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This week we control our AirPods from our Macs, listen to podcasts on our Apple Watches, and listen to our inner selves with our iPhones.

Remember that butterfly keyboard we hated? All is forgiven, Apple, thanks to that gorgeous new MacBook Pro we’re swooning over.

Or almost all. Our reviewer likes the laptop’s Magic Keyboard and loves the Touch Bar (shocker!). But there’s one thing that could be better. You’ll need to read Charlie Sorrel’s 16-inch MacBook Pro review to find out the one feature he’s not a fan of.

Get his loving critique, plus plenty of other MacBook Pro news, in this week’s issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Grab it from the App Store and enjoy it on your iPad. You’ll also find the week’s best Apple news, reviews and how-tos in your free mag (and below).

It’s almost Thanksgiving, so Black Friday is just around the corner. If you dread the rush for deals on gear and gadgets, we’ve got an opportunity to skip the throngs and do your holiday shopping early.

Below you will find four awesome MacBook accessories — all available at great prices.

It will be a few weeks before you can thumb through our salute to Apple fans, The Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition. So we’ll do it for you in a promo video that offers a sneak peek at the book’s clever design.

The Mac book designed to look like a MacBook hits store shelves on Dec. 17 and is available for preorder today on Amazon.

Black Friday. We all want to avoid it … but oh, the deals.

No worries, we’re gonna help you out. Check out 10 of the best Black Friday deals around, each geared toward improving the center of every Apple fan’s tech universe: the iPhone. So load up on gifts you know your friends and family will actually use and enjoy. And save more than $500 in the process!

Apple is reportedly taking an important step to improve the performance of the 2020 iPhone: more RAM.

Specifically, next year’s top-tier models will supposedly make the jump from 4 GB of RAM to 6 GB.

There’s a great Steve Jobs story that somehow seems relevant in a 2019 MacBook Pro review. You probably know it, but I’ll tell it anyway. After the iPad launch, Jobs supposedly walked into a meeting with the Mac team, carrying an iPad. He woke up the iPad, which happened instantaneously. Then he woke up a Mac, which took a while to come out of sleep. Then he asked something like, “Why doesn’t this do that?”

Today, he might take the iPad Pro, and the brand new top-of-the-line MacBook Pro, start them both editing a few images, and wait for the fans to spin up on the Mac. While it cranks up to leaf-blower levels, he’d point at the silent iPad, and make some scathing quip.

The new 16-inch MacBook Pro is an incredible computer that’s let down by the red-hot Intel chips inside. Apple’s cool, fast, super-powerful A-series ARM chips can’t come to the Mac soon enough. Using this Intel machine after using an ARM-powered iPad for several years, the Mac feels like there’s something wrong with it. And yet, barely 24 hours into owning one, I absolutely love it.

Handmade holiday gifts are a great way to show loved ones you really care. But actually making them yourself can lead to disastrous results. So pick up a gorgeous E3 band for Apple Watch instead.

They’re lovingly handcrafted at a workshop in New York using only Horween leather, and they’re beautifully rustic but full of character. They make for a wonderful gift for any Apple Watch wearer.

And they’re surprisingly nicely priced, too!

This week on The CultCast: Everything you need to know about the new 16-inch MacBook Pro! Plus our first impressions of this hot new machine. And we discuss Disney+, and why it may beat Netflix and Amazon as the best streaming service available.

Our thanks to NETGEAR for supporting this episode. The Orbi WiFi 6 router gives you ultra-fast speeds and wider coverage throughout your home — it’s the biggest revolution in Wi-Fi ever. Check it out today at your local Best Buy and at Netgear.com/bestwifi6.

Adobe says it will soon deliver features and updates to its iPad version of Photoshop.

The announcement comes after a buildup of user frustration over the launch earlier this month of Photoshop for iPad, a highly anticipated release after the imaging software giant promised a full-power version for the tablet computer.

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.

Some Apple Stores in the U.S. and Canada are trialling extended eligibility periods for AppleCare+, according to a new report.

