This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Erfon’s warming up to Apple’s new M2 chip. New benchmarks make it sound even more capable than we thought.

Also on The CultCast:

• Brace yourself for better narcissism: iPhone 14’s selfie cam is getting a major upgrade.
• It sounds like Apple is planning a wild array of new MacBooks and iPads, in some very interesting sizes.
• Apple TV shoots and scores! Major League Soccer is coming to the Apple TV app.

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 livestream, embedded below.

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Feel like going full 007? The iSpyPen Pro is a covert camera with 128GB of storage and a long-lasting battery — and yet it still looks and works like a regular pen.

Grab this stealth camera in silver or black for up to 19% off, and prep yourself for your next big undercover adventure.

Father’s Day is the time to show your appreciation for dear old dad — or hip young dad, as the case may be. Maybe he’d appreciate accessories for his beloved Apple products. The Father’s Day Sale in the Cult of Mac Store features a great selection of deals!

For starters, Laut is offering a buy-one-get-one-free deal on its wide array of accessories, including iPhone and AirTag cases, Apple Watch bands, laptop stands and much more.

See below for many more discounts on great gifts. You can get 20% off a huge number of items.

The Cult of Mac giveaway prize this week is a perfect fit for anyone who needs a powerful yet compact charger. We teamed up with Lululook to give five lucky winners a chance to get their hands on a three-port, 65W gallium nitride charger.

This thing can charge everything, from your iPhone mini to your MacBook Pro.

In the season finale of Apple TV+ spy drama Tehran, Peyman is dead — and everyone is guilty.

Milad and Tamar need to patch up their frayed relationship if they have any hope of escaping the country and certain death. Marjan and Faraz must make sure they don’t look guilty as the investigation into the “accidental” death of the son of the head of the Revolutionary Guard commences.

And there’s still the matter of Peyman’s father, Qassem, whom Tamar swore to kill. Now, she has next to no shot at getting near him. It’s a lot of ground to cover in 43 minutes. And there’s still the more difficult task of making any of these people compelling enough to want to see them in a third season.

Nothing quite beats a round of golf when the weather gets warmer, but those sizzling summer days don’t last forever.

Right now, you can get a great deal on TruGolf Mini, a golf simulator that lets you practice your swing at home, in the office or anywhere you want. It usually costs $399, but it’s $100 off for a limited time.

That might sound like a lot of money to play virtual golf. Gut this at-home entertainment system can essentially pay for itself when you use it as a fun party game or save money on buckets of balls at the driving range. And it’s great for when the weather won’t cooperate with your trip to the golf course.

In the run-up to Juneteenth, which takes place on Sunday, Apple showcased an artist Friday who created a series of digital drawings with iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.

The series, by Juan Mance, celebrates and chronicles Black figures throughout U.S. history, putting them in modern contexts.

Line ’em up, it’s Election Day on Now and Then, the Apple TV+ telenovela about the fallout from a 20-year-old murder case.

Pedro and Ana wait with bated breath to see if he won the mayoral election, while Ernesto gives him an ultimatum and Francis offers her a job. Marcos and Sofia plot their escape, Flora schedules a surgery, Hugo’s awake from his coma, and Sullivan’s been keeping secrets from everybody.

The plot is thick and the drama delicious this week.

Anker targeted a pet peeve of some iMac users Friday when it introduced a USB-C hub that puts useful ports on the front of the machine. The desktop’s own hubs are on the back, which not everybody likes.

The company designed the new 535 model, a 5-in-1 USB-C hub made of metal, specifically for the 24-inch M1 iMac, though it also works with other iMacs.

And you can get it at a launch discount. See below.

Check your ingredients then choose a recipie and get cooking in Cooking Mama: Cuisine!. Try your hand in the kitchen with this new game.

The offering launched Friday on Apple Arcade.

Continue reading

Apple TV+ documentary series Home returns Friday for a second season of wonky architecture and human interest stories. The streamer is banking on the beauty of accessibility as spectacle and drama to bring audiences back for more feel-good TV.

The houses the series showcases look glorious, to be sure. But the stories are meant to be as much of a hook as the sight of impossible angles and cozy nooks nestled in wondrous corners of the earth.

Cambridge Audio just released a new turntable that can play vinyl records the old-fashioned way or over Bluetooth, streaming audio wirelessly to speakers, headphones or amplifiers.

The new Alva ST follows the company’s Alva TT, which the world’s first aptX HD Bluetooth turntable.

And the Alva ST uses the same codec technology for high-quality sound — the kind that until recently could only be had through wires.

For All Mankind heads to Mars a little sooner than expected this week — and with a surprise guest in the cockpit.

Danielle and Ed, then Molly and Margo, fall out. Karen and Ed fall into business together. Aleida worries about her family from the moon. And Danny Stevens is still a little psychopath.

It’s business as usual on Apple TV+’s frustrating space-exploration soap. The highs of last week’s TV movie of the week detour are already forgotten.

In a world of ever-increasing monitor sizes (and weights), you need a pretty tough, supportive desk — especially if it’s a motorized one for sitting or standing. Otherwise, the whole thing might wobble all over the place under the combined, imbalanced weight of your fabulous gear.

Today’s featured Mac mini computer setup copes with an electric desk that struggles under the weight of a behemoth of a curved ultra-wide monitor.

This post on discount Microsoft software is presented by Keysbuff.

