News - page 12

In a market where premium displays often command premium prices, Asus just made waves with its new ProArt Display PA27JCV, launching at an eye-catching $799 price point. The 27-inch 5K monitor aims to challenge the status quo of high-end displays. But Mac users should weigh its advantages against its limitations.

“Build quality is what you’d expect; it’s plastic, it creaks and wobbles, but the panel is super bright and crisp,” said Cult of Mac writer D. Griffin Jones, who acquired the monitor and plans to review it soon.

Impressive screen at a low price

Asus ProArt PA27JCV 5K 27-inch display

$799.00

Pros:

• 5K Retina resolution
• Big 27-inch display
• Bright, vivid colors with P3 wide color

Cons:

• Creaky plastic body
• No built-in camera or speakers
• 60 Hz refresh rate

Buy from Amazon

We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

01/17/2025 03:58 am GMT

These days, folks who use their computer setups to work on media, especially video, tend to rely on some sort of studio controller to streamline workflow. Today’s MacBook Pro user and YouTube video maker takes advantage of one of the top products out there, Elgato Stream Deck. Now the company is on its newer MK.2 edition. The device gives you 15 customizable keys to control all sort of actions in your workflow, including launching apps, posting to social media, adjusting lights and audio, and more.

iOS 18.2 could introduce a new feature that would tell how long your iPhone will take to charge. As of now, iPhones only show the battery percentage while charging and little else.

Almost all Android phones show the remaining time for a full charge on the lock screen when topping up their battery wired or wirelessly.

There’s nothing more crucial to healthy living than clean water. One of the best ways to ensure you have it at home is to use a robust, high-capacity water filtration system like the Viomi Vortex 8 reverse osmosis water purifier. And not only will your water be clean with the Viomi V8 — it will be tasty and extra-healthy because it’s mineral-enhanced.

In a launch day special on Kickstarter, you can get the Viomi V8 for just $299 ($349 with extra filter). That’s 42% off an advanced water-purification system that will produce four years of clean water, so you can stop wasting money on bottled water.

The espresso Display 15, an ultra-thin 15-inch monitor, launched Tuesday. It boasts an aerospace aluminum casing, not the usual plastic, but a lower price than previous high-end portable displays from this company. It gets power and data from a MacBook or iPad via a single USB-C connection.

It’s paired with Stand+, an ergonomic stand with a surprising trick.

Apple is allegedly working on a 90Hz display for the next-gen iPad Air, 24-inch iMac, and the Studio Display. All these devices currently sport a 60Hz panel.

The 90Hz screen will apparently debut on the M3 iPad Air before making its way to other devices.

iPad shipments grew only slightly last quarter, according to a market research firm, despite the release of new high-end and mid-range tablets in the spring. The lack of a new entry-level tablet from Apple significantly affected the shipment total.

Still, Apple itself showed a larger year-over-year bump in revenue during the third quarter of 2024 from this class of computer.

According to a reputed Apple analyst, Apple’s cheaper Vision might only arrive after 2027. This contradicts recent reports of the AR/VR headset launching in 2025.

Instead, Apple will seemingly launch an upgraded Vision Pro with an M5 chip in 2025.

Apple apparently plans to release iOS 18.2 in early December, introducing several new Apple Intelligence features to the iPhone.

Apple’s next major MacBook Pro design refresh reportedly will arrive in 2026. It will apparently feature a new display technology and a 2nm M6 chip.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: After a whirlwind week of M4 Mac releases, we weigh up the pros (tons) and cons (very few). Mostly it’s a lovefest as we talk about the new M4 Mac mini, iMac and MacBook Pros.

Also on The CultCast:

• What’s up with Apple putting the new Mac mini power button on the bottom? (Luckily, the internet has some “fixes.”)
• Apple surprised us by upgrading the RAM on M2 and M3 MacBook Airs — without raising the prices!
• We wrap up with a discussion of what new Apple gear we ordered after this week’s Mac-o-rama.

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.

Apple will fix iPhone 14 Plus models with a camera problem for free through a service program that launched Friday. The company says the “rear camera on a very small percentage of iPhone 14 Plus devices may exhibit no preview.”

Anybody care for a big taste of Silo season 2 ahead of the hit sci-fi series’ November 15 air date on Apple TV+? The streamer dropped a “sneak peak” Friday of the show’s new season — literally the first five minutes of episode one. Outside the silo in which countless generations have lived, main character Juliette not only explores the hellscape that supposedly will kill her, but sees ominous signs of what came (way) before. We get a major flashback.

