Apple chose 12 apps and games as the best of the best in 2026 from its developer community on Tuesday, honoring titles spanning six award categories for recognition at WWDC26 next week.
“This year’s Apple Design Award winners are a remarkable reflection of how developers are creating exceptional experiences,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. She added that honorees “represent the very best of what our platform makes possible.”
June 2, 2014: Apple shows off Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite for the first time at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Following the Jony Ive-redesigned iOS 7, Yosemite boasts an aesthetic change that brings Apple’s desktop computers closer than ever to the look of the company’s mobile software.
Named after Yosemite National Park, the update follows the previous year’s Mavericks as the second Mac operating system named after a California landmark.
Apple is building its long-anticipated folding iPhone around a liquid metal hinge, and the device has now actually reached mobile carriers around the world for compatibility testing, a prominent Apple supply chain leaker said Tuesday.
With a letter signed by 40 members of Congress sent Monday, Apple faces increased federal pressure over its plan to shut down the Apple Towson Town Center store in Maryland. The location, set to close on June 20, holds the distinction of being the first Apple retail store in the United States to unionize.
The congressional letter pulls no punches. The lawmakers describe the closure as “unacceptable in its impact, and deeply troubling in its national implications for workers’ rights.”
The small size and simplicity of the Apple Watch’s screen might fool you into thinking there aren’t a lot of settings you should tweak. But you would be sorely mistaken. It’s a powerful computer on your wrist, and thus, the Settings app is a deep rabbit hole.
You could lose hours going through every last setting, but I can save you the trouble. There are 10 Apple Watch settings I suggest everyone adjust. I’ll show you what they all do and how to change them.
The display in your Apple Watch may already seem pretty great, but a new type of screen technology in development could make models in the next year or two even better by running for longer on a single charge, according to a new report.
Apple’s long-awaited foldable phone took another step out of the shadows on Monday, as a flurry of new leaks put a face — and a few specs — to a device the company has yet to officially acknowledge.
With one week to go until its annual developer showcase, Apple leaned into a luminous theme with the new WWDC26 tagline “All systems glow.”
You can get your devices ready for the WWDC26 keynote, which kicks off the weeklong event on June 8, with new wallpaper and an Apple Music playlist.
June 1, 1978: Apple launches the Disk II floppy drive, one of the company’s most important peripherals ever.
The best floppy drive available at the time, Disk II solves the Apple II computer’s most glaring weakness — a lack of storage. It also helps establish Apple’s flair for handsome profit margins.
★★★★☆
Apple users live in one of the most polished hardware ecosystems on Earth. Every accessory entering that orbit gets held to a higher standard — not just for specs, but for how effortlessly it fits in. My Tozo PE1 Portable Wireless Speaker review concludes that the tiny gadget finds a place quite easily, with great sound, fantastic portability and solid durability. Plus it’s incredibly inexpensive.
May 31, 2013: The Chicago Sun-Times fires all 28 of its photographers, with the goal of training its staff to shoot photos using iPhones instead. Pulitzer Prize winner John H. White is among those who lose their jobs.
The move is significant not just because of what it says about the declining newspaper industry. It also spotlights the iPhone’s growing acceptance as a professional camera.
Don’t let your beloved cat or dog wander around without some kind of tracking device. If your fuzzy buddy goes missing, you’ll regret not having some way to locate them.
And the good news is it’s cheap and easy. I put Apple’s AirTag 2 on my cat’s collar as a pet tracker, and it’s going very well. Here’s why you should consider it for your own pet … including replacing a first-gen model.
May 30, 2013: Apple marks the sale of the 100 millionth iPod touch by launching a new, stripped-down model with a budget price of $229.
The 16GB music player lacks some features of its high-end siblings. However, the smaller price tag makes it appealing to new customers.
Who needs a computer or expensive photo editing software like Adobe Lightroom? You can edit pictures right on your iPhone with Apple’s free, built-in tools.
The Photos app comes with a ton of professional editing tools baked into it. If you didn’t line your shot up quite right, you can fix the crop and perspective. If you took it a split second too late, you can use Live Photo functionality to replace the shot. You can add a Portrait mode blur after the fact, and even change which part of the image is in focus.
