David Snow - page 28

You can encapsulate Apple’s approach to innovation in four words, according to a new profile of CEO Tim Cook: “Not first, but best.” It’s not a new sentiment, but Cook doubles down on it in a long magazine article that came out over the weekend, complete with interesting tidbits about his life and his journey with Apple, past and present.

And in a colorful side note: The man apparently loves Diet Mountain Dew. And yet Apple Park doesn’t stock it, so he doesn’t get to drink it as much as he used to. (Theory: Cook banned it himself in an act of self-discipline.)

It’s another thrilling Monday, so we thought we’d sex things up with everybody’s favorite scintillating subject — cable management. Sarcasm aside, it’s high on the list of things folks only love having done, not planning (and dreading) or actually doing (in half-assed ways). Anyone who’s ever been forced to clean their room can relate. So today’s easily digestible tidbit comes from a MacBook Pro user offering one simple and effective MacBook Pro cable management tip.

Multi-device chargers for iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch come and go, but Journey just rolled one out that really catches the eye: the Journey Nova 3-in-1 Fast Charging Station. It’s available for preorder now.

“Our designers envisaged an anti-tech aesthetic for Nova,” said a Journey spokesperson. “The exterior complements decors much like a vase, chair or pot plant might.”

A pot plant, they say! Well, that is a good aesthetic model to emulate, although it being on the “anti-tech” side seems debatable.

Two new external monitors BenQ showcased this week at Adobe MAX in Miami cater specifically to Mac and MacBook users — especially creative professionals. PD2730S and PD3226G, part of BenQ’s DesignVue PD series, promise to deliver exceptional color accuracy and performance for designers, illustrators and content creators.

“BenQ has meticulously gathered feedback from professionals to design monitors that precisely meet their requirements with always accurate and consistent colors,” said Houston Wei, senior director of BenQ North America. “The new PD2730S and PD3226G were designed with both Mac and PC users in mind to provide unparalleled color features with invaluable new software including Display ColorTalk and Palette Master Ultimate.”

 Beloved Apple TV+ soccer comedy Ted Lasso begins pre-production on a long-hoped-for fourth season in January in London, according to a Thursday report. This follows recent news about the studio picking up cast members’ options, the first concrete clue that Ted Lasso season four might actually happen.

Apple TV+ ended the hit show after three seasons. But if Ted Lasso season four production starts as expected, it’s time to believe again! Fans eager to know more about the Ted Lasso platform and its future can check out Apple’s confirmation of season 4.

UPDATE: The Film & Television Industry Alliance confirmed via scheduling information that Ted Lasso shoots for season four will indeed start taking place in both London and Los Angeles in January 2025. A Mastodon post from the original leaker points to the confirmation.

These days, all sort of people need a microphone in their Mac computer setup — podcasters, streamers, gamers, videoconferencers or anyone recording pretty much anything. The list goes on. Today’s featured M1 Pro MacBook pro user, a video editor, relies on the Maono PD200X dynamic microphone, which packs both XLR and USB modes, to keep his vocal work clear.

Designer Basic Apple Guy, purveyor of fine wallpapers for your devices, found a way to blow up a bunch of tiny background shots of Apple Park in Cupertino into fine wallpapers for Mac and iPad displays. The background shots are included in macOS Sequoia for small-scale uses in apps like FaceTime and Photo Booth, so they had to be majorly upscaled. BAG dropped the wallpaper versions online Thursday for your downloading pleasure (see below).

Popular young movie stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy star alongside Sigourney Weaver in the upcoming thriller film The Gorge on Apple TV+, the streamer revealed Thursday. It noted the film, which has no firm release date yet, will get promoted along with season 2 of hit series Severance at pop culture festival CCXP24 in early December.

“They’re not keeping you out. They’re keeping them in,” reads the tagline for the Apple Original Film. And in bigger news for fans of the mind-bending workplace drama series, Apple noted Severance returns with its second season January 17 (for those who don’t already know).

When the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban took control of Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2021, it stripped women of their right even to go outside without a chaperone. So when a woman surreptitiously taping herself says “the situation is dire” in the Bread & Roses documentary trailer, which Apple TV+ dropped Thursday, it seems like an understatement. A heavily armed force stripped even their most basic rights.

