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Cool, colorful Tire Tread bands are a great match for Apple Watch

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Carterjett Tire Tread adapters don’t have screws, which means you’ll never have to worry about them loosening or popping out.
Bag yours in one of seven awesome color options.
Photo: Benjamin McKay/Cult of Mac

Made from strong and sturdy silicone, Carterjett’s terrific Tire Tread band for Apple Watch is ideal for even the toughest workouts. It’s easy to clean and doesn’t mind getting wet, and it’s a steal at just $24.99.

It also comes in a bunch of great color options — including a red and a blue that are a great match for Apple Watch Series 6.

How to use Slack’s new Huddles feature on iPhone, iPad and Mac

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How to use Slack Huddles
Host casual conversations, share your screen and more.
Image: Slack/Cult of Mac

Slack is rolling out its new Huddles feature in an effort to bring the office environment to wherever you might be working. The feature lets you hold “quick, informal discussions” with other members of your team.

You can also use it to share your desktop screen, which makes it great for demonstrations. We’ll show you how to use Huddles on iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Free web music app imitates iPod Classic click wheel

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Tanner Villarete's free music player web app simulates the classic iPod click wheel.
Tanner Villarete's free music player web app simulates the iPod Classic click wheel.
Photo: Tanner Villarete

The iPod’s iconic click wheel had a good run, launching in 2004 with the iPod mini. It joined the fourth-generation iPod’s design later that year. It even auditioned in the odd product concept over the years. Finally, in 2014, the company phased it out with the iPod Classic.

But nothing great is gone forever, as a free new web music player app shows.

You, too, can achieve pleasing symmetry and soft lighting [Setups]

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A desk with a metal frame and a bunch or clips and magnets help make a great setup.
A desk with a metal frame and a bunch of clips and magnets help make a great setup.
Photo: QasimZafaraYouTube@Reddit

Quasim Zafar’s neatly laid out computer setup serves as his filming area for YouTube product reviews, his general workstation using a 2020 M1 Mac mini and his Xbox Series S gaming station where he plays Call of Duty.

But that’s only incidental to what you’ll probably love about it and want for your own setup.

How to install the watchOS 8 developer beta today

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How to install the watchOS 8 beta
You'll need a spare Apple Watch and an iPhone running iOS 15.
Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

watchOS 8 isn’t the most significant update Apple Watch has seen over the years, but it’s certainly no snoozefest. Improvements to a number of key apps and a new face will be welcomed by Watch wearers this fall.

And you don’t have to wait until this fall to get yours hands on it. If you have a spare Apple Watch and an Apple Developer account, you can download and install watchOS 8 today. We’ll show you how.

Apple Music will add lossless audio, Spatial Audio for no extra cost

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Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos and Lossless Audio are coming to Apple Music subscribers beginning June 2021.
Higher-def music is coming soon to an Apple device near you.
Photo: Apple

Apple Music is going lossless — at no extra cost to subscribers. Apple revealed the free upgrade Monday, a day ahead of its rumored launch. The company said Apple Music will bring lossless audio to more than 75 million tracks starting in June so listeners can hear songs “the way the artists created them in the studio.”

In addition, Apple Music will add Spatial Audio support for songs mixed in Dolby Atmos. That means customers who own AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max and Beats headphones featuring an H1 or W1 chip — or using the built-in speakers in the newest iPhone, iPad and Mac — will be able to hear certain songs in the immersive format.

AirTags early hands-on roundup: Smart, tiny and … scuffable?

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AirTags could become a big hit for Apple
AirTags could be a big hit for Apple.
Photo: Apple

The first AirTags reviews and unboxing videos paint a pretty positive picture of Apple’s new tracking tags. After a short time using AirTags, reviewers praise the tiny trackers’ design as “classic Apple” and their precise finding capabilities as “utility-driven augmented reality.”

However, they also point out some limitations — including surprising scuffability!

