★★★★☆
The Satechi Thunderbolt Slim Hub doesn’t take up much room on your desk, but it packs in a trio of very high-speed USB-C/Thunderbolt ports, plus a USB-A port.
The Thunderbolt 4 accessory is good enough to earn a CES 2023 Innovation Award. I put to the test in my home office.
The Samsung T7 Shield is a credit-card-size external SSD designed to survive drops, rain and dust. The 1TB version is currently down to $79.99 on Amazon — half the cost it was when the solid-state drive launched a year ago.
And there are deals on the 2TB and 4TB versions, too.
Apple Card Savings allows you to earn a high rate of interest on money you might have been storing in Apple Cash. As the name indicates, it’s a savings account especially for Apple Card users.
Daily Cash earned from using the credit card flows automatically into the account where it (currently) earns 4.15% annually — that’s far more than the national average. And you can bring in cash from your other banks that offer lower interest rates.
I’ll walk you through the process of setting up an Apple Card Savings account.
Apple Card Savings launched Monday, allowing money earned from Apple Card’s cash-back program to go into a high-yield savings account. And it is high-yield — at 4.15%, the annual rate is about 10 times higher than the national average.
There are no fees for the new financial service, and users can bring in their own cash from other banks that offer lower interest rates.
Get ready to battle Sauron and his minions in Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth. It’s turn-based strategy combat for iPhone and iPad set in the world created by J.R.R. Tolkien (obviously).
The game was created by EA, and is scheduled to launch in early May. Pre-registration is available now.
Despite the many leaks and rumors about the 15.5-inch MacBook Air, there’s been no definite word on its processor. However, details of an unreleased MacBook with a large display have surfaced, and these indicate the chip will likely be an Apple M2 rather than an as-yet-unreleased M3.
The machine is supposedly running macOS 14, which won’t be announced for months.
You can toss out that old Monopoly board — Monopoly Go! brings the classic game to iPhone and iPad while adding new ways to play.
The free-to-play game is in the App Store now.
Apple committed itself to a new target to use 100% recycled cobalt in all Apple-designed batteries by 2025. And by that same year, the company will use only recycled rare earth elements in its magnets. In addition, it intends to make circuit boards with 100% recycled tin soldering and gold plating.
These commitments build on the company’s goal to eventually make all its products with only recycled and renewable materials.
Apple Card Savings, the next financial service from the Mac-maker, might be right around the corner. The company announced the service last autumn without a launch date. But now an Apple tipster claims it’s coming in only a few days.
When it debuts, the service will provide Apple Card users with savings accounts.
Apple’s wear-anywhere augmented-reality glasses that so many people are looking forward are still at least three years away, according to a reliable source.
Don’t confuse these with the bulkier VR/AR headset that leaks say will launch in June. AR glasses are expected to be much smaller… once the necessary technology is available.
As the old saying goes, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch — there’s usually a trick. And the same goes for phone charging sustains in airports. These can be used to hack your device, according to a recent warning from the FBI about “juice jacking.”
Here are six ways to safely charge up your iPhone when you’re on the go.
tvOS 16.4.1 is out to deal with some bugs in Apple TV devices. This comes several days after new bug-fix updates for iPhone, Mac and iPad.
A fresh tvOS update means there’s new HomePod software, too.
The powerful image-editing application Pixelmator Photo is now Photomator. Beyond the name change, the app for iPad and iPhone has been redesigned, and also now lets users easily select and edit specific areas of a photo.
In addition, a public beta of Photomator for Mac is now available.
An Apple TV+ series that turns a murder mystery into a genre-mixing comedy will soon return. Season two of the The Afterparty premieres in July.
There’s a new mystery to solve with a fresh cast of suspects, though Tiffany Haddish and some of the other stars of season one will be back.
With Earth Day coming up, Apple says it’s doubling its total commitment to “nature-based carbon removal projects” with an additional $200 million investment. In less technical terms, it’s backing projects to plant trees.
And it’s not just trees for trees’ sake. Part of Apple’s Restore Fund goes to agricultural projects that generate income from sustainably managed tree farms.
★★★★☆
The just-released Plugable AMS-5IN1E is a USB-C hub that attaches to the side of a MacBook and adds ports that Apple won’t, including USB-A and Ethernet. And it does so without blocking one of the USB-C/Thunderbolt ports and MagSafe charging.
I tested the five ports in this affordable hub to see how well they perform in the real world.
Testing shows that the recently released iOS 16.4.1 does not fix an iPhone battery problem introduced by its predecessor.
This wasn’t the usual small change in battery life that’s usual with updates. Many iPhone models saw significant drops with iOS 16.4. And the latest version isn’t a fix.
YouTube will soon get support for SharePlay, as well as videos with higher bitrates. And queuing up videos and jumping between devices will get easier, too.
The enhancements are part of Google efforts to get more subscribers for YouTube Premium.
Mac shipments declined a jaw-dropping 41% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2023, according to a market-analysis firm. It seems Apple finally joined other PC makers in seeing reduced shipments of traditional computers.
External screens for MacBook or iPad aren’t just convenient in the office — they’re also great to use on the go. There are a range of portable external displays on the market, including some with touchscreens.
Here are my recommendations for the best screens ready to go with you to a coffee shop or Paris.
The new Apple TV+ film about sneaking Tetris out of Communist Russia is pulling in plenty of viewers. It was actually more popular than Ted Lasso last week, according to one TV ratings company — though that Apple comedy is very popular, too.
And Shinking continues its long run in the top 10 most popular streaming shows, possibly because it’s now possible to binge the entire first season.
Is the car made of jelly? Or is the world? It’s both! It’s JellyCar Worlds. The game is a triumph of squishy physics, and a lot of fun to play.
If you enjoy driving games and puzzlers, you really owe it to yourself to try this. I have seven good reasons why it needs to be on your weekend agenda.
Doctor Who: An Unlikely Heist challenges players to solve mysteries by finding clues. The story-driven hidden-objects game debuted on Apple Arcade on Friday.
It’s the latest addition to Apple’s gaming service, which adds a new title almost every week.
iPhone, Mac and iPad users got fresh operating system updates on Friday. iOS 16.4.1, macOS 13.3.1 and iPadOS 16.4.1 fix a smattering of bugs on the devices — including some security vulnerabilities that Apple admits may have been exploited — but there are no new features.
At this time, there are no equivalent updates for Apple Watch or Apple TV.
Silo premieres in May, and Apple TV+ just released the full trailer for the upcoming drama series based on a bestselling trilogy of dystopian novels.
In the series, a few thousand people are left on earth hiding in a mile-deep silo. But what if everything they’ve ever been told about the outside world is a lie?