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iPhone 20 Pro Max display could stretch to a massive size

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An AI-generated image of what the bezel-less 20th anniversary would look like.
The iPhone 20 Pro Max display could grow to nearly 7 inches if this new leak holds up.
AI image: ChatGPT/Cult of Mac

A new leak claims Apple is testing a nearly 7-inch panel that could become the iPhone 20 Pro Max display. If it makes it to production, this would become the largest screen Apple ever put on a phone.

The huge panel would arrive as part of Apple’s 20th-anniversary iPhone lineup next year. Apple hasn’t increased its flagship screen size since 2024, but this could be a real sign that the company is once again planning to do so.

New ClickLock malware locks your Mac until you hand over your password

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How ClickLock malware tricks you into pasting a command
ClickLock malware locks your Mac’s screen until you type in your password.
AI image: ChatGPT/Cult of Mac

The nasty new ClickLock malware won’t take no for an answer. It locks up your entire Mac screen and keeps it that way until you type in the password.

The malware already hit victims across 33 countries, and it’s not stopping. Once it gets your password, it targets your Keychain, saved logins and crypto wallets, then plants a backdoor that sticks around for good.

Free Volvo update adds Apple Music to your car’s dashboard

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Apple Music integration comes to Volvo cars.
Apple Music integration comes to Volvo cars.
AI image: ChatGPT

A new over-the-air update to compatible Volvo cars brings Apple Music integration to the car’s infotainment system. Volvo says more than 2 million cars will benefit from this integration.

As part of the update, new and returning Apple Music subscribers will get up to three months of Apple Music for free.

iOS 27 beta 4: All the new features and changes

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iOS 27 beta 4 is here.
iOS 27 beta 3 brings small but important changes.
Photo: Apple/Cult of Mac

Sticking to its two-week beta release schedule, Apple is rolling out iOS 27 beta 4 to developers. The new build contains relatively minor changes compared to the third beta and the first public beta.

Below are all the changes we have spotted in iOS 27 beta 4 so far.

How to ping your lost Apple Watch from your iPhone

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Ping Apple Watch from iPhone: “Where Did It Go?”
It's not easy to find in a pile of miscellaneous clutter.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

You can ping a lost Apple Watch from your iPhone, giving you an easy way to find your misplaced wearable.

If you take your Apple Watch off at the end of the day, forgetting to throw it on the charger, you might not remember where you left it the following morning. Luckily, you can find a lost Apple Watch from your iPhone. Here’s how it works.

Why Jony Ive is missing from Apple’s OpenAI lawsuit

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An AI-generated image that shows a silhouette of former Apple design chief Jony Ive in a courtroom
It's no accident that that Jony Ive’s name never appears in Apple’s OpenAI lawsuit.
AI illustration: Midjourney/Cult of Mac

Apple’s trade-secret lawsuit against OpenAI names two former employees and Jony Ive’s startup but scrupulously avoids mentioning the former Apple design chief by name.

This isn’t a legal oversight. It comes down to a complicated mix of factors, including Ive’s closeness with Laurene Powell Jobs and the lousy optics of Apple targeting its most famous designer.

Apple’s Genius Bar Live Notes tool is an AI that’s always taking dictation

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A picture showing the Genius Bar in an Apple Store.
Apple’s Genius Bar Live Notes tool transcribes repair conversations with AI.
Photo: Wikipedia

Apple is testing Genius Bar Live Notes, an AI-powered tool that listens to customer conversations at the repair counter. It turns conversation into transcripts and is already running in a handful of stores.

The system is meant to save employees the hassle of scribbling notes mid-repair. But it makes some Genius Bar staff members nervous.

Today in Apple history: World’s first third-party iPhone app arrives

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A photo of an iPhone with the words,
An intrepid hacker gets the iPhone to say "hello." While the message is simple, the meaning is profound.
Image: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

July 20: Today in Apple history: World's first third-party iPhone app arrives July 20, 2007: Just a month after the original iPhone goes on sale, a hacker compiles the first third-party app and launches it for the new platform. The Hello World app serves more as a proof of concept than a serious tool. However, it clearly demonstrates that third-party apps will become a cornerstone of the new iPhone economy.

It’s a shame Apple doesn’t get the memo.

