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The MacBook Pro is PRO again! We talk the new 16-incher plus our Disney+ first impressions, on The CultCast

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CultCast 414: The long-rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro is finally here, and it's a beauty.
The long-rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro is finally here, and it's a beauty.
Image: Cult of Mac

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 today.

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.

Mophie iPhone 11 battery case adds hours between recharges [Review]

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Mophie Juice Pack Access for iPhone 11
Mophie Juice Pack Access adds to the thickness of the iPhone 11, but also adds hours of battery life.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

The Mophie Juice Pack Access for the iPhone 11 extends the battery life of Apple’s latest handset while also protecting it. This hard case leaves the iPhone’s Lightning port available, while also letting you charge you phone with your MacBook’s cable.

Discover if this is the right iPhone 11 battery case for you in our hands-on review.

Apple will dominate 5G sales in 2020

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2020 could be Apple's greatest year so far
5G iPhones will outsell all rivals in 2020.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Apple will beat out Samsung and Huawei in 5G handsets next year, according to a forecast by industry analysts. This despite accusations by some critics that not putting 5G in the iPhone 11 would put Apple far behind its rivals.

Get your MacBook Pro’s Escape key back without spending $3,000

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Escape the Touch Bar's tyranny by restoring your MacBook Pro Escape key.
Find out how to escape the Touch Bar's tyranny.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The Escape key is pretty essential to the Mac. You can use it to, well, escape from the current window/view/text field. You can use it to dismiss some dialog boxes. It can even be used to force-quit an unresponsive app. And that’s before we get to the Vim text editor, which is as dependent on the Escape key as Jony Ive is on new kinds of aluminum. So why did Apple remove the physical MacBook Pro Escape key when it introduced the Touch Bar?

Apple made that move, much to the despair of some users, back in 2016. Now, in the new 16-inch MacBook Pro, the Escape key is back. But what if you have a perfectly good previous-gen MacBook Pro? Are you really going to spend close to $3,000 just to get your Escape key back? No, you are not. Instead, you are going to repurpose the Caps Lock key, and turn it into an Escape key.

Why the new MacBook Pro will be my first new Mac in 6 years

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macbookpro
To be honest, I’d buy any MacBook as long as it didn’t have that broken butterfly keyboard.
Photo: Apple

The new 16-inch MacBook Pro launched yesterday, and by all accounts, it’s fantastic. But it arrives at a time when the MacBook (Pro or otherwise) is no longer the default choice for a portable Apple computer. Regular readers will know that several Cult of Mac writers use an iPad Pro as their main machine. Killian, Ed, Ian and I all ditched the Mac awhile ago in favor of iOS.

And I haven’t bought a Mac since 2013. It was a MacBook Air that has since moved on. The only Mac I still own is a 2010 iMac. And yet I have already ordered the new MacBook Pro. Why? What changed?

Apple Research app lets iPhone users join new health studies

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Apple-Research-app
Three studies are available from today (if you live in the U.S.).
Photo: Apple

Apple today unveiled its brand-new Research app for iPhone, with three new health studies for users in the United States.

The Apple Women’s Health Study, the Apple Heart and Movement Study, and the Apple Hearing Study are available from today. They give participants the opportunity to contribute to “groundbreaking medical discoveries with iPhone and Apple Watch.”

Toolbox Pro brings incredible new tricks to Shortcuts

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Toolbox pro
Who doesn’t love a good pro toolbox?
Photo: Susan Holt Simpson/Unsplash

Apple’s Shortcuts app is already a very powerful tool for automating stuff on your iPhone and iPad, and for creating your own push-button mini-apps. But what if it also could use the deep tools that Apple builds into iOS for app developers? What if Shortcuts could use Face ID, or analyze your photos using iOS’ crazy-powerful machine learning? Or if you could use the OCR to pull text out of photos, all inside Shortcuts?

Thats what Toolbox Pro does. It opens up many of Apple’s amazing under-the-hood technologies, and lets you use them just by dragging a new step into your Shortcuts workflows. Let’s see what it can do.

Force websites to comply with macOS Catalina’s Safari Dark Mode

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Dark mode for safari
Sometimes only Dark Mode will do.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

I stopped reading white text on a black background the moment I left school, and I’ve never liked it since. Especially on a screen, where the black expanse becomes a dark mirror that reflects everything in its sight. But even I prefer Dark Mode late at night, when I want to read without disturbing other people.

