The Portrait Mode in iPhone XS is the best thing to happen to iPhone photography in quite a while. It uses the XS’ dual cameras, plus the A12 chip’s Neural Engine, to work out how far away everything is in your photos. Then, it blurs everything in the background, just as if you used a fancy big camera.

But what if you want even more blur? The iPhone XS’ Depth Control feature looks very realistic, but maybe it’s a bit too realistic? Maybe you want to really wipe out that background with some extra blur. The good news is, there are some great apps that do that.

Google’s new Pixel 3 XL smartphone is supposed to be the company’s best challenger yet to the iPhone. But when it comes to speed, Google still can’t keep up.

YouTuber PhoneBuff put the two new smartphones through a real-world simulated speed test and found that the Google Pixel 3 has some serious shortcomings when it comes to performance. Despite boasting a spec sheet that looks nearly as good as the iPhone XS Max’s, the Pixel 3 XL came in more than a minute slower than the iPhone XS Max.

Watch Google’s new phone get dominated.

The iPhone XR just debuted on Friday, and an esteemed analyst says it outsold last year’s iPhone 8 on their respective opening weekends.

The analyst goes on to predict that Apple’s newest handset will eventually outsell the iPhone XS models that launched last month.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is taking a trip through Europe before the company’s big iPad event in New York next week.

During his pitstop in Germany and France, Cook was busy checking out some new iPhone projects and apps that could be total game changers as well as film from one of the most legendary directors in France who’s ditching his big rigs to shoot on iPhone onle.

Tweetbot 5 for iOS adds some nice modern features, including a dark theme that looks great on OLED screens. There’s also an awful, creepy new icon.

But that’s not why we’re here today. The iPhone’s best Twitter app also packs a whole bunch of secret, hidden themes for you to choose from. Here’s how to activate them.

The public release of iOS 12.1 could finally be drawing upon us.

After releasing the fourth beta last week, Apple has already come out with the fifth beta build of the big software update this morning. It looks like the company is fixing a few final flaws before the iPhone XR comes out.

Apple is expected to unveil the next-generation iPad Pro at the end of this month. An industrial design student from Hungary. just couldn’t wait. 

He created a collection of images of this upcoming tablet showcasing the significant redesign that’s been all over the Internet. The rumored USB-C port isn’t overlooked either.

Apple has confirmed its pricing for iPhone XR repairs and it’s surprisingly reasonable.

It will certainly leave a dent in your bank account if you break your screen without AppleCare+, but repairing an iPhone XR doesn’t cost much more than repairing an iPhone 8. It’s considerably cheaper than fixing an iPhone XS or XS Max.

The iPhone is in the hands and pockets of more than 80 percent of U.S. teens, according to a survey conducted by the investment firm Piper Jaffray.

Apple’s dominance among teens will continue to rise with 86 percent anticipating their next smartphone will be an iPhone, according to the Taking Stock with Teens survey.

Epic Games won’t let any season or event pass by without celebrating it inside Fortnite Battle Royale, so it’s no surprise the company has something big up its sleeve for Halloween. Get ready for the mysterious “Fortnitemares.”

Teased on Twitter over the weekend, Fortnitemares is … some kind of … something. All we really know so far is that it will be popping up in Battle Royale soon.

If you’re wondering where the confusing “XS” and “XR” names for Apple’s new iPhones came from, Phil Schiller provides an answer in a new interview: from the car industry.

“I love cars and things that go fast, and R and S are both letters used to denote sport cars that are really extra special,” Schiller told Engadget in an interview coinciding with the launch of the iPhone XR.

As it happens, this is far from the first time Apple has embraced automotive marketing techniques to sell its products.

Super Micro Computer, the manufacturer of technology accused by Bloomberg of containing Chinese spy chips, has said that it will carry out a review of its own hardware.

This isn’t any kind of admission on its part, however. In a letter to customers, the firm noted how, “Despite the lack of any proof that a malicious hardware chip exists, we are undertaking a complicated and time-consuming review to further address the article.”

