Apple will open a new 133-acre campus in Austin, Texas — approximately 1,500 miles from its Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino.

The $1 billion headquarters will initially house 5,000 employees, although this number will eventually expand to 15,000 people. Apple also plans new sites in Seattle, San Diego, and Culver City, California.

It’s been an unmistakable trend for the past five years: iPhones are getting physically larger. Given the popularity of “phablets,” that makes perfect sense — but it’s not for everyone.

One of those people is designer Dongjae “Krystofer” Kim. Kim recently put together a concept design for what a mini version of the current iPhones might look like. And it’s actually pretty darn neat. Check it out below.

It looks like my Cult of Mac colleague Killian’s endless hours spent feverishly Googling the word “Fortnite” like a battle royale-loving version of The Shining‘s Jack Torrance have paid off.

That’s because Google has released its annual “Year in Search” results, and it seems that the ultra popular Fortnite game is one of the year’s most sought-after topics.

Incredibles 2, Hotel Transylvania 3 and The Grinch are three of the top-15-grossing movies for all of 2018. And with its stellar reviews and big word-of-mouth buzz, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse may be joining that list before year’s end.

It’s no news flash to anyone anymore. There are huge opportunities, as well as huge dollars, in creating animation and animated features. While you’re probably not going to roll out of bed and create the next Pixar masterpiece tomorrow, your journey to an artistically and financially fulfilling career as an animator can get started today with The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Animation Bundle. And it’s heavily discounted right now!

This post is presented by MobileRecharge.

If you travel frequently or you’ve got family abroad, there’s a good chance you use pay-as-you-go mobile accounts to stay in touch. As if regular phone bills weren’t enough of a hassle, international charges can be a real headache.

Not with MobileRecharge, a company that offers an easy way to top up mobile credit in less than a minute. Founded in 2012, MobileRecharge now serves more than 140 countries and works with some 300 mobile carriers.

Even the most committed iPad user still needs a Mac occasionally. You might need to add music to your iTunes music library, or get files off an SD card, or use BitTorrent, or keep local backups of your photo library. Or you might just like using a Mac, but you don’t want a huge iMac, and what’s the point in buying a MacBook if you have an iPad already?

The obvious choice is a Mac mini. And with this tip, you can use your iPad Pro as a display for the Mac. That means you won’t need an extra monitor, but it also means that you can quickly turn your iPad into a Mac when you need to.

A 2019 iPhone model reportedly will sport a display made by Samsung that has the touch panel integrated into the OLED, rather than layered on top. 

If true, the technology will make one of next year’s iOS handsets thinner and lighter, but not all of them.

Apple’s TV team just hired seasoned Hollywood executive to lead its casting efforts for its many TV shows currently in development. Tamara Hunter, the vice president of casting at Sony Pictures Entertainment, is reportedly leaving her post to join Apple as the head of casting.

The Apple Store in Atlanta’s Lenox Mall is apparently getting a big upgrade.

An illustration of a new store coming to this high-end mall has surfaced, and while it doesn’t yet have an Apple logo, the company’s familiar design is very much in evidence.

This post is presented by Tenorshare.

Using iTunes to manage your data is not the best part of owning an iPhone or iPad. Spend time with Cupertino’s flagship app, and you realize it’s tough to navigate, with cumbersome tools for managing data and backups. It leaves many of us wishing for more straightforward, focused control over our iOS devices and data.

A customer brought an idea to his iPhone provider in Russia: What if you could make the iPhone and Apple Watch into one device?

The client now has his iPhone-watch mashup and you can, too, for $21,130.

Qualcomm and Intel could both soon lose out on Apple’s wireless chip business completely.

After switching from Qualcomm modems to Intel modems (and causing a huge legal war in the process), Apple is reportedly looking to build more wireless chips on its own. The company is staffing up in San Diego and based on one job listing, the team is working on a cellular modem chip.

Before Apple started selling the 2018 iPad Pro USB-C power charger as a stand-alone product, Scosche introduced one that’s slightly more expensive but offers significant advantages.