How to see the AR easter egg hidden in Apple April 20 event invite

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How to see the AR easter egg hidden in Apple April 20 event invite
Bring the logo from the just-announced Apple April event to your own home with the magic of augmented reality.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Hidden in Tuesday’s invite to the Apple April event is an augmented reality easter egg. It’s part of the company’s ongoing move to draw more attention to AR.

The graphic for the event invite is the Apple logo made out of a swirling line. iPhone and iPad users can transfer that design to the real 3D world, and put it in motion.

How to record video while playing music on your iPhone

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Record video while playing music on iPhone
No third-party apps required.
Image: Apple/Cult of Mac

You’ve probably noticed that your iPhone stops playing music as soon as you switch to Video mode inside its Camera app, which prevents you from easily adding a soundtrack to your recordings. But there is a simple trick that lets you shoot video while your music continues to play.

The trick works in all versions of iOS 14 (including the latest iOS 14.5 betas) and requires no third-party apps. We’ll show you how to use it.

Tensions run hot between Soviets and US in For All Mankind [Apple TV+ review]

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For All Mankind review: Ellen Wilson (played by Jodi Balfour) makes an unbelievable move this week.
Ellen Wilson (played by Jodi Balfour) makes an unbelievable move this week.
Photo: Apple TV+

Space-race soap opera For All Mankind drops a bomb this week that could ruin the chances of everybody here getting what they want — and definitely destroys whatever character work the writers and actors have done up until now.

The writers realized nothing exciting had happened all season and so just dropped a bunch of character arcs in favor of what’s convenient. I wish I was surprised.

Apple leaker Jon Prosser shaves eyebrows after missing key prediction

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Apple leaker Jon Prosser shaves his eyebrows.
Jon Prosser makes good on his promise to totally destroy his eyebrows.
Screenshot: Front Page Tech

Jon Prosser’s eyebrows are officially toast.

Prosser, the serial Apple leaker with a big personality and a seemingly deep field of sources inside Cupertino, pledged to shave his eyebrows if we didn’t get an Apple event on March 23.

Well that day has come. And the Apple event didn’t. So he took a trimmer to his precious eyebrows in the most Prosser way possible — on YouTube, with a solid sense of humor (and a charity to boot).

Assume every App Store review is a lie

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App Store reviews
This app can’t be a scam. Look at all those positive reviews!
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Stop using the reviews you see in the App Store to help you decide what applications to buy. They’re meaningless because so many of them are fraudulent. And these purchased fake reviews are frequently used to trick people into buying scam applications.

The problem is severe enough that Apple should take reviews completely out of the App Store if it can’t come up with a better solution.

Billie Eilish doc attracts coveted young viewers to Apple TV+

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New documentary
Sounds like the Billie Eilish doc brought a coveted crowd to Cupertino's streaming service.
Photo: Apple TV+

How do you get the kids to tune into your underachieving streaming service? Buy a documentary about one of the hottest young singer/songwriters in the world.

That’s what Apple TV+ did when it snapped up the rights to new doc Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry — and the strategy apparently worked. As per usual, Cupertino won’t reveal the actual number of people who watched the film since its premiere last week. However, an insider report says the music doc brought a ton of new, young viewers to Apple TV+.

CoverBuddy protects iPad Pro, plays nice with Magic Keyboard [Review]

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SwitchEasy CoverBuddy review
SwitchEasy CoverBuddy adds extra protection for iPads that are used with Apple’s clip-on keyboards.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

The Apple Magic Keyboard and Smart Keyboard for iPad are amazing but they prevent putting the tablet into most cases, so it has to be “naked” when not clipped to the keyboard. That’s no problem for the SwitchEasy CoverBuddy, a protective case that Apple’s clip-on keyboards can work right through.

Sound designer’s setup powers a home office and AV wonderland [Setups]

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Widescreen monitor
When you have more gear than you use, it's time to break it down to basic needs.
Photo: Gareth Owen

Gareth Owen is a London-based professional sound designer whose job involves extensive CAD and acoustic modeling, but he also does sound effects work and multitrack mixing.

So he built a setup that functions as both his home office and a basic home studio.