, so check out these stellar discounts while they last, and see some of our featured brands below.

Instantly open Mobile Safari links in new tabs with this special tap gesture

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open in new tab shortcut
Dust off Safari's tabs with this great time-saving gesture.
Photo: Quinn Dombrowski/Flickr

To open a link in a new tab in Safari for iPhone or iPad, you have to tap and hold the link, then wait for a pop-up menu to arrive. That’s a long wait, and it got even longer in iOS 11, thanks to the addition of drag-and-drop. Your iPhone or iPad waits a little longer just to check you’re not planning to drag that link somewhere.

But what if there were a one-tap way to open links in a new tab? You could power through a list of links, tap tap tap, and they’d all open up in new background tabs, loaded and ready to read. It would be like command-clicking on the Mac. Well, there is such a trick, and it’s super-super easy to use.

Uncheck all those Tumblr GDPR boxes at once with this cool bookmarklet

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Just say no to long, hostile GDPR checklists.
Just say no to long, hostile checklists.
Photo: Cult of Mac

You’re most likely sick of the GDPR notifications coming at you via email and the web, but they’re actually great. Or rather, GDPR itself is great. Unlike the EU cookie notices that still seem to pop up in your browser, GDPR is actually useful, and shows the U.S. what happens when government looks after the interests of citizens, not corporations.

Thanks to GDPR, internet giants are being forced to change what they do with all the personal data they harvest from you. And hidden behind those many, many GDPR notices are opt-out lists1 that let you limit what data these companies can share.

Of course, many of these companies are making it as difficult as possible to actually change these settings. Tumblr, for instance, lists all of the companies to which it supplies your information, and gives no “uncheck all” option.

I got sick of this, so I made a bookmarklet to uncheck all the boxes on any website with just one click.

Explore the depths of Reddit with Narwhal [50 Essential iOS Apps #19]

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Narwhal FrontPage of Reddit
Diving into Reddit is intuitive and fun with Narwhal.
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

50 Essential iOS Apps: Narwhal reddit appReddit isn’t something that is typically associated with the modern features and design of iOS. While much of the platform calls back to the days of user forums, it is indispensable as a source of news, conversation and entertainment for many. With Narwhal, you can make the most of your Reddit experience on iOS — and find the latest trends or the dankest memes.

Cult of Mac Magazine: Our wish list for iOS 12, Memorial Day Sale in Watch Store, and more!

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cover
In this week's Cult of Mac Magazine: WWDC is right around the corner, which means we’re about to get our very first look at Apple’s next major update to iOS.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine: We’re expecting big things from iOS 12, including a whole host of improvements that will make our devices more stable, and plenty of welcome bug fixes. Apple will surely surprise us with some nice new features, too at WWDC 2018.

Here’s our lengthy wish list for this update, which includes a Home screen overhaul, a more powerful FaceTime, better multitasking, and more!

You’ll find that story and more in this issue. Celebrate Memorial Day Weekend with three days of great savings on Apple Watch bands and accessories in Cult of Mac’s Watch Store. Get your free subscription to Cult of Mac Magazine from iTunes. Or read on for this week’s top stories.

Ring in Memorial Day with massively discounted gear and gadgets [Deals]

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We've rounded up some great deals on gear, gadgets, and lesson bundles.
We've rounded up some great deals on gear, gadgets, and lesson bundles.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Memorial day weekend is upon us, so there’s plenty of time to peruse this massive roundup of deals we’ve pulled together. Below you’ll find massive discounts on a top shelf-VPN, a solar powered lamp, Raspberry Pi lessons and lots more. These are already discounted deals, but you can save even more by using the coupon code ‘MEMDAY15’ at checkout. Read on for more details:

Apple frequently forced to give customer iCloud data to police

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Police Car. Berlin, 2013
Apple strives to protect the privacy of its customers, but it's also required to comply with legal requests for information from law enforcement.
Photo: Stefan Draschan

A locked iPhone can’t be accessed without the passcode, and even Apple can’t unlock it. But Apple has to comply with government requests for iCloud information.

And there are a lot of them. The company received 3,358 requests to access personal data in the second-half of 2017, with about half of these coming from the United States.

Save 15 percent on a refurbished Apple Watch LTE

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Refurbished Apple Watch LTE units are available.
Pick up your new Apple Watch for $75 less.
Photo: Apple

Apple began offering 4G-enabled smartwatches last fall, but it seems people don’t return them very often. It’s taken this long to build up a large enough supply of refurbished Apple Watch LTE units that they can finally be offered to the public.

Those who don’t mind a refurb can get this wearable at 15 percent off the regular price.

