This roundup includes brand new ways of ensuring your devices get the charge they need. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
There are so many ways to run out of battery at just the wrong moment. Maybe you underestimated the lifespan of your backup battery, forgot your cable, or mistook them for your Lightning headphone cables. Whatever the case, it pays to have options, and that’s why we’ve rounded up these great deals on charging accessories that can save the day when the juice runs low.
Coming soon to one of the world's tallest buildings. Photo: Apple
Apple has revealed that its debut Apple store in Taiwan will officially open on Saturday, July 1.
The store’s regular opening hours will be Sunday through Thursday from 11am to 9.30pm, and Friday and Saturday from 11am to 10pm. It is located in Taiwan’s Taipei 101 skyscraper, the iconic supertall skyscraper in Xinyi District, Taipei, which was the world’s tallest building until it was overtaken by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai in 2009.
Apple wants to sell you on its Memories feature. Photo: Apple
Apple has debuted two new “How to” videos online related to the Memories feature on iOS, which lets your Photos app scan through your image library for meaningful people, places and other snaps, and then presenting them in curated collections.
Imagination has developed chips for almost all of Apple's devices. Photo: Apple
Imagination Technologies, the British company that has been designing Apple’s mobile GPUs for years, has put itself up for sale.
Earlier this year, Imagination confirmed that Apple would be dropping its graphics chips within two years as part of its “insourcing” program to develop its own chips. Since then, Imagination has lost a massive 70 percent of its value.
Lots of polish, and a few new features, in iOS 11 developer beta 2. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple just released iOS 11 beta 2, and as expected it irons out plenty of wrinkles. It’s still not ready for everyday use on a main machine, because there are still plenty of glitches (the Dock and all kinds of multitasking were missing from my iPad Pro until I rebooted, for example). But overall the latest iOS 11 beta is a lot smoother, and a lot faster-feeling compared to the first beta.
Music streaming has been a life saver for record labels. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Negotiations for new Apple Music deals are currently underway with record labels and this time around Apple wants to come away with a much bigger cut of the revenue after overpaying for the last two years.
The company is likely to get its wish too, according to a new report that reveals the labels are supposedly open to the possibility of taking a smaller share as long as Apple Music is able to continue growing.
Siri should be a lot smarter. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple may have left a big clue in iOS 11 that points to huge design changes coming later this year to the iPhone 8.
While doing some testing with the new Do Not Disturb When Driving feature, eagle-eyed Apple observers have spotted a new icon for Siri in iOS 11 that appears to be a perfect replacement for the Home button Apple is supposedly planning to ditch.
New beta updates are out for iPhone and iPad. Photo: Apple
Developers received the second batch of beta builds today of the new software Apple unveiled earlier this month during its Worldwide Developers Conference.
Beta build 2 for iOS 11, macOS High Sierra, tvOS 11 and watchOS 4 got seeded to developers this afternoon, as well as a number of other tools and platforms that are available to download from Apple’s Developer Center.
Virgin is going all-in on the iPhone. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
In an effort to regain relevancy in the ridiculously competitive mobile network space, Virgin Mobile CEO Richard Branson revealed today that his company is going all-in on iPhone.
Virgin Mobile is set to become the first-ever iPhone-only carrier and to kick things off the company is offering a deal for Apple fans that just might convince them to switch from one of the major networks.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has a 93% approval rating among employees. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Apple CEO Tim Cook saw his approval rating among employees dip considerably in 2017, based on a new survey that ranks the world’s top CEOs based on employee reviews.
Cook has consistently placed high in GlassDoors annual CEO rankings usually falling in the top 20 and sometimes cracking into the top 10. But for the first time since Glassdoor started its rankings, the Apple CEO is nowhere to be found in the top 50.
Looking for Apple deals? Sometimes it doesn't pay to go straight to the source. Photos: Apple, Belkin, Dynex
It’s no secret that Apple is expensive, which is why sometimes it’s a great idea to buy Apple items and Apple-compatible accessories elsewhere. See such deals on Apple Watch bands, cables and hardware in this week’s roundup of the best Apple deals.
SEGA’s back catalog of games is one of the best there is, and the Japenese giant won’t stand by and watch it die. The new SEGA Forever collection for iOS offers a growing catalog of classic console titles from every era — from Master System to Dreamcast.
