Cult of Mac

The holidays are coming up, and if you’re like the majority of us who put off buying gifts until the last minute, you can easily change that right now. Sometimes, a great deal and an interesting product combine to be worth buying and saving for one of the many people on your list. An example of such a combination is this lifetime subscription to the Plantum AI Plant Identifier Premium Plan, which is only $14.97 (reg. $59) through October 31st.

October 28, 2012: More than a year after Steve Jobs’ death, the luxury yacht he commissioned is finally shown off for the first time, launched from a shipyard in North Holland.

Called Venus, the distinctive-looking yacht was one of the big personal projects Jobs pursued in his last years. As he told biographer Walter Isaacson, “I have to keep going on it. If I don’t, it’s an admission that I’m about to die.”

Sadly, Jobs never lived to see the finished vessel.

Halloween is almost here, making this a great weekend to play some spooky games. Apple Arcade has a nice selection of these to help you enjoy the creepy season.

Here are the best options in Apple’s gaming service to find ghosts, ghouls and goblins.

Holiday travel season is nearly upon us, meaning things will become even pricier quickly. Fortunately, for a limited time, there’s a way to save big on airline tickets domestically and internationally in the coming months and long term.

Gestures are a great way to become an iPad power user. Gestures help you easily navigate through apps, switch between pages, access controls, and reduce multiple taps to a single swipe. Gestures are especially useful for Stage Manager, the new multitasking environment on iPad.

Apple designed gestures to mimic natural, real-world movements, making them intuitive to use and learn. Swiping, pinching, tapping, and other gestures feel familiar and are easy to master.

If you use your iPad a lot, they’re well worth learning — even just a few. Your fingers will thank you!

October 27, 1999: Dell Computer overtakes Apple in the educational market, stealing Cupertino’s crown as the top company selling computers to U.S. schools.

Steve Jobs, who is still in the process of rebuilding Apple after its near-collapse in the 1990s, faces heavy criticism for ignoring one of the company’s strongest markets.

Modern families rarely hit the “off” switch these days. We earn, play and stay in touch online, going from one device to the next. Yet, too many of us only worry about security on the tablet or laptop we use for work. BulletVPN is a virtual private network that casts a wider net, giving users top-tier protection and freedom on a whole range of devices.

Apple’s iCloud is very convenient for iPhone and Mac users, but the storage plans are skimpy and expensive. iCloud storage tops out at 12TB and costs an eye-watering $59.99 a month.

That’s why you should look at this great deal from Prism Drive Secure Cloud Storage, which is offering a full 20TB for just $69.97 for life. That’s nearly twice iCloud’s maximum storage for just over the price of one month’s rental. And unlike iCloud, it doesn’t go away when you stop paying monthly subscription charges. Note: this sale is only here for a few more days.

The most-recent iOS update increases the battery life of several older iPhone models, according to tests on a range of devices. And it’s a jump for almost every model tested over the first iOS 17 version.

But there’s still room for improvement.

UPDATE: The “Scary Fast” event has come and gone, and it brought the fresh MacBook Pro models and the iMac — all powered with a new M3 processor — that leaks predicted. Check out Cult of Mac‘s full coverage for more details.

As Apple’s Monday-evening Scary Fast event fast approaches, the latest rumors Friday say new M3-powered 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models are likely to appear, while a new 13-inch M3 model likely remains in development.

A good external monitor like Apple’s Studio Display is an important part of a computer setup. But what about the monitor light bar that sits on top of it? They’re not all the same and they can hugely impact your workspace.

Today’s MacBook Pro setup boasts a Studio Display, and on top sits a fairly pricey BenQ monitor light. Read on the find out why the user says it’s worth every penny.

Editor’s note: Apologies, but this deal is not yet live. We accidentally published this post too early. The deal will go live at midnight on October 30th. Again, we’re sorry for the mistake.

Sticking to a household budget is a challenging task, especially if you have to bounce from store to store to get all your errands done. That’s a waste of gas, time and money. With the holidays so close, it might be worth it to start shopping at Costco and turn any savings you find into gifts for your friends and family. Plus, this is your chance to get a One-Year Gold Star Membership and a $40 Digital Costco Shop Card* for the price of a normal membership. 

NexDock and the infiniteX2P app are designed to turn an iPhone 15 into a laptop. Connect Apple’s latest to the touchscreen/keyboard/mouse and run the app to start multitasking on a 13-inch display.

The USB-C port in the iPhone 15 makes this combination possible.

The rise of AI technology can potentially do wonders when it comes to personal productivity. Ahead of the holiday season, you’ll find remarkable savings on innovative software that’s primed to provide anyone with a boost.

Finding what to watch with the Apple TV app is about to get easier. The newly released developer beta for tvOS 17.2 gives a preview of the new navigation users will soon see.

