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Apple’s original video team adds another TV veteran

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Michelle Lee 1
Michelle Lee is another highly qualified hire for Apple's growing TV division.
Photo: Apple

Apple has hired another high level scripted television veteran as part of its Apple Worldwide Video initiative.

Michelle Lee has been named a creative executive at Apple Worldwide Video. In her previous role at the Universal Television-based True Jack Productions, she developed and executive produced multiple series, including the upcoming Rise for NBC, The Path for Hulu, About a Boy for NBC, and Pure Genius for CBS.

Apple highlights its best apps, games, movies, and music of the year

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best of the year
Apple has released its 'best of' list for 2017.
Photo: Apple

Apple has released its yearly “Best of” list, highlighting its picks for the top apps, games, albums, movies, podcasts, books, and TV shows — just in time for your holiday purchasing!

As is always the case, the lists combine Apple’s own hand-curated picks and popularity-driven charts, based on purchases in Apple’s various services such as iTunes, the App Store, iBooks Store, and Apple Music.

Buggy software could tarnish Apple’s sterling reputation

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iPhone buggy software
The bugs keep on coming.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple built its trillion-dollar reputation delivering beautiful hardware that turned tedious tasks into magical experiences.

But a recent string of ridiculous bugs — and a seriously shocking security flaw — put Cupertino in a precarious position: If Apple doesn’t stop the screw-ups, it could permanently sully its good name.

The best iPhone accessories

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iPhone accessories
Accessories can make your iPhone easier to use.
Photo: Twelve South

The iPhone comes in such a simple form that you could think of it as the core brain of a larger system. If you need to go underwater, you can get a case for that. If you want to turn it into a satnav for your bike or stroller, you can do that, too (see below).

The iPhone accessory market is huge, and there is a gadget or gizmo for almost anything. Here are some of our favorite iPhone accessories, for the new iPhone X as well as for older iPhones.

Amazon Prime Video is finally available for your Apple TV

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apple tv
Apple TV just got a little bit better.
Photo: Apple

As rumored, Apple has finally delivered on its WWDC promise to bring Amazon Prime Video to Apple TV, with just a few weeks to spare before Apple hit its own end-of-the-year deadline.

The tvOS version of the app is available to download on Apple TV 3rd generation devices or above by searching “Amazon Prime Video” on your set-top box. It brings an end to the days of having to use AirPlay to play Amazon Prime Video on your Apple TV, via another device.

App: The Human Story is an antidote to Planet of the Apps

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app documentary
What does it take to make a successful app?
Photo: App: The Human Story

What does it feel like pinning your hopes and livelihood to one of Apple’s most important creations? Fascinating new documentary App: The Human Story takes an unflinching look at the world of app developers in an attempt to answer that question.

It showcases devs’ big wins — and infuriating struggles — as they try to survive and thrive in the massive app economy Apple created. It’s basically the show Apple should have made instead of its ridiculous and annoying Planet of the Apps.

U.S. senator says Apple should defend free expression in China

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Tim Cook
Comments came after a recent keynote Tim Cook gave in China.
Photo: Apple

Democratic Party Senator for Vermont Patrick Leahy has argued that Apple has a “moral obligation” to push back against suppression of free expression in China.

Leahy, who is the most senior senator and took office in 1975, has previously questioned Apple’s relationship with the government in China. In a new interview with CNBC, he said that, “American tech companies have become leading champions of free expression. But that commitment should not end at our borders.”

Date trick gives Amazon Prime Video for Apple TV an early reveal

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apple tvPIC
Coming soon. Or is it?
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple still hasn’t delivered on its promise to bring Amazon Prime Video to Apple TV — although an apparently accidental reveal on the App Store suggests that it may be on the way as early as today.

As posted yesterday by a user on Reddit, setting their iPhone time and date forward to December 6 caused Amazon Prime Video to appear in the App Store, although the “fault” has now been rectified.

iOS 11 adoption lags behind iOS 10, but puts Android to shame

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iPhone X
iOS 11 is currently installed on 59 percent of compatible devices.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

iOS 11 is currently running on 59 percent of compatible devices, gaining 7 percent from the last time Apple reported the figures in early November.

By comparison, 33 percent of devices are running last year’s iOS 10, while the remaining 8 percent are still using a previous version of Apple’s mobile operating system.

