December 30, 1999: Microsoft hits the height of its 1990s dominance and begins its early-2000s decline, clearing a gap at the top for Apple.
After hitting an all-time high of $53.60, Microsoft stock starts to fall. Less than a year later, MSFT shares will fall more than 60% in value to $20.
2024 looks like a big year for Apple Watch. The world’s most popular wearable could get the biggest redesign in its 10-year history in the form of a device potentially called “Apple Watch Series X” or simply “Apple Watch X.”
That’s excellent news, because 2023 was not a great year for Apple Watch. Sure, we got a fresh new look with watchOS 10. But on the hardware side, the updates to Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 seem pretty minor. And then there’s the looming U.S. ban on Apple Watch imports and exports due to a patent dispute.
So, what should we expect from the Apple Watch 2024 lineup?
2024 is going to be a big year for Apple products. The iPhone is due for a second year in a row of big changes. And the entire iPad lineup is getting refreshed. The rest of the Macs are being updated to M3 chips. The Apple Watch Series X may receive a radical design. And fourth-gen AirPods will bring pro noise cancellation features to the cheaper buds.
We have a new video that summarizes everything we know about Apple’s top products coming next year.
The Apple A3 series processors make the latest Macs into powerful gaming machines. And macOS Sonoma includes tools to make porting PC games to Mac much easier. As a gamer myself, these are very welcome moves.
But right now, Apple is taking a “build it and they will come” attitude. History shows there’s an important step needed to turn Mac into a serious competition for PC and gaming consoles: CEO Tim Cook and Co. need to put their money where their mouths are and financially encourage top game developers to bring their products to macOS.
That might even include buying one or more game developers.
Ah, the magic of Christmas. Even a grownup can get deliriously excited about unwrapping a rich haul of computer gear that turns a Charlie Brown Christmas tree of a setup into a powerful workstation that would intimidate Ebeneezer Scrooge.
Today’s user had a decent MacBook Pro and iPad Pro to begin with, but ended up with a proper, highly functional setup. And commenters had further suggestions for additions, too. Hey, the more the merrier!
December 29, 1999: Apple starts shipping its unfathomably large 22-inch Cinema Display.
The biggest LCD computer display available anywhere, Apple’s all-digital flat panel is a far cry from the bulky cathode ray tube monitor of the popular iMac G3, which took the world by storm the previous year. It is also Apple’s first widescreen display — and the first to sport a digital video interface.
In an effort to boost sales and clarify offerings, Apple will revamp its AirPods lineup in 2024, reports have indicated — but that won’t include updates for every product.
AirPods 4 should arrive next year, with two versions replacing current lower-priced earbuds models. And AirPods Max will receive some long-awaited updates, although the pricey over-ear headphones won’t get a major revamp. And as for what comes after AirPods Pro 2, we’ll have to wait until early 2025, most likely.
December 28, 2006: As the rest of the country enjoys a much-deserved holiday, Apple gets embroiled in a stock “backdating” scandal.
The news, centered on the dubious awarding of stock options to Steve Jobs, prompts Apple share prices to fall. Some people even suggest Jobs might have to step down as Apple CEO. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen.
After a federal court granted a temporary pause on the Apple Watch ban Wednesday, Apple returned Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 to select store shelves, with online store sales expected to resume Thursday — for a short time, at least.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted a temporary stay until January 10. Apple requested the pause after the Biden administration confirmed Tuesday it won’t overturn the ban, put in place through a U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling.
★★☆☆☆
The iKier K1 Pro Max is a top-of-the-line laser engraver that will etch your creations into wood to make beautiful pieces of precision physical art. After extensive testing, I was impressed by the hardware and the pieces I was able to make.
Unfortunately, the machine is complicated to set up and the software let me down at every single step in the process. I never got it working with my everyday Mac, I couldn’t use the machine’s built-in software and the included third-party software (only offered with a 30-day free trial) is a convoluted mess of labyrinthian dialog boxes spawned from user interface hell.
