There are so many digital advertising mediums to choose from these days, but if you want to increase engagement, there’s probably no better way than through creating compelling video content.

Here are a few stunning stats: YouTube boasts over a billion users (almost a third of total internet users), with more than 500 million hours of videos watched daily. And a whopping 87% of online marketers use video content to drive sales and engagement. This lifetime subscription to Movavi Video Editor Plus 2021 for Mac & Windows helps you edit videos quickly and intuitively, so you can create compelling content that you can apply to your marketing efforts any way you’d like.

Highly respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo can find no evidence that Apple plans to remove the iPhone’s Lightning port for charging and data transfers. It won‘t be replaced by USB-C. And a portless model isn’t coming, either.

All 270 Apple retail stores in the United States opened on Monday. Many had been shuttered for months during the COVID-19 pandemic, but not any more.

This is a boon not only for shoppers but for those looking for repairs and tech support for their Mac, iPhone or other Apple gear. But don’t jump in the car quite yet.

Redditor Singulaffect stirred up a swarm of comments recently when posting a MacBook Pro-based setup featuring an LG 21-inch 4K display but no speakers — and two sets of AirPods. But what really stole the show was a Palm Vx from 1999.

As the saying goes, you can never be too rich or have too long a battery life. Apple apparently listened, because a respected analyst says there will be room in all the 2021 iPhone 13 models for larger batteries.

These iOS handsets supposedly will all come with smaller notches, better 5G modems and fancier cameras, too.

Apple could release its first folding iPhone in the next couple of years, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says.

In a new research note to clients, seen by Cult of Mac, Kuo writes that “if Apple can solve the foldable mobile device’s key technology and mass production issues in 2021, then [it] may launch the 7.5 [to] 8-inch foldable iPhone in 2023.”

Apple won’t update the iPhone SE in 2021, according to a trusted analyst. But there is a new version coming the year after. And this will be the first in this line of budget iOS handsets with 5G cellular networking.

Steve Jobs’ hand-picked biographer, Walter Isaacson, has a new book out this month. Titled The Codebreaker, it’s the story of Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Jennifer Doudna, one of the inventors of DNA gene-editing system CRISPR.

She was also one of the pioneers in the discovery of RNA, the molecule behind the COVID-19 vaccines currently rolling out around the world.

We all have one friend who’s constantly misplacing their wallet or their phone — or maybe that friend is you. When you’re always carrying a bunch of small items, it’s especially easy to misplace the things that are the most important. And there’s nothing worse than realizing that your wallet or phone is missing (especially if you have the new iPhone 12).

At the conclusion of Black History Month, Apple this weekend debuted a new Shot on iPhone video filmed by 21-year-old director Philip Youmans, the first African-American filmmaker to win the Founders Prize at Tribeca Film Festival.

The five-minute video “follows a number of our image-makers as they each celebrate the Black experience, Black excellence, love, and imagination.” It features the work of photographers Lawrence Agyei, Gabriella Angotti-Jones, Lauren Woods, and Julien James. Check it out below:

Apple TV+ has picked up its first Golden Globes win, rewarding Jason Sudeikis for his lead role in the excellent comedy series Ted Lasso.

Sudeikis won the award in a ceremony Sunday night. He received the award virtually from London. This is the first time Apple TV+ has won at the Golden Globes, although last year it received its first nominations for the series The Morning Show.

A politician in the UK is being blasted for spending public money on personalized AirPods, despite far cheaper wireless earbuds being available.

Labour politician Angela Rayner spent more than $3,300 on Apple gadgets at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. This was as part of new home-working measures. Politicians were allowed to claim money to pay for technology they required to do their job.

They might not be the first thing you think of when you consider technological innovation, and they’re probably not the first gadgets you reach for when packing your tech essentials. But owning connected devices can truly make your life so much easier.

Whether it’s a keychain with tracking enabled so you never misplace your keys again, a powerful router for fast and reliable internet connectivity, or even a next-level antenna that allows you to stream your favorite content without any lags, these are the oft-overlooked essentials you should really pay a little more attention to — and for a limited time, they’re all on sale.

If the latest Apple leaks and rumors prove correct, this year’s new Macs might seem strangely familiar. From colorful iMacs to the reintroduction of long-lost MacBook ports, it looks like Apple might go retro in a big way.

Cult of Mac writer Luke Dormehl dives into the phenomenon and makes the case for why going “Mac to the future” might be just fine.

