Cult of Mac

Universal Control, which is finally in testing ahead of its public debut, lets you control a Mac and an iPad with the same keyboard and mouse, bringing the two computers closer together than ever before. It’s particularly handy if you rely on both macOS and iPadOS apps and find yourself regularly switching between them.

The feature looked pretty ambitious and exciting when Apple previewed it during its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote back in June. And now that it’s here (mostly) and we’ve had the chance to try it out, we firmly believe it is one of Cupertino’s most magical features to date.

Here’s why Universal Control will knock your socks off.

Apple introduced watchOS 8.4.1 on Wednesday, and promised that it offer “bug fixes.” It didn’t reveal what these are, but Apple Watch users are hoping it takes care of a nasty problem with the Wallet app.

The update definitely includes no new features.

The lineup of Apple TV+ shows coming in the near future now includes Now and Then, which just got a May debut date. The thriller series is about a group of college friends who reunite 20 years after one of their group was killed.

The show is set in Miami, and was shot in Spanish and English.

If you’ve been shopping around for the ideal web hosting platform, look no further than this Bono Host Unlimited Plan: Lifetime Web Hosting Subscription. It offers a comprehensive way to host unlimited domains, with a feature-rich control panel that offers the most robust capabilities while also providing the best bang for your buck.

Known for its flexible tripods and mobile lighting, Joby is now covering the content creator market for audio recording like a blanket. It rolled out five new microphones in its Wavo lineup to take on rivals like Rode, Shure and Sennheiser at several different price points.

The new mics mean more options for vloggers and audio streamers of all stripes. Four of the mics are available now and one, the Wavo Pro DS, comes out in March.

Joby’s deeper embrace of the microphone market doesn’t come as a complete surprise. After all, its parent company, Vitic, recently bought two microphone brands — Rycote in 2018 and Audix in January.

YouTube might be about to follow through on its promise to allow all iPhone users to watch video from its application in a small window while another app is open. The feature is already available for YouTube Premium subscribers, but the testing period expires soon. That suggests picture-in-picture is about to become available for all iPhone users.

When it finally launches, PiP will make YouTube videos easier to enjoy because they’ll allow people to use their iPhone to multitask while also watching.

In the very early days of Apple, co-founder Steve Jobs was VP Operations. And Alfred DiBlasi has one of Jobs’ business cards to prove it.

The card will soon go up for auction. You can own this bit of Apple history if you’re willing to put down enough cash.

SwitchEasy’s new MagSkin case protects your new iPhone 13 with silky smooth silicone to keep it in pristine condition while adding extra grip that’ll stop it from slipping out of your hands. It also plays nicely with all your MagSafe accessories.

Get yours in one of four color options from the Cult of Mac Store today.

Following up on its popular and pricey Mojo portable digital-to-analog (DAC) converter and headphone amp, Chord Electronics now claims a world-first “lossless DSP” (digital signal processor) with zero sound-quality degradation in its new Mojo 2.

If you really want your wired headphones or speakers to sound amazing when paired with a digital audio source like an iPhone or MacBook, you might even pay the new gadget’s hefty $725 price.

Zagg Protect is a new insurance plan for iPhones, covering drops, liquid damage, cracked screens and more.

The new service is going into competition with AppleCare+. Unlike the Apple version, Zagg Protect can be added to older phones.

iOS and iPadOS 15 allow you to change the date and time a photo was captured for the first time. The feature is particularly handy for those who frequently import images from other sources.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to take advantage of the feature on iPhone and iPad.

Apple is no stranger to aggressive legal actions meant to protect the company’s image. In its latest move, the company filed a lawsuit against Ukrainian indie film director Vasyl Moskalenko, who wrote a comedy film titled Apple-Man.

And no, the film, currently in production, does not talk about the Cupertino tech giant or its products. It’s a superhero satire about a guy who can levitate apples. You see, in a bit of classic superhero movie plotting, his DNA got blended with DNA from the fruit.

