Be warned: anyone who upgrades their iPhone or iPad to iOS 12 no longer has the option to downgrade. It’s not possible to go back to any version of iOS 11. Not that there’s much reason to want to.
This isn’t an unusual move. With today’s release of iOS 12.0.1, going to iOS 11 would be two jumps back, and it’s very rare for Apple to allow that.
Google took a one-two punch to the chin today by having to admit its once-ballyhooed Facebook competitor is a dud. There’s so little interest in Google+ that it’s being killed off.
That would normally be bad enough, but the shutdown isn’t just because of lack of interest. A bug in Google+ exposed the personal information of users, something Google didn’t mention for a half a year.
Apple may have downplayed one major feature for the display of the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.
Based on testing from Tsing-Hua University in Taiwan, it turns out that the new OLED displays are healthier for your eyes than the LCD-based displays found in previous iPhones.
Dieter Rams, a god-like figure to industrial designers around the world, usually speaks very glowingly about the design of Apple products.
But in a new documentary with the aptly minimalist title Rams, he expresses a growing sadness and frustration over the disposable excess that Apple and other Silicon Valley tech companies produce.
Back in the distant mists of 2012, everyone needed an adapter to plug their collection of 30-pin charging cables into Apple’s new Lightning port. Fast forward to today and this once crucial accessory is no longer necessary. To the point where it’s been dropped from the online Apple Store.
Anyone with iOS 12 — and we know that’s most of you — should download a small update that fixes bugs that have affected some users. A Wi-Fi slowdown problem was only bothering iPhone XS users, but a charging issue plagued a much wider swath of people.
iOS 12.0.1 deals with both, and makes a couple of other small tweaks too.
Fiery Feeds is an iOS news-reading app that lets you subscribe to any sites you like, and read all their new stories in one place. It’s way better than relying on Twitter for you news, because important stories never get lost in a sea of doggy GIFs. And the new v2.1 gets a visual overhaul, plus support for using Pinboard as a read-later service. I love it.
Microsoft plans to start streaming high-end games to your iPhone, iPad, and other devices.
Its new service, dubbed “Project XCloud,” will remove the need for dedicated games consoles and pricey PCs — but you’ll have to wait until next year just to trial it.
Do you trust Facebook to put a camera and microphone in your living room? If not, you’ll want to avoid Portal, its new smart displays focused on video chat.
Portal and Portal Plus make it easy to keep in touch with friends and family when you can’t see them face-to-face in real life. They can also play music, stream video, and do anything Amazon Alexa can do.
New iPhone, new reason to stress out over drops and dings. There are all sorts of cases of all different shapes and sizes to choose from, but sometimes simple is best.
Apple is reportedly in talks with U.K. telecommunications company BT, regarding a possible partnership in which Apple TV boxes are provided to subscribers.
As per the Daily Telegraph, both groups are, “in early discussions over a deal that would make BT’s mobile brand EE a major distributor of Apple TV set-top boxes.”
A lawsuit against Google, claiming to represent 4.4 million iPhone users, has been thrown out of court by a U.K. judge.
The Apple-using coalition, a group called “Google You Owe Us,” was asking for up to $1 billion in damages. This was to have been split among Safari users affected by Google’s allegedly unlawful data collection, which involved Google supposedly bypassing privacy settings to categorize users for advertising.
There are plenty of stories published about Apple that I’m sure it would rather not floating around the internet. But when it is accused of having had its motherboards — along with those used by dozens of other companies — breached by Chinese spy chips, it springs into action.
That’s what Apple did over the weekend when it told Congress that there is absolutely no evidence that it has been the victim of a sophisticated attack on its supply chain. This is what had been alleged in a recent article by Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
The Department of Homeland Security says that it believes Apple’s denial of claims that Chinese spies had inserted malicious chips into its computer system. Based on current evidence, at least.
This week we dim our Mojave screens down with a couple of Dark Mode utilities, we get a new Portrait HD mode in Darkroom, and learn how British English Siri pronounces “Fantastical.”
Learning to build apps offers all kinds of opportunities, both professional and creative. It’s a world of endless potential, with an endless amount to learn. So whether you’re a beginner or a pro, this bundle of 10 courses can help sharpen your skills.
After wrapping our “50 Essential iOS Apps” series, we sorted the winners to make it easier for you to download the best of the best. (Plus, we added Cult of Mac readers’ picks for must-have alternatives.)
You’ll find that list and much more in this week’s issue of our magazine. It’s free and it looks great on an iPad or iPhone. Get your free subscription to Cult of Mac Magazine from iTunes now. Or read on for this week’s top stories.
Arduino offers tools to build basically anything imaginable, from robots, to computers, games, weather stations, you name it. The possibilities are so vast, it can be hard to know where to start. So this bundle of Arduino lessons and materials offers a great resource.
Apple may have seriously undersold the processing power of the iPhone XS.
After deep diving into the new A12 chip, which is the world’s first 7nm manufactured processor, Anandtech found that the CPU features some big improvements that make it perform way better than just the 15% boost Apple is advertising. It’s nearly as good as a desktop CPU.
For the first time in 11 years, I did not get Apple’s latest iPhone delivered to my door on launch day. I’ve been using an iPhone X since last November and I was still happy with it; I certainly didn’t see the need to drop another $999 on what seemed like a slightly better device.
But then I got the chance to use an iPhone XS Max.
I had the handset for just over a week, and I loved every second I spent with it. I was wrong to not upgrade this year, and it killed me to return the device to its rightful owner.
Here’s why I’m sorely missing the iPhone XS Max.
Today we’re going to make an iPhone frame shortcut that takes your most-recent iPhone screenshot, and wraps it in a device beautiful frame. The frame will be the body of the iPhone, so it’ll look just like the iPhone pictures Apple uses on its site. This shortcut requires a little bit of setup (you have to copy some images into a folder in iCloud Drive), but after that it runs with a single tap.
Instagram is starting to integrate more closely with Facebook when it comes to your personal location data.
The app is reportedly testing a new feature that would allow Instagram to share all of your GPS coordinates with Facebook without ever opening up the Facebook app. This would allow Facebook to gather more information on you so it can serve up more targeted ads and content, but that might piss off some Instagram fans.
Tim Cook fought harder than any other Apple employee to make sure Donald Trump didn’t become president.
A study of all the political donations made by Apple employees found that Tim Cook contributed more than any other employee to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election campaign with a $236,100 payment to the Hillary Victory Fund fundraising committee. Tim’s favoritism towards Democrats isn’t surprising, and the study found that an overwhelming majority of Apple employees are following his lead.
Almost half of all iPhone and iPad users have already upgraded to iOS 12, according to new data.
It’s an impressive adoption rate for a major upgrade that’s only been officially available for just over two weeks. Its speedy uptake can likely be attributed to its new features and significant performance improvements — especially for older devices.
Today marks seven years since Steve Jobs passed away at the age of 56. Paying homage to his former boss, Apple CEO Tim Cook posted a message on Twitter in which he made clear how much Steve meant to him personally — and to Apple as a whole.