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How to get started with HomeKit home automation

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Wemo WiFi Smart Plug is a nice start to home automation
A Wemo WiFi Smart Plug is a simple way to learn more about home automation with Apple’s HomeKit.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Controlling the lights and other gadgets in your home from your iPhone is convenient and fun, too. There are plenty of HomeKit and Alexa accessories that make home automation a snap.

I’ll go over some of the best options I’ve found that will get you started with as little trouble as possible.

Jony Ive pays for thousands of orchards to be planted at schools

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Jony Ive pays for thousands of orchards to be planted at schools
Jony Ive loves trees.
Photo: Apple

Jony Ive has been largely quiet since his departure from Apple was first confirmed back in June. But now Ive has resurfaced — through a charitable contribution to the Daily Mail newspaper’s orchard-planting campaign.

Ive, who was instrumental in placing trees into Apple Stores, has donated 100,000 British pounds ($131,000) to the paper’s Be A Tree Angel campaign. Ive’s contribution will enable 1,000 orchards to be planted in 1,000 schools across the U.K.

How to sync your iPhone with your Mac in Catalina

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iTunes-as-Swiss-Army-knife-pun.
iTunes-as-Swiss-Army-knife-pun.
Photo: Goran Ivos/Unsplash

In macOS Catalina, iTunes has been replaced by separate apps, but none of those new apps takes on the tasks of syncing your music, books, photos and other data to your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. That responsibility now falls upon the Finder.

So, does this means you can plug in your iPad and drag and drop all your apps’ files between it and your Mac? Of course not. In fact, apart from this functionality now being in the Finder, not much has changed at all.

10 Apple books every fan should read [Gift Guide 2019]

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Books-Gift-Guide-2019
These books offer rare insights into an incredibly secretive company.
Image: Killian Bell

Gift-Guide-2019-bugWhether you’re buying for yourself or a friend or family member, there’s no shortage of great books about Apple. But with so many millions of words written about the Cupertino company over the years, which books most deserve your time?

Allow Cult of Mac‘s gift guide to fill you in on the 10 Apple books that deserve space on your shelf.

Hold down the Option key to unlock Mac’s hidden menu bar actions

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menu widgets
Not that kind of menu item.
Photo: Croissant/Unsplash

The Option key (sometimes marked ⌥ on your Mac’s keyboard) offers you extra options, whether you’re using the keyboard or the mouse. Hold it down while dragging a file, for example, and it will create a duplicate of that file, instead of just moving it1. The Option key works everywhere — in menus, too. Today, we’re going to see what happens when you Option-click on the status menu icons up on the right side of your Mac’s menu bar. The Bluetooth, volume, Wi-Fi, Time Machine and Notification Center widgets, to be precise.

Option-clicking on these icons gives you far greater control of some of your Mac’s core functionality. You might be surprised at what you can do up there.

iPhone 11 Pro camera holds its own against $20,000 Leica

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Sawyer Hartman compares iPhone 11 Pro to Leica
The iPhone 11 Pro gave a mind-blowing performance against a Leica.
Screenshot: Sawyer Hartman/YouTube

YouTube is full of photographers comparing their professional kits with the latest iPhone camera.

But a recent test and conclusion by Sawyer Hartman risked sounding blasphemes. Could a $1,300 iPhone 11 Pro outshoot $20,000 worth of some of the best gear produced by the iconic German brand, Leica?

That may depend on who’s looking.

Pebbled leather makes Courant Carry a luxury wireless powerbank [Review]

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Courant Carry
The Courant Carry is both gorgeous and highly functional.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

The Courant Carry is a lightweight and sleek phone powerbank that holds 8,000mAh. Even better, it’s wrapped in pebble-grain Italian leather so it looks outstanding, which is very important for an accessory intended to be carried everywhere.

It can wirelessly charge every iPhone released since 2017. And the Carry itself can be charged without cables.

Does the functionality of this external battery live up the the appearance? Read on to find out.

iPad sketch app Paper adds brilliant creative templates [Review]

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These exquisitely designed digital journals in Paper by WeTransfer will get anyone’s creative juices flowing.
These exquisitely designed digital journals will get anyone’s creative juices flowing.
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

Looking for some fun stuff to do with your Apple Pencil? Then you should definitely check out today’s update to Paper by WeTransfer, which introduces a new Paper Store.

Despite its name, the Paper Store doesn’t actually sell paper. Instead it offers a range of 28 digital journals created by brilliant designers and illustrators. These journals are filled with creative prompts, exercises and drawing tutorials that will get your creative juices flowing. And they’re a whole lot of fun to use.

Doodling has never been so easy or productive.

How to make Siri announce and read your messages

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Announce Messages with Siri
Siri can now read out your incoming messages, automatically.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

In iOS 13.2, Siri can announce your incoming messages and read them to you. This is the kind of feature that is so useful, and obvious, that it seems like it should have always been there. It’s called Announce Messages with Siri, and it does just that.

Here’s how to set it up and use it

How to get around with Apple Maps’ Look Around in iOS 13

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Look around on iPad
Look Around is like GTA, only you can't steal cars or murder people.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Look Around is Apple’s answer to Google’s Street View, and it’s about a zillion times better — if your area has coverage, that is. Look Around is just getting started, and covers very few places. Street View, on the other hand, is available for pretty much anywhere, including underwater, up mountains and on hiking trails.

Why is Look Around better? Well, it’s faster, for one. And it just looks nicer. The images are super-high-resolution and full-screen. Using it on a 13-inch iPad Pro feels like taking a virtual street tour of a neighborhood.