Think twice about rushing to install macOS 12.3 if you use Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive for cloud storage. Both services use kernel extensions that Apple is deprecating in its next Monterey update.

Dropbox and Microsoft are working on updates that will eliminate this problem. However, those are also in beta and could come with issues of their own.

Do you hate Apple’s own AirPods Max case? Gucci now offers a fancy alternative that costs only twice as much as the headphones themselves.

The Ophidia case brings “vintage and contemporary together through its archive-inspired design elements” — whatever that means. It’s also emblazoned with a pretentious quote (in Latin, of course) on the inside. Order yours now for $980.

Photography is a lot more than pointing and shooting a camera. However, learning everything from staging a shot to editing it in Photoshop can take years if you tackle it on your own.

Photo School: Learn Photography & Photoshop from Hollywood’s Masters will teach you how to work through the entire photography process the way real professionals do. And after a huge price drop, it’s on sale for $99.99.

Apple’s first iOS 15.4 beta, rolled out to registered developers last week, lays the groundwork for web apps to deliver push notifications.

The feature, long available in Safari for macOS, always stood out as a notable omission on iPhone and iPad. Fortunately for those who use mobile web apps frequently, that looks set to change in the near future.

Beloved dachshund Pretzel from Pretzel and the Puppies is hopping from the classic book of the same name to an Apple TV+ series. He and his family are set for new adventures!

A trailer released Monday shows how much fun preschoolers will find in the series, which will debut soon on Apple’s streaming service.

A bit of rain or snow shouldn’t be all it takes to cancel your golf day. The PhiGolf Golf Simulator with Swing Stick lets you play in realistic conditions, even if you’re in the middle of a thunderstorm.

It also lets you virtually experience playing some of the world’s most prestigious golf courses. And right now, you can get a single or double pack of PhiGolf Mobile for $229 or $498.

The new iMac Pro with a mini-LED display rumored to launch this-coming spring might not come along so soon. It now looks more likely to show up sometime during the summer, display analyst Ross Young said Monday.

Suppose Apple made a Mac that harks back to its early days. A concept designer floated the idea of a computer with the latest tech, including an M2 processor, but in a casing that mimics the original Macintosh from 1984.

It’s certainly a fun idea, especially to those who remember those days. But the practicality is questionable.

A couple of scofflaws broke into an Australian Apple Store and made of with thousands of dollars in computers. But the hapless burglars — allegedly including a 16-year-old boy — were soon tracked down by police.

They got caught because they apparently made nearly every possible mistake.

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In recognition of Heart Month, aka February, Apple is rolling out a series of new activity challenge and heart-health resources to support users’ efforts to stay healthy.

Also toward that end, the company hopes you’ll learn a thing or two from preliminary trends shown in the Apple Heart and Movement Study.

The lone dark spot in Apple’s otherwise bright Q4 earnings report was iPad. And analysts are out with their estimates of how bad the damage was, with Apple’s quarterly tablet shipments possibly dropping as much as 21% year over year.

The only good news for Apple is that the drop off wasn‘t because of low demand. It couldn’t get the necessary parts to make sufficient devices to meet demand.

iOS and iPadOS 15 bring a number of nice improvements to FaceTime, including some new audio modes that may come in handy in certain situations.

The new wide spectrum audio is one you might want to use during conference calls. Here’s what it does — and how to enable it on iPhone and iPad.

When you spend a third or more of your waking hours all but chained to a computer setup, you might as well make it a pleasant place to spend time. That’s what most of Cult of Mac‘s Setups coverage is all about, really — glorifying both the high-tech performance and the stylish comfort that ease your enslavement to whatever it is you do with tech.

Today’s 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro-based featured setup shows a “before and after” transition. Musician and Salesforce consultant Jon Young said a revamp of his wife’s “nicer and more spacious” work area inspired his changes. “Mine just has more gadgets lol,” he said.