According to early reviews, you should absolutely rush out to get a new iPad Pro when the tablets go on sale Wednesday.
The iPad Pro was already the best tablet money could buy. And yet, Apple somehow made it even better with an improved design, an edge-to-edge Liquid Retina display, and an A12X Bionic chip that delivers unbeatable performance.
Don’t just take our word for it. See what the reviewers are saying below.
Travelers who don’t want to worry about finding electrical sockets for their iPhone or iPad should look no farther than the mophie Powerstation XXL. This external battery is relatively portable but still packs enough power to fully recharge an iPhone XS Max more than four times.
Even better, this accessory gets its power through a Lightning port, and it can charge three devices at once. We put the Powerstation XXL through a complete set of tests and bring you the results.
Tarah Pro earbuds, the latest wireless sports headphones from Jaybird, take adventure audio to new extremes. With smart new features and an astonishing 14 hours of battery life, these sweat-proof earbuds can go the distance — even if you’re a marathoner.
If you’re a fitness fanatic who constantly crushes your Activity goals during epic outdoor adventures, these might be the perfect Bluetooth earbuds for you.
The iPhone XR is typical Apple. It’s an entry-level phone with a bunch of premium features. Jony Ive just cannot cut corners, even if he wanted to. This is no plasticky, cut-rate phone built to meet a price point. It’s a primo phone with primo features (and a primo price tag, TBH). It just happens to be the cheapest new iPhone in Apple’s lineup.
The XR delivers everything customers care about: a big, beautiful screen; great cameras; long battery life; and Face ID.
The iPhone XR is arguably Apple’s most interesting smartphone of 2018 because of this slightly odd bundle of budget/premium features. It’s arguably a $1,200 phone in a $750 package.
For a chance to win a brand-new iPhone XR, enter our free giveaway here.
The iPhone XS camera is pretty incredible. The device uses its two rear cameras, plus the A12 chip’s Neural Engine, to record such an accurate 3D map of the scene that you can adjust the background blur with a slider. But that depth map is useful for more than just blurring backgrounds. It can be used by other apps to:
The iPhone XS is the gold standard for iOS cameras, but the XR manages some excellent tricks of its own. Despite having only one rear camera, the XR can still recognise people, and then use AI and the super-powerful A12 Neural Engine to separate out the person form the background. While this portrait matte isn’t as detailed as an iPhone XS depth map, it can in theory still be used to do many of the same tricks.
Today we’ll look at the best depth apps for the new iPhone XS, XR, and XS Max.
Linea Go is the little sister of Linea, perhaps the best pick-up-and-go drawing app on the iPad. And unlike the iPad, where there are a ton of really top-end drawing and painting apps, the iPhone has far fewer, especially if you just want a great way to lay down a quick sketch.
If nothing else, Linea Go shows just how great it would be if the Apple Pencil worked with the iPhone.
The first iPhone XR reviews are out just a few days before the handset makes its official debut, and one thing’s clear: This is one of Apple’s best smartphones to date.
Despite being a more affordable alternative to the iPhone XS, the iPhone XR is just as good in many areas, and even better in a few others. It makes some sacrifices to be more affordable, but it certainly lives up to the promises where it counts.
Here’s what the early reviews are saying so far.
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.
USB Type C — it’s no longer a novelty but an emerging connectivity standard for Apple products. As a newer, more powerful variation of the same USB we all know and love (well, kinda), USB-C features higher power and faster data transfer than its predecessors via a smaller connector.
While older USB Type A and B were a great gift for Mac users — few mourned the passing of ADB and SCSI — USB is often finicky. Just plugging in an old-school USB cable can prove challenging, since you must position the connector just so for it to slide smoothly into the port. That often means several tries to achieve the proper angle and orientation.
Those obstacles disappear with USB-C because, in addition to its smaller size, it is designed to be reversible — with no up or down orientation, just like a Lightning cable — and the cables can have the same type of connector on both ends.
For much too long, the best key finder had a significant flaw. A Tile Pro or Tile Mate helps you keep track of your keys, the remote, or other items, but each only lasts a year. Then you have to buy another one because the battery can’t be replaced. That finally changes in the new 2018 version. Plus they have a greater range.
We tested the latest versions of the regular and Pro versions of the Tile tracker to see if they live up to their promises.
In 2015, I purchased my wife a stainless steel Apple Watch (series 0) for her birthday. Since then, she’s used it to track hundreds of workouts, reply to thousands of texts, and triage countless notifications. She’s also told me nearly every day for the past year that she hates it and it never works right.
While that might be a bit of an exaggeration, she has a point. The original Apple Watch is slow and unresponsive. Plus, some features have become frustratingly unreliable (looking at you, Siri).
This year, we decided to upgrade her Apple Watch in time for our family vacation to Disney World. It was the perfect opportunity to test Apple’s magical wrist communicator at the most magical place on Earth.
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.
With our 50 Essential iOS Apps series, the goal was to help you find some of the best apps for iPhone and iPad. Picking the finest offerings from the more than 2.2 million iOS apps in Apple’s App Store proved challenging. But we highlighted apps that offer excellent features or make life easier in various ways.
