A 120-degree view of Paris. Screenshot: Rian Johnson/Vimeo
Rian Johnson, director of 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, released a new film today shot on the iPhone 11 Pro.
OK, it was a just little montage of pretty scenes around Paris he posted on Vimeo. Apple loaned Johnson a new iPhone to play with prior to today’s public rollout.
The Apple Watch has been around for almost four and a half years, and I’m just about to (maybe) buy my first one. This isn’t a new habit. I held off the iPhone for five years, until I could get a decent cellular data plan without a contract, and I’m still using an old iMac as my only Mac, 10 years after buying it.
So what is it about the Apple Watch 5 that finally makes it attractive? Well, there’s one obvious answer — and one reason that’s a lot less obvious.
Years from now, even with a nearly worn-out battery, an iPhone 11 should still be up to high-end games. Photo: Apple
All types of phone batteries provide less power after years of use, but the new iPhone 11 minimizes the performance reduction that is an inescapable result.
The result should be iPhones that perform better after years of use.
75% of Netflix users have no plans to jump ship to Apple TV+ (right away) Photo: Stock Catalog/Flickr CC
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings almost sounds excited about the increased competition his company is about to face from the biggest tech companies in the world.
After basically creating the entire TV streaming market, Netflix is about to go up against new services from Apple and Disney. In an interview with Variety, Hastings admitted it’s going to be a whole new ball game in just a few months, but Netflix doesn’t plan to change much.
Apple has a more diverse, inclusive view of space. Photo: Apple
Maybe Apple should tweak the title of For All Mankind, its space race sci-fi show. A new teaser for the upcoming Apple TV+ series reveals that the drama will inject a strong shot of female empowerment into its alternate-history storyline about Russians beating the United States to the moon.
The 15-second clip, released Friday, shows actress Sarah Jones in the role of Tracy Stevens. “Look at you, Tracy Stevens,” says an off-screen male character. “You’re going to be an astronaut candidate.”
“No,” Stevens says. “One day I’m going to be an astronaut.” Cue a shot of an all-female astronaut ensemble.
Score access to a powerful, intuitive, and affordable vector design app. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
If you’re doing digital design work, you have to work with vector graphics. The scalable format is fundamental to today’s designers, but subscriptions with the big platforms like Adobe can get expensive. So this affordable alternative from Gravit is a great way to do the work while saving dough.
Cook counted down to the 8am EST opening with fans, then pushed open the large glass doors to let customers inside the refurbished Apple Store. He even threw out high fives as people filed into the store to buy their new handsets and Apple Watches Series 5s.
Don't believe the scaremongers. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
Apple’s newest iPhone lineup has landed. I picked up an iPhone 11 this year and I’ve hardly put it down since it landed on my doorstep this morning. So, here are my first impressions so far.
Caption contest entries in the comments. Photo: Steve-O
Back in the 1970s, Steve Wozniak made friends with another Steve called Steve Jobs. They went on to found a $1 trillion company called Apple. Here in 2019, Steve Wozniak is friends with another guy called Steve. Former Jackass star Steve-O. Yes, really.
In a new video posted to Steve-O’s YouTube channel, he takes a trip to the Apple Store with Woz to buy a new MacBook. Because, as co-founder of Apple, Woz gets a 10% employee discount on all products. Check it out.
Tile will speak out against Apple in Congress antitrust hearing Photo: Tile
iOS 13 screenshots have revealed a new “Items” tracking feature that appears to pave the way for rumored “Apple Tags.”
Baked into the Find My app, but currently hidden in the public version of the software, the Items section appears alongside People and Devices and lets you “keep track of your everyday items.”
Fans line up to get their new shiny items. Photo: Apple
For most iPhone fans, the only day more exciting than Apple unveiling its latest iPhones is when they actually start shipping to customers.
In 2019, that day is… well, today. As September 20 rolls around, iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max, and Apple Watch Series 5 are officially on sale. And with that comes the customary Apple Store lines and tweets about exciting postal deliveries.
Look how friendly these people are. Just look. Photo: Apple
In iOS 13, you can share songs and watch movies with a friend, with each of you using your own AirPods. The new feature is called Audio Sharing, and it lets you instantly — and temporarily — pair a second set of AirPods to your iPhone or iPad. It’s like the olde schoole method of using a headphone splitter to plug two sets of headphones into one jack socket, only way more expensive and fancy.
Apple’s Reminders app gets a massive update in iPadOS and iOS 13. It’s no longer a joke app that needs a million taps just to set a notification time on your action item. We already know about the new layout, which splits tasks into Today, Scheduled, All and Lists, and we also know about the excellent new natural-language input, which makes typing a reminder as easy as dictating it to Siri.
