The Hyperboom brings the bass. Photo: Ultimate Ears
Ultimate Ears upped the ante on its Bluetooth speaker lineup Tuesday, unveiling the ginormous new Hyperboom. The 13-pound block-rocker comes with features that make it seem like the perfect party speaker. But the $399 price tag might bust your beer budget.
AirPods Pro can be used for science. SCIENCE! Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Apple Research, an application that lets users take part in groundbreaking medical studies, scored an update today to let participants share data from their AirPods Pro with the Apple Hearing Study. A new version of the associated Apple Watch app also promises battery life improvements.
This Pad & Quill leather folio is ready when/if Apple builds more lenses into the next iPad Pro’s rear-facing cameras. Photo: Pad & Quill
A well-known accessory maker unveiled a case that’s apparently designed for a 2020 iPad Pro with a dual- or even triple-lens camera like the ones in the iPhone 11 series. There’s no such tablet, but rumors say one is coming soon.
Give your iPhone videos that retro look with Rtro. Photo: Moment
Sometimes the story is best told with a home movie vibe straight out of a vintage 8 mm movie camera. That’s just not practical in the age of TikTok and Instagram, but there are plenty of smartphone apps to add a retro feel to your flicks.
The latest is actually called Rtro and it made its small-screen debut today when it became available for download in the App Store.
Super-charge your web searches with this customizable Home screen shortcut. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
This fantastic shortcut makes searching the web with your iPhone faster than ever. It places an icon on your Home screen, and you just tap it, type a search into the box that pops up, and hit enter. Your search will then open in Safari.
This customizable search shortcut proves speedier than pretty much any other method, including iOS’ built-in Spotlight search.
There’s little room on an AR headset for controls. Apple wants to make them virtual. Photo: Taeyeon Kim
Interacting with an AR headset would be a breeze if it could project virtual controls into the real world. Apple developed a new method for using cameras to accurately track finger movements, enabling someone to toggle these augmented reality switches and buttons.
The meeting takes place inside the Steve Jobs Theater on February 26. Photo: Foster + Partners
Apple is asking attendees of its annual shareholder meeting, which takes place at the Steve Jobs Theater on Wednesday, February 26, to take extra precautions amid the ongoing coronavirus epidemic.
The company is following official guidance in an effort to minimize the risk of COVID-19 being spread among visitors.
Jif peanut butter is sharing its label with the word Gif, a brilliant branding move that attempts to settle one of the most important questions of our time: Hard G or soft?
The “answer” is on the label of the limited-edition 40-ounce jars now listed on eBay for $9.99. Jif teamed up with GIF platform Giphy (sort of sounds like Skippy), to create the label in observance of National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day on March 1.
Apple's going to need a lot more OLED displays. Photo: Ben Geskin
China’s largest display maker is publicly confident it will meet Apple’s quality standards for its future needs of organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, displays and is preparing to possibly become another component provider.
A media report Tuesday gives further evidence Apple is expecting its needs for the state-of-the-art displays to grow beyond the supply of its current two providers.
Sales of iPhones in China dropped 28 percent in the month of January as the deadly coronavirus began its rapid spread, according to new research.
February is likely to go on record as much worse. As the death toll from the virus rose, factories shut down, Apple closed all 42 of its China retail stores and the government doubled down on quarantines and travel restrictions.
Netatmo adds support for HomeKit Secure Video standard to its Smart Indoor Camera. Photo: Netatmo
Smart home device-maker Netatmo added support Tuesday for Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video standard to its Smart Indoor Camera.
The free and automatic update began rolling out today to users, according to an announcement by the French company. It should become available to install on all Netatmo Smart cameras over the next few days.
The Heartline Study app. Screenshot: Apple App Store
Apple will team up with Johnson & Johnson to study whether the Apple Watch and its knack for alerting users to atrial fibrillation can reduce stroke risk in seniors 65 and older.
The Heartline Study will include a special iPhone app. Afib is a leading cause of stroke.
Enjoy wireless data, calls and texts with no contracts and zero extra fees. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
Phone plans are essential, but they can also be expensive. On average, they can run well over 100 bucks a month. So when you have the chance to get six months of calls, texts and data for less than $50, it’s a real deal.
Situation brought Facebook to a near-standstill for employees. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple triggered a “hot war” that compounded ongoing tensions with Facebook when it pulled the social media giant’s enterprise certificate last year. The decision, which temporarily broke all of Facebook’s internal apps, coincided almost exactly with Facebook’s earnings call.
