With the latest Apple Pay promotion you can save $20 on a future purchase from Nike, if you spend $100 or more in the Nike iOS app and pay for your order using Apple Pay.
The offer is valid through December 22, and the promo code for $20 will be delivered within two weeks of your purchase. Apple says that you will then have until January 31, 2019 to redeem the code and afterwards it will expire.
Apple has been increasing its holiday promos for Apple Pay recently, running discounts at numerous stores in December, including Pier 1, Groupon, JanSport, Oakley, Rakuten, and more. These websites and apps will keep up their Apple Pay offers for one more day, expiring on December 19.
Prior to the holiday deals, Apple this year has partnered with companies like Ray-Ban, Postmates, Under Armour, and Panera Bread for its Apple Pay promos. Previous sales have also been themed around major holidays and events, including summer vacations, back to school, Thanksgiving, and now Christmas.
Photos of Apple's rumored Smart Battery Cases for the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max have been uncovered in a product merchandising guide for Apple Premium Resellers that was obtained by the blog Appleosophy.
The guidelines instruct Apple Premium Resellers how to organize Apple's various leather and silicone cases for the iPhone 7 through iPhone XS Max in their stores. While the photos are low resolution, two of the cases clearly have a battery pack hump and a cutout for the vertically-aligned rear camera on the latest iPhones.
The new Smart Battery Cases are listed as "leather" products, but this is likely a mistake, as they appear to be silicon in the photos like Apple's previous Smart Battery Cases for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 7.
The guidelines are dated "Fall 2018," suggesting that Apple planned to release the new Smart Battery Cases within the past few months. The season officially ends this Friday, December 21, so there's still some time. Of course, Apple may also delay the cases until 2019 or never end up releasing them.
Apple's first Smart Battery Case was for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s, and was equipped with a 1,877 mAh battery that protruded out of the back of the case. Apple later released an iPhone 7 version with a similar design but larger 2,365 mAh battery. Both remain available for purchase for $99 in the United States.
At this point, ample evidence of Smart Battery Cases for the latest iPhones has surfaced, so all eyes are on Apple's online store.
Package thievery has only increased in recent years as more people shop online for large-scale gifts. Unfortunately, sometimes there's not much you can do about it if you don't have an outside camera and alarm system watching your home, and sometimes even that isn't enough. Former NASA engineer and current YouTuber Mark Rober decided to go the extra mile recently to stop rampant package thieving at his house, building a complex glitter bomb and stink bomb trap hidden in the box of Apple's HomePod.
In a new video, Rober explains a bit of the early development of the trap, which took six months, multiple design iterations, and help from his friend Sean Hodgins to help build the smaller pieces of electronics inside the so-called "revenge package." Hodgins posted an in-depth video about building the glitter bomb as well, which you can check out here.
The brain of the trap is a custom printed circuit board with an accelerometer, which checks to see if it's left a set geofenced area of Rober's house when it's been moved. If it has, four included Android smartphones wake up and start recording using their wide-angle lenses, allowing Rober to capture every angle of the package thief's reaction when the top of the HomePod box is removed.
Someone stole a package from me. Police wouldn’t do anything about it so I spent the last 6 months engineering up some vigilante justice. Revenge is a dish best served fabulously. Vid link- https://t.co/9OjD6ETdbZpic.twitter.com/u4o0doWglr
To top it all off, Rober included a mechanism that sprays fart spray into the area five times every 30 seconds once the lid has been removed. The engineer said that this ensured he could recover the package because the thief would likely end up throwing it outside of their car or home in frustration, but even if they didn't all four Android phones had LTE data plans and automatic cloud uploads. This way, he was going to be able to recover the video footage even if the package was permanently lost.
Rober even placed a reference to the film Home Alone directly on the package's shipping label, but it goes unnoticed by every thief in the video. Eventually, the engineer shares a collection of reaction shots from the glitter bomb's cameras, and once it begins working for him on multiple occasions, he passes it on to his friends who have also had online packages stolen from their porches. In every case recorded, the thieves eventually ditch the package without realizing there are four smartphones in it, and Rober is able to recover it.
When you set up a new Apple TV and power up the set-top box, the Apple Remote that comes in the box should pair automatically as soon as you press one of the buttons. If the Apple Remote stops working, it's probably out of juice and needs charging for 30 minutes via a USB to Lightning cable connected to a USB outlet.
But if that doesn't fix the problem, your best bet is to re-pair the device with your Apple TV. This article shows you how. The following instructions will also come in useful if you need to pair a new replacement Apple Remote in the event that the one that came with your Apple TV stops working completely or is damaged beyond repair.
In addition, at the end of this article we've included a quick tip for pairing your Mac with an Apple TV Remote, for controlling things like iTunes, VLC, and Keynote.
How to Pair an Apple Remote with Apple TV
Make sure your Apple TV is powered on.
Point the Apple Remote three inches away from the set-top box, then press and hold the remote's Menu and Volume Up buttons for five seconds.
If you see a notification on your television screen asking you to bring the Apple Remote closer, place the Remote on top of the Apple TV.
If you don't see Remote connected notification on the television screen, unplug your Apple TV from the wall power outlet, wait at least six seconds, then plug it back in.
If necessary, repeat steps 1 to 3.
How to Control Your Mac With an Apple Remote.
Apple used to include a small white or silver infrared remote control with some Macs, which allowed Mac users to control things like Keynote presentations and media in iTunes and QuickTime from afar.
When newer Macs no longer included an IR receiver (indicated by a black line of the front edge of the body) Apple stopped including these remotes, but Apple TV owners can optionally use their Apple TV Remote to control their Mac, thanks to a free third-party Bluetooth macOS utility called SiriMote by Eternal Storms Software.
SiriMote isn't available in the App Store, but you can download it directly from the Eternal Storms website [Direct Link]. After downloading SiriMote, drag it from your Downloads folder to your Applications folder, then launch the app and follow the onscreen instructions to pair your Apple Remote with your Mac.
