This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: The first reviews and early benchmarks reveal impressive performance boosts from the new MacBook Pro and Mac mini. We’re talking the pros and cons of upgrading — including one very important “buyer beware” scenario.

Also on The CultCast:

• What’s new in iOS 16.3, iPadOS 16.3 and macOS Ventura 13.2? We walk through the updates.
• A great giveaway from Goldenerre, maker of fine Apple Watch bands.
• Our beloved old-school HomePods just got some upgrades — including one Erfon’s been dreaming of for years.

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.

January 28, 1978: Apple Computer occupies its first custom-built office, giving the company a bespoke business center to house its growing operations.

A full 15 years before One Infinite Loop, and almost 40 before Apple Park’s stunning “spaceship” HQ  landed, 10260 Bandley Drive — aka “Bandley 1” — becomes the first purpose-built, permanent headquarters for the newly founded company.

When you pick up a classic Macintosh (or a vintage computer of any kind) that hasn’t been used in a while, you need to check it out before plugging it in and turning it on. Capacitors on old motherboards fail and leak over time; you DO NOT want to run power to a computer if this has happened; you could easily fry the motherboard.

Collecting old computers is a lot of fun. You can use old versions of Mac OS in emulators online, but it’s nothing compared to the experience of setting up a heavy machine on your desk, hearing the fans and disk drives whir to life and watching a fuzzy CRT display fade in from black. If you’re new to this (rather expensive) hobby, you can also check out my earlier piece on how to get started — what to look for, what to watch out for and where to shop.

So, you are the new custodian of a classic computer. What should you do before you power it on for the first time?

Has there ever been a better time to be a kid? Superheroes rule the big screens, video games are experiencing a new golden age and even so-called “educational toys” are so advanced they’re like gear out of a mad scientist’s lab. To prove our point, meet the Toybox 3D Printer.

Yes, we know that 3D printers are nothing new. But Toybox takes a completely different angle on this popular creative tool, re-imagining it as the limitless toy factory we all knew it could be.

App Store prices will soon go up in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Colombia, Egypt, and a few other countries. The hike will come into effect starting February 13, 2023.

The changes will apply to both prices of apps and in-app purchases (IAP). Recurring subscriptions are not affected, though.

A leaked internal Apple document confirms the company will adopt Wi-Fi 6E on this year’s iPhones. However, only the iPhone 15 Pro lineup will support the faster Wi-Fi standard.

The internal document shows the antenna architecture of devices codenamed “D8x” (the iPhone 15 Pro) and “D8y” (the regular iPhone 15).

The capabilities of artificial intelligence are amazing and ever-expanding, but how can you best get it to work for you? Juice.ai demonstrates how with a tool that can get you started on your marketing journey. And it’s now on sale for just $39.

The 2021 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro with added memory is a popular choice, and Friday you can get a configuration with 32GB of RAM for about $300 less than usual prices at Woot!, owned by Amazon.

The configuration is a winner because folks know you can’t easily add integrated memory later to most Macs, so why settle for the base 16GB for that model?

Beware, though, the sale ends just after midnight in Saturday’s wee hours.

Apple Watch Ultra, released in September 2022, is famously rugged and great for endurance sports. But no wearable is truly indestructible. So if you want to make your Ultra even tougher, put it in the new Elkson Quattro Pro 2.0 case for Apple Watch Ultra.

The new case arrived Friday in the Cult of Mac Store. And you can get it for just $25.99.

There’s a funeral this week on true-crime-inflected Apple TV+ show Truth Be Told. Drea is dead, and everyone’s guilty — whether they pulled the trigger or not.

The more Poppy, Eva and Markus pull up rocks looking for clues, the more insects they find running around in the darkness. “Her, Armed With Sorrow Sore” stands out as a strongly performed and nicely paced episode of the show about a podcaster’s crusade to help her city.