“As [Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg] spoke [on the call], people on Facebook’s campus could not test new products and were canceling meetings because they could not get the shuttle,” writes author Steven Levy in his new book, Facebook: The Inside Story, which is published in hardcover today.
Who wouldn't want Disney+ at this price? Photo: Disney
Disney+ is as affordable as Apple TV+ for subscribers in the United Kingdom if they preorder the service ahead of its debut next month. An annual subscription is available today for just £49.99 — £10 off the usual price.
That’s exactly the same price you’ll pay for a year of Apple TV+, but of course, Disney is offering you a lot more content.
Only Apple can install the Mac Pro's wheels today. Photo: Apple
Apple plans to sell a do-it-yourself wheel kit for its latest Mac Pro.
Only Apple or an Authorized Service Provider can add the wheels right now, which means you must take the machine in for service if you opted for feet when you first purchased it. A “customer-installable” kit is coming, though.
Foxconn is trying its best to get people back to work. Photo: Foxconn
Apple manufacturer Foxconn is trying to woo people back to the iPhone production lines by offering new perks at its major assembly plants in Shenzhen and Chengzhou.
The company has been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, which resulted in some factories being temporarily closed and only a fraction of employees returning to work when they were reopened. With iPhone orders to fill, Foxconn’s doing its best to make up for lost time.
Tim Cook has spoken about China being Apple's future biggest market. Photo: Tim Cook/Weibo
Apple won’t attend a March congressional hearing about the tech industry’s relationships in China, the Washington Post reports.
Republican Senator Josh Hawley called the March 4 hearing. Hawley has raised concerns about tech companies’ reliance on and possible cozy relations with China.
Some Apple Stores in China are cautiously reopening but with reduced hours because of the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Apple
Many Apple Stores across China are open again, despite the coronavirus that has shut down so much of the country.
The iPhone maker depends on China for a significant percentage of its sales, and Apple being able to reopen so many stores in the midst of this crisis is a positive sign.
A Mac Pro Technology Overview has everything you ever wanted to know about about this workstation, and more. Photo: Apple
Apple goes into extreme detail about its new Mac Pro in a white paper released today. Anyone seeking an answer to an obscure question about this workstation can look through this 46-page Technology Overview.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Huawei is outrageously flattering the iPad Pro. Photo: Huawei
Huawei added cutting-edge features to its iPad Pro rival. A MatePad Pro update includes 5G built-in cellular-wireless networking. And it offers two-way wireless charging, so the tablet can send power to another device.
These features were added to a device clearly made to resemble Apple’s top-tier iPad.
Apple is supposedly headed for some fancy new digs at Penn 11, across the street from Madison Square Garden. Photo: Vornado Realty Trust
A certain phone maker is taking the phase “Big Apple” as a suggestion. Apple reportedly signed a lease for 220,000 square feet in a historic building in New York City. That’s far larger than the company’s current NYC office.
But this won’t become an enormous Apple Store. This is office space.
It's the book Apple tried to ban. Or, at least, slow down. Photo: Murmann Verlag
The author of App Store Confidential says he is “surprised” by Apple’s attempt to halt sales of the book, and by the company’s allegations that the German-language memoir reveals trade secrets.
Tom Sadowski, a former App Store manager who worked at Apple from 2009 through 2019, told Cult of Mac he’s not sure which parts of his new book Cupertino objects to. “I’d love to [know], but unfortunately I don’t,” he said. “I am accused of betrayal of secrets without specifying it more precisely.”
The Kaweco Sport: compact, sturdy, and beautiful. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
It’s totally tempting to use a fountain pen. These throwback writing utensils carry a promise of a slower time, when people had hours to write — and when the main writing tool wasn’t a $1,000 computer or an $800 iPhone, but a tube of ink with a sharp tip.
However, fountain pens also can prove intimidating. Are they messy? Do you need to refill them from a bottle of ink? Can you toss one in a pocket like a cheap gel pen?
The fact is, you can have all the style and enjoyment of a fountain pen in a package that’s as practical as a cheap biro. More practical, really, as you can refill it yourself. If you want to try a fountain pen, you should begin with the Kaweco Sport. And if you want the Jony Ive-compatible version, you will buy the reasonably priced aluminum one.