Hip hop artist Cardi B has broken Taylor Swift’s record for first week Apple Music streams for an album by a female artist. According to Apple, Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy earned more than 100 million streams in its initial week.
Fortnite Battle Royale on mobile is a boatload of fun — but it could be a lot better. Clunky touch controls make it more difficult to play on iOS than on console or PC, and there’s nothing game controller manufacturers can do about it right now.
Gamevice has explained why its controllers do nothing if you attempt to use them in Fortnite — and why it’s taking Epic Games so long to add controller support.
If you’ve got a Mac, we’ve got some great apps for it. And each is discounted by half or more. So you can get the powerful organizational tool Aeon Timeline, the audio-enhancing Boom 3D, the writing-improving Ginger Page, and the media conversion powerhouse Roxio Toast for pennies on the dollar. Read on for more details:
A Russian court has ordered that the Telegram messaging app should be blocked in the country. This is due to the company’s refusal to give Russian state security services the encryption keys to access messages sent using the service.
Russia’s FSB Federal Security service argued that it needs to be able to access the messages to safeguard against terrorist attacks. However, Telegram refused to comply with the demands for reasons of user privacy.
This week on The CultCast: HomePod sales are already stumbling — is it doomed? Plus: Face ID could replace passwords on your favorite websites; the death of Touch ID scheduled for this fall; and our hands-on reviews of an $80 tech-packed coffee cup, a beautiful new HomeKit smart lock, and the all-new Mavic Air drone.
Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. It’s simple to accept Apple Pay and sell your wares with your very own Squarespace.com website. Enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10 percent off any hosting plan.
Apple plans to start manufacturing another iPhone in India, according to a new report.
Partner Wistron has already started trial production of the iPhone 6s Plus at its Bangalore plant, where it has been assembling the iPhone SE since last year. Source say mass-production will begin in “the next couple of weeks.”
Death Road to Canada is probably my pick for the best game to land in the App Store last year. It’s a weird-ass mashup that should never have worked: an amalgamation of randomly generated zombie survival RPG, action game, text-based interactive fiction game, and homage to the heyday of 8-bit gaming.
Its new FEMUR update makes a great game even better. It adds additional weapon types, five extra trader camps, new character the Barbarian, and a whole lot more. Plus, there’s even more to come.
Epic has promised to give Fortnite players free loot to apologize for recent downtime that left fans unable to play the game for around 24 hours.
Battle Royale players — including those on iOS — will be able to obtain a back bling gift from the store this weekend, while the game’s next big update will bring free Battle Stars. Save the World players can look forward to some goodies, too.
Apple just updated iMovie for iOS so iPhone X users don’t have to put up with black bars on either edge of their display.
Even better, the new version supports Apple’s Metal API, which means the application now has direct access to a phone’s or tablet’s graphics-processing hardware.
Police around the country are buying and using iPhone unlocking tools like GrayKey. These allow access to the contents of encrypted devices involved in crimes.
GrayKey is fairly expensive, and its maker can’t guarantee how long it will work. It depends on a iOS security flaw known only to its maker, and Apple could close this hole at any time. Nevertheless, law enforcement agencies are taking the risk.
Did you ever snap a photo of a magazine page, or capture a screenshot of text, and wish you could just copy and paste it like any normal text? Maybe it’s a photo of a recipe from a paper book, and you’d like to be able to search for it in future? The good news is that you can easily extract the text from a photo or screenshot, right there on your iPhone.
The even better news is that we’re going to learn how to do it right now.
The goal of Apple Business Chat is to make it easy exchange messages with companies. The service just debuted in iOS 11.3, and T-Mobile today joined the handful of businesses that support it.
With it, people can make purchases, schedule appointments, or just ask questions.
Apple missed a golden opportunity to bust out a RED iPhone X to go with the (PRODUCT) RED iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus based on the latest mockups from our favorite Apple concept artist.
Martin Hajek came out with some renderings of what the iPhone X would look like with a red coat of paint and it’s absolutely stunning.
Take a look:
Apple was a bright spot in the global PC market last quarter. Market analysis firm Gartner says Mac shipments grew 1.5 percent, even as the total market for laptops and desktops dropped 1.4 percent.
The U.S. helped drag down the global totals, with a 2.9 percent decline. Still, that helped push up Apple’s share of the American market to 12.6%.
This is the Roadie. It’s a guitar tuner with a rotating slot that you slide over a tuning peg of your guitar. Then you pluck a string, and the Roadie listens to the pitch, and actually turns the peg for you, shifting the pitch up or down until it is in tune.
Google is working on a big redesign for Gmail on the web, it confirmed this week. Leaked screenshots reveal what’s in store for browser users, including a number of new features that are currently only available inside Google’s mobile apps.
Disney’s new ESPN+ service has landed on iOS, offering subscribers thousands of hours of live sports for under $5 a month. Users will enjoy action from the MLB and NHL, as well as content they wouldn’t typically find on ESPN channels on the big screen.
If you work on design projects, you know how important a library of assets is. And if you’re working on interface or website design, icons are your bread and butter.
Apple has begun issuing notifications to macOS users that confirm plans to drop support for 32-bit applications.
“This app needs to be updated by its developer to improve compatibility,” reads the warning users will see when they load a 32-bit app for the first time in macOS High Sierra 10.13.4. This is the final version of macOS that will allow 32-bit apps to be opened “without compromise.”
No, it’s not just you — no one can play Fortnite right now.
The hottest game on the planet is down — and has been for over 12 hours — as a result of a database failure. Epic Games is in the process of carrying out major upgrades to its database systems, but there’s no word on when Fortnite will be playable again.
Apple has been forced to cut HomePod orders as inventories continue to build up in its retail stores, according to a new report.
The $349 speaker enjoyed a promising start when it made its debut in February, but demand has fallen quickly as smart speaker shoppers turn to more affordable options from the likes of Amazon.
The pistol emoji has been rejected by Twitter. Instead, its place is being taken by a bright green squirt gun.
Apple was the first to replace this controversial emoji with a harmless pool toy, and many other companies have followed suit.
People trust Apple. A recent survey found that only a tiny percentage of Americans think the iPhone maker is irresponsible with their personal data.
That’s good news for Tim Cook and co., who have worked hard to differentiate themselves from Facebook, the least trusted tech company by a wide margin.
The Apple Watch is set to get some of its biggest upgrades ever this year, including a bigger, brighter display.
Rumors have suggested Apple plans to increase the display on the Apple Watch Series 4 by about 15%. The move could add more room for a bigger battery, but a new concept mockup of the Apple Watch Series 4 shows Apple could squeeze the bigger display into the current design.
Check it out:
Leaving Instagram is about to get a lot easier.
With pressure rising on its parent company to give users access to all of their data, Instagram says it plans to release a tool that will let you download all of the content you’ve shared on the social network.