The trouble is, many websites don’t support Dark Mode. Everything else in Safari is rendered in tasteful black, but the page itself is still rendered in glaring white. Happily, on the Mac at least, there’s a way to fix it. Here’s how to force any website to support Safari Dark Mode on Mac.

16-inch MacBook Pro blows away your old laptop

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16-inch MacBook Pro from 2019
The 16-inch MacBook Pro is wicked fast.
Photo: Apple

Benchmark tests confirm the MacBook Pro released today is as fast as the speedy macOS laptops introduced earlier this year. That’s good news for anyone who’s been nursing along an older MacBook, waiting for this new 16-inch model.

16-inch MacBook Pro surprises: No Wi-Fi 6, 720p webcam, 96W charger

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16-MacBook-Pro
Notebook shipments could fall by as much as 36%.
Photo: Apple

There are some interesting surprises with the 16-inch MacBook Pro that you won’t find in Apple’s press release. So we’ve rounded up the big ones here so you don’t miss anything before buying.

Some of these things are nice surprises. But be warned that others will leave you a little disappointed.

Apple unleashes 16-inch MacBook Pro we’ve all been waiting for

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16-inch-MacBook-Pro
The wait is over.
Photo: Apple

The spectacular new 16-inch MacBook Pro we’ve all been waiting for has arrived. Apple today made “the world’s best pro notebook” official, with a larger Retina display and up to 80% faster performance.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro also introduces a brand-new Magic Keyboard that (hopefully) eliminates the problems some MacBook users suffered in recent years. And it’s on sale today!

This iPhone keychain charger can give you three hours of extra battery life [Deals]

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AtomXS 3+ Hour Emergency Keychain Chargers
Carry a convenient and powerful portable charger right on your keychain.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Power shortages never have good timing, and that’s as true of our personal devices as it is of city blocks. If you’re lucky, or planned ahead, you might find yourself able to plug in when the juice runs dry. But dead batteries have a habit of sneaking up on us, so there’s no such thing as being too prepared. You don’t leave home without your keys, so why should you walk outside without power?

Apple’s powerful Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR coming in December

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President Trump will tour Apple's Mac Pro factory in Texas this week
Sheer power, but at what cost?
Photo: Apple

After unveiling it back in June, Apple today bumped back the launch date for the 2019 Mac Pro. This powerful pro-grade product will be available, alongside the high-end Pro Display XDR screen, sometime in December. Previously, it was scheduled to debut in the fall.

The computer boasts a 28-core processor and room for more than a terabyte of RAM. The Mac Pro starts at $5,999, while the Pro Display XDR begins at $4,999. In other words, you’d better hope you’ve got some generous relatives this holidays!

16-inch MacBook Pro will pack better speakers, noise-canceling mics

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16-inch-MacBook-Pro-keyboard
Are you ready?
Photo: Apple

Apple’s all-new 16-inch MacBook Pro will come packing improved speakers and noise-canceling microphones, according to one reliable source.

The machine, which could also pack the sharpest display Apple has ever put into a MacBook Pro, could make its official debut later today.

Win this sweet accessory pack from the Cult of Mac Store [Giveaway]

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Elago-giveaway
For iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Elago Treat your favorite Apple devices to some of the sweetest accessories money can buy. Our latest giveaway offers up an awesome Elago bundle for iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch.

Three lucky winners will receive a 3-in-1 Charging Hub, an AirPods Wrist Fit, a Premium Silicone case for iPhone 11 and the wonderful W3 stand for Apple Watch.

Enter today to ensure you don’t miss out!

Before the MacBook’s fall: The greatest laptops Apple ever built

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Before the fall of MacBook: The greatest laptops Apple ever built
What's your favorite MacBook of all time?
Photo: Apple

The current MacBook Pro is the worst thing since unsliced bread — at least if you believe my colleague Charlie “glass is half empty” Sorrel. But while people might be happy to dump on Cupertino’s current laptop selection, Apple brought us some amazing laptops in its 40-plus year history.

Here are the inarguable top five Apple laptops of all time.

