This week, on a holly jolly edition of The CultCast: The next-gen AirPods are supposedly coming in 2018; next-day delivery of iPhone X is a sprinkling of Christmas magic; how to listen to Youtube videos when your iPad or iPhone screen is off; and we wrap up with our favorite TV shows of 2017!

Our thanks to Backblaze for supporting this episode! Backblaze online backup is Mac native, unlimited, unthrottled cloud backup, and it’s only 5 bucks a month. Try it totally free for two weeks at backblaze.com/cultcast.

Christmas creeps up on you quickly, so if you haven’t already started your shopping, it’s time to do something about it. Cult of Mac can help! In this guide, you’ll find a selection of stellar gifts that are perfect for the Mac lover in your life.

We have killer keyboards, stunning stands, super speakers and more!

In today’s workplace, digital design skills are at a premium. So knowing how to use Adobe’s industry standard apps for graphic design — Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator, etc — means having an advantage in your job search.

A minor change in its App Store guidelines this week concerning template apps doesn’t sound like much. But if you’re one of the many, many iOS developers running a small business who rely on the App Store for a living, either directly or indirectly, it was a major triumph.

Here’s why it’s given developers another reason to celebrate this holiday season.

Capturing, converting, editing, burning to DVD. Each of the many ways we work with digital media files requires the right software. Roxio Toast has long been seen as one of the top digital media apps for Mac. With the latest version, Toast 16 Titanium, that title seems even more secure.

Apple has recruited three executives from Amazon Studios, who will help Apple further grow its original programming ambitions.

The new employees include Tara Sorensen, former head of Amazon kids’ programming, who will join Apple to pursue a similar role; international development executive Carina Walker, who joins Apple as a creative executive; and business affairs chief Tara Pietri, who will head up Apple’s legal affairs division.

iPhone X shipments are likely to be somewhere between 30-35 million in the fourth quarter of 2017, a new report claims.

If true, this would be something of a disappointment for Apple. Sources in the semiconductor packaging and testing service industry suggest that iPhone X pre-orders in markets including the United States, Taiwan, and Singapore were not as strong as expected.

Cowen analyst Karl Ackerman previously claimed that sales of the new device are “good,” but possibly not as good as anticipated.

Well that didn’t take long! Within a day of Apple acknowledging that it’s software updates cause older iPhone models to slow down, Apple has been hit with not one, but two class action lawsuits from folks outraged that it would behave in this way.

Both suits are asking for unspecified damages from the company.

When iOS update time rolls round, you probably run through all the devices in your home, downloading those multi-gigabyte updates over and over. If you have a few iPhones, plus a couple of iPads, it all adds to a lot of data, and a lot of waiting. New in macOS 10.13 High Sierra is Content Caching, which stores these downloads on a Mac, so they only have to be downloaded once.

This doesn’t only save on internet data usage. It also makes it way faster to update several devices. And it’s not just updates either. Content caching can also cache iCloud documents, your photo library, and app updates.

The Apple Watch is poised to become a serious medical device in the next few years thanks to a big new upgrade coming down the pipeline.

Apple is reportedly developing an advanced heart-rate monitoring system for Apple Watch that will utilize an electrocardiogram to take more accurate readings of the wearers’ health.

Apple is investigating new ways to make self-driving care systems drive more like humans, based on a recent patent filing from the iPhone-maker.

The USPTO finally published Apple’s first patent application related to autonomous vehicle systems today, giving some insight into the strategies Apple might use to make its mark in the emerging self-driving car market.

So you use a two-factor authentication, a VPN, you cover your webcam. You’re doing everything you should to stay safe and private online. But what do you do about your phone calls?

According to reliable Apple analyst KGI Securities’ Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will focus on increasing the iPhone’s battery capacity for both the 2019 and 2020 models.

Kuo claims that Apple’s semiconductor manufacturing processes and substrate-like printed circuit boards will enable it to create the required space in its handsets for these larger batteries. He also suggests that Apple will opt for new “superior” radio frequency printed circuit board (RFPCB) batteries.

