Cult of Mac

Want a text-based puzzle game that will stretch your brain, help you relax and, heck, maybe even teach you some new words? Sticky Terms is the game you’ve been searching for.

Created by 28-year-old iOS game developer Philipp Stollenmayer, it’s a playable head-scratching lexicon of words covering a wide array of languages. The game presents each word as a puzzle, torn into between two and five pieces. It’s up to you, the player, to arrange them into a completed word. No timers, failures or high scores apply.

And you know what? It’s kind of addictive.

At the end of 2013, Apple released a completely reimagined Mac Pro. No longer the sleek silver tower we all knew so well, it had become a droid-like black cylinder. It was compact, powerful — and expensive. Like, $4,000 expensive.

If you always wanted to get your hands on a radically redesigned 2013 Mac Pro, but didn’t want to spend all that cash, now’s your chance. Thanks to this deal, you can snap one up for a fraction of its original price.

Coronavirus will cause mobile device shipments to plummet during the first quarter of 2020, according to a new report.

Production at major manufacturing plants throughout China is said to be at “way below normal levels” this week after workers returned to their posts last month. Smartphone shipments could slip below 1.3 billion units for the year.

Have you noticed Fortnite isn’t running so smoothly on Mac or iOS since the introduction of season two, chapter two? You’re not alone; almost every player is experiencing significant frame drops following last week’s update.

The good news is Epic Games is working on a fix.

Two suppliers that make components for Apple in China employ forced labor, according to a report published Sunday. The Washington Post says BOE Technology Group, which supplies screens to Apple, and O-Film, which makes iPhone cameras, both use Uighur labor, either directly or through contractors. Apple lists both companies on its latest supplier list.

The report describes how the Chinese government detained more than 1 million ethnic Uighurs from China’s western Xinjiang region in reeducation camps. And it says evidence indicates that authorities “are moving Uighurs into government-directed labour around the country as part of the central government’s Xinjiang Aid initiative.”

Apple has raised the price of several iPhone models — including the top-tier iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max — yet again in India, risking denting sales in the country that were just starting to take off.

The price hike is just under 2%, making it smaller than the sizable iPhone price increase Apple introduced in India in 2018. It follows increased import duties announced during India’s Union Budget 2020.

iPhone camera module supplier LG Innotek closed one of its South Korean factories over the weekend after a worker tested positive for coronavirus.

LG Innotek has long been part of Apple’s supply chain, supplying camera components for iPhones. This year, it is also expected to manufacture 3D Time of Flight (ToF) modules for Apple’s next generation iPads and iPhones.

FlashDock solves two limitations in Apple’s MacBooks. Not only does it bring an array of legacy ports to Apple laptops, this very portable USB-C hub includes up to 2TB of storage.

And it does so for less than the cost of building additional storage capacity into a macOS laptop.

This week we read the news with NewsBlur and Unread 2, shoot faux 8mm footage with Rtro, and spend $20 on Tot, a notes app with just seven pages.

Ever since its launch, people have mostly been dismissive about Apple News on iPhone, iPad and Mac. One big reason is the way it interacts with links on the web, boxing users into the News app instead of letting them visit the open web.

For me, that’s actually a pretty desirable thing, because I really like the News app. It’s much cleaner-looking than many ad-bloated websites, and far less emotional and combative than getting your news on social media.

But making the News app show you the things you care about, with less clutter and noise, requires one simple trick.

Learning a new language is a precious gift to give yourself and the world around you. Apps have made it easy to carry our studies with us, so we can learn any place, and at any pace. Different language apps take different approaches, but this one might be one of the most effective.

Apple reportedly is sending care packages to its employees who are stranded in China by the COVID-19 coronavirus. And among the face masks, hand sanitizer and cookies is a slightly more expensive item: an iPad.

A facial-recognition application that has been the source of recent controversy has been taken offline by Apple. This came after a published report accused Clearview AI of evading the App Store by distributing its iPhone software to customers via tools that are only supposed to be used inside companies.

It’s been a wild decade for the “Jesus tablet.” From colorful anecdotes to surprising stats, these 10 fast facts will cast the iPad in new light.

