Cult of Mac

If you’re the right kind of person, the Untitled Folder Wallet by Nik Bentel is handy and practical while doubling as a funny visual joke. It’s a premium leather wallet that happens to look exactly like the New Folder icon in macOS.

It has three pockets for carrying cards, cash and coins. The leather is soft and the stitching holds strong. And best of all, it’s shaped like a tiny folder.

It’s a limited-run item of only 500 units, so if you want one, you’d best order now. I’ve been using it for about a week. Surprisingly, I fell in love with it.

Apple reports that the App Store is has a problem that might prevent users from buying applications. That includes the iOS and Mac App Stores. And the same issue could affect attempts to buy ebooks.

A similar problem is causing problems with buying subscriptions.

UPDATE: Fixed after about 14 hours.

What Microsoft Office is to the 9-to-5 worker, Adobe is to designers, photographers and almost anyone working in the creative field. That’s been true for a long time, but fees for this high-end software can be a significant barrier to entry for those looking to use these essential tools.

Not anymore, though. This special offer lets new customers work with more than 20 apps in the Adobe Creative Cloud for only $29.99 (regularly $82) for one month.

Your home office doesn’t have to look like you took an office cubicle and plopped it in your house. Instead, you can get digital equivalents of some essential office hardware. For instance, iScanner is an iOS OCR scanner that lets you scan documents, cards and a few other surprising things.

For a limited time, you can get a lifetime subscription to iScanner on sale for only $39.99 (regularly $199).

Sonic the Hedgehog knows everything worth knowing about speed, so it’s no surprise that Sonic Racing from Sega is one of the best games on Apple Arcade.

It’s a popular, and available for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV. Add some excitement to your weekend by giving it a try. Here are 5 reason why I think you’ll love it.

Apple’s upcoming AR/VR headset reportedly will use an external battery pack with a new type of proprietary magnetic connector. The wearer will keep the external battery in their pocket while using the headset.

It’s just one more way Apple’s as-yet-unannounced headset will differ from the competition.

Why carry multiple charging cables when one can connect any of your devices to any available charger? The inCharge X Max gives you six ways to connect, and can handle up to 100 watts.

For a limited time, this brawny 5-foot cable with interchangeable tips costs just $21.99 (regularly $39). With this highly rated and versatile charging cable, you can stay powered up no matter where the day takes you.

TL;DR: Playmobil has a catalog of thousands of toys to inspire imagination and curiosity. Check out dinosaurs, cars, pop culture icons and more for your kids or the kid in you.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: The latest leaks about Apple’s AR/VR headset — possibly called the “Reality” — get us thinking about real-world applications. Will this thing kick-start a mixed-reality revolution, or flop harder than the Pippin?

Also on The CultCast:

• The new Apple Card Savings account pays high interest — and we’re definitely interested!
• WWDC23 might bring additional new hardware beyond the headset.
• It’s your last chance to snag a limited-edition Sunset Moment iPhone case from Pitaka.

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.

It might not be apparent at first, but Apple’s Photos app gives you plenty of ways to manage your photo library and tweak the images in it.

If you have tens of thousands of photos like I do, your photo library is probably a big mess. You could spend hundreds of hours meticulously sorting images into albums, and tweaking settings to get everything just right. Or you can use some of the features Apple offers to make things easy.

I’ve already covered my top tips for taking photos. Here are my top five tips for managing and manipulating the great photos you took, using tools in Apple’s Photos app.

Microsoft Office provides top-rated software programs that can simplify many professional and personal processes, such as creating written documents or visual presentations, conducting online meetings and crunching complex numbers. Develop a firm grasp of those tools, and you could have a serious advantage in upcoming projects or employment searches.

For a limited time, you can get lifetime access to Microsoft Office Pro Plus 2021 for Windows, combined with Excel master classes, for only $59.99. You’ll gain access to classic Microsoft programs, and quickly learn how to maximize your usage of Excel.

Rumors suggest Apple could enable sideloading of apps with iOS 17. However, the company might bring the feature only to iPhone users in Europe and the UK.

Apple is under regulatory pressure in the EU to enable sideloading on iPhone.

