Apple fans, ring in the new year with the best of last year’s apps and software for Mac. We’ve rounded up some incredible deals on powerhouse applications, from a powerful PDF editor to an efficiency-enhancing macro manager, a professional disk recovery tool and lots more. Even better, these apps are discounted by an average of 75 percent, so read on for more details.
It’s been one heck of a busy year for Apple, and we’ve got the devices to prove it! Truth be told, despite Apple’s fluctuating share price, this has been one of the company’s best years in a while for hardware. What was the cream of the 2018 Apple crop? Here’s how we rank Apple’s major new product launches for 2018.
Find the best goods from 2018 and learn how to set up all your new hardware in the latest free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Get it now on iTunes, or keep reading for the week’s best Apple news, reviews and how-tos.
Every year, Apple unveils a new iPhone model, often with new hyper-gee-whiz camera advancements that make it the…((ahem))…greatest smartphone camera of all time!
While hyperbole is baked into such announcements, even camera experts admit a high-end smartphone camera can under many circumstances produce images that are at least on par with shots from a DSLR. Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some accessories that can help make your iPhone images just a touch better.
There are just hours left in 2018, which could be good news or bad news depending on how you look at it. But one thing that’s definitely great is the opportunity to look back at the best gear of the year. So we’ve rounded up some of the best deals on accessories for iPhone, from wireless charging hubs to ultra durable charging cables, camera upgrades and more. Most are discounted by half or more, so read on for details:
After trying out the millionth notes/scrapbooking app for the iPad, I realized that I should ditch apps altogether and just use the built-in Files app. It might be severely limited as an actual file browser, but Files has some big advantages over scrapbooking apps. It makes everything available to Spotlight searches, for one, and it doesn’t create duplicates of your files, because you’re always working with the originals.
Another huge advantage is that marking up PDFs with the Apple Pencil is instant. With all other PDF editors I’ve tried, you have to tap to enter a markup mode. In Files, you just start writing on the PDF. And that’s just the beginning.
Let’s see how it all works.
There are only a few days left in 2018 but Apple just dropped one of its best ads of the year to promote the iPhone XR.
The new ad, titled “Color Flood,” featured a motley gang of hundreds of parkour runners in colored jumpsuits mobbing through a desolate city. Music for the ad is provided by Cosmo Sheldrake’s song “Come Along.”
Check it out:
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, the close friend of Steve Jobs who Jobs’ kids called “our rich friend,” has joined Tesla as a member of its board.
Ellison was the first person Jobs sought to join Apple’s board of directors after Jobs resumed control of Apple in the 1990s. He stayed until the early 2000s. Interestingly, in recent years Tesla and Apple have been considered rivals more often due to both of their work in building tech-heavy car projects.
For decades, a strong, well-made deadbolt was the standout method of securing a door against intruders. Yet even in the age of smart-enabled door locks, keypads and other high-tech security alternatives, your protection still inevitably comes down to the actual physical strength of the door you’re defending. Codes and thumbprints and retina scans are only so effective against focused brute force, right?
There’s no shortage of people getting stolen iPhones back, courtesy of Apple’s “Find my iPhone” feature. However, a person from Nashville, Tennessee recently improved on this — by using the geotag-locating feature to also get back his stolen car.
Apple is reportedly interested in next-generation 3D sensor manufactured by Sony. These chips will power the next generation of front and rear-facing 3D cameras in multiple phones launching in 2019.
And it opens up some pretty exciting new applications in the process.
The female broadcaster and voice artist whose voice is used for the Hebrew version of Siri is reportedly suing Apple. Galit Gura-Eini, who has also provided the local voice for Waze, claims that Apple used her voice without permission.
Her lawsuit also claims that people have used the Siri voice to make her voice say various sexual, racist, or violent things.
Fortnite may be free-to-play, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a well-oiled money-printing machine. According to a new report, developer Epic Games raked in an incredible $3 billion in profit this year, largely on the back of the 2018 smash hit game.
The iPad’s home screen is a waste of space. The 4X5 grid of icons looks absurd on the 13-inch iPad Pro. In fact, the fact that you’re limited to a grid of app icons is itself absurd. Where are the live readouts from your weather app or stock ticker? Where are the actions to send a message direct to your spouse/boss without opening an app first?
