Ever wanted to run your own AI startup, hopefully without bringing about the end of humanity in the process? A new game from the maker of the popular CARROT series of iOS apps gives you exactly that opportunity.
That’s just one of the great apps we’ve got covered in this week’s Awesome Apps roundup. We’ve also got a Snapchat update, a Steam gaming classic finally landed in the App Store, and a great Myst-inspired architectural puzzle game. Check out our picks below.
All our favorite videos are available to us online. Unless, of course, there’s no internet connection. When you’re on a flight or just away from WiFi and looking to pass the time, or if you’ve got uses for video that YouTube just won’t allow, you can use Movie Sherlock Pro to easily stockpile movies, shows, and all your other favorite streaming videos straight to your Mac. You’ll be able to access and work with all your videos in full HD, any time, anywhere. And right now you can get Movie Sherlock Pro for just $15 at Cult of Mac Deals.
It pays to experiment with 3-D Touch, the feature that lets you press harder on your iPhone’s screen to get extra functions. But while we may be used to force-touching app icons, there are all kinds of other spots where it works. For instance, you press on the row of icons at the bottom of the Control Center to access some fantastic shortcuts.
In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, we show you how to use Apple’s Music Memos app to record your musical ideas as well as how to hook a guitar up to your iPhone and rock out.
Learn about Tekserve’s impressive Apple computer artifact collection which is now on display in a museum in the Ukraine — at the headquarters of software developer MacPaw.
Check out Cult of Mac Watch Store’s first major sale on Apple Watch straps! Enjoy 20 percent off great brands including Meridio, Strapple, Nyloon and more!
Here are this week’s top stories.
As the weather warms up, we’re still rounding up the hottest new deals at the Cult of Mac Store. This go-round, we’ve got a set of future-ready wireless earbuds, a swiss army knife for iOS data, a full terabyte of super secure cloud storage, and a tool that’ll help you finally reach the bottom of your inbox. Best of all, everything is discounted by more than 60 percent. Read on for more details:
This week on The CultCast: It’s official — the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote takes place June 5. Don’t miss our WWDC 2017 hardware expectations! Plus: Apple quietly acquires one of the world’s best sleep-tracking technologies; why Amazon’s Prime Video app may finally be coming to your Apple TV; our first impressions of the Amazon Echo Show, and the features we hope Apple steals from it; and stick around for a very weird, very tribal “What We’re Into,” the segment where we reveal all the non-tech stuff we’re currently digging.
Our thanks to Casper, maker of the internet’s favorite mattress, for supporting this episode. Learn why Casper is tops and save $50 off your order at casper.com/cultcast.
The iPhone’s Quad-LED True Tone flash is pretty good as camera flashes go, but you should never use it to take actual photos, unless you want shiny-faced, red-eyed people in your portraits. Instead, you should put it to work in more useful applications. And no, we don’t just mean using it as a flashlight next time you take a trip into the basement.
Updated: May 11, 2017
The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are Apple’s first iPhones to drop the headphone jack. And while you can keep using your old headphones by plugging them into the adapter that comes in the box, that gets old as soon as you discover you left the little dongle at home connected to a speaker, and you can’t listen to any music.
You’ve got two options. One, stick with a cable and buy some Lightning headphones. That’s fine, but then you can only use them with recent-vintage iOS devices, and you can’t charge your device while you use them. Or two, go wireless. That means Bluetooth, either the vanilla kind, or Apple’s augmented Bluetooth headphones, with the special W1 chip added to make pairing easier.
PDFs are fantastic. If you send somebody a PDF, you know it will look exactly the same on their computer as it does on yours. Same if you print it. But if your PDF contains a lot of images, it can quickly swell to an impractical size, making email impossible. Today we’re going to find out how to shrink that huge PDF dramatically, while making almost no difference in quality to the images therein. And we’ll do it using an app that’s already on your Mac, hidden in the Utilities folder: ColorSync Utility.
Did you know that you can shoot video and take still photos on your iPhone at the same time?
If not, you definitely need to watch Apple’s latest series of iPhone 7 videos that offer tips on how to capture amazing photos with the camera that’s always with you. Apple posted four more videos today that go with the other photography tutorials that came out yesterday. Now you can learn more about selfies, better angles, golden hour and more.
Watch all four new videos:
A merger between Sprint and T-Mobile could be back on the table, according to a new report that claims informal talks between the two carriers sparked up again this week.
Sprint attempted to acquire T-Mobile back in 2014 but the deal fell apart because of regulatory concerns. Now the heads of both companies have expressed to investors that they’re willing to consider consolidating again.
According to Goldman Sachs, the iPhone 8 is set to be Apple’s priciest iPhone ever by quite a wide margin. A note from analyst Simona Jankowski claims the next-gen iPhone will carry the suitably next-gen price of $1,000.
