Apple’s camera team set the bar higher still with three new iPhones in 2018. But even Apple’s best gets better if paired with good mobile photography accessories.
The brands devoted to smartphone shooters don’t exactly have an easy mission. They have to enhance the iPhone photo or video experience without compromising one of its greatest features – portability.
Did you know that Gmail has more than 1.5 billion users? For a large portion of those users, email is something they must deal with on a regular basis — whether for work-related matters, personal communication or staying updated on the latest deals at their favorite retailers. Staying on top of your email can be a major pain, and even with all the smarts that Gmail offers, once you fall behind, it’s daunting to catch up.
Kiwi helps add a layer of convenience and intelligence to managing your Gmail and G Suite accounts on your Mac or Windows PC, all while offering the familiarity and comfort of Google’s mail platform.
Even amid the three-quarters of a million residents of Winnipeg, Canada, Rocky Bergen felt alone when it came to his love of vintage computers.
But thanks to his papercraft models of classic machines like the Apple II, Bergen has connected with folks in places as far away as Italy and Sweden.
The national nightmare that was “bagelgate” may be over, but Apple is apparently swimming into more controversial emoji territory. This time, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is pointing out that Apple’s squid emoji is physiologically incorrect.
Essentially, Apple’s lack of biological accuracy means that its squid emoji would, among other things, poop out of its face. For shame!
Today’s how-to is a little different. I won’t be recommending special apps for learning how to draw, or even AR apps that help you trace pictures onto real paper. Instead, I’m going to give you a few tips that will help you draw what you see in front of you, whether you’re using a pencil and paper, brush and canvas, or iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.
But first, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that you already know how to draw — you just need to learn how to look. The bad news is that the only way to improve is to practice. A lot. There’s no shortcut. You just have to do a lot of drawing.
Apple has spent upwards of $1 billion creating original TV shows, but as of yet it hasn’t revealed exactly how it plans to get these in front of users. One idea? That it could release a streaming dongle, similar to Google’s Chromecast and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick.
This could be a lower cost entry point into the streaming TV market — since both Amazon and Google’s offerings cost under $50, compared to $180 for the Apple TV.
It hasn’t been a great month to own shares of Apple. But if you’ve been considering getting in, one analyst says now is the time to buy.
Shares of the iPhone-maker have dropped 17 percent in less than two weeks. But this an overreaction to bad news from parts suppliers.
How’s that new iPad Pro? I love mine, apart from the short USB-C cable that won’t stretch to my desk while I’m working. You’ve probably been scouring the web for tips and trick to get more out of your new beast. Well, you’re in luck, because we’ve been doing the same, and gathered all the 2018 iPad Pro tips together here, in one place.
Ten years after launching the game-changing MacBook Air, Apple took the wraps off the latest iteration of its ultra-thin, affordable laptop. And, boy, does it look great!
Boasting a considerably smaller bezel, a Retina display, a Touch ID sensor and an overall slimmer design, this is the MacBook many will have been waiting for.
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.
The Portrait Mode in iPhone XS is the best thing to happen to iPhone photography in quite a while. It uses the XS’ dual cameras, plus the A12 chip’s Neural Engine, to work out how far away everything is in your photos. Then, it blurs everything in the background, just as if you used a fancy big camera.
But what if you want even more blur? The iPhone XS’ Depth Control feature looks very realistic, but maybe it’s a bit too realistic? Maybe you want to really wipe out that background with some extra blur. The good news is, there are some great apps that do that.
Apple’s refreshed Privacy website is live, giving U.S. users the ability to download all of their data from Apple. The website explains how and why Apple products are “designed to protect your privacy.”
Apple stresses that “your data belongs to you” and insists that it never sells users’ info to advertisers or other organizations.
The website even gives users the ability to delete an Apple account — and all associated data — if desired.
Black-and-white photos aren’t just regular photos with the color taken out. Or rather, they are exactly that, but they are also more than that. A B&W portrait can seem to say more about the subject than a colorful version, for instance. B&W is also ideal for showing more graphic images. Take a color photo of scaffolding and it looks super-dull. Take the same photo in B&W, jack up the contrast, and it becomes a stark grid — way more interesting to look at.
There’s much more to taking a B&W photo than just removing the color. For instance, did you know that a color filter will have a startling effect on a B&W photo? Let’s take a look at some of the tricks to capturing and editing stunning black-and-white images.
Siri Shortcuts are proving to be one of the most useful new additions in iOS 12. If you’re a fan of Cult of Mac‘s weekly podcast, The CultCast, we’ve got the perfect shortcut that’ll ensure you never miss an episode.
