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Parker Ortolani

parkerortolani

Parker Ortolani is a marketing strategist and product designer based in New York. In addition to contributing to 9to5mac, he is the Associate Director of Product Development at Penske Media. Previously, Parker worked on The Verge and Polygon at Vox Media and spent many years cultivating a consumer products program at BuzzFeed. A longtime reader, Parker is excited to share his product concepts and thoughts with the 9to5mac audience.

Follow him on X @parkerortolani or on Bluesky @parkerortolani.com

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Apple partners with James Bond for new documentary: ‘The Sound of 007’ coming in 2022

Apple has announced a new documentary called “The Sound of 007” focused on the “remarkable history of six decades of James Bond music.” The documentary is slated to be released in October 2022 to mark 60 years of James Bond. “The Sound of 007” will be exclusive to Apple TV+ and comes on the heels of their success in the documentary category.

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Apple shares special claymation Ted Lasso holiday short on TV+ and YouTube

Apple has just shared an adorable claymation holiday short for their hit show Ted Lasso on Apple TV+ and YouTube. The short is titled “Ted Lasso – The Missing Christmas Mustache” and is free for anyone to watch. It features voice work from the main cast including Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham, Jeremy Swift, Phil Dunster, Brett Goldstein, Nick Mohammed, Juno Temple, and Brendan Hunt.

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How to use focus modes to put a heart, smiley face, fire symbol, and more in your iPhone’s status bar

There’s a new iPhone customization trend where users are using Apple’s new focus modes to put an icon of their choice in their status bar. One of the core features of focus is the ability to set a specific icon for identifying when you have a particular mode enabled. Focus modes can be complicated to set up, but if you just want to show a fun icon in your status bar, it’s fairly simple.

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Apple Music critic catches Tim Cook’s attention with email over app feedback

A longtime Apple fan has posted a story on Reddit alleging that they received a call from Apple CEO Tim Cook’s office over some Apple Music app feedback that they emailed to him. The user goes by the name of heyyoudvd on the platform and their story is quite intriguing. Normally, we’d raise our eyebrows and not think much of any sort of post like this. But the user goes into so much detail and provides an overview of all of the feedback that they sent to Cook via email.

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Comment: Will Universal Control meet the same fate as AirPower?

macOS Monterey’s headline feature, Universal Control, was originally slated to launch nearly two months ago. Craig Federighi gave a mesmerizing demo of the feature at WWDC over the summer and to the viewer’s eye, it appeared nearly ready to go – it was seamless. But we quickly learned that behind the scenes, that wasn’t necessarily the case. Now here we are, six months after the formal introduction of macOS Monterey and Universal Control is still nowhere to be found. What’s going on?

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Here’s how to play Halo Infinite on your iPhone or iPad with Xbox Game Pass

The much-anticipated sixth entry in the mainline Halo series titled Halo Infinite on Xbox has finally landed, and you may be wondering if you can play it on your iPhone or iPad. Good news! You can, and it’s extremely easy to get set up. To play Halo Infinite on your iOS device, you’ll need an Xbox game pass subscription that costs $14.99/month and requires a decent internet connection.

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9to5Mac’s polishing cloth cleans your Apple devices for a quarter of the price of Apple’s

You might’ve heard that 9to5Mac recently launched a merch store. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you should do so right now. We’ve got tons of really cool apparel designs, stickers, and yes a polishing cloth. Our polishing cloth is bright blue and features our iconic clock logo in the lower right corner. It also doesn’t break the bank and only costs $5, a quarter of Apple’s extremely hard to obtain cloth.

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Apple renews ‘Mammoth’ trademark, hinting at potential name for macOS 13

macOS 13 Mammoth

Apple was recently granted a trademark extension for the name “Mammoth” in the computer operating system category, hinting at a possible name for next year’s release of macOS. The trademark extension was approved on November 16 according to filings. Apple’s “Mammoth” trademark is owned by the shell corporation Yosemite Research LLC.

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µBrowser is a new web browser for Apple Watch that’s surprisingly great

One Apple app that’s been missing from the Apple Watch is Safari. It shouldn’t be too surprising that Apple has chosen to omit it from such a small device, but now that the displays are significantly larger, it’s time for them to reconsider. A few years ago, Apple added the ability for apps to show web views if a link was tapped. But there’s been little to no movement on expanding that functionality. µBrowser is a new app that attempts to change that.

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Introducing the 9to5Mac Merch Store: shirts, sweatshirts, polishing cloths, and stickers now available

Yes, you read that correctly. We’ve finally done it. 9to5Mac merch is here, just in time for the holidays. We’ve carefully curated a collection of items that will be available exclusively on Cotton Bureau starting today. These products will make wonderful gifts for the Apple fan in your life, and there’s no harm in also treating yourself. By buying 9to5Mac merch, you’re supporting the great work our team does every day.

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Concept: What might Google’s iOS apps look like with native UI components?

