Want a more defined core? Your Apple Watch can help. Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac
For many guys wanting to get in shape, a chiseled six-pack is the ultimate goal. But achieving that iconic washboard look is not easy. Especially as you get older.
Fortunately, your Apple Watch can help you along the way to achieving a tighter core. Apple’s Health app, Activity app and even the Breathe app have a role to play. Here’s how to get a six-pack with a little help from your iPhone and Apple Watch.
Apple's operations, which Tim Cook headed up, is one of the company's secret weapons. Photo: Apple
This post was going to be part of my new book, Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level, but was cut for length or continuity. Over the next week or so, we will be publishing several more sections that were cut, focusing mostly on geeky details of Apple’s manufacturing operations.
Apple is famous for design and marketing, but a large part of the company’s success is due to the incredibly complex and efficient manufacturing organization Tim Cook masterminded with Steve Jobs.
No matter how beautiful its products are, the company would go nowhere without a world-class manufacturing and distribution operation that can make millions of devices in the utmost secrecy, to the highest possible standards, and deliver them efficiently all over the globe.
It’s an operation unprecedented in the history of industry. When Jobs and Cook started in 1998, Apple was doing $6 billion in business annually. It now does that every 10 days.
Pixelmator Photo should be on every photographer’s iPad. Photo: Nuria Gregori
Pixelmator Photo, a new image-editing app for iPad, gives you tons of tools for tweaking your images. The app lets you apply filters, crop, trim and generally making your photos look great.
In this regard, Pixelmator Photo is like a zillion other photo apps for iOS. What sets it apart are a) the now-expected Pixelmator polish, and b) machine learning that powers pretty much everything.
I’ve taken the app, which launches today, for a quick spin, and it’s pretty great. The photo-editing space is so crowded with great apps, though, that we’re spoiled for choice. How does Pixelmator Photo match up?
Become an expert in Excel data analytics with this massively discounted lesson bundle. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
Any list of the top three best apps for professionals to know is going to include Microsoft Excel. It’s perfect for working with data of all kinds, so it’s a lynchpin for businesses of all kinds and sizes. Here’s a chance to add Excel mastery to your resume for a song.
It's about time the iMac was redesigned. Photo: Apple
Apple is expected to adopt mini LED backlighting technology this year to further improve color gamut, contrast ratio, and high dynamic range in its displays.
A brand new 31.6-inch iMac will be the first machine to offer the new display technology, sources claim. It will then make its way to the iPad and other Apple computers in 2020.
This Lightning cable is built tough, with 5 feet of length for extra flexibility and reach. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
Our mobile devices depend on a single cable for power and data. So it’s a drag that they’re so prone to break and fray. Instead of constantly replacing the standard Lightning cables from Cupertino, here’s your chance to snag one that’s built to stand the test of time.
Huawei launched the Balong 5000 5G modem in January. Photo: Huawei
Apple apparently has another option for 5G modems. Huawei reportedly is willing to provide future iPhones with these chips.
If true, this significantly improves the chances that a 5G iPhone will launch in 2020. Still, there are reasons to question the wisdom of any such deal.
This may be too far gone for a warranty repair. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
iOS 12.2 brought many changes and additions to the iPhone and iPad — four new Animoji (giraffe! boar!), better-quality voice messages — but one handy new feature may go unnoticed unless you know where to look. Now, you can check the expiration date of your iPhone or iPad warranty right there on the device itself.
This video is going to look great on your Micro.blog. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
If you’re sick of YouTube’s ever-shifting terms, or you don’t like how lame Instagram has become, and you just want somewhere to post your videos without interference, then why not post them on your own microblog? Thanks to an update to Micro.blog, you can now do just that, as easily as posting a photo.
Apple is a functional organization, like the army. Photo: Mike McDonald, royalty-free image
This post was going to be part of my new book, Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level, but was cut for length or continuity. Over the next week or so, we will be publishing several more sections that were cut, focusing mostly on geeky details of Apple’s manufacturing operations.
Apple is a functional organization. It’s not organized along business lines, split into divisions like the iPhone division, the Mac division and the Apple TV division, the way, say a company like Ford has the Lincoln division for its luxury cars, a trucks division, a parts division and so on.
Instead, Apple is organized around functions: design, hardware, software, internet services. In this way, Apple operates like the biggest functional organization on the planet: the military.
Look at the size of those cameras! Photo: Macotakara
This year’s iPhone refresh may bring more than just a spec bump.
A new report claims Apple’s flagship devices will get even bigger to accommodate an additional camera sensor and the largest lenses ever in an iPhone. They may also be ever so slightly thicker than their predecessors.
Don’t close your mind to the potential of the folding iPhone. This is just one of many possibilities. Photo: Foldable.News
Deciding now that an folding iPhone is a terrible idea is premature. There just isn’t enough information yet to judge whether any such device is something you’ll want. And it’s betting against Apple’s history of success in areas where others have failed.