The Big Sale at Keysbuff, ongoing in June, provides an opportunity for you to grab great deals on software. Cult of Mac readers will find deep discounts from the software activation keys provider. You can save up to 91% off the full price on Windows 10 — and uncover significant savings on lots of other Microsoft software, too.

If bargains like that sound good, just use promo code COM at Keysbuff.com. That will save you an extra 25% off the site’s already-low prices on keys for Windows 10 Pro Global, Microsoft Office 2021 Pro and others in the list below. You can purchase many of these products with lifetime licenses.

Apple TV+’s Physical, about a would-be fitness guru in California, heads to a funeral this week to rethink its priorities. Sheila’s finally cracking up, John’s lies catch up with him in a sad way, Bunny is at the end of her tether, and a vengeful mother gets her hooks into two generations of women.

A couple of standout performances lift this week’s episode out of the usual doldrums. Rose Byrne is allowed to stretch a bit beyond the usual limitations of her role as Sheila Rubin — and the result is a glimpse into a better version of what this show could be.

Looking for a gift for your dad this Father’s Day? Amazon has slashed the prices of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro by $200, making them an ideal option.

On the 14-inch MacBook Pro, you score a 10% discount off its retail price bringing its price down to $1,799. As for the 16-inch model, you can grab it for as low as $2,299 after an 8% discount.

The miniature dual-port power adapter that Apple showed off at its recent developers conference is now available. The USB-C charger provides up to 35W and is compatible with a wide variety of devices.

In addition, Apple also launched a version of its classic MacBook power adapter with two USB-C ports, not just one.

Spam calls and texts are beyond annoying. Sometimes you’re anything like us, it feels like half the time your phone rings, it’s a robot asking about your car’s extended warranty. Of course, you could block the number, but that doesn’t help when spammers trick your phone into displaying a fake number.

You can fight back against spam callers, though. If you want an all-in-one solution to spam calls and texts, you need RoboKiller. And right now, you can get a one-year subscription for $19.99, two years for $39.99 or three for $59.99.

The only question is, how long do you want to keep the spammers at bay?

Only moments ago Cooper Raiff was a niche figure, someone you could avoid with a little effort. But now, he is the filmgoing public’s problem, thanks to Cha Cha Real Smooth, which premieres Friday on Apple TV+.

Writer/director/actor Raiff’s excruciating 2020 feature debut, Shithouse, captured enough viewers and earned enough praise to garner him a second chance to waste our time with the equally galling and charmless Cha Cha Real Smooth.

Apple TV+ paid an absurd amount of money for this garbage film. Unfortunately, the big gamble on this “Sundance hit” landed the streaming service an indifferently directed trifle starring a weaselly narcissist.

For Father’s Day this year, skip the tie and get Pops something he can use for the rest of his life: a lifetime license to Microsoft Office for Mac. It’s the gold standard when it comes to software. And if he doesn’t own the latest version, he’s missing out.

We’ve got a hot deal on this must-have software: You get the entire Microsoft Office suite for just $49.99. Plus, if your dear old dad’s not already an Office wizard, you can add instructional courses that will make him one for just $20 more.

Those are massive savings. Act fast, though, because Cult of Mac Deals’ big Father’s Day Sale ends soon.

This definitely isn’t the first time we’ve talked about Overcast here at Cult of Mac. But since I’ve been spending time rounding up my must-have apps as part of our Awesome Apps series, it makes sense to tell you why Marco Arment’s podcast client is the best podcast app out there.

It’s actually a great time to introduce anyone unfamiliar with Overcast to the app, since it recently received its biggest redesign ever. Part of this change includes a new home screen with some smart features. I love Overcast for a number of reasons, but the app’s home screen is probably chief among them.

The Lululook Foldable Magnetic iPad Stand is ready to help turn your tablet into a small desktop computer. Your iPad attaches to it magnetically, and you can easily adjust the height and viewing angle. Or switch between portrait and landscape.

Just as importantly, when you don’t need it, the desktop stand folds up so you can carry it with you or easily put it out of the way.

This is absolutely one of the best iPad Pro or iPad Air stands I’ve ever used. Here’s why I love it.

You’d probably no sooner carry around your iPad mini in public without a case than you would your MacBook Pro. But you can keep the slim form factor and terrific portability of your tablet while keeping it safe by slipping it into an Elago Smart Folio Case.

And what’s more, Elago just put out a new product that goes with iPads and the Apple Pencils that work so well with them. The Elago Apple Pencil Holder is a super-secure and protective sleeve for a stylus that fixes strongly to a tablet or its case.

And best of all, two versions of the folio are a great deal in the Cult of Mac Store, as is the Pencil holder — all detailed below.

iOS 16 was announced with some awesome, radical new features: a completely redesigned Lock Screen, a shared Photo Library for families, editing and un-sending iMessages, advanced new features in Maps and more. It’s especially hard this year to wait until September to get your hands on it.

Developers have a busy summer ahead of them, too. I spoke with some developers while at WWDC (no, I’m not done flexing that yet) and afterwards on Twitter. Developers are especially excited about creating Lock Screen widgets for their apps, using the new advanced features of SwiftUI and experimenting with the Live Text API.

But you don’t have to wait to get your hands on the beta. Registered developers can install the iOS 16 developer beta today. According to Apple, the Public Beta will be coming sometime in July. If you pay $99 for a developer account, installing the beta on your device is fast and easy. Here’s how.