Top stories - page 435

Whenever you click a link in a Google search, it replaces the URL of the site with a tracking URL. If you hover over a link with your mouse before you click it, Safari will show you the full URL of that link. It’s a great way to check where you’re about to get sent. Google plays along with this, showing you the proper URL for the link in question.

Only when you actually click on it, it swaps out that link, replacing it with its own tracking link.

Fortunately, there’s a way to block this sneaky, underhanded and totally unsurprising behavior.

“What’s the point of a foldable phone?” That’s the question the Cult of Mac team was asking when Samsung confirmed its first is coming this year. But after seeing Xiaomi’s impressive foldable phone prototype, I really, really want one.

Check out the teaser video below and try telling me it doesn’t look awesome.

These days the job market demands that we be more flexible than ever. So even if you’re not a graphic designer, you might find yourself needing to create graphics for a website, flier, email blast, or some other bit of content. What do you do?

iPhone sales might be struggling right now, but they could see a surprising boost from … climate change?

Apple believes that the negative impacts of climate change, particularly the increase in natural disasters, will make its smartphone even more vital. It points out a number of reasons where the iPhone can help “in the arena of personal safety.”

Every MacBook Pro since 2016 harbors a hidden design flaw that inevitably will require an expensive repair, according to DIY repair website iFixit.

The problem supposedly lies in “delicate” ribbon cables that connect the screen with the display controller inside the main body of the laptop. Opening and closing the clamshell case eventually causes these to wear out and begin to tear, iFixit says.

The Dynamic Desktop is a great macOS Mojave feature. It changes the desktop image throughout the day, so your wallpaper always matches the time of day — nighttime images at night, shadowless glare at noon, and so on. Today we’ll see how to switch it on, and where to find new Dynamic Desktop images to add to the defaults.

Apple’s next billboard may be in your pocket.

Apple is inviting iPhone photographers around the world to submit their best shots for its next “Shot on iPhone” marketing campaign.

Apple’s iPhone XS Max has one of the best cameras in a smartphone – as long as you’re not pointing it at yourself.

The flagship handset tied the Samsung Galaxy X9 Plus for fourth place in a new set of test protocols from DxOMark Labs, which has tested and ranked digital cameras for 10 years.

For the twelfth year in a row, Fortune has ranked Apple number one in its list of “most admired” companies.

Despite Apple’s iPhone-lead decline in recent months, the publication considers that Apple has beaten the opposition in nine different criteria. These include innovation, people management, use of corporate assets, social responsibility, quality of management, financial soundness, long-term investment value, quality of products and services, and global competitiveness.

With the endless hours of videos out there, it’s easy to fall deep into a YouTube rabbit hole or binge watch an entire season of reality TV on Netflix. But let’s be honest, that’s often not a very enriching experience. So if you need a regular video fix, it might as well be with content worth watching.

Apple plans to use OLED displays in all iPhone versions from 2020, according to a new report.

The flagship iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max already use OLED technology, but the more affordable iPhone XR employs an LCD panel just like its predecessors. A complete switch to OLED will allow for “more flexible handset design,” sources say.

Apple will scrub 3D Touch, the feature that powers Quick Actions and other handy shortcuts, from all 2019 iPhones, according to multiple sources.

The tech, which lets the iPhone tell how hard someone is pressing on its display, will apparently fall victim to Apple’s attempts to lower the price tag of future models.

What happens if you’re working on a document and you realize you screwed it up? Maybe you deleted a few paragraphs without realizing. Or you’ve just been writing a bunch of nonsense for the past half-hour and wish you could go back to where you were before? On the Mac, you can easily do just that. It’s called versions, and it’s automatic.

Using versions, you can easily browse and restore previous versions of any document. Some apps have this built in, so you can do it right there inside the app itself. But the Finder also supports versions, so you can revert to a previous state of almost anything.

How many times have you stared at the same list of stale tasks on your to-do list? I have whole sections that have been there so long they’ve become invisible to me —- just like the sign in by bathroom telling guests to sit down to pee has become invisible to certain of my antisocial visitors.

Now, today’s tip isn’t going to help you to finish off those lingering tasks. You may as well just delete them, because you’re never, ever going to complete them. But it might help you rescue newly added tasks from the same stagnant fate. It’s called the “question mark to-do list trick”, and so far it’s working for me.

Whether you’re making a presentation at work, at school, or just to share cool ideas, slideshows are a critical tool. But they can also be a hassle to create, and with everything else that goes into making a great presentation, slideshows can also feel like a distraction. So it’s nice to have a tool for making the process easier.

This week we enjoy Fastmail’s sleek new look, import photos into Lightroom using Shortcuts, control our Ecobee home-automation accessories from the Apple Watch, and get writing with Goodnotes 5. And that’s not even everything!

The Dodocase Two Tone brings a retro look to iPad or iPad Pro. You could almost write “Trig” on the cover in Magic Marker and feel like you’re in high school again.

And this case is very lightweight while still doing double duty as a stand. There’s even an Apple Pencil holder.

The Dodocase Two Tone is available for a wide range of iOS tablets, including the 2018 iPad Pro models.  Prices start at $64.95.

Some people love the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar. Other people absolutely hate it. Bottom line is that the thin OLED strip can work wonders — if you use it right!

Get our top 40 tips for making the most of the Touch Bar in this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Get it now from iTunes — hey, the price is right! — or keep reading for the week’s best Apple news, reviews and how-tos.

Making your iPad Pro more useful is the theme of a series of short videos released today by Apple. Each takes a common task and briefly shows how it can be tackled with a iOS tablet and Apple Pencil.

There’re suggestions on creating presentations and podcasts, going paperless, and more. Watch all five videos now.

There are plenty of times when you’ll want graphic design tools. Maybe you’re designing a post for social media, or a flier for a show. Or perhaps you’re building a website or just touching up your resume.

With these types of tasks, having good graphic design software is useful. But that doesn’t mean you should shell out a hefty monthly fee.

There are a bunch of reasons to remove the background from a photo. You might just hate the background — a perfect portrait ruined by crowds, or ugly construction work, or both. You may want to remove the background in order to extract the subject — maybe you’re doing some kind of Photoshop trick, or making a greetings card.

Whatever your reasons, it’s easy to do. Removing the background from an image used to be a nightmare. Now, you just need the right app. And if you’re a regular with our Cult of Mac photo how-tos, you probably have that app already.

Apple is named in a complaint filed by a data privacy watchdog group for failing to comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Austrian-based noyb said 10 users tested Apple, along with Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube, by requesting private data that companies hold about users.

The App Store raked in almost twice as much revenue as Google Play in 2018, despite significantly fewer downloads.

Google’s marketplace did enjoy a 27.3 percent rise in gross app revenue year-over-year — a larger rise than Apple’s — but iOS remains the most lucrative platform for developers by far.

Getting in shape takes time and motivation. Whether you’re trying to get fit, lose weight, or train for your next race, having the right tool can help you get the most out of each workout.

For some people, hitting the gym a couple times each week is all they need. For others, they need something to offer that extra push. Aaptiv is the trainer you need, right where it matters most.

If you’re on Instagram, you want more followers. But if you aren’t a paid social media manager, or maybe even if you are, you probably don’t have time to do all the liking, following and commenting that’s required to build a following. So you might as well let this app do it for you.