Grab AirPods 4 for less than $100

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AirPods deal
Discover great AirPods deals. Upgrade your audio experience today!
Image: Apple/Cult of Mac

A pair of AirPods 4 is quite a deal at $99 — that’s 23% below the regular cost. This is a great choice for people who want Apple’s latest earbuds with excellent sound quality and seamless pairing with iPhone, iPad and more, without paying for features you may never use.

There’s also a version that adds Active Noise Cancellation that is currently 19% off at $144.99 .

This unique MacBook accessory adapts its buttons to every app [Review]

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Dune is a context-aware programmable accessory for your Mac.
Dune is a context-aware programmable accessory for your Mac.
Photo: Rajesh Pandey/Cult of Mac

I have more than a dozen keyboard shortcuts set up on my MacBook. But between Slack, Zoom, Safari, Chrome and countless other apps, there’s no way I can remember them all. That’s the problem Project Mirage’s Dune aims to solve.

At first glance, Dune looks like a programmable macro pad. But it’s much smarter than that, as it adds three context-aware buttons next to your MacBook’s keyboard. It’s an interesting idea, but does it actually work in real life?

Apple planned a monster Mac Pro, then killed it

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Apple’s “Extreme” Mac Pro was too extreme.
Apple’s “Extreme” Mac Pro was too extreme.
AI image: ChatGPT

Apple reportedly planned to use “Extreme” processors in the Mac Pro to deliver unrivaled performance, beating even its “Pro” and “Ultra” chips. But eventually, pricing and demand concerns led the company to scrap the idea.

Besides M2 Extreme and M3 Extreme chips, Apple also worked on an Intel-powered upgrade for the Mac Pro, according information that leaked out on Sunday.

This $23 Mac app cleans up storage, speeds up workflows and unlocks hidden tools

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Image of MacMagic Mac utility running on an iMac
Save big on a lifetime upgrade license to MacMagic, a great app that will fine-tune your Mac.
Image: Cult of Mac Deals

MacMagic is the Swiss Army knife of Mac utilities: It can perform scores of optimization tasks, from clearing gigabytes of storage to batch processing hundreds of files.

For a limited time, you can pick up a MacMagic lifetime upgrades license on sale for just $22.98 with code MACSAVE.

Today in Apple history: iPod gets a new Click Wheel

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Photo of the fourth-generation iPod, which brought key improvements like the Click Wheel, but still left some people disappointed.
The fourth-generation iPod brought key improvements, but still left some people disappointed.
Photo: National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution/Flickr CC

July 19: Today in Apple history: Fourth-generation iPod gets Click Wheel interface July 19, 2004: The fourth-generation iPod brings neat innovations to the popular audio device, including the Click Wheel interface recently introduced on the iPod mini.

“The best digital music player just got better,” says Steve Jobs in a press release on the day the product launches. And yet some people feel disappointed by the upgraded music player.

5 must-watch shows that make Apple TV more popular than ever

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Apple TV streaming service
A handful of Apple TV series drive the streamer's impressive audience growth. These are the streamer's hottest dramas, comedies and sci-fi.
Image: Apple

Apple TV finally gets the audience it deserves. Or the streaming service is headed in that direction, anyway. In the contest to become the top streamer, Apple TV posted the strongest year-over-year growth of any platform last quarter.

Five shows helped push the streaming service’s audience numbers upward. Anyone looking for the best that Apple TV has to offer needs to be watching these.

Today in Apple history: Multimedia Macs take on the world

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LC 630 Macintosh
The 630 series Macs delivered multimedia capabilities at a reasonable price.
Photo: Computers.popcorn/Cult of Mac

July 18: Today in Apple history: Apple launches Quadra, Performa and LC 630 Macintoshes July 18, 1994: Apple launches the Quadra, LC and Performa 630 Macintoshes, three similar computers with slight differences tailored for the professional, educational and home markets. Aimed at multimedia use, the new 630 series Macs bring innovative hardware and software at a much more affordable price than previous Apple computers.

I tried the viral Mac app that reveals what your USB-C cables can really do [Review]

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Image of WhatCable Mac app running on a Mac
From charging speeds to Thunderbolt support, WhatCable takes the guesswork out of USB-C.
Photo: Rajesh Pandey/Cult of Mac

A free Mac app called WhatCable solves the biggest problem with USB-C cables: They all look alike, but they are not all the same.

