Amazon already had a try-before-you-buy program for Prime members, where you can send an article of clothing back after trying it at home. On Thursday it added Virtual Try-On, an augmented reality (AR) experience where you can try on shoes without ever touching them via iOS.
All you need it the Amazon app and an iPhone to see how a pair of kicks will look on your feet.
★★☆☆☆
This week on Tehran, the Apple TV+ spy thriller narrows its options until there’s only one thing remaining: Mossad agent Tamar and Revolutionary Guard leader Faraz, face to face, heading to a party to carry out an assassination.
If she fails, dozens of people will die. If she succeeds, her target will be dead — but so will Faraz (and probably his wife).
The season’s penultimate episode rests on a climactic car race, with Tamar’s boyfriend Milad making life-or-death decisions and her hands tied. This slightly dodgy second season still time to straighten itself out.
LG’s new DualUp Monitor with Ergo is a 28-inch panel with a 16:18 aspect ratio — tall and nearly square. The seemingly unique display features 90W USB-C passthrough charging and more.
Essentially, it’s like two stacked 1440p monitors in one display. And it could be a multitasking powerhouse.
Sometimes looking at computer setups is all about practicality, as in finding the right tools for the job at the right price. But other times it’s like ogling other cool stuff you wish you had, like pimped-out cars or beachfront real estate.
Today’s featured setup is a funny one, in that regard. It’s a “temporary” setup, just getting by in lieu of a bigger, better setup. But its gear could make many people drool with desire.
This post on discount Microsoft software is brought to you by Keysbuff.
The Big June Sale at Keysbuff gives you the opportunity to get 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, as well.
To score these great bargains, 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.
June 10, 2013: Apple passes a major milestone in iOS history, as payments to app developers top $10 billion on the App Store’s fifth birthday.
Speaking at WWDC 2013, Apple CEO Tim Cook reveals that the company paid out half of this money in the previous year. He also notes that this outrageous total is three times more than all other app store platforms combined. With 575 million user accounts registered, Apple has more credit cards on file than any other company on the internet.
People have downloaded 50 billion apps in total out of a collection of 900,000 available, Cook says, with 93% of the apps downloaded at least once every month.
Every year, the standard for wireless earbuds gets higher while the price gets lower and lower. A few years ago, it was hard to find anything even close to competing with AirPods Pro, but now you can pick up a pair of affordable wireless earbuds with many of the same refined features.
JBL Live Free NC+ in-ear noise-canceling Bluetooth headphones are on sale for only $74.99 (regularly $149) — and it’s amazing what they can do.
★★★☆☆
Apple TV+ alt-history space saga For All Mankind splashes down in the go-go ’90s in its not-really-merited third season. After another decadal jump, Nirvana is king, Bill Clinton is running for office, and we’re apparently going to Mars.
This show’s absurd single-mindedness has not been softened by its premature renewal for a fourth season, by which point presumably we’ll be traveling to the sixth dimension on a rocket sled while Avril Lavigne runs for Congress. Anyway … let’s rip off this Band-Aid.
Apple TV+ bought the rights to Sugar, a new genre-bending mystery series starring Colin Farrell and created by Mark Protosevich.
There was a lot of interest in the project, with Netflix also reportedly bidding on it.
iOS 16 will let you to delete the built-in Find My, Health, and Clock apps from your iPhone (or iPad) for the first time.
The company first added the ability to delete pre-installed system apps in iOS 10. It has since expanded the list of supported apps over the years. Why? Threats of antitrust legislation.
Apple’s AirTag item tracker is available at 17% off the usual price. This is a rare opportunity to get a discount on a single one rather than a bundle of them. But if you prefer a 4-pack, that’s available at 10% off.
It’s good timing: Father’s Day is coming up fast and AirTag makes a nice present.
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.
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.