The trial, which started this week, allows Apple’s extended warranty plan to be purchased beyond the usual 60-day window. But devices must be inspected by the Genius Bar first.

Apple CEO Tim Cook clearly impressed Donald Trump yesterday during their tour of the Mac Pro factory; the president suggested that Apple be involved in rolling out 5G access across the US.

And he cited Cook as a big reason why.

We take our mobile devices everywhere we go, and that means carrying around earbuds and charging cables. So instead of stuffing our bags and pockets with our accessories, why not accessorize with them? These cables and earbuds from WRAPS turn them into stylish bracelets, for the ultimate in functional fashion. Read on for more details:

President Donald Trump today toured the factory in Texas where the blazing-fast new Mac Pro is being assembled. His tour guide was Apple CEO Tim Cook, further demonstrating the good relationship the two have, despite disagreeing on many topics.

Combining your iPhone case with your wallet is an easy way to simplify your life. Take the OtterBox Strada for the iPhone 11, which offers slots to hold multiple cards, while also wrapping around the front, back and sides of your handset. A leather exterior gives it a luxurious look and feel.

I used an OtterBox Strada for weeks — here’s how it stood up in daily use.

Guilherme Rambo, one of the top Apple secret-spillers, says Apple locked him out of his developer account, preventing him from accessing critical tools needed to create and update iOS and Mac apps.

In a blog post detailing his problem, Rambo revealed that Apple locked him out in August. Since then, all his attempts to resolve the issue met a dead end, he says. Rambo’s post doesn’t mention that he digs through Apple beta software looking for clues about unreleased Apple products — and publishes his findings on 9to5Mac. That might be the precise reason why he’s locked out.

Apple fans run on their own colorful OS that seems nearly impossible to hack. This growing subculture is worthy of study — and a place on your coffee table! You can get to know some of the world’s biggest Apple fans, thanks to the rich stories and colorful photographs in The Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition, by Leander Kahney and David Pierini.

The book, which hits stores Dec. 17, is much more than an update to Kahney’s 2006 book, The Cult of Mac (which gave this blog its name). Now available for preorder from Amazon, the second edition is a companion volume crammed with new stories and pictures. All told, they paint a picture of a uniquely devoted community.

Apple today dropped its newest Smart Battery Case for the iPhone 11 series. It’s much like its predecessors, but this time around it has a new button that provides instant access to your camera.

You can order yours today for $129.

Pre-release testing of iOS 13.3 and the iPad equivalent keeps chugging along. This is the third week in a row Apple introduced new beta versions.

When the full version is released, it will add an important feature to Screen Time, allowing parents to limit with whom their children communicate.

The default passcode length on the Apple Watch is just four digits. And while it’s true that you don’t keep as much sensitive data on the smartwatch as you do on an iPhone, and that your Apple Watch is arguably safer from bad actors because it is always strapped to your wrist, it’s still worth making this passcode more secure. After all, it’s not like you have to enter your strong passcode very often, right?

Today we’ll see how to change your Apple Watch passcode to a longer one. And we’ll also check out a neat feature that lets you skip entering the passcode altogether.

Apple told the US Congress that it doesn’t profit from making repairs to iPhones or Macs.

And it defended its practice of only selling genuine Apple parts to companies that have technicians trained to install them.

Houses are mostly brick, wood and/or concrete, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be smart. With the right bit of technology, you can enhance the efficiency, convenience and security of the place where you and your family spend most of your time.

And right now you can save big on four smart home accessories. From easy water monitoring to tougher door locks, they’ll give your home a real boost.

Apple will host free coding sessions at retail stores around the world next month.

The Code with Apple events will teach the basics of coding and apps in celebration of Computer Science Education Week. They will also include exclusive labs with app designers and developers.

Apple today confirmed it has started construction on a new $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas, that will open in 2022. The facility will initially house 5,000 people, but it has the capacity to grow to 15,000.

It’s part of a broader plan to expand Apple’s prescence in the city, where it has already started producing the all-new Mac Pro.