Dongle-tangling: Use dark chaotic forces and never lose your headphone adapter again

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Dongle-tangling is the hottest thing since AirPods.
Dongle-tangling is the hottest thing since AirPods.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

You know how headphone cables always get tangled? In the past, I have put a cable down carefully, and picked it up just moments later, and the wires have already tied themselves into knots. And you know what else is super-annoying? Apple’s stupid USB-C and Lightning headphone adapters, the kind that you have to use if you want to plug headphones or cables recent into iPads and iPhones.

But what if there was a way to take both these annoyances, and combine them into something … slightly less annoying?!? That would be amazing, obviously. Today we will see how to use the powerful dark force of tangling to stop you from losing your headphone jack dongles.

Why Apple needs outside help to create hit products [Opinion]

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Apple Glasses
Apple may need a little help polishing its glasses
Concept: Taeyeon Kim

Recent rumors suggest that Apple is leaning on another company to help develop its highly anticipated augmented reality headset. At first, I thought that sounded crazy. Apple Glasses look set to be the company’s biggest new product launch since Apple Watch. Surely Cupertino would keep development of something that important in-house?

But when you look back over Apple’s history of joint ventures, it starts to make more sense. Apple tends to partner with third-parties in very specific circumstances — and Cupertino knows exactly what it’s doing.

iOS 13.3 takes another step toward release

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iPadOS 13.3 Developer beta
A second beta of iPadOS 13.3 and the iPhone equivalent just came out.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

The beta process for iOS 13.3 and its iPad equivalent is moving along. Apple just seeded the second beta of each to developers. The final version, when it’s released to the general public, will help parents limit who their kids talk to with a big improvement to Screen Time.

In addition, there are new betas of watchOS 6.1.1 and tvOS 13.3.

Sell your old Apple devices now for bargain Black Friday upgrades

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iPhone 8 iPad Macbook
Cult of Mac can help you get the best price.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Retailers have already started slashing prices on some of Apple’s hottest products ahead of Black Friday. And Cult of Mac can help make your next upgrade even more affordable.

Simply sell your old iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or Mac to us when you upgrade and you’ll receive a fat stack of cash toward its replacement.

We typically pay more than other buyback services and we make the entire process quick and simple. Get your quote today in just a couple of minutes.

How to share an Apple TV+ subscription with your family

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Share Apple TV+
Apple hopes the package will boost subscriber numbers.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Apple TV+ has turned out to be pretty good. Certainly, it’s a lot better than critics claimed. So, you may even want to share the shows with your family. And, thanks to Apple’s Family Sharing, this is not only possible, but easy.

You can all watch different shows at the same time, or you can just enjoy the lazy convenience of catching the latest episode of The Morning Show on whoever’s device is nearest. Let’s see how to share your Apple TV+ subscription with your family.

Apple TV+ exec leaves less than two weeks after launch

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Apple TV
Kim Rozenfeld is no longer a part of Apple's team.
Photo: Apple

Apple TV+ has lost its head of current scripted and unscripted programming less than two weeks after it made its big debut.

Kim Rozenfeld will continue working alongside Cupertino through his own company, Half Full Productions, as part of a new deal. Apple is expected to get first dibs on new content.

Why ‘sexist’ Apple Card is Cupertino’s worst nightmare

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Sexist Apple Card accusations are tech's latest example of biased algorithms
Apple Card was meant to be the solution, not part of the problem.
Photo: Apple

Cupertino pitched Apple Card as the greatest credit card in history. Instead, the card generated negative PR based on accusations that the algorithm used to decide credit limits is discriminatory.

Even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak complained about the supposedly sexist algorithm. Woz said he received 10 times more credit than his wife, despite sharing bank accounts and assets. Here’s how Apple became the latest tech giant to be accused of algorithmic bias — and what that means.

These Go-Tough power accessories will probably outlast your iPhone [Deals]

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Score reinforced Go-Tough power banks and cables to travel-proof power for your devices.
Score reinforced power banks and cables to travel-proof power for your devices.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

We rely on our digital gear for almost every aspect of everyday life, and our devices rely on power. So if there’s a break in the chain, whether a dead battery or a bad cable, it can create a cascade of problems. That’s why we’ve rounded up three of the best super-tough charging accessories from Go-Tough. From rugged batteries to reinforced cables, they can take a licking and keep on … well, charging.

Most importantly, you can rely on them for a constant supply of precious power.