Apple fans run on their own colorful OS that seems nearly impossible to hack. This growing subculture is worthy of study — and a place on your coffee table! You can get to know some of the world’s biggest Apple fans, thanks to the rich stories and colorful photographs in The Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition, by Leander Kahney and David Pierini.

The book, which hits stores Dec. 17, is much more than an update to Kahney’s 2006 book, The Cult of Mac (which gave this blog its name). Now available for preorder from Amazon, the second edition is a companion volume crammed with new stories and pictures. All told, they paint a picture of a uniquely devoted community.

Apple today dropped its newest Smart Battery Case for the iPhone 11 series. It’s much like its predecessors, but this time around it has a new button that provides instant access to your camera.

You can order yours today for $129.

Pre-release testing of iOS 13.3 and the iPad equivalent keeps chugging along. This is the third week in a row Apple introduced new beta versions.

When the full version is released, it will add an important feature to Screen Time, allowing parents to limit with whom their children communicate.

The default passcode length on the Apple Watch is just four digits. And while it’s true that you don’t keep as much sensitive data on the smartwatch as you do on an iPhone, and that your Apple Watch is arguably safer from bad actors because it is always strapped to your wrist, it’s still worth making this passcode more secure. After all, it’s not like you have to enter your strong passcode very often, right?

Today we’ll see how to change your Apple Watch passcode to a longer one. And we’ll also check out a neat feature that lets you skip entering the passcode altogether.

Apple told the US Congress that it doesn’t profit from making repairs to iPhones or Macs.

And it defended its practice of only selling genuine Apple parts to companies that have technicians trained to install them.

One of Apple’s biggest publishing partners for Apple News+ is still waiting to be impressed by the fledgling subscription service.

Speaking at Recode’s Code Media conference this week, Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch said the “jury is out” on the service. His less-than-enthusiastic endorsement of Apple News+ comes a week after a report claimed Apple is struggling to significantly increase the number of paid subscribers for Apple News+.

An app developer putting out a camera and photo editing app today is in for a steep, uphill climb. Dozens of apps populate the category and those at the top are holding that place for a reason.

But the name Filmic should grab the iPhone photographer’s attention. The maker of Filmic Pro, the go-to app for mobile filmmakers, now offers a unique camera experience for stills called Firstlight.

If you’re not smart enough to work at Apple, or important enough to be given a tour by Tim Cook, you’ll probably never get the chance to look around Apple Park. Fortunately, travel videographer Yongsung Kim served up the next best thing with an Apple Park video tour.

In a recently published YouTube video, he takes the world inside Apple Park’s spaceship campus in Cupertino, California. The video shows parts of the building you won’t normally see during a trip to the Apple Park Visitor Center. Check it out!

Houses are mostly brick, wood and/or concrete, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be smart. With the right bit of technology, you can enhance the efficiency, convenience and security of the place where you and your family spend most of your time.

And right now you can save big on four smart home accessories. From easy water monitoring to tougher door locks, they’ll give your home a real boost.

Apple is going after the Muzak market with Apple Music for Business, a new service for legally streaming music in public places.

Apple partnered with PlayNetwork, which specializes in providing music for commercial use, for the endeavor. It has been “quietly piloting” the service with multiple businesses for around six months.

Apple will host free coding sessions at retail stores around the world next month.

The Code with Apple events will teach the basics of coding and apps in celebration of Computer Science Education Week. They will also include exclusive labs with app designers and developers.

Apple says it spent unspecified “billions” on its updated Apple Maps app.

Cupertino’s revelation about the Apple Maps expenditures came amid answers to questions from the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, which is currently carrying out antitrust probes into Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook.

Nintendo has revealed details of a pair of paid subscriptions coming to Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. We wrote about news of the subscriptions earlier this week, but no pricing information was available at the time.

The new “Pocket Camp Club” subscriptions follow shortly after Nintendo introduced a similar subscription for Mario Kart Tour, with a “Gold Pass” priced at $4.99 per month.

Apple today confirmed it has started construction on a new $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas, that will open in 2022. The facility will initially house 5,000 people, but it has the capacity to grow to 15,000.

It’s part of a broader plan to expand Apple’s prescence in the city, where it has already started producing the all-new Mac Pro.

M. Night Shyamalan’s Apple Original series Servant will debut with three episodes on November 28. As with other Apple TV+ shows such as The Morning Show, Apple will then roll out new episodes every Friday.

That answers one question I’d had about Apple TV’s future launch plans.

There’s a big difference in the user and critic reviews of Apple TV+’s The Morning Show — and the show’s producers think Apple haters are to blame.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the audience score currently stands at 95%. The critic score, meanwhile, languishes at 63%. Early reviews were particularly harsh, labelling the show as a “painful bellyflop.”

AirPods are shaping up to be one of the hottest gifts this holiday season. And while it might seem like there’s still plenty of time to pick up a pair before Christmas or Hanukkah, there’s less time than you think.

Windows users might not have to use iTunes much longer. Mac users were freed from this often-criticized multimedia software by macOS Catalina, but it lives on computers running Microsoft’s operating system.

However, Apple seems to be staffing up to create a replacement for Windows too.

Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff for his company’s Dreamforce conference this afternoon but instead of diving into Apple’s boring enterprise efforts, Cook was ready to discuss heavier topics.

Sitting in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts where Apple revealed some of its biggest product updates before Apple Park was built, Cook shared his thoughts on privacy, environmental conservation, innovation, memories of Steve Jobs and what motivates him.

Apple engineers laid the groundwork for a pair of gloves that would let users feel objects displayed by virtual reality or augmented reality.

The idea of gloves with haptic feedback isn’t new, but a newly-received patent shows Apple continues to put considerable research and development effort into cutting-edge VR and AR.

Apple’s long-awaited 16-inch MacBook Pro is on sale now, and it’s (almost) everything we hoped it would be. If you’re lusting after one, Cult of Mac’s buyback program can help make it more affordable.

We pay great prices for used MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro units — and we make the whole process quick and simple. We also cough up real cash, so you can spend it anywhere you like.

The city of Chicago is full of narratives but one of its richest is often skewed by headlines of poverty and violence.

The neighborhood of North Lawndale is a story of rebirth and some of its young residents are sharing that story one iPhone photo at a time.

Security researchers revealed a huge vulnerability in Google’s Android operating system that could have allowed hackers to access users’ photos and camera without their knowledge.

The camera app vulnerability was potentially on hundreds of millions of Android phones and tablets. Tech security firm Checkmarx highlighted the dangers of the flaw by creating a proof-of-concept weather app that can record phone calls, snap photos and pictures and send all the data to a remote server.

There are a handful of webpages I keep referring back to, often reading the same parts over and over. They may be part of an instruction manual, or other reference material¹. And sometimes, while researching an article, I want to highlight sections and phrases to find them more easily. Just like using a highlighter marker on a sheet of paper.

Until now, I’ve never found good way to do it. Apps required me to sign up for an account, or store my highlights on their servers, or pay a subscription. Or the app was just plain clunky. Then I found Highlighter for Safari.

Your shiny new 16-inch MacBook Pro arrives this week, and of course you want to deck it out with all the latest accessories. What you need will depend on what you use your computer for, but almost everyone will want a case, a keyboard and a mouse. And there are plenty of other MacBook Pro accessories you might need to get the job done.

Check out our guide for dongles, cables and even battery packs that will help you get the most out of your new MacBook Pro.