Worse, because the iPad doesn’t have 3D Touch, you can’t do anything useful with those icons other than launch the app1.
Today we’ll fix that. Using a combination of shortcuts, you can add actions to your home screen, instead of apps. For instance, you can create a grid of custom icons which can email a contact, create a new blank file in your text app of choice, create a quick reminder, and so on. Check it out.
Apple’s camera team set the bar higher still with three new iPhones in 2018. But even Apple’s best gets better if paired with good mobile photography accessories.
The brands devoted to smartphone shooters don’t exactly have an easy mission. They have to enhance the iPhone photo or video experience without compromising one of its greatest features – portability.
Did you get a new iPhone or iPad for Christmas? Maybe you got all excited and signed up for a few subscriptions? And now, perhaps, you’re worried that when the free trial periods end, you’ll be stuck paying for them, and that they’ll be as impossible to cancel as an unused gym membership. No problem! Canceling subscriptions on iOS is almost as easy as signing up to them.
It’s been one heck of a busy year for Apple, and we’ve got the devices to prove it! Truth be told, despite Apple’s shrinking share price, this has been one of the company’s best years in a while for hardware.
What was the cream of the 2018 Apple crop? Here’s how we rank Apple’s major new product launches for 2018.
Apple’s former Senior Marketing Director Michael Gartenberg has chimed in on the company’s latest “bendgate,” this time related to its iPad Pro. In a recent tweet, Gartenberg said that he returned his iPad Pro after spotting a noticeable bend.
“Perhaps it was within Apple tolerances but Apple tolerances shouldn’t allow for a clear noticeble bend,” he wrote. “Much as monitors with noticeble dead pixels aren’t acceptable either.”
Why do you need a virtual private network (VPN)? Most shoppers would tell you for security and peace of mind. Others want to get around international geoblocking restrictions. The truth is that most VPN providers worth their salt nowadays will likely cover all the most pertinent VPN needs. So it all comes down to who’s ready to give you the best price?
Compared to the lawless wilderness that is certain other app stores, Apple’s App Store is a well-regulated place, free from dodgy fake apps masquerading as the real thing.
Clearly someone in Cupertino got a little too merry with the egg nog recently, however, since a phony version of the Amazon Alexa app was recently granted permission to enter the App Store. It even managed to hit the #6 spot in the App Store’s utilities section over the holidays.
Apple is expanding iPhone manufacturing in India, including building its flagship handsets, a new report claims. This will supposedly be carried out at a Foxconn plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
To accommodate the new manufacturing lines, Foxconn will invest an additional $356 million to expand the factory. At present, it builds phones for Xiaomi at the plant.
Want a summary of your year in Apple Music listening? A new app will help with that — although it’s not one that’s made by Apple.
Mimicking the concept behind Spotify’s yearly “Wrapped” feature, the free “Music Year in Review” app will delve into how many minutes you spent listening to your top artists on Apple Music. It will also tell you your top five songs and artists, along with your most listened genre.
Apple got a late Christmas gift on Wednesday, when its AAPL stock experienced the stock’s biggest rise in five years.
While AAPL is still down considerably from the $1 trillion+ high point it hit earlier in 2018, it’s a strong positive move. And one analyst thinks that Apple’s set to be the top-performing FAANG stock in 2019, too.
This post is presented by Totallee.
For many Apple fans, the holidays mean giving or receiving a nice new iPhone. That’s a gift worth protecting, but with the care put into even the smallest design touches, it’s not something you want to cover up in a bulky case.
The iPhone XR got off to a fairly strong start. In November, this just-launched model made up 30 percent of Apple’s U.S. sales, slightly higher than the iPhone X in Nov. 2017.
But the standout aspect of the XR’s launch is this new model drew in a higher percentage of Android fans than any Apple device in years.
This post is presented by Dashlane.
Nothing feels quite as nice as booting up a brand new device for the first time. But opening up a new iPhone or Mac means reconnecting a lot of sensitive accounts and information. And nothing feels quite as annoying as spending all your time with your new device trying to remember and re-enter all your passwords for every website you visit or app you load.