Cult of Mac

This week’s Cult of Mac giveaway is a sleek multi-device wireless charger that includes a removable battery pack for juicing on the go.

Worth $130, the MagEZ Slider from Pitaka is great way to charge your iPhone and AirPods on your desk or nightstand. But better yet, the charger has an integrated battery pack that attaches magnetically to your iPhone to continue charging away from home.

“The MagEZ Slider is hands down the best charging apparatus I’ve ever used!” said one satisfied customer on Pitaka’s website. And we’re giving away three of them.

If your Mac is still running macOS 11, there’s a software update you need. Apple released macOS Big Sur 11.6.7 to fix an email bug that prevents email applications from opening attachments.

The new version is available to download now.

Urban sketching is the practice of drawing the world around you, even if it’s the world you’re used to seeing all the time. You can learn to see, appreciate and render the world you live in with the 2022 Urban Sketching Course Bundle. This 20-hour training bundle is on sale for only $39.99 (regularly $319).

Apple is developing new form factors and planning upgrades for its MacBook lineup, Bloomberg reported Thursday. That should result in a 15-inch M2 MacBook Air and a new version of a 12-inch M2 MacBook arriving by late 2023 or early 2024.

And, likely sooner than that, we could see faster chips in the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.

CUPERTINO, California — For the first time, a big group of developers, students and media were allowed inside the very heart of Apple’s spaceship HQ during WWDC22.

The central office building, known as the Ring, is bigger than the Pentagon. Teams at Apple move in and out between other buildings as projects change — I met several ARKit engineers who recently moved in and were a bit vague on what they were working on. Interesting.

Previously, members of the media had been escorted to the Steve Jobs Theater for press events, which is another building off to the side of the sprawling Apple Park campus. However, the theater would have been much too small to fit the 1,000 developers, 350 students and hundreds of employees attending the WWDC22 keynote viewing party.

This special day for developers — an invitation-only, in-person event at this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference — marked a big step in Apple’s efforts to boost developer trust. Apple also gave attendees a first look at the new Apple Developer Center located just across the street from the Ring.

See the full gallery below for more than 80 pictures of Apple’s campus.

Apple is working on an iPad Pro with a 14.1-inch mini-LED display, ProMotion and Face ID, sources suggested Thursday.

Unfortunately for folks who are already salivating at the idea of such a big Apple tablet, it probably won’t arrive until early 2023.

There’s a lot to like in iOS 16, so I couldn’t resist installing the first beta to test the best new features. Here’s my hands-on experience with the new Lock Screen, improvements in the Messages and Mail apps, and more. These are just my favorites from the couple of days I’ve had to test the initial beta.

Plus, the next version of iOS adds other features that might be great — when Apple gets them working right.

You want to keep all your online accounts secure, but creating (and then remembering) a robust and unique password for each is basically impossible for anyone who’s not Rain Man. And you don’t want to be doubling down on the same password — that’s one of the stupidest things you can do.

That’s why you should consider a simple password manager that can do the work for you. One example is Mindpass, a unique password tool that saves all your passwords in a 3D environment that only you know how to get through. For a limited time, you can purchase a Mindpass Unlimited Plan for $29.99 (regularly $180).

Gone are the days where folks needed a document scanner sitting atop their desks. Instead, we have our trusty iPhones! When friends ask me which app they should be using to turn paper documents into PDFs, I point them in the direction of SwiftScan. Let me tell you why.

Apple is rolling out a new beta firmware for the AirPods, AirPods Pro, and the AirPods Max with improvements to Automatic Switching.

The firmware carries the build number 5A5282d and version number 5.0.

Update May 2023: The end of season 3 certainly seems to have wrapped up the show, though Apple CEO Tim Cook would like a season 4.

There’ll only be three seasons of the massive Apple TV+ hit Ted Lasso. One of the series writers and stars says the plan is to end the show with the upcoming season three.

That’s bad news for fans. And for Apple too, which needs every successful show it can get for its streaming service.

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iPadOS 16 gives Apple tablets some powerful new capabilities, but there have been protests that these are limited to iPad models with the M1 processor. Apple promises this isn’t a trick to force people to upgrade their computers.

The iPad-maker says that only the M-series processors can deliver enough RAM to display eight applications at once.