Apple TV+ and other content sources will surface in a sidebar list on the left side of app pages.

Apple seeded the first beta of iOS 17.2 to developers on Thursday. The major new feature seems to be the AI-enhanced Journal app that Apple previously promised. macOS 14.2 beta 1, iPadOS 17.2 beta 1, watchOS 10.2 beta 1 and tvOS 17.2 beta 1 are also available to devs.

These come just a day after the previous versions of all these operating system went out to the public.

October 26, 2004: Apple debuts its iPod Photo, a device capable of putting not just 15,000 songs in your pocket, but also 25,000 photographs.

It is the first iPod to offer a color screen and the ability to display digital images and album cover art. The iPod Photo represents a big step forward in the functionality of Apple’s iconic music player.

A new documentary claiming to be the “definitive” look at the murder of John Lennon — the former Beatle and enduring cultural icon — is coming to Apple TV+. Unfortunately, though, the streaming service hasn’t yet said when the exhaustively researched, three-part series will arrive.

But we do know the narrator of John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial. It’s Emmy Award-winning actor Kiefer Sutherland, the streaming service said.

Apple sells millions of AirTags because people want to track the location of their stuff. But the tracker does only part of the job — it only warns the user when their iPhone moves too far away from the tag. Making it also set off an alarm when the tag moves away while the user is sitting still would be a welcome improvement.

This could be done with a changes to the Find My application. No new hardware is required.

One of the more exciting updates to Apple Watch lately is the new double-tap gesture now available in the watchOS 10.1 update. It allows Series 9 and Ultra 2 users to tap their finger and thumb together twice to launch a function without touching the wearable.

After appearing in the watchOS 10.1 beta — but in nonfunctional form — now it’s out for real with the public release.

Apple dropped its leather iPhone cases, but the Mujjo Full Leather Wallet Case with MagSafe is a brilliant alternative. It protects your valuable handset while also providing an easy way to carry credit cards and drivers license. Plus, it looks gorgeous while doing so.

I carried my iPhone 15 Plus this case on holiday, to restaurants … everywhere I went for weeks. Here’s why I love this case for my iPhone 15 Plus, despite a notable drawback.

The voice you hear when you speak might not be the voice that your computer hears. If you don’t have a high-quality mic, your voice could come through harsh and full of static, not great if you’re giving a formal presentation, participating in a meeting, or just chatting with a friend online.

How do you turn off the webcam video reactions on your Mac in macOS Sonoma? This feature, which puts full-screen animated effects on your video calls, made a good demo when it was introduced, but has since confused many people who trigger it accidentally in serious situations.

The Off button isn’t where you would expect — it’s not hiding in Skype, Google Hangouts or Zoom at all — it’s in the Mac’s menu bar.

Let me show you what’s going on and how you can turn it off.

Own a BMW or Toyota vehicle? Don’t charge your iPhone 15 using the car’s built-in wireless charger as it could break the phone’s NFC chip.

Apple acknowledged the problem in an internal memo and confirmed a software fix will roll out later this year.

Make PDF management seamless

PDFs can be great for business and everyday content sharing. But, they can also be absolute pains if you need to make a quick edit, annotation or virtually any other change.

If you know someone who deals heavily in PDFs, then this might be an excellent opportunity to get them a holiday gift at an affordable rate. This lifetime subscription for a Document 365 Lite Individual Plan is on sale for only $69.97 (reg. $299) through October 31st.

What can a user do with this subscription?

Most importantly, Document 365 allows members to update and fix PDFs across different devices, boosting any user’s productivity. Among its most common applications, users can annotate their PDFs with text boxes, highlights, their own handwriting, notes, graphics and a range of other elements.

Document 365 is designed to make it easy to sign documents when needed, and it streamlines the processes of filling out forms, splitting files, combining PDFs and even attaching voice notes from your mobile devices. You can even bring such work on the go through the PDF Reader mobile app!

Document 365 also supports a wide range of document conversion and scanning services. It allows you to convert any file to or from PDF, and it empowers you to send faxes online, as well as sync and access files from your desktop and other devices. Of course, these services are accessible anywhere you have a stable internet connection.

A highly secure and rated PDF manager 

Plus, Document 365 offers security features, like the ability to protect the app, scans and PDF documents with password protection or watermarks. No wonder this PDF manager boasts a 4.7-star rating, with one verified buyer writing, ” PDF of Documents 365 Life is a helpful, good, and perfect software to be used for many functions. It’s very easy to change files and save them in many groups.”

Grab a lifetime subscription for a Document 365 Lite Individual Plan for just $69.97. No coupon is required, but this deal ends October 31st at 11:59pm Pacific!

Prices subject to change.