In October, Google announced that they were going to eventually move their iOS apps away from Material Design and introduce more native-looking user interfaces. While we still haven’t gotten a glimpse at what some of the most used apps on the planet may look like built with native UIKit components, I thought it’d be cool to draw up some concepts and imagine what they might entail.

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9to5Mac Don’t-Gift Guide: Obscure Apple products sure to get a reaction from your loved ones

There are plenty of folks out there authoring gift guides of the best Apple products to buy this holiday season. But no one is recommending these gems. We’ve compiled a list of some lesser known Apple products that will truly change the life of the loved one you give them to. Without further a due, let’s dive in.

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Concept: AirPods have outgrown the Bluetooth menu, they deserve their own app

One of the main draws of AirPods has always been their ability to essentially be invisible, both to the user and to people around them. When they were first introduced they had two features, the ability to play music and the ability to talk to Siri with a tap. But over the past five years, Apple has added new features both through hardware revisions and in software updates that have us wondering if AirPods deserve their own companion app on iPhone. Here’s what we think it should look like.

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Opinion: Why are wired EarPods making a seemingly bizarre comeback in an AirPods-filled world?

When the Wall Street Journal published its post the other day declaring that wired EarPods were back in style, I wasn’t even remotely surprised. In fact, I’ve always thought it was inevitable that once AirPods were fully democratized, younger generations would find them to be uncool. We’ve seen it happen time and time again with other technologies, the most popular reference being to Facebook and its now much older demographic. So yes, wired earbuds are trendy again. But what does that mean for the industry and culture at large?

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Opinion: HomeKit is doomed to fail if Apple doesn’t make their own automation hardware

In July of 1982, industry pioneer Alan Kay said “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” In January of 2007, Steve Jobs used this quote to define his vision for Apple and the iPhone in particular. Over the past decade, Tim Cook has reiterated this belief that Apple is at its best when it makes the hardware, software, and now the services. So why don’t they apply that philosophy to everything they do anymore? Let’s talk about it.

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Auto experts use Apple patents to create interactive 3D model of what the Apple Car might look like

The car experts over at Vanarama have created an impressive interactive 3D model of what they think the Apple Car could look like based on official Apple patents. The concept shows both the external design as well as the interior of the car. The model explains design decisions using helpful notes that detail the relevant Apple patent. It might be the best look at some of the ideas Apple could incorporate into its future car project.

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Apple introduces special-edition holiday gift card, sticker, and at-home card templates

This morning Apple debuted their 2021 holiday gift guide, and as part of the announcement they’ve also revealed a new holiday-themed gift card. This is the second holiday-themed Apple gift card that the company has made, with last year’s being a twist on the six-color Apple logo. The new cards have a red Apple logo sticker with a gift wrapping design on top of it.

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‘The iOS App Icon Book’ by designer Michael Flarup debuts on Kickstarter

Danish designer Michael Flarup has been working for nearly four years on a new book that celebrates the storied history of iOS app icons. The book, titled The iOS App Icon Book, is available to back as of 8 a.m. EST on Kickstarter. It features hundreds of designs from developers all over the world. There are nearly a decade’s worth of app icons to peruse.

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Bloomberg: Netflix games to be available on the App Store individually, require account sign in

Mark Gurman at Bloomberg has reported as part of his Power On newsletter that Netflix is planning to release its mobile games on iOS individually through the App Store. Developer Steve Moser shared the information with Bloomberg after discovering code in the Netflix app that points to an interesting solution to get around Apple’s rules.

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Pixel 6 diary: Material You should act as inspiration for the next version of iOS

I’ve been using Google’s new flagship Pixel 6 phone for a little over a week now. It’s been quite a wild ride, if I do say so myself. Like I said in my first entry, I’ve owned a handful of Pixels and other Android devices over the years. But the Pixel 6 continues to surprise me in delightful ways that other devices running Google’s operating system haven’t. In this entry, I want to focus specifically on Material You, Google’s new design framework for allowing users to customize nearly every aspect of their Android experience.

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Concept: How Apple Card+ could rival other premium cards with exclusive perks and rewards

One of Apple’s best services is Apple Card. Sure, it might just be another credit card that happens to have a really great app in Wallet, but Apple Card could be much more than that. Currently, Apple Card offers excellent customer support, powerful security features, and one of the best physical cards you can get your hands on. Folks like Mark Gurman over at Bloomberg have been wondering, though, what could be next for Apple Card? We’ve been wondering the same thing, and here’s a dive into our ideas.

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Concept: How Apple could turn the polishing cloth into the next iPod socks

The Apple polishing cloth is this year’s big hit. Heck, it’s backordered up to 12 weeks. And yet it’s just a piece of gray cloth. So, what if Apple were to take the marketing success they’re seeing with this polishing cloth and make something a bit more fun? Remember iPod socks? Those are the right model for making something a bit more interesting and desirable.

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