How to replace Instapaper with Pinboard

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Instapaper punishes its European users use
Instapaper Premium unlocks awesome features.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Instapaper has shut down in Europe. Instead of complying with the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which forces internet companies to stop hoarding your data, the read-later service has closed access for anyone trying to access their account from Europe. Clearly the two-years since the GDPR was announced wasn’t enough time to get ready.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can still download all your saved articles from Instapaper, and you can import them into am alternative. One option is Pocket, another read-later service, but that might leave you in a similar situation sometime in the future. Better to take care of business now, and move everything to Pinboard.

iOS 12 wish list: All the features we absolutely need

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iOS 12 wish list
Here's everything we want from Apple's next major update.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

WWDC is right around the corner, which means we’re about to get our very first look at Apple’s next major update to iOS.

We’re expecting big things from iOS 12, including a whole host of improvements that will make our devices more stable, and plenty of welcome bug fixes. Apple will surely surprise us with some nice new features, too.

Here’s our lengthy wish list for this update, which includes a Home screen overhaul, a more powerful FaceTime, better multitasking, and more!

Obscura 2 is a manual camera app you can understand [50 Essential iOS Apps #18]

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Obscura 2 camera app taking a photo of a dog
Obscura 2 gives you powerful camera controls in an easy-to-use package.
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

50 Essential iOS Apps: Obscura Camera For several years in a row, the iPhone has been one of the most popular cameras in the world. Apple’s image sensors, paired with top-notch image processing, results in exceptional photos time and time again.

One thing absent from the default camera app, though, are manual settings. With Obscura 2, you get all the manual controls you want, plus a wide range of image-processing features, perfectly implemented haptics, and a slew of vintage filters to make your photos pop.

Services could push Apple past $1 trillion valuation in next year

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What’s it like to have your startup bought by Apple? Stressful
Apple could be about to make history!
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The giants of the financial world are firmly in Apple’s corner. First, mega investor Warren Buffett‘s company became Apple’s third-biggest public shareholder. Now investment titan Morgan Stanley has issued a note to clients, outlining why Apple is likely to pass a major financial milestone in the next year.

At time of writing, Apple is trading at $188.51. However, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty the stock has the potential to hit a price target of $214. Should it manage this feat, Apple will become the first company in history to surpass $1 trillion in market cap.

Mechanical keyboard gives your iPad a Mad Men makeover

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Rymek
Typing on your iPad is about to get a whole lot louder.
Photo: Rymek

Not garnering enough attention tapping away at your unfinished novel on your iPad in your local Starbucks? That will certainly change if you invest in Rymek’s latest keyboard accessory.

Designed to replicate the look and feel of a vintage typewriter, Rymek’s iPad-compatible mechanical keyboard will let you bash out the words between sips of whisky, while pretending you’re Mad Men‘s Don Draper.

Silly App Store bans have gone too far with Steam Link

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Steam Link iPhone iPad Apple TV
Steam Link’s first big update is great for controller users.
Photo: Valve

Apple has decided that it won’t allow iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV owners to play PC games through Steam Link.

Valve’s new app, which is now available in beta on Android, has been banned from the App Store because of “business conflicts.” Apple has also turned down Valve’s appeals.

It’s yet another example of Apple customers being hurt by its often farcical App Store rules. What makes this ban even more ridiculous is that there are so many apps similar to Steam Link already available in the App Store.

New to iCloud? Apple will give you the first month’s storage for free

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Hacker who tried to extort Apple for $100k is spared prison
Apple wants more iCloud subscribers.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple is looking to hook more people to subscribe to its iCloud storage service — and like good salespeople they’re willing to give you the first hit for free, after which you’ll have to start paying.

At present, Apple offers you a tiny amount of storage for free as a preview of its iCloud storage. However, this is such a small amount that users will run out even if they’re only backing up the videos and photos on their iPhone. For most customers, it’s therefore necessary to pay a monthly subscription fee to Apple to cover all your storage needs.

Samsung must pay Apple $539 million for violating iPhone patents

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Samsung
Samsung argued it should pay just $28 million.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

A jury has decided that Samsung must pay Apple $539 million in damages, following four days of deliberation — and years of ongoing legal battles.

The verdict is almost exactly in the middle of the $1 billion in damages Apple was requesting, and the $28 million Samsung’s lawyers felt the South Korean tech giant should pay.

5 ways HomePod could catch up with its rivals

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HomePod Close Up
We like the HomePod. We just think there's a lot more Apple could do with it.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The iPhone dominates smartphone sales charts. The iPad is so ubiquitous that, for many, its name is a catch-all term for any tablet. The Mac is the most desirable computer out there. But the HomePod? Not so much.

According to figures released this week, Apple’s smart speaker made up just a tiny 6 percent share of all smart speaker shipments for the first quarter of 2018. What is Apple doing wrong? And what could it do to turn things around? Here are five suggestions for HomePod improvements we’d like to see.

How to use the Mac’s secret emoji panel

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emoji text replacements
The Mac's emoji panel is even better than the iOS emoji keyboard.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Finding emoji on the iPhone and iPad is easy — you just tap the little emoji key in the corner of your keyboard, and there they are. Emoji are fully supported on the Mac, too, but where do you find them? If you don’t already know, then this trick is going to blow your mind, because it’s just as easy to get to the emoji panel on the Mac as it is on the iPhone.