An RPG set in the Harry Potter universe is a huge hit. Hogwarts Mystery only debuted two months ago and has already made its developers $40 million.
There are a couple of reasons for this success. The obvious one is it’s Harry Potter. Duh. But the other is that this game so frequently requests in-app purchases that it’s garnered heavy criticism.
In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine: The public beta of iOS 12 is out now, so anyone can download it and install it on their device. But what does the new version of iOS actually do? Apple introduced Screen Time, the great new Do Not Disturb, and the powerful Siri Shortcuts at the WWDC 2018 keynote in June. But until you dig into them, you won’t have an idea how great these new features are, along with many more.
You’ll find that story and more in this issue. Get your free subscription to Cult of Mac Magazine from iTunes. Or read on for this week’s top stories.
Weather can be exciting, but checking the weather rarely is. Regardless of what’s going on outside, Carrot Weather makes checking the forecast hilarious and fun. Better than that, Carrot Weather offers an Apple Watch app that is best in class for the platform.
Something is going to happen in the Fortnite game tomorrow. What that will be is a bit of a mystery, but it’s causing a lot of buzz.
Whatever the deal is, it’s happening at 1:30 pm Eastern Time on Saturday. In-game TV screens are showing a countdown clock, and that’s when it hits the zero hour.
Apple’s AirPower charging pad is still M.I.A., but if you’re looking for an innovative and awe-inspiring wireless charging option, look no further than a new Kickstarter campaign.
Called Gloo, it’s a sleek bottle-shaped wireless charging station that doubles up as a multicolored ambient light source you control with your iPhone.
The first Battleheart game, a superb pick-up-and-play RPG perfectly suited for iOS, launched way back in 2011. Now a fully fledged sequel, Battleheart 2 is finally set to debut on iOS in the next couple of weeks — and you can pre-order it right now.
Check out the trailer for the game below, and prepare to get excited!
Most people would agree that Siri is way behind its competitors. But Apple recently made moves that indicate it’s working to improve this voice assistant.
A British survey discovered what smartspeaker owners actually use them for. This could help Apple decide what new features to add to Siri, as well as the ones that need shoring up.
The first window air conditioning unit with HomeKit launched this spring, and now GE has followed up with several more that can cool larger areas.
When people think of home automation, they generally think of whole-house systems. But that’s overkill in cooler climes. These single-room window AC units can be controlled by an iPhone app from anywhere.
Are you a computer history nerd? Want to hear 32-year-old Steve Jobs ruminating after the future of computing, or Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak talk phone phreaking and the birth of the Apple II?
If so, you’ll almost certainly be happy to hear about an amazing new archive of classic computer industry footage which just emerged online. Created in the 1980s by the U.K.’s BBC public broadcasting company, the footage comes from something called The Computer Literacy Project, aimed at inspiring a generation of people to code.
Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre have been ordered by a court to pay over $25 million to their former business partner Steven Lamar.
The legal battle between the two parties has been going on since 2014 when Iovine and Dre first sued Lamar for falsely advertising that he was a co-founder of Beats. Now a jury has ruled in favor of Lamar’s claim that he should receive more royalties from the company’s headphone sales.