The newly-passed Republican tax overhaul will allow Apple to repatriate its giant $252.3 billion overseas cash pile without paying as much tax as it would have previously.

Under the new rules, it would be able to take advantage of a one-off 15.5 percent tax rate, meaning it would owe around $39.1 billion — much of which Apple has already set aside for the purpose.

Apple has taken swift steps to make up to customers following the recent counterfeit Cuphead app, which appeared in the App Store this week without permission from the popular game’s developers.

Rather than customers having to request refunds for the fraudulent app, Apple is pre-emptively offering them to everyone who bought the app. It’s a nice “make good” for a situation that could have been embarrassing for the company.

Does your iPhone seem to get slower and slower as it grows older? Well, according to Apple, that is exactly what’s supposed to happen.

Many iPhone users have long suspected that Apple throttles performance of aging iPhones. The popular theory is that Apple does so to entice users to upgrade. However, Apple says there are really good performance reasons behind the practice.

With all the fuss about depleted old batteries slowing down iPhones, it might be a good idea to at least check the health of your iPhone’s battery. To do this, you can use a free tool called coconutBattery. This handy app digs into your iOS and Mac devices to tell you how old they are, and how strong your battery is compared to when it was new.

If you’re traveling to see family this Christmas, then you may like the Kingston MobileLite G3, which is — amongst other things — a wireless SD card reader that lets you load and save any files you like. Unlike Apple’s own SD card reader, which only works with video and photos, the MobileLite can read any file you want, and then hand it off to any app that can open it.

Not only that, but the MobileLite also works with USB drives, and can juice your iPhone with its built-in 5,400 mAh battery.

Apple has always denied that merging its mobile and desktop operating systems, the way that Microsoft has done, is a good idea. But from 2018, it is reportedly starting to explore that road by giving developers the ability to create apps which work on iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

Depending on the hardware you use them on, these apps could be controlled via touchscreen, mouse, or trackpad — and would be equally at home on both iOS and macOS.

These days, we’re all typing countless emails, social media posts, messages and other text based communications. That means a lot of chances to make the wrong impression thanks to poor spelling or grammar.

Apple is facing a lawsuit in China from a local clothing brand, which argues that Apple is infringing on its design trademark with its logo for App Store.

Apple changed the icon for the App Store in August this year — jettisoning the previous image showing a ruler, pencil and paintbrush crossing over to form an “A” shape, in favor of a simplified version of the same image. Unfortunately, clothing brand Kon has been using a similar image dating back to 2009, supposed to show skeletons bones symbolizing triumph over death.

Samsung Display will continue churning out OLED displays for Apple in 2018, with a reported 180 – 200 million flexible OLED iPhone panels scheduled to ship next year, a new report claims.

That’s around 4x the estimated 50 million OLED panels that Samsung supplied Apple with in 2017, which suggests that Apple is planning on expanding its number of OLED handsets in the new year.

Apple is opening a new “global flagship” Apple Store in Melbourne, Australia.

Australia’s minister for tourism and major events John Eren described the new venue as being a “major drawcard for visitors and locals,” that would breath “new life into one of Melbourne’s most iconic landmarks.”

With its years old traditions and ability to make us feel like kids again, Christmas is a pretty nostalgic time of year. So why not create a festive ad that takes us back to the glory days of 2004, by using Gwen Stefani to try and sell us on Apple Music and her latest album?

Or, at least, that’s what we’re assuming was the rationale behind Apple’s latest holidays-themed ad. Check it out below:

What would happen if you took an electric guitar, made it as thick as an acoustic guitar, and stuffed the extra space not with boring old air, but with speakers and an electronic brain that works with your iPhone?

Then, you might put in a cutout on the guitar top to hold that iPhone, and a rechargeable battery to power it all. If you did all that, then you’d have invented the Fusion Guitar.