Extrapolations creator Scott Z. Burns brings his wildly misguided and ambitious Apple TV+ show about global warming, to a close this week the only way he possibly could: with a lengthy, boring courtroom drama

The cast comes out for a bow to sum up, loudly and with no subtext, all of Burns’ findings and thoughts about global climate change and how people need to do something about it. The Extrapolations finale, entitled “2070: Ecocide,” proves just as thrilling as it sounds.

The stock market may seem like a lot to take in at first, but you don’t have to be a millionaire to start making money there. All you have to do is invest wisely, and the Tykr stock screener app could help you do it. For a limited time, this stock analysis app is on sale for just $119.99 (regularly $900).

The Last Thing He Told Me, the new Apple TV+ thriller series about a woman and her moody teenage stepdaughter investigating a disappearance, finds the beleaguered pair in Austin, Texas, this week.

Revelations come fast and furious, and Bailey’s reluctant march toward the wrong conclusion keeps her on edge, while Hannah questions everything she thought she knew. The episode, entitled “Keep Austin Weird,” represents a major step up for this limited series. But there’s still a lot of ground to cover before it could hope to arrive at great.

The world just got its first glimpse of an AI-powered “iPhone killer” device being developed by Humane, a startup founded by Apple veterans.

The demo raised eyebrows because the as-yet-unnamed wearable doesn’t have a screen — instead, it projects information onto objects around the user, including the palm of their hand.

Summon Quest is action-packed-action as players battle waves of monsters and bosses to save the world. All without messing up your epic hair.

The game launched Friday for iPhone, Mac, iPad and Apple TV.

New Apple TV+ action movie Ghosted is probably the most fake movie you’ll see this year, if indeed you decide to punish yourself by watching it. Slackly paced, howlingly unfunny, acted in complete boredom and frustration, and deeply uninterested in the handful of genres it touches upon, it’s maddeningly devoid of anything resembling a spark of creativity or charisma.

The flick boast some big-name stars, including Chris Evans and Ana de Armas, but Apple kept this one away from critics until the day before release for a very good reason.

New Apple TV+ series Drops of God centers on two people possessed by their devotion to and understanding of the art of creating wine. A young heiress to a fortune in wine has to compete with her father’s favorite protege in order to prove which of them learned anything from his years of trying to impart wisdom.

Based on a manga and dripping in elegance, this one’s got a lot to recommend it.

A computer setup sporting a Mac Studio desktop computer and two Studio Displays is a marvel to be envied. And yet, the two gorgeous displays in today’s featured workstation present some problems, believe it or not.

They make the user wish Apple would just make a widescreen monitor.

A first-generation iPhone with a “Lucky You” sticker recently sold at auction for $40,320 because it was still in the original packaging. It was purchased by Marques Brownlee — known to many as MKBHD — who then made a YouTube video of unboxing the handset.

Watch as Brownlee reduces the value of the device to nearly nothing just for the shock value of it.

For springtime-fresh deals on Microsoft software, head to the April Sale at software activation keys provider CdkeySales.com. You can find great prices on Microsoft Windows, Office and more. But don’t delay. These great bargains won’t bloom for long.

Apple TV+ dropped a teaser trailer Thursday for the upcoming drama series Lessons in Chemistry, starring Oscar-winner Brie Larson. She plays a frustrated young scientist in the early 1950s who gets fired from a lab, takes a job as host of a TV cooking show and “sets out to teach … a lot more than recipes,” according to the streaming service.

Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Bonnie Garmus, the new series debuts this fall, Apple TV+ said.

If you’ve always wanted to learn another language, you don’t have to wait for anyone but yourself. Rosetta Stone puts high-quality lessons for 25 languages at your fingertips, and a lifetime subscription is now on sale for only $161.64 (regularly $299).

You can snag that price on this top-notch language-learning app until April 23 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific with code VACATION15.

A few years after the impressive Tiny World, Apple TV+ delivers its antithesis — Big Beasts, a nature documentary series that serves up a look at the largest creatures on earth.

Narrated by Tom Hiddleston, this playful and awed series is aimed at children ready to be sucked into the drama of the natural world (or a slightly older audience doing laundry). It’s ideal afternoon viewing for both demographics.