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Despite Apple’s denials, it’s “highly plausible” that secret spy chips could have been planted on the company’s servers, said a former Apple hardware engineer.

Anna-Katrina Shedletsky, who spent nearly six years at Apple helping build several generations of iPod, iPhone and Apple Watch, said spy chips could have been slipped into the design of servers used for Apple’s iCloud services, as alleged in a Bloomberg Businessweek story.

“With my knowledge of hardware design, it’s entirely plausible to me,” she said. “It’s very highly plausible to me, and that’s scary if you think about it.”

Update: Apple and Amazon both issued lengthy statements Thursday concerning the Chinese spy chip allegations. We updated this post to include those statements.

Apple denies that Chinese spy chips infiltrated its iCloud server hardware after claims that motherboards used by Apple, Amazon and dozens of other tech companies contained microchips used for surveillance purposes.

Cupertino insists the story is “wrong and misinformed.” Apple also says Chinese spying had nothing to do with the company’s decision to cut ties with a supplier.

You almost certainly know the shortcuts for snapping quick screenshots on your Mac. It’s ⇧⌘3 to capture the entire screen, and ⇧⌘4 to get a crosshairs cursor to select a section of the screen.

Now, there’s a new screenshot shortcut in town: ⇧⌘5. And boy is this fella fancy. If this were a western movie, ⇧⌘5 would be the young upstart blowing into town with a couple of Uzis and a pair of Kevlar chaps¹. Let’s check out Mojave screenshots.

If you use Apple’s magnificent GarageBand for iOS, you will come up against one frustration over and over again — exporting stems. Or rather, not exporting stems. “Stems” is a cool music-producer term for the individual tracks in a song, and it is common practice to export them separately to either edit them in another app or send them to other people.

GarageBand on iOS doesn’t do this. It’s inexplicable. But there’s a fast and easy way to grab the stems right from your GarageBand project. You just need a copy of the magnificent AudioShare app, which costs just $3.99. Here’s how to export GarageBand stems.

For all their many uses, let’s face it: our smartphones are a major source of distraction. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, with the right app, your phone can actually help you regain focus and reduce stress.

The iPhone XS and XS Max debuted last month, and some versions sold out almost immediately. But that doesn’t automatically mean they’re a huge hit. Still there’s new evideance that sales are strong.

Drawing on data compiled from over 1 million mobile apps, an analyst says that, during the first week they were available, Apple’s XS series outsold last year’s iPhone 8 and 8 Plus by 45 percent.

With our 50 Essential iOS Apps series, the goal was to help you find some of the best apps for iPhone and iPad. Picking the finest offerings from the more than 2.2 million iOS apps in Apple’s App Store proved challenging. But we highlighted apps that offer excellent features or make life easier in various ways.

To wrap up the series, we’ve sorted the apps by category to make the list easier to browse. We’re also showcasing Cult of Mac readers’ alternatives to our picks.

(You’ll find reader faves linked at the end of this post. That’s especially helpful since one of our must-have apps is about to die an unceremonious death.)

The iPhone XS Max camera is one of the best mobile cameras ever tested by the digital camera testing lab DxOMark. It’s just not as good as Huawei’s triple-camera P20 Pro, the tests show.

The XS Max scored a 105, four points less than the flagship of its Chinese competitor, a result only wonky photophiles are likely to debate ad nauseam.

Apple isn’t wasting time getting out the next versions of all its operating systems. Yesterday, it introduced fresh betas of iOS 12.1, macOS 10.14.1, and tvOS 12.1 just for developers, and today these are all available to the general public.

This is the second round of betas of all this pre-release software. It comes two weeks after the initial round.

Each new iPhone and its ever-improving camera tends to stir up talk about the demise of the DSLR.

Yet, there are just some key features of a conventional camera’s form factor that relegates the iPhone to the casual camera category.

But the photography accessories company miggö has developed – and now improved – a nifty attachment dubbed Pictar tp bring DSLR-like speed and ergonomics to the iPhone.

Buying an LG display from Apple is becoming more and more difficult. Availability of the UltraFine 5K model is shrinking at Apple Stores around the world. It could indicate that Apple’s new desktop display is finally on the way.

iTunes isn’t always your best friend. When it comes to managing mobile data and backups, you can do better. Luckily, there’s a straightforward iTunes alternative — iMazing.

