Apple’s super-sized iPad Pro is one step closer to going on sale after securing the approval of the Federal Communications Commission. Both the Wi-Fi and LTE-equipped options were given the green light this week.
All three of Apple’s productivity apps just came out of beta on iCloud.com, and Apple’s also updated all of them for both iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan. There’s a host of improvements and fixes both large and small for each app on each platform.
All the full specifications are over at Apple’s productivity suite landing page, but here are ten of the best improvements for this long-running, venerable suite of word processing, presentation, and spreadsheet apps from our favorite Cupertino-based company.
It’s with great sadness that I heard about the passing of Gary Allen this morning. I met Gary several times over the years and called and corresponded with him many times. He ran IFOAppleStore.com, by far the best website about Apple’s incredible chain of retail stores, a topic that proved a rich hunting ground, given its size, influence and global reach. Gary had an encyclopedic knowledge of Apple’s stores and his site — now sadly offline — was an incredible resource.
Gary was also known for traveling all over the word to attend store openings, often camping out the night before. He visited London, Paris, Tokyo, Istanbul, Beijing and many, many other cities. Some saw this as eccentric, but the point was not the store opening itself, but the chance to socialize with a bunch of like-minded people. To get some idea of his devotion to his hobby, check out his Twitter and Flickr feeds, still online and full of pictures from his travels.
I wrote a profile of Gary a few years ago that is now also offline, so I’m resurrecting it below.
iPhone users who have been suffering from worse battery life since upgrading to iOS 9 may want to try deleting Facebook’s iOS app.
The social network confirmed reports that surfaced earlier this week claiming the iOS app uses a heavy amount of resources in the background to run processes. The big problem with the battery drain is that it occurs even if iPhone owners have background app refresh disabled. It’s actually worse with the setting turned off. because Facebook is sneakily creating channels to continue refreshing its app in the background, even when users tell it not to.
Apple lost its biggest fan ever this week. Gary Allen, creator of the beloved ifo Apple Store blog, died Sunday at the age of 67 after battling brain cancer.
Allen was one of the most respected voices in the Apple community when it came to the company’s retail presence worldwide, and often made long trips to Apple Store openings across the globe. He attended more than 140 openings, and knew more about Apple Stores than any other outsider — insight he gladly shared with fans on his now-defunct blog.
I have a gadget-friendly family. We’ve all got an iPhone, a few of us have iPads, and I’ve got an Apple Watch. All of these devices require charging, and all of them need a place to hang out when they’re not being used.
The AllDock is a gorgeous wooden universal charging station that lets me store and charge all the family devices in one location with ease, making it simple to grab any device and use it at a moment’s notice.
Like any skill or discipline, being effective at getting projects done is something that can be learned and refined. This certified course in project management by the Management and Strategy Institute focuses on lean process and project management. It’s basically a master course in keeping any operation efficient and nimble, an invaluable perspective that’s just $49.99.
Apple Watch has a thing for style. Your wrist is the perfect spot for a subtle yet effective statement en la moda.
Apple-centric accessories brand ullu answers the call for tangible luxury with a line of fine-leather bands for Apple Watch. On some bands, the word fine understates what is actually exotic.
Peruse ullu’s collection of colorful, exotic bands in our Watch Store.
Apple today announced it is expanding its ResearchKit health platform to include new studies on autism, epilepsy and melanoma.
Apple will work with leading universities and research centers including Duke University, John Hopkins, and Oregon Health & Science University.
“We’re honored to work with world-class medical institutions and provide them with tools to better understand diseases and ultimately help people lead healthier lives,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations.
Apple is ramping up the prices for its entire Mac lineup in seven countries around the world — but don’t blame Cupertino!
August, the smart-home accessories manufacturer out of San Francisco, unveiled its latest vision for the connected home today by expanding its product lineup to include a new Doorbell Cam that can automatically detect when visitors arrive at your door, as well as a new Smart Keypad for people who don’t have a smartphone to unlock your door.
The two new devices are accompanied by a second-generation August Smartlock that maintains the same industrial design that made the first model popular, but adds a new Broadcom chip and comes with voice support for iOS users.
Here’s a demo of the new lock, camera, and keypad:
Stress is making our heads a scattered mess and among some of the many suggested remedies is forcing ourselves to unplug from our devices. But one idea actually assigns meditative properties to our iPhones.
A new app simply called Pause use interactive graphics and soothing sounds to concentrate the mind on the present with the goal of providing relaxation and renewed focus. The app invites the user to place a finger on a slowly pulsating splotch of color and follow it as it moves slowly on screen, rewarding you with pleasant sounds, like chirping birds.
Beats 1 DJ Anna Lunoe revealed some details about how she got picked for her weekly gig before Apple Music had even been announced. Zane Lowe was apparently so impressed with her earlier work that he gave her complete freedom over what she wanted to do for the show.