More specifically, Jankowski predicts that the 128GB iPhone 8 will sell for $999, while the 256GB version will set you back a whopping $1,099.
Consumer-level drones are fun, but someone with a proper racing drone can pull aerial moves like Luke Skywalker — and it can make anybody jealous. Racing and doing acrobatics requires a better drone and more experience than most people have money or time for. That makes the Aerix Black Talon an exciting option for anybody looking to up their drone game.
It’s an affordable, high-performance drone that will scratch your itch for speed and maneuverability. It sports a range of flying options, a built-in HD camera and other great features. And right now, you can get an Aerix Black Talon for just $99.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.
Apple has added a new “Mother’s Day Challenge” for the Apple Watch, rewarding anyone who can complete a walk, run or wheelchair workout of one mile or more.
Those who complete the challenge get an addition badge in the Activity app, alongside new stickers they can us in Messages, to casually show off among their friends.
Apple has awarded Corning the first grant of its $1 billion investment aimed at boosting high-tech manufacturing jobs in the United States. The glassmaker will receive $200 million.
Corning has worked with Apple for a decade — ever since the original iPhone’s Gorilla Glass — to create the glass found on its devices. Apple’s contribution as part of its “Advanced Manufacturing Fund” will support Corning’s R&D, capital equipment needs, and state-of-the-art glass processing.
I keep telling myself I’m going to buy an old wooden camera with a brass barrel lens and take one of those workshops where I learn some 19th-century photographic process. But I know myself. The steps are exacting and tedious, the chemistry complicated and my patience and attention for such details could fit in a pixel.
So when imaging software company Macphun developed a beautiful set of one-click presets that emulate tintypes and other old photo finishes, I felt like I found a process I could master.
Apple is rightly proud of its great iPhone 7 camera, and in a new series of instructional videos debuting online it wants to make sure that users take full advantage.
The video series, posted on both Apple’s YouTube channel and a new webpage, follows on from the company’s acclaimed “Shot on iPhone” ad campaign, which highlights photos taken by everyday iPhone users. The new videos deal with topics like how best to shoot action or close-ups on your new iPhone.
The VIP mailbox in Apple’s Mail app helps stem the torrent of incoming email alerts by limiting the notifications you see to folks you mark as important. But what about when you want to get an alert for a one-off reply?
Perhaps you’re waiting on an email from an eBay seller about that sweet vintage guitar, or you’re desperate for a reply from your landlord about switching off the heating because, c’mon, it’s almost summer already. Then you need email thread alerts.
The feud between Apple TV and Amazon Prime appears to finally be over.
Apple plans to unveil an Amazon Prime Video app for Apple TV at its Worldwide Developers Conference next month, according to a report that claims the new app will go live this summer.
iTunes is finally coming to the Windows Store.
Microsoft made the surprise announcement today during its Build 2017 developers conference, which also included the unveiling of a new tool that lets developers create iOS apps on Windows PCs.
Developing iOS apps no longer requires access to a Mac, thanks to a new program introduced by Microsoft called Xamarin Live Player.
Microsoft unveiled the new tool today at its Build 2017 developer conference. With Xamarin Live Player, developers can deploy iOS apps directly to an iPhone using Visual Studio on a PC, removing altogether the need for a Mac to code.
Lady Gaga is the queen of provocative visuals. This has been her undisputed title ever since she performed on stage in a dress of raw beef seven years ago.
Now her devoted fans have her help in expressing themselves in roaring Mother Monster fashion on iOS with Lady Gaga emoji, a series of animated iMessage stickers and GIFs that debuted today.
Mobile is the platform of the future, and learning to build apps for mobile devices is where the work is for developers. In a vast and fast-changing field, you’ll want a leg up to get started. That’s exactly what this massive bundle of nine iOS coding courses offers.
Clocking in at more than 100 hours of lesson content, it will teach you a wide range of tools, techniques and languages to build scalable mobile apps. The best part? Right now you can name your price for the entire Mobile Cross Platform Development Bundle at Cult of Mac Deals.
Apple wants to give users new ways to interact with Siri, according to a patent application published today.
The patent describes how users may be able to engage in text-based conversations with Siri using an app like Messages. This wouldn’t just be accessible to single users, but could also be drawn on by multiple users in a group chat, perhaps similar to the way that Google’s Gboard keyboard allows users to search without having to load up an app like Safari.
From 1994 until 2004, the sitcom Friends was a pop culture phenomenon. But according to Rachel Green actress Jennifer Aniston one thing would stop the show from working today: the iPhone.
“If Friends was created today, you would have a coffee shop full of people that were just staring into iPhones,” Aniston told Arianna Huffington on Wednesday’s episode of iHeartRadio’s Thrive Global Podcast. “There would be no actual episodes or conversations.”
Being there for you when the rain starts to pour? Apparently there’s no app for that.