Plug a USB-C cable into your Mac, and WhatCable can tell you how much power it can deliver, how fast it can transfer data and more. And a pro version for power users serves up even more data about the cables in your collection. The app’s earning accolades online (and hit No. 4 on ProductHunt), so I decided to put it to the test.

Apple Music jacks up subscription fees due to ‘rising licensing costs’

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Image of an iPad with the Apple Music app on the screen, used to illustrate a story about price hikes
Your tunes just got a little more expensive.
Image: Apple

Apple Music just became a bit pricier. Apple raised the streaming service’s monthly rate across all subscription tiers on Friday, citing the increasing cost of licensing artists’ music.

The company also jacked up the price of most Apple One bundles, which package Apple Music with subscriptions to other Apple services.

Apple briefly overtakes Nvidia as world’s most valuable company

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A picture of the Apple logo used in a story about Apple surpassing Nvidia as the world's most valuable company.
Apple momentarily reclaimed its crown as the world’s most valuable company from Nvidia.
Photo: Lyle Kahney/Cult of Mac

Apple briefly became the world’s most valuable publicly traded company once again on Friday before Nvidia reclaimed the top spot.

While Nvidia ended the week with a market cap of $4.912 trillion, just a hair ahead of Apple’s $4.901 trillion valuation, Friday’s trading capped a blockbuster week of gains for AAPL, even as investors pummeled AI-related stocks.

How to share your AirTag location with an airline to find lost luggage

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A n image of an iPhone with the
You can temporarily share the location of your lost bag with your airline.
Image: Apple/Cult of Mac

Apple added the Share Item Location feature to its Find My app to let AirTag users securely share the exact position of a tracking tag attached to lost luggage with an airline.

Here’s how to use the feature to show an airline employee that your bag is actually just outside Concourse C in the Atlanta airport, not in Denver, where they think it is. They can even see the exact position of the luggage.

Apple faces Hide My Email lawsuit over privacy flaw it allegedly failed to fix

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A picture of Apple's Hide My Email feature used in a story about the same.
The Hide My Email lawsuit claims Apple knew its address-hiding feature was broken and kept selling anyway.
Photo: Apple

Apple is facing a new Hide My Email lawsuit, and it does not look good. A proposed class-action suit claims the company sold customers privacy promises it couldn’t deliver on.

The suit says Apple knew about a certain flaw in its address-hiding feature for more than a year, but kept marketing Hide My Email as airtight privacy the whole time.

Today in Apple history: iMac G4 gets super-size screen

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The iMac G4 brings a
The iMac G4 brings a "breathtaking" giant screen to desktops everywhere.
Photo: Apple

July 17: Today in Apple history: iMac G4 brings super-sized screen July 17, 2002: Apple ships a new super-sized iMac G4 with a 17-inch widescreen LCD display that becomes the envy of many computer users at the time.

“The best consumer desktop just got even better,” says Apple CEO Steve Jobs of the company’s new all-in-one computer in a press release. “Having this gorgeous 17-inch flat screen floating in mid-air right in front of you is simply breathtaking. There’s nothing like it in the PC world.”

He wasn’t wrong!

Roblox’s AI game creation tool is coming to iPhone and iPad

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Roblox AI game creation tool Build
Roblox adds AI creation to its promise that “You make the game.”
Image: Roblox

Got a game idea but no idea about how to code it? Roblox just made that far easier. The company is now rolling out Build, a new AI game creation tool for iPhone and iPad. Simply type a prompt in plain English, and Build turns it into a playable — no desktop editor required.

Roblox is betting that generative AI can dramatically lower the barrier to game development.

Stop slaving over invoices with lifetime access to AI Invoice Maker (just $20)

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Comic book-style image of a stressed-out woman pulling her hair out as she struggles to create invoices on a MacBook without AI Invoice Maker
Turn invoicing from a nightmare to a breeze with AI Invoice Maker.
Image: Midjourney/Cult of Mac

Why struggle with manual billing when AI Invoice Maker lets you create professional invoices in seconds?

This polished app also lets you export polished PDFs and manage billing across your Apple devices. And right now, you can lock down a lifetime license to AI Invoice Maker for just $19.99 (regularly $39.99).