But the big update also brings some other new features you likely haven’t heard about yet: Today Notifications and Type to Siri (right there in the Spotlight screen).
Look Around is like GTA, only you can't steal cars or murder people. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Look Around is Apple’s answer to Google’s Street View, and it’s about a zillion times better — if your area has coverage, that is. Look Around is just getting started, and covers very few places. Street View, on the other hand, is available for pretty much anywhere, including underwater, up mountains and on hiking trails.
Why is Look Around better? Well, it’s faster, for one. And it just looks nicer. The images are super-high-resolution and full-screen. Using it on a 13-inch iPad Pro feels like taking a virtual street tour of a neighborhood.
Downton Abbey fans may have a great new costume drama to jump ship to thanks to Apple TV+. A new trailer for Apple’s upcoming TV show Dickinson gives us our best glimpse yet of the new series, which stars Haile Steinfeld as iconic poet Emily Dickinson.
The fight for women’s rights lands front and center in the lengthy new trailer. It shows just how “eccentric” Dickinson’s peers consider her ideas at the time.
In iPadOS and iOS 13, you can edit videos just the same way you’ve always ben able to edit photos. You can crop them, rotate them, add filters and adjust their color. And — finally — you can simply save the edited version instead of spawning a copy every time you make a simple trim. No need for iMovie — the iOS Photos app can now perform radical edits to videos. This isn’t limited to the iPhones 11, either. You can do all this on any iPhone or iPad running iOS 13.
Check out the great new iOS 13 video editing features:
It's even simpler to block email, messages and unknown callers in iOS 13. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
The trouble with modern technology is that anyone can try to reach you, at any time. Your boss can leave a passive aggressive email at the top of your inbox overnight, so you see it when you want to check personal mail. Anyone can send you an SMS or iMessage. And anyone with your phone number can spam you, any time.
Currently in iOS, you can block iMessage senders. But in iOS 13, you gain two new ways to keep stalkers, weird friends and over-sharing co-workers out of your digital life. Now you can block unknown phone callers and email senders.
Apple Arcade has a surprisingly wide array of games for a service launching today. Photo: Apple
You can write off being productive for the rest of the day because Apple Arcade just launched. This all-you-can-play gaming service brings dozens of titles in a variety of genres. The monthly cost is fairly low, and games can be played on almost every type of Apple computer.
Thanks to early access, I’ve been enjoying Apple Arcade for several days. Here’s why I think you’ll like it too.
In iOS 13, Photos is now an image-editing powerhouse Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
The Photos app in iOS 13 is now good enough that you may never need another app to edit your photos, for regular edits at least. Somehow Apple made the app even easier to use, and added some new features, while making existing features far easier to find.
For instance, Portrait Mode now gets its own tab; the automatic magic wand tool can now be fine-tuned (as can the built-in filters); and the crop tool now fixes perspective, and mirror-flips your photos.
iOS 13 is loaded with new features. Screen capture: Apple
The long wait for the next version of iOS is finally over. Apple just released the upgrade to iOS 13 to iPhone users, bringing Dark Mode, a better version of Safari, and lots more improvements.
iPad users won’t get their version until next week. And even iPhone owners might consider holding off until that same time.
Now you can check your heart rate while you are swimming Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac
Fitness tech startup Form launches its first product today: augmented reality swimming goggles.
You might think AR sounds like a bit of a gimmick for swimmers. I certainly did. My Apple Watch already does a pretty good job of logging my swimming workouts, so I didn’t see the need for yet another gadget.
But after testing a pair of Form Swim Goggles for the past month, I’m so impressed that I’ll never use my Apple Watch in the pool again.
Not this kind of safari. Photo: Cult of Mac/Charlie Sorrel
Safari’s new “desktop-class” features are getting all the press in iPadOS, but the new download folder, and better website support aren’t everything. There’s also a new in-app settings panels with a ton of options — per-site text size, for example — and even a new font in the Safari Reader View. Let’s check it out.
The C1 Light by Profoto is among the Bluetooth-enabled options to add strobes to iPhone photos. Screenshot: Profoto/YouTube
Apple is trying to bring the advanced lighting of a photo studio to your iPhone without actual lights. And while featured effects like High-Key Mono and Stage Light can bring a studio-like finish to your iPhone portraits, software and algorithms can’t beat the real thing.
Profoto, makers of highly regarded and expensive studio lights, introduced this week two compact studio flashes designed for mobile photography.