Today Apple finally released the iPhone XS, XS Max and Apple Watch Series 4. Now, in true Cult of Mac YouTube tradition, we’ve gotten our hands on it and made an unboxing video.
You can see the full unboxing in all of its golden glory, the box design, its contents and a quick hands-on with the iPhone XS.
Check it out:
Let’s not beat around the bush — the new iPhone names are a mess. “iPhone XS Max” sounds like a body spray for teenagers and the “XR” in iPhone XR means … well, not very much at all.
Today’s iPhones are an explosion of confused branding.
But the 2018 iPhones definitely aren’t the first time Apple products bore baffling, awkward or just plain rubbish names. Brace yourself for a repulsive refresher as we recount the worst Apple product names of all time.
As I write this, there’s a truck outside my window using its crane to shovel molten blacktop onto the street. Its diesel engine is revving hard, and has been for the last half hour. For the past two years, there’s been an apartment building under construction across the street from my office. Starting at (and often before) 7 a.m., six days a week, I’ve enjoyed a symphony of pumped cement, circular saws screeching through thin metal sheets, over-revved forklifts, and drilling into reinforced concrete.
I mention this to tell you that I know a thing or two about writing in a noisy spot. I also know how to stop it driving you nuts.
iOS 12 adds a brand-new Apple app to your iPhone and iPad. It’s called Measure, and that’s exactly what it does. With it, you can use your iPhone’s camera to measure distances instead of breaking out a tape measure or ruler. Also, the level tool has moved from its old home in the Compass app, and now lives in Measure. Let’s see how the new app works.
White balance is one of the most important settings on any camera. It can make the difference between vibrant, accurate colors, and a muddy, flat mess. It is also the setting least likely to be tweaked manually by casual photographers. There’s not even a good way to adjust white balance in the iPhone’s own Photos app.
But don’t despair. Today we’ll learn everything you need to now about how white balance works, and what to do with it.
There are probably good reasons to block a website on your own iPhone or iPad, but really, why not just avoid typing its URL? It’s far more likely that you’ll want to block a website on somebody else’s device, probably a child’s. Or perhaps you don’t want your kids to accidentally hit all your bookmarks to porn and gambling sites when they use your iPhone.
Whatever your reasons, here’s how to block any website on your iPhone or iPad.
This year’s iPad Pro will boast Face ID and a new iPhone X-style bezel-less design, code and assets hidden in the iOS 12 developer beta seemingly confirms.
The asset relating to the new asset was discovered in the battery usage user interface part of the new developer beta. It’s an icon depicting an iPad without home button and much thinner bezels.
Today we’ll see how to put a Shortcut into a reminder, so you can just tap the reminder alert to run it.
For this, we’ll use the new iOS 12 Shortcuts app, or Apple’s existing Workflow app. For instance, you could have a reminder that pops up every morning at 9AM, telling you to log your run. In the pop-up alert, right there on the lock screen, will be a button to execute a Shortcut/Workflow to do just that. Tap it, and you’ll be able to log your run via a pop up.
And of course this isn’t limited to fitness, nor even to time-based reminders.
The Newton MessagePad is simultaneously one of Apple’s biggest flops and one of the company’s most underrated products.
A series of PDA devices available during the 1990s, today Newtons are much-sought-after relics among a group of enthusiastic Apple fans. These collectors recognize the devices for the forward-looking gadgets they truly were. The Newton product line is now the subject of a new feature-length documentary, titled Love Notes to Newton. Can it do justice to its beloved subject matter?
Are you still tapping the little arrows to scroll through the sections on your iPhone’s tiny copy/paste menu? Forget about that nonsense. This is 2018, the year of living dangerously, so may as well join in with the world. Did you know that you can just swipe that menu? You’ll never have to tap a tiny arrow ever again.
Did you ever download an audio file to your iPhone, and then wonder just how you are supposed to listen to it? Maybe you have a few recorded lectures you want to listen to on a plane, or you have some audiobooks you’d like to listen to on the beach. The bad news is a that you can’t add music or any other audio to your Music app library without a Mac or a PC.
Since iOS 11, you’ve been able to download and save audio files in the Files app, but good luck listening to them. It’s like listening to audio in the Finder on your Mac, with no way to save your place, or really control the playback much at all.
But there’s a better way. The Overcast podcast app, which is pretty excellent in general, also lets you upload your own audio files, and then it treats them as regular podcast episodes. We also have a more complex method that takes a bit of setup, but can be used with any podcast app, including Apple’s own. Here’s how to use them.