While the first foldable devices from other companies have serious flaws, that in no way means any eventual Apple device with a flexible screen will be equally bad. There’s actually plenty of reason to think it won’t.
This week we really have some great apps for you. Photo: Cult of Mac
This week we edit photos with AI using Pixelmator Photo, secure our internet with Cloudflare Warp, and enjoy an AI-picked list of our favorite new podcast episodes with Castro Top Picks. And that’s just the beginning.
Make your old DVDs useful again with this fast, easy converter. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
We’ve all got old DVDs gathering dust, even if we don’t have a DVD player. But that doesn’t make them useless, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t still be able to enjoy them in the age of mobile devices and streaming.
In 1990, Steve Jobs built another highly-automated factory, where robots did almost all of the assembly of NeXT computers. Photo: Terrence McCarthy, used with permission.
This post was going to be part of my new book, Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level, but was cut for length or continuity. Over the next week or so, we will be publishing several more sections that were cut, focusing mostly on Apple’s manufacturing operations.
This is Part 2 of a two-part section on Apple’s misadventures in manufacturing. Part I is here.
Steve Jobs carried his dream of end-to-end control over manufacturing to NeXT, the company that Jobs founded after being booted out of Apple in 1985. It was here that he learned a tough lesson about manufacturing: that sometimes it’s more trouble than it is worth. Or, perhaps more kindly, that great manufacturing capabilities mean nothing if you don’t have a product people want to buy.
No, pounding your keyboard in rage is not the answer. Cover: Graham Bower and Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
Apple admits that some people experience serious MacBook keyboard problems. So, what are you going to do about it? We’ve got a theory about what might be causing the failures, as well as some tips that could help you deal with stuck MacBook keys (and maybe avoid them altogether).
Even if you don’t have one of the problematic MacBooks, grab this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine for iOS. You’ll get a handful of other helpful how-tos for anybody in the Apple ecosystem. Plus, an AirPower postmortem, the latest iPhone rumors, reviews of various Apple accessories and more.
Download the free app now, or hit the links below to read the week’s best stories in your browser. And don’t miss your last chance to enter to win a free copy of iMazing.
Steve Jobs built a highly automated Macintosh plant grandly called the "factory of the future." Photo: Apple Maps
This post was going to be part of my new book, Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level, but was cut for length. Over the next week or so, we will be publishing several more sections that were cut, focusing mostly on Apple’s manufacturing operations.
Steve Jobs always had a deep fascination with automated factories. He was first exposed to them during a trip to Japan in 1983. At the time, Apple had just created a new floppy disk drive called Twiggy. During a visit to Apple’s factory in San Jose, however, Jobs became irate when he discovered the high failure rate of Twiggy drives Apple was producing. More than half of them were rejected. Jobs threatened to fire everyone who worked at the factory
iTunes has been a pain in the ass for way too long. Photo: Apple
The death of iTunes might finally be on the horizon. Or, at least, the downsizing of iTunes certainly seems to be.
iOS developer Steve Troughton-Smith revealed today that he unearthed evidence about Apple’s plans to make separate apps for Music, Podcasts and Books. iTunes slowly morphed into a bloated beast over the last decade, so paring down the app would be welcomed by Mac users. But Troughton-Smith warns not to get your hopes up too high just yet.
The Braven BRV-105 is as active as you are. It’s up for biking, sailing... you name it. Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
The Braven BRV-105 can go anywhere and survive whatever you can. This palm-size speaker is waterproof and rugged without being too bulky. Attach it to your bike or belt and listen to music wherever you go without headphones.
We fully tested this Bluetooth accessory, so don’t miss our review.
Photos app is usually pretty good at recognizing people. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
The Photos app’s Faces feature is fantastic. It does a pretty good job of gathering all the pictures of a person together, for both browsing and search. And it’s really easy to add new faces to the list. But what about managing those faces? What if the Photos app’s AI added some photos of a stranger into the photos of your husband?
It’s easy to tell your iPhone or iPad that a photo does not contain the person it thinks it does. Unfortunately, it’s a real pain to find the setting you need to tweak.
Apple Music beat its biggest rival in the U.S. Photo: Apple
More Americans pay to listen to Apple Music than Spotify. The Swedish company had been ahead since the iPhone maker got into the streaming music business back in 2015, but Apple finally closed the gap. And its growth is continuing to outpace its rival in the US.
Spotify still has many more paid subscribers globally, however.,
Anecdotally, pretty much every MacBook owner I know has experienced keys sticking or repeating at one time or another. But occasionally I meet someone who seems blessed with a faultless MacBook keyboard. And Apple claims the problem only affects a small number of MacBook users.
So what is going on? I have a theory — and a tip that might keep your MacBook’s keyboard from crapping out if it hasn’t already.
Qualcomm is still prepared to supply Apple with 5G modems for a future iPhone — despite an ongoing legal battle between the two companies.
Reports have indicated Apple may be struggling to secure 5G modems from Intel and other vendors for a 2020 refresh. But Qualcomm president Cristiano Amon says, “if they call, we’ll support them.”