You can read our latest #10things list, “10 things you (probably) don’t know about the iPad,” in this week’s free Cult of Mac Magazine. It’s loaded with the latest Apple news stories, plus plenty of Mac and iOS how-tos and product reviews.

Finally, don’t miss your chance to get a limited-edition Cult of Mac Apple Watch band. They’re brand-new in the Cult of Mac Store, and they won’t last long.

Whatever happened this February, you can’t deny it was a great month for deals on tech. At least in the Cult of Mac Store, where there were crazy deals on massive cloud storage accounts, sleek wireless earbuds, extra laptop monitors and an intuitive website builder.

Facebook is overhauling its Messenger app on mobile to give us a simpler, more enjoyable user experience. The redesign does away with chatbots and games and makes Stories even more prominent.

Apple is back with another behind-the-scenes look at one of the episodes of its critically acclaimed show, Little America.

The iPhone-maker’s latest featurette focuses on the sixth episode in the series, “The Baker.” Interviews with show co-creator Lee Eisenberg, director Chioke Nassor and the episode’s lead actress Kemiyondo Coutinho are combined with shots of the production and other characters to add more context to one of the most intriguing episodes of the show.

Take a look:

Bullet journaling is a big deal. It’s a way to put your notes, lists, to-dos and calendars into any old notebook, and be able to find all of those things instantly. It’s truly the paper equivalent of an iPhone’s notes, reminders and calendar apps, only it’s all on paper. That means you can doodle and go totally free-form, instead of being constrained by an app-maker’s design.

The only thing a paper Bullet Journal can’t do is send you an alert or a notification. Today, we’ll see how to fix that, combining the paper journal with your iPhone’s calendar app.

While the iPad was arguably the purest distillation of Steve Jobs’ computing philosophy, even dyed-in-the-wool Apple fans don’t know everything about the revolutionary tablet.

Whether you’re an Apple newbie who’s just learning the differences between the iPad Air and the iPad Pro or a longtime fan who calls Cupertino products by their code names, there’s always a bit more to find out.

Here are 10 things you (probably) don’t know about the iPad.

CEO Tim Cook promises Apple is fundamentally strong and will weather the problems resulting from the coronavirus spreading around the world. He says his focus isn’t on short-term changes in Apple’s share price, despite a recent significant drop.

In a wide-ranging interview with Fox Business recorded Thursday in Birmingham, Alabama, Cook also discussed whether his company will move more device production out of China, and his relationship with President Donald Trump.

Laurene Powell Jobs, the wife of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, sat down for an interview with the New York Times this week giving rare glimpses into the mind of the world’s 35th-richest person.

In the interview, Powell Jobs discusses her childhood in New Jersey as well as how her 22-years of marriage to Steve Jobs influenced her views. Perhaps the most interesting bit of the interview comes though when Powell Jobs hates on massively rich people, saying it’s dangerous for society.

Sheriff’s deputies in Illinois arrested four men after they found 55 stolen iPhones during a traffic stop near Galesburg.

The Knox County Sheriff’s Department later determined the phones were fraudulently purchased around the U.S. using stolen identities. Deputies estimated the value of the phones at $80.000.

Apple created a special new ad for customers in Japan that highlights the different ways the Mac has been showcased on some of the most popular anime shows in the country.

Cut together with scenes from shows like Mr. Osomatsu, NEW GAME!!, your name., Weathering with You and more, the brilliant ad encourages anime fans to embrace their creativity and create a new generation of anime stories.

You’ve never seen an Apple ad like this:

Coronavirus has hit Apple shares hard. Despite initially shrugging off the disruption of the outbreak, Apple is currently trading down more than 20% from its record record high.

That makes it one of the hardest hit stocks on the Dow Jones Industrial Average thanks to coronavirus.

Crossy Road Castle, the long-awaited follow-up to Hipster Whale’s 2014 game Crossy Road, landed on Apple Arcade on Thursday.

The game takes the same updated Frogger concept that made the original such a hit, but swaps out the roads and cars for a procedurally generated endless castle tower the player must climb. Check out the trailer below: