Mobile menu toggle

Thanos arrives to blow up Fortnite

By

Get ready for Thanos in Fortnite
Bet you weren't expecting Thanos in Fortnite. But find the Infinity Gauntlet and become the Mad Titan.
Photo: Marvel

Thanos isn’t just appearing in theaters everywhere, he’s also showing up in Fortnite. The villain of Avengers: Infinity War is crossing over into one of the most popular iOS games for a short time.

Even better, one player in each session transforms into Thanos to wield the Infinity Gauntlet.

Get ready for a triple-lens iPhone

By

multi-camera smartphones
Imaging the iPhone with three lenses.
Photo: iDrop News/Martin Hajek

Just as you are scraping together the money for an iPhone with two camera lenses, Apple may be coming out with a triple-lens iPhone sometime next year.

A news story out of Taiwan about the rising revenues of two handset components makers buried that little nugget as it reported on an expected recovery of a sluggish smartphone sales across the globe.

Zoom through Apple’s spaceship parking garage

By

Apple parking garage
A parking garage like no other.
Photo: DurangoLyft/YouTube

The design of parking garages rarely captures the imagination. But a dash-cam video of a parking facility at Apple’s spaceship campus will likely prompt a few ooh’s and ahh’s from design fans.

The three-and-a-half-minute video shot by a Lyft driver is worthy of narration from Apple design guru Johnny Ive and has all the hallmarks of a well-made Apple device: attractive simplicity, clean lines, and functional flow.

Hack a broken iPhone memory chip into a USB thumbdrive

By

Put this iPhone memory chip into a USB drive

Screencap: Strange Parts

Scotty Allen loves to tinker. He followed up on his recent project manually expanding the storage capacity of his iPhone with a new trick: extracting an iPhone memory chip and converting it into a USB drive.

To be clear, Allen isn’t suggesting this is practical. Buying a USB drive is cheaper and vastly easier. But he sure seems to have fun doing it.

iOS 13 will boast great updates for iPad users

By

ipad ios 11
Expect iOS 13 to bring significant new features to Apple's tablets, more so than iOS 12.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

iOS 12 is right around the corner, but iPad users should be thinking longer term. It’s iOS 13 “Yukon” in 2019 that’s expected to bring more new features to Apple’s tablet.

At the top of the list of the ability to work with multiple windows from the same application side-by-side. This would allow the user to, for example, have two Pages documents open next to each other.

How to keep using Time Machine without AirPort or Time Capsule

By

flux-capacitor
This is what makes Time Machine backups possible.
Photo: Morgan Sherwood/Flickr CC

Apple’s AirPort routers introduced one game-changing new feature to the world: easy backups. Time Machine is Apple’s automatic backup utility, and it made backups easy enough for non-nerds to use regularly.

The easiest way to use it was to buy a Time Capsule, a wireless AirPort router with a hard drive built in. Before Time Capsule, nobody backed up. After Time Capsule, anyone could keep hourly, daily and weekly backups without even thinking about it. But now that Apple has stopped making Time Capsule, and AirPort routers in general, how do you keep using Time Machine?

Cult of Mac Magazine: Why everyone was so wrong about iPhone X, and more!

By

cover
In this week's Cult of Mac Magazine: Everything you heard about iPhone X sales was wrong. In fact, it's Apple's most popular model.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine: Analysts have been extremely pessimistic about the iPhone X, with almost daily predictions that Apple’s top-of-the-line model was a flop. And they were all dead wrong. Tim Cook just said the iPhone X has been Apple’s best-selling model for every week since it launched, and that sales of all the company’s phones grew last quarter. How did the analysts get it so wrong?

You’ll find that story and more in this issue. Mother’s Day is around the corner on May 13, so check out our Watch Store’s Mother’s Day Gift Guide for on-time shipping. Get your free subscription to Cult of Mac Magazine from iTunes. Or read on for this week’s top stories.

Newton, Bias Amp 2, Overcast privacy, and other amazing apps of the week

By

Awesome Apps
'Appy weekend.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

This week we look at the amazing new Bias Amp 2 for guitarists, which looks just awful on the big-screen iPad Pro, we see how the Newton email app has banished the “sent” mail folder, we check out the new privacy features in the Overcast podcast app, and find out how to duplicate our entire Instagram history on our own microblog.

iOS 11.3 breaks some iPhone 7 microphones

By

iPhone-7
How’s your iPhone 7 mic after updating to iOS 11.3?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple’s recent software updates have broken some iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus microphones.

Users report that they cannot be heard during calls since updating to iOS 11.3 or later. Apple has advised Authortized Service Providers that they can initiate repairs if necessary — even on devices that are no longer covered by a warranty.