And speaking of bad things … our Apple TV+ reviewer Scout Tafoya got an early look at Cherry, the new movie from longtime Marvel directors the Russo brothers. Let’s just say things went a little sour. (Scout’s blistering review of Cherry is pretty epic.)

On the other hand, he liked the new documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry. That movie arrived on Apple’s streaming service this week, in case you’re looking for a little weekend viewing.

Read these stories and more in this week’s issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. It’s free and built for easy reading on your favorite iOS device. (If you don’t want to download the free app, you can get the links in any web browser below.)

First there were AirPods — then there were AirPods Pro. The two may look similar, but they’re actually very different. Apple spent a full year on development and refinement, giving the AirPods Pro true noise cancellation (versus simply passive noise cancellation in the eartips), a water-resistance level of IPX4, custom eartips for a better fit and a pressure valve to help reduce the pressure inside your ear.

Bad dreams, dead rebels, crumbling marriages, and new babies all collide in Dickinson’s season 2 finale.

The Apple TV+ show about the famous feminist legend of poetry needs to tie up a lot of loose ends. But it’s got to also leave enough left unanswered to entice viewers for next season. Can it accomplish all this on its own terms?

This week on The CultCast: We’ve got new details and leaks on the upcoming MacBook Pros, iMacs and Mac Pro mini … or will it be the Mac mini Pro? Plus: Lossless music is coming to Spotify, which means the mythical Apple Music lossless is likely right around the corner!

Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. Easily create a beautiful website all by yourself, at Squarespace.com/cultcast. Use offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Apple TV+ reportedly picked Austin Butler and Callum Turner for the cast of Masters of the Air, a followup to HBO’s mega-hit Band of Brothers. Supposedly, two more lead actors have been chosen but not yet named.

The limited series will follow a group of bomber pilots during WWII.

Lyxo is an ultra-realistic game about bounced light. It’s also one of the most aesthetically beautiful games to arrive in the App Store for quite a while. And, yes, it’s possible to be both at once.

“I first had the idea while lying in bed one morning,” Tobias Sturn, the one-person development studio known as Emoak, told Cult of Mac. “I saw a beam of light falling beautifully into the room, and cutting through the shadows. Immediately, I thought of a game where the player uses mirrors to guide a beam of light through a completely dark room.”

Jump forward a little over a year, and this week Lyxo launched on iOS. Sturn took us through the game’s creation, including opening up his sketchbooks, and explained his crash course in physics to build the game engine.

Apple reportedly plans to shake up the design of the MacBook Pro later in 2021. Sources in the company’s Asian supply chain assert that a 14-inch model is on the way, a first for Apple.

Just as importantly, it and an improved 16-inch MacBook Pro supposedly will be the first macOS notebooks with a mini-LED display, improving the look of the screen.

San Francisco-based designer Arun Venkatesan is about to take delivery on a 2020 MacBook Air with an M1 chip to replace the 2013 MacBook Air he uses in tandem with his 2018 MacBook Pro. But the new Mac isn’t really what he’s excited about.

He thinks less about having the latest technology and more about how his tools fit into his design philosophy, which he wrote about at length here. Form and function meet in his elegant and minimal setup.

On this week’s Losing Alice, Apple TV+’s erotic thriller series about filmmaking, director Alice has a big premiere coming up but her star isn’t present. Just what happened in Room 209 — and what’s next?

Looking for an iPad upgrade? Check out Woot’s impressive one-day sale on iPad Pro refurbs.

Prices start at just $399.99 for a 12.9-inch model (2015) with 32GB of storage, while a newer, faster 2020 model can be yours from $699.99. Bag one now before they’re all gone!

When the coronavirus pandemic hit last year, one of the many, many impacts of the spread was the delaying of Apple’s iPhone 12 series. While Apple and its suppliers were able to claw back some of the lost time, the iPhone 12 devices were ultimately pushed back to late October and early November, rather than the usual September release.

But while this might have been frustrating for Apple and customers alike, a new piece of research suggests it may have actually been a net positive. According to Counterpoint Research, the delay could turn out to have been a prudent move for Apple. It reports:

Antitrust investigators in the Netherlands are reportedly coming to the end of a “years-long” investigation into Apple and its control of the App Store.

The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has been investigating this matter since 2019. It focuses on Apple’s “payments system” in the App Store, which charges developers 15% to 30% in commission. With its impending decision, it could become the first antitrust authority to rule on this contentious issue.