Cult of Mac

“Hey Siri, 30-minute timer!” you shout across the kitchen, elbows deep in turkey gizzards. Only Siri isn’t interested. It’s already running that one-hour timer for the roast potatoes. Why would anybody want to run multiple timers at the same time? Silly human.

Thankfully, Shortcuts is here to save your bacon (and your Brussel’s sprouts, sage-and-onion stuffing, and so on). If you’re feeling fancy, you could even set this up to use with Siri, but today we’ll keep it simple. So, no matter how complex your Christmas Day cooking arrangement, Shortcuts will let you know when your goose is cooked.

Apple has promoted John Giannandrea to its executive team as senior vice president of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Strategy.

Giannandrea, who joined Apple back in April of this year after eight years at Google, is responsible for Siri and the Core ML framework. Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company is “fortune to have John … driving our efforts in this critical area.”

The lovable Lemmings are back and better than ever. Help them navigate there way through challenging environments in a brand new game, exclusively for mobile, from Sony PlayStation.

With more levels than every previous Lemmings game combined (literally thousands!), carefully perfected touch controls, and plenty of variety throughout, it’s a must-have for mobile gamers.

Apple will be barred from selling certain iPhone models in Germany, after a court ruled that Apple was infringing on a Qualcomm patent. While the ban isn’t immediate, provided that Apple appeals it, Apple has said that it will stop selling the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 in Apple Stores until the matter is resolved.

The decision against Apple comes shortly after Qualcomm scored a similar victory in a court in China. It will not affect the iPhone XR, XS, or XS Max.

Apple has updated its App Store Review Guidelines to allow the gifting of in-app purchases.

Shoppers have long been able to gift apps and games, but Apple’s rules previously prohibited the purchase of in-app items for others. You probably won’t be able to gift in-app purchases in time for the holidays, however.

Apple will splash out (pun intended) $8.7 million to help build an underground water storage facility in Prineville, Oregon.

Apple has two data centers in the area. Cooling them requires massive amounts of water, which has made Apple Prineville’s biggest water user. The new water storage facility will service both Apple and the city.

Learning to build apps for iOS is a great way to expand your skills. That’s true whether you’re looking to get a new gig, or just want to work on personal projects. But coding is complicated, and iOS 12 is full of advanced features, so it helps to have a guide.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VI is already pretty darn epic when it comes to the number of hours you’ll need to put in to get the most out of. But if you’re looking to make a big game even bigger, you’re in luck.

That’s because the iOS version of the game is offering all of its expansion packs for free through the rest of December. Happy holidays indeed!

An iPhone user reportedly had her life saved after using her iPhone to call the coast guard after her ship capsized in rough waters. The woman, named Rachel Neal, was visiting Japan at the time, when she and her friends chartered a boat off the coast of Okinawa.

When the group wound up in the water, concerned about their safety, Neal’s waterproof iPhone allowed her to call for help. They were rescued 90 minutes later.

Epic Games has launched an official Fortnite merchandise store just in time for Christmas.

Aptly named Retail Row, the store currently sells t-shirts featuring characters and items from Battle Royale. It also offers a sweet Durrr Burger onesie from the season seven Battle Pass.

China isn’t the only place where Apple is trying to ward off a possible legal challenge from Qualcomm. According to a new report, it has introduced a change to iOS that affects only users in Germany.

It comes before a hearing, scheduled for later today, in which a German court will hear that Apple allegedly violated Qualcomm’s patents.

Okay, so most people aren’t silly enough to throw down their hard-earned money on a new iPad Pro, only to snap it in half like that infamous YouTube video which did the rounds recently.

But some users have noticed that their new iPads are actually shipping with a slight bend in the aluminum chassis, which is therefore present before the device has even been used.

Don’t worry, Apple says. That’s totally normal, and nothing to worry about.

There’s now proof that Apple rushed iOS 12.1.2 out primarily to make changes to iPhones in China.  We also have confirmation of exactly what the modifications are.

These were designed to convince a Chinese court that iPhones don’t infringe on two Qualcomm patents.  The hope is that court will then reverse an iPhone sales ban that went into effect in that country last week.

Got a new Apple Pencil? Then you should change these two settings as soon as you’ve snapped it onto the side of your iPad Pro and experienced its satisfyingly solid magnetic click.

A goal of the latest “Shot on iPhone’ collection seems to be demonstrating how great holiday pictures could look.

The latest edition of this long-running campaign shows off the capabilities of the iPhone XS series taking bokeh and landscape images.

This post is presented by Dashlane.

Christmas season used to mean spending days dashing between stores to rack up presents for loved ones. Now it means buying online from people and companies all over the country, maybe even the planet.

Online shopping is the norm now, so protecting your credit card information involves more than covering the keypad as you enter your PIN at the cashier’s stand. To avoid losing your payment information this shopping season, the best line of defense is a good password manager.

At the beginning of each summer, coastal cities in Greece spend thousands of dollars cleaning up dead seagrass that washes up on the country’s beaches. Tourism officials see it as an eyesore and are more than happy to send tons of it to local landfills.

But to Greek startup Phee, the dead leaves of the vascular sea plant known as Posidonia oceanica make beautiful iPhone and iPad cases.

Waze CEO Norm Bardin will never forget the day his company started on the path from small startup to becoming practically a household name. He says the beginning of this rise is all due to Apple and its CEO.

But that wasn’t really Tim Cook’s plan. Waze’s success is due to a bad, bad time for Apple.

2018 has been one of the best years ever for Apple. Looking at some of the company’s most popular metric shows that the numbers are up across the board (stock price excepted).

Never before have there been more developers making more money off iOS while Apple extends its ever-growing reach. Revenue hit an all-time high. And the next big thing feels like it’s just on the horizon.

Here’s Apple’s 2018 by the numbers.

Apple has busted out one more beta update for developers to play with before the end of 2018 with the first build of iOS 12.1.3.

The new iOS 12.1.3 beta 1 update comes just days after Apple released iOS 12.1.2 to the public as a way to fix patent claims by Qualcomm in China. Along with the new iOS beta, there are also new beta updates for macOS Mojave and tvOS.

The past 12 months have been one of the busiest ever for Apple’s video team.

Apple churned out more than 120 ads and other videos in 2018, unleashing some of its most memorable commercials in years.

After hours of watching all of Apple’s 2018 ads, we rounded up the 10 absolute best, some of which you probably haven’t even seen yet. Get ready to relive all the good times!

Apple Music will make its way to third-party Alexa speakers eventually, Amazon has confirmed.

The streaming service finally joined Alexa earlier this week — you may have gotten an announcement notification on your iPhone — but it’s currently available only on Amazon’s own Echo devices.

A new MacOS app gives photographers a speedy way to create web galleries from the Photos library.

How fast? That depends on how fast you can click on a folder.

Chinese electronic parts maker O-Film Tech could bail out the struggling Japan Display, a new report reveals. Both companies are listed on Apple’s 2018 Supplier List.

O-Film reportedly wants to buy a 33 percent stake in Japan Display, which provides Apple with LCD displays. Japan Display has been having major problems for some time. This year alone, its stock has fallen 80 percent.

Jefferies analyst Timothy O’Shea has added his name to the growing number of Apple watchers concerned about iPhone demand. His message? That Wall Street estimates remain too high, and that Apple’s situation, “could get worse before it gets better.”

Apple has lost more than one-fifth of its value since its $1 trillion record market cap earlier this year.