Here are the eight great editing tools built right into your iPhone.
Apple is rolling out a firmware update for the AirTag 2. The new version 3.0.49 is a simple bug fix update, though, without new features.
Still, you’ll probably want it, but it turns out that updating the AirTag’s software is both easy and hard. You don’t need to jump through hoops, but neither do you have much control.
Here’s what you need to do.
Apple charges $100 to add nano-texture glass to the iPad Pro, and even more if you want to add the anti-glare tech to a MacBook Pro. The technology is undoubtedly impressive, but the real question is whether your work requires it.
Here’s what you need to know before spending your money on Apple’s matte display tech.
May 29, 1992: Apple demonstrates its Newton MessagePad for the first time, showing how the upcoming PDA can be used to order a pizza and pull off other time-saving tricks.
Hailed by Apple CEO John Sculley as “nothing less than a revolution,” the Newton is Apple’s first major new product since the original Macintosh shipped eight years earlier. During the first Newton demo at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Apple shows how people can customize a pizza by moving topping icons on a symbolic pie. Then they can fax the order straight from the device.
Mac gaming has a complicated history — years of sparse game libraries and hardware that PC gamers dismissed out of hand. But something shifted with Apple silicon, and the Cult of Mac Setups archive has tracked it in real time. Here are the best Mac gaming setups from the past several years.
May 28, 2010: Customers across Europe and Asia queue up to buy the iPad when the international launch date for Apple’s original tablet finally arrives.
The reason for the gap between the iPad’s U.S. launch in early April and its international debut more than a month later? Unexpectedly strong demand for the groundbreaking device.
Thunderbolt 5 docks turn your humble MacBook into a full-fledged desktop workstation. They allow for a clean, one-cable setup, with support for multiple monitors, external drives and other USB-C accessories.
There are plenty of Thunderbolt docks on the market, but not all of them are created equal. If you want the fastest speeds, the right mix of ports and seamless compatibility with your Mac, these are the best Thunderbolt 5 docking stations you can buy right now.
If you learn how to personalize your Mac, you can make your computer feel like home. Every MacBook might look like a boring aluminum rectangle out of the box, but you can match any aesthetic with a few tips and tricks.
For starters, you could cover the backside with stickers or a colorful plastic case. But your work doesn’t end there. You can easily give your Mac’s desktop, app icons, desktop folders and theme colors a coordinated look.
Here’s how to customize your Mac to give it that personal touch.
May 27, 1986: An exiled Steve Jobs takes a shot at Apple after the company ditches Chiat/Day, the ad agency that created the iconic “1984” Macintosh ad.
In a full-page ad published in The Wall Street Journal, Jobs says the move to competing ad agency BBDO shows that “caretakers,” rather than “builders,” now run Apple.
From his perspective, it confirms that the company he co-founded has lost its revolutionary spirit.
★★★★★
There’s a well-worn law of consumer electronics: the further you push into “Pro Max” territory, the more you’re paying for marginal improvements that most people don’t need. This Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max earbuds review finds the new buds challenge that rule in an interesting way.
The earbuds inside the case are identical to those in the $169.99 Liberty 5 Pro I reviewed yesterday — same drivers, same ANC, same battery life, same call quality. What you’re paying an extra $60 for, almost entirely, is the case. But it’s a truly remarkable case.
Is it weird that I just bought an Apple Vision Pro when everyone says the platform is dead? Maybe. But I have zero regrets.
I’ve always supported the underdog. I guess that’s why I became an Apple fan in the first place. Back in the ’90s, using a Mac really did feel like being part of a “cult.” We believed in the platform when no one else did. And so it is with Vision Pro. It’s actually nice to see Apple as the underdog again, because that’s how Cupertino does its best work.
Plenty of third-party Mac app switchers try to improve the experience, but rcmd is my favorite because of its keyboard-driven approach. Now, with the recently released rcmd v3, the app evolves from a simple app switcher into a more powerful productivity tool, adding features like fuzzy search, workspace switching and more.