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Minecraft Earth beta kicks off soon — sign up today

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Minecraft-Earth
Sign up now for a chance to take part.
Photo: Mojang

The first closed beta test for Minecraft Earth will begin this month — just weeks after its first unveiling at WWDC.

You can sign up for early access to the game today. A new beta trailer gives us a sneak peek of what to expect during the test.

Every USB device I’ve plugged into an iOS 13 iPad so far

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Pile of usb junk
Now you can plug in almost everything, including the kitchen sink
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The USB port on your iPad has gotten a massive update in iOS 13/iPadOS. You can now plug in pretty much everything except a printer, and have it Just Work™. We already know this from Apple’s own PR and WWDC announcements. But what exactly does work when you plug it in? I decided to try it. I took my old test iPad (a 1st-generation iPad Pro) on a tour around various friends’ homes, and plugged stuff in. Here’s what happened.

Apple debuts pro-privacy billboards in Canada

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Privacy is King
Privacy has been a big push of Tim Cook's.
Photo: Josh McConnell/Twitter

Privacy is one of Apple’s biggest selling points — and it’s continuing the push with a series of billboards in Canada.

Images of the billboards were posted on Twitter by CBC Toronto‘s Matt Elliot and one time-tech journalist Josh McConnell. One billboard in Toronto reads, “We’re in the business of staying out of yours.” Another, also in Toronto, facing King Street West, reads “Privacy is King.”

CarPlay is better than ever in iOS 13 — here’s what’s new

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CarPlay-dashboard-iOS-13
My cheap Kia came with CarPlay as standard.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

iOS 13 doesn’t just mean big improvements for your iPhone. Apple is making some pretty significant enhancements to CarPlay, too, including a brand-new dashboard and better apps.

Some of these great new CarPlay features are long overdue. Here’s everything you can expect from Apple’s in-car platform in iOS 13.

Apple highlights iOS’s Screen Time feature in new ad

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Keep track of how to spend1
Apple makes it easy to monitor how much we use our devices.
Photo: Apple

Apple is proud of its Screen Time feature for iOS, and it shows it off in a new ad.

Part of an ongoing series of ads highlighting different iOS features, the short spot is designed to make users aware of something they can do on their iPhones they may not know about.

iPhone getting a built-in doggy detector and kitty catcher

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Apple Vision Framework
Apple’s Vision Framework is a sophisticated machine-learning method to identify Fluffy.
Screenshot: Apple

Coming to iPhone and Mac is a tool that examines images looking for cats and dogs. But the goal isn’t an app that allows people to walk around with an iPhone identifying the species of random critters. As fun as that might be, Apple is using machine learning to provide developers a powerful tool for identifying object of any type in images.

PSA: Resist the urge to install iOS 13, iPadOS betas for now

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iPadOS gets a new home screen design.
They’re just not ready for everyone.
Photo: Apple

Apple just dropped its first public beta builds of iOS 13 and iPadOS, making it easy for anyone to try them out months ahead of their official launch. But you should really resist the urge to install them right now.

Don’t assume these betas are ready for everyone just because they’re available to the public now. If you upgrade your primary iPhone and iPad early, you’re almost certainly going to run into frustrating problems.

I’ve suffered all kinds of issues since upgrading — and I’m not the only one.

Big changes coming to iPhone, and tvOS gets some long-awaited features, on The CultCast

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CultCast 393
Ming-Chi Kuo says some big changes are coming to iPhone.

This week on The CultCast: New iPhone rumors point to some big changes coming in 2020. Plus: Leander gives his take on the new betas; two long-awaited features are finally coming to tvOS; and scientists say iPhone is making teenagers too … horny.

Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. Easily create a beautiful website all by yourself, at Squarespace.com/cultcast. Use offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain..

New Mac Pro grille is actually a terrible cheese grater

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Cheese grater pro
You *could* use the Mac Pro to grate cheese. But you won’t be happy.
Photo: Winston Moy

The new Mac Pro sure looks a lot like a cheese grater, but it turns out that it’s pretty bad at grating cheese.

YouTuber machinist Winston Moy painstakingly re-created the complex circular structure of the new Mac Pro grille using his Shapeoko mill to put Jony Ive’s work to the test. The video of the entire process proves quite fascinating. However, the end result kind of disappoints.

Skip to the 5:30 mark to see it in action:

Catalyst versions of Messages and Shortcuts on the way to macOS

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iMessage effects
A look at one of the new animations on Messages.
Screenshot: Steve Troughton-Smith

Apple is working to bring new versions of Messages and Shortcuts to Mac, according to code discovered in the latest beta of macOS 10.15 Catalina.

The code was uncovered by developer Steve Troughton-Smith. This would be the first time Shortcuts is available on macOS devices. While Messages is currently on Mac, it looks to be getting a big overhaul.