Learning an instrument is one of the most rewarding things you can do for yourself (maybe not for your neighbors). But it’s also one of the hardest things to make time for, even for relatively easy instruments like the ukulele. So this high-tech uke has education built-in.

In an op-ed for a German newspaper, Germany’s finance minister Olaf Scholz proposes a global minimum rate of corporation tax as one way to ensure that multinational corporations like Apple pay domestic taxes in line with the profits that they earn.

The European Union (EU) has long been attempting to get tech giants to stop using complex accounting tricks to shuffle profits around to minimize the amount that they pay in each country.

WhatsApp now looks better on iPhone XR and iPhone XS Max. The app’s latest update on iOS is optimized for Apple’s latest handsets — and comes with a number of new features and improvements for users to enjoy.

Apple has snapped up a 10-year lease for a large, 314,000-square-foot warehouse in Milpitas, California, approximately a fifteen minute drive from Cupertino.

The space is located at McCarthy Creekside, a new multiphase development located in the city of Milpitas. Apple is reportedly paying in the vicinity of 90 cents per square foot. According to developer Joey McCarthy, McCarthy Creekside is intended for “industrial, R&D, [and] manufacturing.”

Shortly after launching its refreshed Privacy webpage, Apple has also updated its Jobs website, hopefully making it easier to find your dream employment role with the company.

In addition to the redesigned page, Apple has also created videos highlighting some of the jobs that it offers. These follow employees like Divya, an engineer on the Apple Watch team, who leads some of the work involving the device’s optical sensors.

Do you want to own a chandelier that once belonged to Steve Jobs? How about a Jobs-owned thermostat, originally made in 1925? Or a silver-plated tea spoon? Or, heck, even Jobs’ old toilet? These, and roughly 146 more possessions, could soon be going up for auction.

At least, if some members of the Woodside town council, the small incorporated town in San Mateo County, where Steve Jobs once had a home, get their way.

There are quite a few iPhone cases that can also function as wallets and Mujjo makes the best we’ve tried. There are other options that provide more features but this one gets all the basics just right.

Read on for our review of the Mujjo Full Leather Wallet Case for the iPhone XS series.

A car designed to test Apple’s self-driving system was involved in a minor accident Monday, but a human was driving at the time. This is only the second such crash of an Apple car on record.

Google, and its autonomous vehicle spinoff Waymo, haven’t been so lucky over the years.

This week we shoot and edit video with Adobe’s new Premier Rush, get into the long-awaited Drafts for Mac beta, and clean up our Photo Library with BestPhotos.

Millions watched Scotty Allen build an iPhone from parts mined from Chinese electronics markets. While he loves the wild enthusiasm his iPhone-hacking videos spark, he says his Strange Parts series is really a “travel show for geeks.”

You’ll find his inspiring story and much more in this week’s issue of our magazine. It’s free and it’s fun to read 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.

A laptop stand is probably one of the few laptop accessories with the highest ROI. Ergonomically speaking, a laptop helps users alleviate neck and back pain from having to hunch over while laptop usage. In addition, users are more productive since the laptop sits at a similar height to a secondary display monitor.

Let’s have a bit of weekend fun today. We’re going to jam out on GarageBand for iOS with our friends. Imagine it’s 20 years ago, and you and your friends all get together with your instruments, hook them up to a little four-track cassette recorder, and get to rocking out.

Returning back to 2018, you can do something similar. GarageBand’s Jam Session lets you connect up to four iPhones and iPads together, wirelessly, and jam. All four performances are recorded one of the devices, and everything is in sync. And of course you can use any instrument available in GarageBand. One of you can take care of beats, another can lay down a fat bassline, and so on.

Let’s get started.

Jony Ive says he is “truly proud” of Apple Watch, which he describes as a powerful computer filled with sophisticated sensors that we strap to our wrists. And we can expect Apple to continuing delivering products that are just as special in the future.

Apple Park is a game-changer for designers that will allow better collaboration than ever before, Ive reveals in a new interview.