Clean Text tidies up messy text on iOS

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clean text
Clean Text does what it say on the... name.
Photo: Apimac

Don’t you just hate messy text? Text with extra spaces between words. Text with carriage returns inserted in the middles of lines. Text with lots of %-encodes and %nbsp mixed in. Text with > symbols at the beginning of every line. Filthy, dirty, unclean text? What you need is Clean Text, the smiter of hinky formatting, and quasher of non-smart punctuation.

Text snippets now support multiple lines, iCloud sync

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MK Mac
Keyboard snippets make your life way easier.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Text snippets are one of the most useful “unknown” features on Mac and iOS. They let you type a few letters, and have them expand into a whole word, sentence or paragraph. You can use them to type, say, aadd and have it turn into your office address, for example. Or you might set up a shortcut to generate a symbol usually hidden on the iOS keyboard: xx to type a #, for example.

Until now, though, Apple’s Text Replacement function proved a royal pain to use. It never synced properly between devices, and it didn’t support multiple-line snippets. But in an update last week, Apple fixed both those problems.

Apple Pay Cash comes to Apple Watch in watchOS 4.2

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apple pay iphone x
Apple Pay Cash works on iPhone and Apple Watch.
Photo: Apple

The official launch of Apple Pay Cash is finally here and you can even use it to send friends money from your Apple Watch.

Apple released watchOS 4.2 to the public today, bringing a host of new features and bug fixes, including support for the new Apple Pay Cash feature that started trickling out to iPhone users yesterday.

Amazon tops Apple for title of best-managed company

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Amazon is on fire.
Amazon is on fire.
Photo: Amazon

American tech companies are a some of the most effectively managed businesses in the world, according to a new landmark system that ranked the top 250 companies.

Even though Apple is the world’s most profitable company, the rankings found that Amazon is actually the most efficiently run business. But Apple follows at a close second.

HoverDock charging bed for Apple Watch doubles as alarm clock [Watch Store]

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HoverDock
Just Mobile's HoverDock is a minimalist, chic charging solution for Apple Watch.
Photo: Courtesy of Just Mobile

Keep your Apple Watch fired up and ready to go this holiday season with the HoverDock from Just Mobile — makers of design-award winning charging docks and stands for Apple Watch. Pack this compact dock for charging while traveling, or use as a bedside alarm clock.

Just Mobile continues to impress us with its great Apple-centric accessories, and is well-known as a company who’s ethos is great design. We’re excited to feature Just Mobile’s full range of elegant charging solutions for Apple Watch in our Watch Store — the TimeStand, Lounge Dock and, now, the HoverDock. At $34.95, the HoverDock makes a great gift or stocking-stuffer.

Apple buys startup that makes podcasts searchable

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Podcasts 1
Apple wants to make its Podcasts service even better.
Photo: Pop Up Archive

Apple has acquired Pop Up Archive, an online platform that builds tools for transcribing audio files and making them searchable.

One of the startup’s most significant tools is a podcast search engine called Audiosear.ch, which closed its doors November 28. The service issued “Buzz Scores” for podcasts, based on their charting on iTunes and reviews.

Get a sneak peek at next year’s new emojis

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iOS 11.1 emoji on Twitter
Who doesn't love a good emoji?
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

Have you found yourself unable to continue a conversation without the use of a drunk emoji, a female supervillain or a strand of DNA?

If so, you may be pleased to hear that the Unicode Consortium has released its Emoji 11.0 beta to developers, offering a glimpse at the 130 Draft Candidate emojis we may be able to enjoy sometime next year.

Never stop learning with lifetime access to 170 courses [Deals]

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Stone River eLearning
Access one of the 170 plus courses on Stone River eLearning straight from your iPhone
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

The payoff of learning a new skill or developing existing ones are endless; whether that means a higher likelihood of making yourself more marketable in the workplace or starting a side project. The Stone River eLearning Lifetime Membership made it easier for anyone to learn everything from iOS app development to graphic design at your pace and even straight from your iPhone.

Xiaomi can’t trademark its iPad ripoff

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Xiaomi pic
One of Xiaomi's soundalike "Mi Pad" tablets.
Photo: Xiaomi

Xiaomi, the Chinese company which once specialized in brazen iPhone ripoffs, has gained its own identity in the past few years — but that doesn’t mean that it no longer rips off Apple’s intellectual property.

Fortunately, Apple just gained some struck back, persuading an EU court not to grant Xiaomi a trademark for its “Mi Pad” tablet name.