To wrap up the series, we’ve sorted the apps by category to make the list easier to browse. We’re also showcasing Cult of Mac readers’ alternatives to our picks.
(You’ll find reader faves linked at the end of this post. That’s especially helpful since one of our must-have apps is about to die an unceremonious death.)
Apple Watch is pretty awesome at doing a lot of things. But mapping workouts isn’t one of them. At least, not until now. Back in 2016, I was pretty disappointed with the maps I got from my Apple Watch Series 2 (the first model that came with built-in GPS). When I tested it at my local running track, the maps it generated looked like random scribbles.
Fast-forward to today, and things look a whole lot better. Last week, I repeated that test with a shiny new Apple Watch Series 4 and got some very interesting results.
Apple stopped updating the iPad mini a few years ago because sales dropped off at the release of the first iPhone Plus model. Seems lots of people prefer a large-ish smartphone to a small tablet, even if the iPad is bigger than the iPhone.
And now there’s the iPhone XS Max, Apple’s biggest smartphone ever. So we explored using one as a replacement for an iPad mini 4.
Having been the proud new owner of the iPhone XS Max for a few days, I’ve gotten a feel for the device.
Here’s a compressed iPhone XS Max review.
You’ve got a shiny new iPhone XS or XS Max, and you want top keep it that way. Thankfully, there are already a ton of cases available for you. For simple protection, there’s Apple’s own leather or silicone case, but why stop there? You can choose for rugged cases, cases that hold two phones, cases that also work as wallets, and cases that can carry your EarPods.
Even if you don’t normally go for a case, you may like one just so it covers up the iPhone XS’ big camera bump, which really does make the phone wobble on the table. So, sit back, relax, and read our guide to the best iPhone cases around right now.
If you ever watched schlocky ’70s sci-fi show The Six Million Dollar Man, you probably remember the opening sequence, during which a faceless narrator describes building a man who is “better than he was before. Better … stronger … faster.”
With the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, Apple’s engineers achieved just that type of incredible transformation. They fabricated phones that look “normal,” like last year’s iPhone X. But, just like the shadowy geniuses who built the bionic man, Apple indeed made the iPhone X better, stronger and faster — thanks in large part to the A12 Bionic chip that powers the new phones’ most advanced functions. (Other hardware and software upgrades help, too.)
Just like Col. Steve Austin, the ace astronaut who got $6 million worth of bionic implants after a devastating crash, the iPhone X received massive internal upgrades to morph into the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. While it looks like the same old (excellent) device, it’s actually far more fantastic and futuristic.
It’s a total bionic blast!
I have a new best friend. It’s the Apple Watch Series 4. Boy, do I love this miraculous little machine.
The new Apple Watch really is wonderful. As with everything else, speed makes it so much more fluid and seamless. The display is gigantic and awesome! There’s so much technology packed inside, it’s a sci-fi marvel.
I took it for a long bike ride to test it out. Here’s what I found.
Most iPhone camera reviewers are upgrading from last year’s model, the incredible iPhone X. Most iPhone buyers are upgrading from an earlier iPhone, probably the iPhone 6s or 7. This review is for the buyers. In it, I compare the new iPhone XS camera to the iPhone 7 camera, and talk about just how massive an upgrade this is.
iPhone X owners shouldn’t feel left out, though. Camera-wise, the iPhone XS and XS Max might be the biggest iPhone upgrade since the iPhone 3GS added autofocus. One note: The iPhone XS Max has the exact same camera as the XS, so this review goes for both.
The Smark modular translator is something like Star Trek’s universal translator, a device able to instantly convert spoken words from one language to another.
In the 1960s, this was pure sci-fi. But here in 2018, translation apps on our smartphones can handle the task with ease and accuracy. At this point, is there any reason for a standalone translation device? Smark offers some features that might make it appealing to travelers.
I love my Apple Watch Series 3, but there’s one thing about it that annoys me: that red dot on the Digital Crown.
However, just because Apple thinks you should be stuck with a giant red dot on the side of your wrist, that doesn’t mean you need to put up with it. You can customize Apple Watch with a cool accessory called WatchDots.
Small Fry is the memoir of Lisa Brennan-Jobs, the daughter Steve Jobs didn’t want. Frequently sad and occasionally disturbing, it’s not the airbrushed portrait of Steve that Apple would like to see in print.
But it also relays some charming moments, showing us a side of the Apple co-founder that we’ve never seen before. It’s a glimpse of Steve Jobs at his most personal.
When Steve Jobs died in 2011, pundits wondered how the company would continue to make great products without him.
The question is partly answered by programmer Ken Kocienda’s new book, Creative Selection, which describes his 15 years working at Apple helping to develop the original iPhone, iPad and Safari web browser.
Kocienda’s book is a remarkable insider’s story that shows how Apple creates the software that it’s rightly famous for.
The whole purpose of clip-on iPad keyboards is to make this tablet function like a laptop. The Brydge series takes that idea and runs with it: it does everything possible to make the iPad into MacBook.
This company — also called Brydge — just released an improved version of its eponymous keyboard for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Don’t miss our hands-on review.