The Apple Original Films documentary film, which follows three women fighting to reclaim their lives, premieres November 22 on Apple TV+. Watch the trailer below.

As of Wednesday, Chief People Officer Carol Surface leaves Apple, the latest in a string of executives to do so. And she’s going after an unusually short two years of service for a top executive, according to a new report.

Other executive departures and role shifts include like Luca Maestri stepping down as CFO and longtime engineering exec Dan Riccio retiring.

Despite suffering modest sales with consumers, Apple’s Vision Pro mixed-reality headset seems to be finding an unexpected but promising application in the medical field, particularly in surgery, according to a new report Tuesday.

So as Vision Pro helps surgeons and patients — and even cash-strapped medical providers — it could be a big deal in healthcare.

Late-model MacBook Pro laptops include a decent camera. But many users find it falls a bit short for use on their video calls, podcasts and other needs. So a display-mounted webcam creeps into many MacBook setups. Today’s MacBook Pro user relies on the well-regarded Logitech StreamCam webcam to punch up his video footage.

Apple-centric home audio nuts — and especially home theater aficionados — can officially get excited about two new high-end offerings from Sonos with new Sound Motion technology: the Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar and the Sonos Sub 4 subwoofer. You can preorder now, with their release coming on October 29, Sonos said Tuesday.

“For decades, Sonos has revolutionized home theater and music experiences with products that look as great as they sound. Driven by our hunger for innovation, we created Sound Motion to break the boundaries of what’s possible by a single speaker, bringing this industry-first transducer technology to home theater where demand for extraordinary sound is equal to designs that fit modern living spaces,” said Patrick Spence, CEO of Sonos.

“Arc Ultra is a reimagination of our best-selling soundbar, leveraging this incredible innovation to deliver an unprecedented sound experience from a sleeker design,” he added. And by the way, Sonos said it’s also making progress on improving its much-maligned updated app.

The acclaimed Emmy and BAFTA Award-winning spy drama series Slow Horses, starring Academy Award winner Gary Oldman, gallops toward a green-lighted sixth season even as season 4 just concluded October 9, Apple TV+ said Tuesday. This continues a trend. Season 5 won approval right after the season 3 finale — well before season 4 aired. And it also makes Slow Horses the streamer’s longest-running show by number of seasons. Though admittedly, at six episodes apiece, they’re not long seasons.

“Audiences around the world have fallen in love with the Slow Horses, and I’m delighted that Gary Oldman will be leading this star-studded cast on another acerbic and action-packed adventure,” said Jay Hunt, creative director, Europe, Apple TV+.

The new iPad mini (7th generation) came out Tuesday, and other new models are likely to follow soon — but, as usual, the biggest savings are in older models, including current Amazon deals on iPads. Right now you can get some pretty serious discounts at Amazon on a variety of iPad models, including M4 iPad Pro, M2 iPad Air, 9th- and 10th-generation iPads and the previous iPad mini (6th generation). Some models are $200 off! See below. And it’s not just iPads, but Apple Pencils and iPad keyboard cases, too.

Coding with Magic Mouse? Apple’s sleek input device has plenty of haters of all stripes. But at least one developer, who works with an M1 Max MacBook Pro, loves it. And perhaps even more surprisingly, he detests the mouse that is surely Magic Mouse’s biggest competitor, given how it shows up in most of the setups we cover.

The new Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro wireless noise-canceling earbuds are the flagship of Anker’s Soundcore earbuds lineup, promising and delivering great sound and high-end features at a more accessible price point than some competitors, like AirPods Pro 2. After putting the Liberty Pro buds through their paces in various scenarios, I’m happy to recommend them for most users in this Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro earbuds review.

And that nifty new charging case with display screen and touch bar is pretty cool. But it’s a bit of a gimmick because it doesn’t do anything you can’t do with the app or touch controls. That said, most earbuds charging cases don’t have those features at all (yet).

In the The Last of the Sea Women documentary, the way of life of South Korea’s haenyeo, or sea women of Jeju Island, is disappearing. But it won’t happen without a fierce fight from the grandmother-warrior divers, often called “real-life mermaids,” and a younger generation of helpers, according to the trailer Apple TV+ dropped Thursday.