Wireless chargers might have been a novelty a few years ago, but now they’re a real competitor for wired chargers. Especially when you find one that can power multiple devices without taking up a wall full of outlets.

One example is the MagStack, a portable wireless charging pad that can power three devices — iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods — at once. It’s on sale for $44.99 (regularly $69) for a limited time.

Say things went sideways and you somehow ended up in prison, sentenced to 10 years. But authorities offer you freedom if you do just one thing for them. Transfer to a super-max facility for the criminally insane. Befriend a serial killer who may soon get out. And get him to confess more of his crimes.

Would you do it?

If the trailer for Apple TV+ psychological thriller series Black Bird is any indication, maybe don’t do it. That thing, promoting a true story brought to the screen by crime novelist Dennis Lehane, looks brutal — and potentially riveting.

Apple rebuilt its Home app from the ground up for iOS 16, ensuring it will make managing HomeKit a breeze and support the upcoming Matter home-automation standard.

But for those who’ve been using an iPad as a hub for HomeKit, the house party’s over as of iOS 16’s release.

Bluetooth headphones are nearly ubiquitous, and an upcoming feature called Auracast will allow computers or phones to stream music to not just one Bluetooth receiver but all of them in the area.

While one goal of Bluetooth’s Auracast broadcast audio is to let people share their music with groups, it also has more practical uses.

For your reading pleasure, Apple redesigned its Books apps in iOS 16 and iPadOS 16. When those operating systems hit your devices later this year, you should find the Books interface less distracting and more customizable.

One of the most-requested iPad features is here. Stage Manager in iPadOS 16 puts applications in resizable, floating windows. I’ve tested the first beta of the new system for several days now, and there’s a lot to like. And there’s plenty of frustration too. But some of that comes from this being an early beta.

Here’s my hands-on experience with the iPad’s new multitasking system, and why I think it’s going to change the way many of us use our tablets.

iOS 16 will make it easier to transfer an eSIM between iPhones using Bluetooth.

As spotted by @carsonwaldrop on Twitter, iOS 16 adds an option to import an eSIM from another iPhone in the “Set up eSIM” menu. Apple requires that the other iPhone is nearby, unlocked, has Bluetooth turned on, and is running iOS 16 during the process.

WaterField Designs unveiled its new Mac Studio Travel Bag Wednesday, giving you a protective and stylish carry case for the Mac Studio plus a keyboard, mouse, hard drive and other accessories.

Designed to help you take Apple’s powerful new desktop computer from place to place, the bag keeps your computer setup organized and protected, the company said.

A new framework dubbed RoomPlan will allow apps to quickly create 3D floor plans of rooms using the LiDAR Scanner in recent iPhones and iPads.

The Swift API will allow real estate and e-commerce apps to scan and create a room’s floor plan. This can then be used for remodeling and interior design changes. Despite its wow factor, Apple did not talk about the RoomPlan API onstage during Monday’s WWDC22 keynote.

Apple Original Films outraced other studios to win a deal for the rights to a Formula One racing film starring Brad Pitt. Notably, the resulting agreement takes a new road to theatrical and streaming distribution.

And Pitt’s not the only big name here. Joseph Kosinski directs and Jerry Bruckheimer produces the as-yet-untitled movie.

When all you want to do is browse and stream TV and movies, a full virtual private network can feel like overkill. Similarly, connecting to your VPN just to look at Facebook or shop on Amazon seems overwhelming.

If you need a simplified smart DNS and VPN, consider Getflix. It unlocks worldwide content such as streaming services with basically no setup. Plus, a lifetime subscription is on sale for just $49 (regularly $540) for a limited time.

We see plenty of paired HomePod minis in our travels online among computer setups, but not many stereo twosomes of the OG HomePods, the big ones Apple discontinued that may one day return in some form.

So today’s featured M1 MacBook Air setup is not only super-clean, it rocks that killer sound system and boasts a pricey 5K monitor that rivals Apple’s Studio Display.

And it’s the first setup we’ve come across where someone hates on the wildly popular Logitech MX Master 3 wireless mouse.

The just-launched Belkin SoundForm Immerse Bluetooth earbuds offer more than just great sound. They have active noise cancellation, and also work with Apple’s Find My network so they can be located with an iPhone.

They offer many of the same features as Apple’s AirPods Pro but at a lower cost.