Lightsaber battles get personal in Jedi Challenges

By

It's not your father's lightsaber, but Jedi Challenges lets you battle your megalomaniac dad or whiny son. Virtually, of course.
It's not your father's lightsaber, but Jedi Challenges lets you battle your megalomaniac dad or whiny son. Virtually, of course.
Photo: Lenovo

Just in time for May the Fourth-be-with-you, Star Wars: Jedi Challenges added multiplayer lightsaber battles so you can take on your friends in virtual reality combat. 

Of course, doing so requires a couple of $150 AR helmets and lightsabers. But still. 

Take your podcast listening up a notch with Overcast [50 Essential iOS Apps #9]

By

Overcast offers a simple interface and great features. It's the best podcast app around.
Overcast offers a simple interface and great features.
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

50 Essential iOS Apps: Overcast best podcast app Podcasts are a great way to stay informed and entertained, or just to pass time. The number of podcasts is booming, and if you listen efficiently you can hear even more of them.

With the Overcast podcast app for iOS, you get a great podcast listening experience along with some awesome time-saving features.

Google’s search payments to Apple could diminish this year

By

What’s it like to have your startup bought by Apple? Stressful
Apple's Google cash is an easy source of money.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The money that Google pays Apple to be the default iOS search engine is poised to become a much smaller part of Apple’s Services revenue.

In its most recent quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Apple singled out licensing as one of the main factors for its 31 percent increase in Services revenue over the past quarter. But Google parent company Alphabet told investors that the money paid to distribution partners — including Apple — will slow down this year.

iPhone X may have sold close to 50 million handsets so far

By

iphone x
By our calculations, the iPhone X alone has sold as many units as Apple sold iPhones in the first three years.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

It was written off as a flop by analysts until just a week ago, but according to newly released figures from Strategy Analytics, Apple’s iPhone X was actually the world’s best selling smartphone model in the first quarter of 2018.

Selling a massive 16 million units out of total smartphone shipments of 345 million worldwide, the iPhone X has seemingly disproved everyone who expected this to be a sales dud for Apple.

iPhone X is a huge hit, the death of 3D Touch, and inflatable paddle boards on The CultCast

By

Tim Cook with money bag
Tim Cook
Illustration: Cult of Mac

This week on a very volatile episode of The CultCast: the analysts were all wrong—iPhone X is a massive hit. Plus: the death of 3D Touch starts with 2018 iPhone; the world’s most famous Apple analyst may no longer be reporting on Apple; Apple’s AirPort router lineup is officially dead; and we pitch you our favorite show, movie, and vodka in an all-new Under Review. It’s a juicy one. Hit play and catch the discussion.

Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. It’s simple to accept Apple Pay and sell your wares with your very own Squarespace website. Enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10% off your first hosting plan or domain.

Razer’s new mouse is built for budget gaming

By

Razer-Abyssus-Essential
The Abyssus Essential won’t break the bank.
Photo: Razer

If you do a lot of gaming on your Mac or PC, a $10 mouse from Walmart isn’t going to cut it. But that doesn’t mean you have to break the bank on something super-fancy, either.

The Abyssus Essential, Razer’s newest mouse, has everything the average gamer needs — and it’s ideal for buyers on a budget.

Warren Buffett didn’t believe the iPhone X doom predictions

By

Buffett
Warren Buffett continues to sing Apple's praises.
Photo: CNBC

Analysts everywhere are trying to restore their Apple credibility after predicting doom for the iPhone X, only to be confronted with Apple’s best ever March quarter!

One person who apparently didn’t buy into the negative chatter about Apple? Renowned investor Warren Buffett. In the first quarter of 2018, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway firm shelled out for a massive 75 million AAPL shares. That joins the 165.3 million shares it owned at the end of last year.

Goosebumps: HorrorTown promises a scarily good time on iOS

By

Pixowl
Let's hope there aren't too many terrifying in-app purchases along the way!
Photo: Pixowl

Back in my distant misspent youth, I was an enormous fan of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series of kids’ horror books. Jump forward 25 years and this fond piece of nostalgia is about to make its way onto iOS — courtesy of a new mobile game. And it actually sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

Check out the trailer below.

Instagram introduces in-app payments feature

By

Instagram
Now you can pay for things in Instagram's app without having to leave.
Photo: Instagram

Is there a single tech company out there that doesn’t want to get in on the mobile payments game?

Not wanting to be the kid picked last for soccer practice, Instagram has started rolling out a native payments feature for its app. This allows you to register a debit or credit card as part of your profile, add a pin code, and then start making purchases right inside of the Instagram app.