Apple Arcade launches early to glowing reviews

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Apple Arcade preview
Apple is inviting iOS 13 beta testers to try Apple Arcade too.
Photo: Apple

The wait for Apple’s all-you-can-play gaming service is over for some people beta testing iOS 13. The Apple Arcade launch isn’t supposed to come until Thursday. However, many people running betas of the next version of Apple’s mobile operating system already started playing.

iPhone 11 Pro camera proves irresistible to meme-makers

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That big, beautiful iPhone 11 camera bump makes quite an impression.
That big, beautiful camera bump makes quite an impression.
Photo: Apple

The new three-camera array on the back of the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max really got Twitter cooking.

It didn’t take long after today’s “By Innovation Only” event for internet jokers to hit us with their best stovetop memes. But the laughs don’t stop there. Apple fans and haters alike saw everything from electric razors to Pokémon characters in the new iPhone design. Check out some of the best cheap shots taken at Apple’s iconic new design.

iOS 13 is probably ready for you right now

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iOS 13.1 beta 1 adds Books reading goal, brings back almost every feature dropped in previous betas.
iOS 13.1 beta 1 brings back almost every cool feature dropped from previous betas.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

After the release of iOS 13.1 beta 2, iOS 13 is probably good enough for you to install and use. I’ve been running the new iPadOS on an old test iPad since the very first version, and it has been glitchy all the way. But as of the latest developer beta, almost all of the problems have been ironed out.

So, is the iOS 13 beta really stable enough to install?

Make the most of mouse buttons in iOS 13

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iPad mouse mappings
The iPad is fantastic with a multi-button mouse.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

For some of you, one of the main reasons to jump on iOS 13 right away is mouse support. You can connect any Bluetooth or USB mouse to your iPad, and use it pretty much like you’d use a mouse on the Mac.

You can even use a multi-button mouse. And guess what? You can assign all of those buttons to mouse functions. I’ve been using a mouse with my iPad on and off throughout the beta period. During that time, I’ve come up with a shortlist of the most useful mouse button features in iPadOS 13.

How to get Portrait mode-style depth of field with any iPhone or iPad

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Portrait Photos, no iPhone X required.
Take Portrait mode-style photos, no iPhone X required.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

We’ve written a lot about the Focos photo app here on Cult of Mac, because it’s like the Photoshop of focus. The universal iOS app lets you edit the focus of your Portrait mode photos in crazy depth (pun intended). But v2.0 just launched, and it’s hands-down amazing.

Focos 2 uses machine learning to calculate the depth of any photo, and then apply portrait-style blur to it. That means you can take portrait photos on the iPad and, wildest of all, you can apply a portrait background blur to photos you’ve saved from the internet.

How to add a custom iMessage avatar in iOS 13

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Memoji are awesome. Here's how to make your own.
Now you can use Memoji in iMessage profiles.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

You know how you can add an avatar to pretty much any social app ever, and all your friends, family, contacts, etc., will see it? Well, in iOS 13 you can finally do the same for iMessages.

No longer will you have to hope that your contacts use a nice photo of you, or worry that your boss is using a picture of a cute pig or pussycat to represent you in the group chat. Now you can add and share your own avatar, or even a Memoji. Let’s see how.

Check out the redesigned share sheet in iOS 13 beta 5

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Ipad on wet chair
Sharing is caring, etc.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Up until the latest developer beta 5, the iOS 13 share sheet has been a mess. At the top is the truly excellent quick-share row, which automatically suggests sharing destinations that you use often — iMessage and email contacts, AirDrop destinations, and so on. Then there was the familiar row of app icons.

However, below that came a single long list of B&W labels, mixing up all the other sharing options, along with all of your shortcuts. It was impossible to use. It also felt like a placeholder for a new UI design.

Now, that new design has been added, and it’s … OK. There’s still no color differentiation for your shortcuts, and the list is still too long, but you can customize some sections. Let’s take a look at the new iOS 13 share sheet options.

How to use the new iPhone Migration tool

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iPhone migration, now with added cable.
iPhone migration, now with added cable.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Getting a new iPhone set up is already pretty easy. Thanks to iCloud and Apple’s Quick Start (aka automatic setup), you can transfer all the data and apps from your old iPhone to a new iPhone or iPad, all without entering your long and secure iCloud passcode.

Migrating to a new device used to require either an iTunes backup or an iCloud backup. What if you just want to copy everything directly from one device to the other? Kind of like AirDrop? In iOS 12.4, you can do just that. And you can even use a cable! Let’s see how.

How to save all open tabs to a folder in iOS 13 Safari

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Safari's new download manager in iOS 13.
Safari is full of new tricks in iPadOS.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

If you currently use a third-party bookmark manager, you might be able to ditch it when you upgrade your iPhone or iPad to iOS 13. The main new feature is that you can now save all your open tabs into a bookmark folder, then reopen all the links in that folder with one tap. But that’s not all. Thanks to iPadOS’ new contextual menus, the built-in bookmarks got way easier to use.

Apple Park is one of Earth’s most valuable buildings

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Apple leases new offices near to Apple Park
Want to buy Apple Park? It'll cost you in the vicinity of $4.17 billion.
Photo: Duncan Sinfield

Apple Park is one of the most impressive corporate headquarters in the world — and that don’t come cheap.

In fact, it’s one of the most valuable buildings on Earth. A recent assessment for property tax by Santa Clara County lists Apple’s circular HQ at $3.6 billion. This is based on a detailed appraisal of the building. Including its contents, it’s valued at $4.17 billion.

26 flaming MacBooks prompted Apple recall

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2015 MacBook Pro 15-inch Retina
You were expecting something else?
Photo: Apple

Apple recalled 15-inch MacBook Pros from 2015, and we now know this is based on just a couple of dozen incidents, none serious.

Still, everyone with an affected unit should bring it in for service, especially as this includes a free battery replacement.