The documentary film from producer Malala Yousafzai and director Sue Kim premieres on Apple TV+ on October 11.

Update: Documentary film The Last of the Sea Women started streaming on Apple TV+ Friday. Reviews seem to say this one is a keeper, like a pearl found in an oyster.

A revered London journalist’s life seems picture-perfect at the start of the new trailer for Apple TV+ psychological thriller series Disclaimer. But by the end of the trailer, she stands on the precipice of ugly ruin.

Created and directed by five-time Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuarón, Disclaimer stars Cate Blanchett as the journalist, Sacha Baron Cohen as her supportive husband, and Kevin Kline as a man bent on destroying her by revealing “the truth.” The trailer for Disclaimer, released Tuesday, looks seriously enthralling. The show premieres October 11 on Apple TV+.

UPDATE: Alfonso Cuarón’s Disclaimer series started streaming Friday on Apple TV+. Reviews seem mixed, to say the least. One reviewer called it “the best TV show of the year” while another damned it as a “flaccid, pretentious slog.” You better watch it and make up your own mind.

The trailer for Slow Horses season 5, coming to Apple TV+ in 2025, didn’t drop on YouTube or on the Apple website, per usual. Instead, the teaser for the darkly funny espionage thriller’s next season is tacked on to the end of the season 4 finale on Apple TV+, which aired Wednesday. But we found the trailer in standalone form on a magazine website, included below.

This time, Slough House IT guy and arrogant doofus Roddy Ho, played by Australian singer and actor Christopher Chung, is at the center of the action. And River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) and Louisa Guy (Rosalind Eleazar) share an awkward kiss for some reason.

Run by a software developer, today’s M1 Pro MacBook Pro setup doesn’t just rock two external displays. It also features a very cool input-device duo — the mouse we see more than any other in setups, which is the Logitech MX Master 3S wireless mouse, and the super-cool NuPhy Air96 V2 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard.

Submerged, the first immersive scripted film for Vision Pro, is now out. But new show episodes, films, series and concerts captured in Apple Immersive Video will debut later this year and early next year, Apple said Thursday.

 “Apple Immersive Video is a wonderful new medium that expands the horizon of storytelling,” said Berger, director of the Academy Award-winning All Quiet on the Western Front and upcoming Conclave. “Apple Vision Pro inspired me to tell a story in a way that just wasn’t possible before, and in the process, it changed the way my team and I think about creating a story. This immersive technology pioneered by Apple is going to change the future of filmmaking.”

“Vision Pro places you in the middle of the story — inside a densely packed submarine, shoulder to shoulder with its crew,” he added. “That deep sense of immersion just wasn’t possible before, and we can’t wait to see how it inspires filmmakers to push the boundaries of visual storytelling.”

It’s that time of year again, Amazon Prime Day (the fall edition, October 8 and 9). So the early deals flowed starting over the weekend, with the full-on sale hitting with even better deals on Tuesday and Wednesday. We’ll show you the best Amazon Prime Day deals on Apple gear, from AirPods to iPads to MacBooks to Studio Display. And that includes Apple audio subsidiary Beats, too. Click on the links below, and return to this page often — deals are subject to change, often for the better, and we’ll add more as we find them.

Update: Though prices on some items continue to fluctuate, Amazon has extended most deals beyond Wednesday.

Most users obsess about the main hardware they have in their computer setup, from computers to mechanical keyboards, but lighting plays a big role, too. After all, you have to be able to see what you’re doing without eye strain (and how better to snap pics and show off your rig on social media?). Today’s MacBook Pro user asked for lighting advice and got it, below.

With the fall edition of Amazon Prime Day falling on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, it’s a great time to nab yourself a coveted M3 MacBook Air. Discounts abound on both 15-inch and 13-inch models, with an array of specification choices. See the deal links below. Most of the deals cover all four colors — midnight, silver, space gray and starlight. And don’t miss our full guide to Apple deals for Prime Day.

UPDATE: On Wednesday we updated fluctuations in prices and color availability for various models, below. And though prices on some items fluctuate, Amazon has extended many deals beyond Wednesday.