Our own Leander Kahney calls it “the best way to transfer to a new iPhone,” but this powerful tool can do much more than ease you into your new iPhone XS or XR. And now Cult of Mac Deals is selling iMazing 2 for a whopping 75 percent off.

The Apple Store app has been updated to support Siri Shortcuts. It provides shoppers with an “even faster way” to preorder the iPhone XR later this month, Apple says. Here’s what you need to do to get everything set up before October 19.

Some, but not all, iOS 12 users complain their iPhone or iPad won’t begin charging if it’s in sleep mode when a Lightning cable is plugged in. Apple has introduced a beta of iOS 12.1 that appears to fix this problem.

The new S4 chip in the Apple Watch Series 4 is an absolute beast when it comes to processing power.

Apple didn’t brag too much about the S4 during its September keynote other than saying the chip is two times faster than last year’s model. There aren’t any benchmark scores for it. However, a developer recently put the S4 through some serious tests — and the results are insanely impressive

Apple is plugging away at updates for all its operating systems, and just came out with no less than four new betas exclusively for developers. These are the second pre-release versions of iOS 12.1, macOS 10.14.1, watchOS 5.1, and tvOS 12.1.

In a somewhat unusual circumstance, the highlight of three of these disparate updates is the same feature: Group FaceTime.  

Instead of waiting for the yet-to-be-determined release date of Apple’s AirPower charging mat to fire up your iPhone and Apple Watch simultaneously, consider the HiRise Duet charging stand.

This luxury charging stand is fully compatible with all versions of Apple Watch (including Series 4) and all of the latest iPhones including XS, XS Max and XR. Best yet, this gorgeous stand is on sale in Cult of Mac’s Watch Store.

In this day and age, if you don’t have cloud storage, what are you even doing? It’s an easy way to back up your most important files and keep them accessible anywhere.

Nyloon makes one of the best nylon NATO Apple Watch bands out there, and now offers a brand-new unboxing experience. Your shiny new Series 4 deserves a band made with really high-grade materials and hardware — Nyloon is that band.

First impressions are so crucial, especially when cold hard cash is involved. That’s why I love that Nyloon has such sleek and streamlined packaging, a nod to the high-quality Apple Watch band nestled inside. Cult of Mac takes a look inside the box for the Moai — Nyloon’s best-selling band. Let’s check it out.

Apple Pay Cash could be ready to make its debut in Europe.

Screens invited users to set up Apple’s peer-to-peer payments service have started popping up on devices on the other side of the Atlantic this week. Apple has also started publishing Apple Pay Cash support pages in European countries.

We know and love Ullu’s leather straps for Apple Watch, so much so that they are best-sellers in Cult of Mac’s Watch Store. The company’s bread and butter, however, is its popular iPhone cases.

Check out any of Ullu’s social media and you’ll witness tons of A-listers toting around their various iPhones in Ullu’s luxurious cases. From wallet and strappy to Ullu’s famous SnapOn and dual-iPhone cases, there’s a chic option for everyone.

Last year, Samsung’s smartphones offered significantly faster cellular-data speeds than Apple’s, but a new study shows that the iPhone XS LTE performance almost catches up with its rivals’.

Apple’s latest flagship handsets include some long-overdue technologies that give them noticeably quicker LTE connections.

At its huge press event last month, Apple took the wraps off the iPhone XS, XR and Apple Watch Series 4. But we don’t think that’s everything the company is going to unveil this season.

Here are five good reasons why we think Apple will hold another press event in October to show us new tablets, laptops and desktops.

Apple Watch is pretty awesome at doing a lot of things. But mapping workouts isn’t one of them. At least, not until now. Back in 2016, I was pretty disappointed with the maps I got from my Apple Watch Series 2 (the first model that came with built-in GPS). When I tested it at my local running track, the maps it generated looked like random scribbles.

Fast-forward to today, and things look a whole lot better. Last week, I repeated that test with a shiny new Apple Watch Series 4 and got some very interesting results.

For many people, the new “For You” tab in Apple’s Photos app could become the default front page for their pictures. The new feature in iOS 12 gathers everything you care about — recent pictures, sharing activity, memories and something called “Featured Photos” — into one convenient spot.

Let’s check out the Photos For You tab and see what you can do with it.