The world is constantly growing more connected. That means there’s more value than ever in learning a new language. Of course, at the same time, people are more busy than ever, which makes it hard to find the time for a new language.
Lattner was VP of Autopilot Software for just 6 months. Photo: Chris Lattner
Chris Lattner, the man who helped create the Swift programming language before leaving Apple for Tesla, has departed his new role just six months later.
Lattner confirmed the move on Twitter, saying Tesla wasn’t “a good fit.” He’s now looking for new lead engineering roles.
Timing 2 makes time tracking on your Mac easy, not a chore. Photo: Screenshot: Timing / Daniel Alm
I recently switched back to freelancing full-time, and whilst I am lucky enough to have clients who don’t ask for precise hourly breakdowns, I have always been intrigued to know how much time I was spending on work tasks, especially those tasks that I didn’t directly bill for.
Many time trackers rely on you explicitly setting the task you are tracking and remembering to switch to another task when it’s time to track that. This is easy to forget, and for someone like me who switches tasks frequently, it’s hard to always know when one task finishes and another begins.
Timing 2 takes a different perspective. Instead of tracking by task, it tracks by application usage and uses a set of rules to assign activities in those applications to certain projects and tasks. The premise is that after a learning process, you can leave the application running behind the scenes and it’ll track everything for you automatically. You only need audit the results.
iPhone automagically makes movies for you. Photo: Apple
Apple has come out with a brand new iPhone ad this week, only instead of highlighting the device’s amazing hardware the commercial pulls back the curtain on how iOS creates ‘Memories’ based on the photos and videos in your camera roll.
The new ad follows a librarian as he carefully crafts a video for an iPhone owner that highlights the bond between a mother and her children. To accompany the ad, Apple also put out a new how-to that shows how to play the memories hidden inside your iPhone.
Free online suite CleverPDF offers essential tools for working with PDFs. Screenshot: CleverPDF
This post is brought to you by CleverPDF.
PDFs are pretty much a daily part of life for anyone who works at a computer. They’re the 8.5-by-11-inch sheet of digital documents. But like a sheet of paper, there’s not a whole lot you can do with a PDF besides signing it — unless you’ve got a special app.
You won't have to listen to music you don't like. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
In its quest to turn a profit, Spotify is searching for new revenue streams and it may have just found a winner: sponsored songs.
The streaming service began testing its new Sponsored Songs feature, which lets record labels promote tracks by automatically adding them to listeners’ playlists, this week. The feature is supposed to only affect users of Spotify’s free tier, but some paying subscribers report that it’s happening to them too.
Apple's on a mission to keep iPhone 8 parts like these from leaking. Photo: Reddit
Tim Cook’s mission to double down on secrecy at Apple is producing results that even Steve Jobs would be envious of, based on a new report that details the extreme lengths Apple has gone through to stop leaks.
Ironically, a recording of Apple’s security team discussing leaks has been leaked online, giving all-new details on how Apple prevents employees and factory workers from leaking information and parts to the public.
One of Armani's upcoming Connected watches. Photo: Emporio Armani
Emorio Armani is the latest designer fashion brand that fancies its chances against the Apple Watch.
The Italian company unveiled its first smartwatch collection, powered by Google’s Android Wear platform, at Milan Fashion Week over the weekend — but neglected to mention any prices.
This bundle of almost a dozen premium Mac apps will upgrade the creativity, productivity, and entertainment value of your prized machine. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
You’ve got a Mac, which is one of the finest computing machines money can buy. But it’s really only as useful as the applications you put in it. When you’ve already dropped serious coin on a new computer, it can hurt to fork out even more for a bunch of apps.
The iPhone 8 isn't a phone you want to be competing against. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
The iPhone 8 is set to be a monster seller for Apple, and that’s not so good if you’re a rival handset vendor in China, where smartphone component inventory levels are at an all-time low.
Currently in demand parts include smartphone memory, camera sensors and batteries. And high-volume production of new iPhones in the third quarter is likely to affect availability of fingerprint sensors, metal cases and assorted display components.
Apple doesn't want to pay twice for Qualcomm chips. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple’s ongoing legal battle with Qualcomm just got even more interesting after the iPhone-maker branded its partner’s license agreements invalid.
Cupertino is fighting to prevent Qualcomm from taking a cut of every iPhone sold, and to prevent the chipmaker’s alleged double-dipping to maximize revenue it earns from its modem chips.