Known for her house and electronic mixes, Lunoe aptly plays an eclectic collection of dance music during her slot every Friday night at 9 p.m. Pacific time or 12 a.m. Saturday Eastern time.
iOS 9’s new Wi-Fi Assist feature might have you accidentally burning through your data plan, so to clear up any confunsion about the new iPhone feature that switches you over to LTE speeds when a Wi-Fi network is weak, Apple has released a new support document detailing exactly how and when Wi-Fi Assist should work.
Siri can be silently put to work against you, thanks to a new hack discovered by French security researchers that allows attackers to transmit orders to the digital assistant via a radio.
The hack also works on Google Now and utilizes the headphone cord as an antenna to convert electromagnetic waves into signals that register in iOS and Android as audio coming from the microphone. José Lopes Esteves and Chaouki Kasmie — the two French researchers that discovered the hack — wrote in their paper that hackers could use the attack to get Siri and Google Now to send the phone’s browser to a malware site, or send spam and phishing messages to friends.
“The sky is the limit here,” says Vincent Strubel, the director of their research group at ANSSI. “Everything you can do through the voice interface you can do remotely and discreetly through electromagnetic waves.”
Facebook’s algorithmic nostalgia is all well and good — until it starts pulling up the worst memories you’ve shared. Not everyone wants to be reminded of these awful memories.
Introduced this past March, “On This Day” is a Facebook feature that lets you re-share important digital memories from one year ago. Now you can keep specific people and/or dates from appearing in your feed, thanks to a pair of filters introduced on the social network.
Here’s how to make sure your worst memories aren’t surfaced by Facebook.
Anyone who writes on a computer knows the mental juggling routine involved in keeping track of research, notes, drafts and edits. Scrivener 2 offers a way to consolidate the whole process in one place, making for a much more efficient and less time consuming writing process. The award-winning app has also been a hit with Cult of Mac readers, who now have an extra few hours to get a copy of Scrivener 2 for $19.50.
Now that Apple Music’s three-month free trial is over and done with, Apple is stepping up its efforts to make sure (paying) customers are happy with the service they are receiving.
One way it is doing this is with a newly-launched Twitter account @AppleMusicHelp which, you guessed it, offers Apple Music help to anyone with a query.
Apple’s new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus may be packing its best iSight camera yet, but it’s not good enough to topple the latest Android devices.
In DxOMark’s expert camera tests, Apple’s latest smartphones achieve a score of 82, which is five points less than the current mobile leader, Sony’s Xperia Z5.
The Zagg Pocket Keyboard is for anyone desperate to carry the bare minimum. Well, the bare minimum would be to skip the keyboard altogether, but if you are looking for the convenience of an external keyboard without the hassle of carrying one, look no further.
Quick – how often do you check your iPhone when you’re around other people? When you’re out dining? At home on the couch, maybe watching TV? At the bar? At parties?
If you’re anything like the rest of us, the answer is somewhere between “often” and “far too often.”
Photographer Eric Pickersgill noticed this phenomenon while sitting at a cafe one morning and decided to make some art about it. He calls the project Removed.
When I lose track of my mouse cursor, I’ve always just wiggled it a bit to find it on the screen. It’s a natural gesture, and Apple’s capitalized on it with its new “shake to find” feature in El Capitan.
If you’re constantly shaking your mouse or swiping quickly on your mousepad, maybe while gaming or editing, the new feature might bug you.
Here’s how to turn it off (and turn it back on again if you want to).
When it comes to specifications, Apple’s latest iPhones look like they’re lagging far behind their Android-powered rivals. But thanks to super-efficient software, they’re not as slow and as outdated as they might look on paper.
This is demonstrated in the real-world speed test below, in which the iPhone 6s Plus somehow batters a Galaxy Note 5.
Apple’s new Magic Mouse 2 has some new tricks up its sleeve, but according to a behind-the-scenes look into Apple’s Input Design Lab, perfecting the new eco-friendly mouse with a gliding sound that was just right wasn’t as easy as a click.
The top-secret laboratory where Apple designs its Macintosh accessories opened its doors before today’s product launches, revealing all the insane details Cupertino’s hardware wizards obsessed over in the new iMac, Magic Mouse 2, Magic Trackpad 2 and Magic Keyboard.
Everything from the chemicals used in the smaller iMac’s new 4K displays to the size of the keys on the new keyboard got mercilessly scrutinized.
So a good Halloween costume idea is not coming to you. Steve and Marianne Wintercroft can get you started with an alluring mask.
The British design couple has made a company out of designing masks that the buyers build themselves. For a few bucks, you can download a template of a polygon constructed animal head that you print, cut and assemble.