“Watch the first 5 minutes of Silo Season 2,” the YouTube page says. “Juliette lives.” So yeah, she’s not dead. At least not yet.

The developer of the Pixelmator family of image-editing applications for Mac, iPad, and iPhone announced Friday that the company has been acquired by Apple.

The move leaves the many fans of the apps nervous about the fate of the software.

The new mophie Juice Pack specifically for the iPhone 16 series merges a power bank into a form-fitting protective case. Put Apple’s latest handsets in the case to greatly extend the battery life and add 6 feet of drop protection.

External magnets allow the case to attach to other MagSafe/Qi2 accessories, like car mounts.

Early Geekbench 6 benchmarks show Apple’s new M4 Pro and M4 Max chips deliver major performance improvements for Macs. Most surprisingly, the M4 Pro chip outperforms even the previously top-tier M2 Ultra chip in multi-core performance, despite having fewer CPU cores. And the higher-end M4 Max proves even more impressive, of course.

So if you’re on the fence about upgrading to a Mac with either of these chips, these results should encourage you.

Apple pays Globalstar to provide the satellites needed for the iPhone’s Messages via satellite service, and an updated agreement between the two companies includes a $1.1 billion payment for the infrastructure.

Clearly, this is an iPhone feature that’ll be available for years to come.

Apple might switch to in-house Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips starting with next year’s iPhone 17. The company plans to fully transition to its custom Wi-Fi chips within three years after that.

Broadcom currently supplies Apple with more than 300 million Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modules yearly for its products.

In an indication that iPhone users are eager to try out Apple Intelligence, the iOS 18.1 install rate is twice as high as iOS 17.1 was a year ago, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

The AI features in iOS 18.1 provide a big impetus for people to update their iPhones, Cook said Thursday during a quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts.

Apple on Thursday announced record total revenue for the September 2024 quarter. The Mac-maker took in $94.9 billion, a 6% increase over the same quarter a year ago. Much of the increase can be pegged to sales of the iPhone, by far Apple’s largest product. Revenue from iOS devices grew 6%.

“Our record business performance during the September quarter drove nearly $27 billion in operating cash flow, allowing us to return over $29 billion to our shareholders,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO, in a statement. Apple’s board of directors declared a cash dividend of $0.25 per share of Apple common stock.

“Ghost jobs,” or job postings for positions that aren’t actually open, have become a widespread concern in today’s job market, particularly for recently laid-off workers in industries like technology, according to a scary new report (that just happens to fall on Halloween, bwah ha ha). And, no joke, it likens the phenomenon of ghost listings to “psychological warfare.”

Monday’s launch of a 24-inch iMac renewed calls for a 27-inch version. While this is a product Apple made before, there are multiple reasons why it hasn’t come back and almost certainly isn’t going to.

I’m not arguing that an extra-large all-in-one desktop is a bad device, but it does have at least one serious drawback. And it’s also apparently weak in a critical area. Plus there’s one more reason that’s hard to argue with.

Right after Apple unveiled the redesigned M4 Mac mini on Tuesday, people noticed the power button’s odd placement — on the bottom of the tiny but potent machine! The design provides precious little room for a fleshy finger to reach without tipping the whole computer to get at it. Since then, a variety of “fixes” have poked fun at this perceived error, which is most likely a very intentional Apple design choice.

Check out some of the best “Buttongate” fixes below.

Wall Street analysts think the financial results Apple will announce Thursday will include record revenue for the quarter. They also expect year-over-year growth in iPhone revenue.

Their optimism helps explain the AAPL share price, which is high enough to make the Mac-maker the world’s most valuable publicly traded company.

When companies talk about quarterly earnings, executives often deploy language designed to puff up, excuse or obfuscate their companies’ recent performance. The goal is to excite investors over implied future success. And ultimately to give the company more money. Always. More. Money. The Apple quarterly earnings call takes place Thursday afternoon.

But when you’re the iPhone giant — with a mind-blowing market cap and a seemingly never-ending supply of hit products, including ongoing growth in services — you typically don’t need to craft hopeful-yet-non-material statements or deflect questions designed to get at the true bottom line.

So CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri will report on all the numbers (likely Maestri’s last time on the call as CFO, as he steps down January 1, 2025). Analysts predict a healthy jump in revenue in the quarter quarter, from $89.5 billion in Q3 to as much as about $94.5 billion. Note that Apple counts the period as Q4 because it starts its fiscal year with Q1 in the previous year’s holiday season.