In addition, Scosche sells a USB-C/USB-A car charger that iPad Pro users should consider as well.

iPhone suppliers will reportedly consider moving away from China is U.S. trade tariffs hit 25 percent.

Sources say they will remain even if the U.S. introduces a 10 percent tax on smartphones, but they could be forced to “reassess the situation” should the Trump administration impose a higher rate on imported goods.

Apple is planning to launch its own paid magazine and newspaper subscription service, which will serve as a premium part of the existing Apple News app.

It is based on Texture, the $9.99 a month magazine service Apple purchased back in March. As happened with the Beats Music technology that went into Apple Music, Apple will use its acquisition as the basis for its own branded product offering.

Infinity Blade is back just days after being pulled from the App Store — but not as you might have expected. It’s now a crazy sword that can be found inside Fortnite Battle Royale.

The limited-time item was added in yesterday’s patch — the first since the introduction of season seven — and it gives a single player a huge advantage in each game. Unsurprisingly, it’s already causing chaos in competitive play.

Apple is offering promo codes to Apple Music customers, giving them money off the HomePod smart speaker in time for the holidays.

So far, users in the U.K. have reported receiving the offer for 50 British pounds ($63) off the full price of a HomePod. The offer runs through December 16, giving would-be purchasers until the end of the week to take advantage. It’s not clear how many markets Apple will offer the discount in.

There are plenty of reasons to build a website. Maybe you’ve got a personal brand to grow, products to sell, or just need a place to show off your ideas. But if you can’t code, don’t worry, you can still build beautiful, feature-rich websites.

This year’s Facebook congressional hearing highlighted just how little many lawmakers know about the technology which dominates our lives.

That seemingly didn’t change during yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing with Google CEO Sundar Pichai. At one point in proceedings 69-year-old Republican Congressman Steve King expressed his disappointment to Pichai that his 7-year-old daughter had been shown a photo of her grandfather with some unflattering language on her iPhone.

“Congressman, the iPhone is made by a different company,” Pichai said.

Tim Cook has admitted that Apple Pay hasn’t taken off quite as quickly as he would like. But that’s not stopping the European Commission from threatening that Apple’s mobile payments service could face challenges if it gets much more dominant.

Speaking this week, European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said that, while at “first glance, we couldn’t see Apple being dominant,” it will face ongoing scrutiny regarding Apple Pay.

About 83 percent of big-time digital marketing companies responding to a Clutch survey said they think they’re doing a good job reaching their marketing goals. Yet, 44 percent said SEO was their “least popular” tool. But SEO drives search rankings. And since more than 90 percent of business decisions start with an online search, and first-page Google results get more than 90 percent of web traffic … well, we seem to have a contradiction here.

Ed Dentel has become the poster child for the new ECG function of the Apple Watch. He installed the recent update that allowed this wearable to check the electrical activity of his heart and it immediately told him he had a problem.

At first he thought the new technology was faulty. Instead, the fault was his heart.

We’ve shown you the best gifts for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch users, but what if the person you’re buying for is a long-time Apple fan whose first love was the Mac? Then you should start your shopping right here!

This guide is filled with awesome accessories and gadgets that every Mac addict will enjoy. We’ve handpicked only the best — things we’ve used, reviewed, and would recommend — so that you can be sure your hard-earned cash is being well spent.

Check out our gift guide selections for Mac users below.

Your iPhone apps can track your location. You already know that, but maybe you tell yourself that that weather app just uses your current location to give you an accurate forecast, or that your bike-routing and tracking app is just keeping a count of miles and calories.

In reality, any one of these apps may be taking that location data and selling it. One way to handle this is to keep up to date with the privacy policies of any location-aware apps you use, but that’s too much work for most of us. Instead, why not just deny them access to your location? On iOS, that’s easy, and it works.

There’s always another version of iOS in the pipeline. Just a few days after iOS 12.1.1 brought improvements to FaceTime and Face ID, the public can now download the first beta of the upcoming replacement.

Apple is equally diligent about macOS updates. The initial beta version of macOS Mojave 10.14.3 also just debuted to the general public.