Christmas day is behind us, but Amazon bargain site Woot! is at it again with a smoking-hot deal for your and yours — two-thirds off the regular price of a Belkin Wemo Smart Video Doorbell!
The hot item sold out recently, so this is a bonus sale on Wednesday, Woot noted. And you should note the gadget works exclusively with HomeKit Secure Video.
The ban on Apple Watch 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 sales in the United States stands, after the Biden administration confirmed Tuesday it won’t overturn it, but a federal court paused it temporarily Wednesday after Apple’s request for appeal.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted a temporary stay until January 10 — so Apple can resume selling the wearables, at least for a short time.
Apple plans some big upgrades for the iPhone 16 lineup in 2024. The phones could get even bigger displays, with AI integration helping make Siri smarter (and, hopefully, a lot more useful).
These changes should arrive on top of the usual yearly upgrades like faster A-series chips and brighter displays. So, what should you expect from iPhones in 2024? Read below to find out.
The holiday shopping season might cool off a bit right after Christmas, but not at B&H Photo. Its year-end Mega Deal Zone sale is running hot with a bunch of bargains on Apple products this week — especially MacBook Pro.
You can get $250 off a hot new M3 MacBook Pro or up to an amazing $2,000 off a massively loaded 16-inch M1 Max MacBook Pro, to name two examples. See more below.
Strap an AirTag to your bike so that you can discreetly track its location with this ingenious mount from Device Therapy. It looks just like a bog-standard reflector at first glance, so would-be thieves will have no idea it’s even there.
Bag yours today from the Cult of Mac Store for just $15.99.
December 27, 2010: Almost four months after the second-gen Apple TV’s debut, Cupertino says it has sold 1 million of the streaming video devices.
The news shows that Apple’s set-top box is gaining momentum. However, Apple’s PR move is also a low-blow shot at competitor Roku, which recently said it planned to hit the 1 million unit mark by the end of 2010.
After a recent debate over whether dual external displays should be lined up straight across or angled for better ergonomics, a Mac Studio and dual-MacBook setup addresses the question in a different way. It uses three identical displays in landscape mode, placing the center one one straight and one on either side of it at an angle.
And the setup also offers connecitivity tips, running the two MacBooks into two of the displays via a CalDigit dock while the Mac Studio drives one directly.
Starting in late January, Amazon Prime Video subscribers will need to pay an additional $3 a month to watch without commercial interruptions.
The change leaves Apple TV+ as one of the few video streaming services that doesn’t charge extra to avoid adverts.
December 26, 1982: Time magazine names the personal computer its “Man of the Year.”
It’s the first time a nonhuman entity wins the award, which was created in 1927. And the award devastates Steve Jobs — because he thought the accolade would go to him.
Get ready for big changes in the iPad 2024 lineup. Apple plans to shake things up next year, offering new versions of every tablet model, from the basic budget offering to the largest iPad Pro.
Details of the upcoming changes leaked out early, so we can tell you now what’s coming to the iPad in 2024.
December 25, 1977: Steve Wozniak spends the holidays building a prototype of the Disk II, the Apple II’s revolutionary floppy disk drive.
“I worked all day, all night, through Christmas and New Year’s trying to get it done,” Wozniak would later recall in his autobiography, iWoz. “[Early Apple employee] Randy Wiggington, who was actually attending Homestead High, the school Steve and I had graduated from, helped me a lot on that project.”
Wiggington takes December 25 off. Woz does not.
December 24, 2009: As rumors of a possible Apple tablet reach the boiling point, word spreads online that the new device will be called the iSlate.
The news is based on the fact that Apple quietly acquired the domain name iSlate.com a few years earlier. Since Apple did the same thing for the iPhone back in the late 1990s, years before the iPhone actually debuted, it makes total sense that the company would follow suit with the naming of its tablet.
Of course, that didn’t end up happening.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: You maniacs! You blew it up! A patent dispute nukes Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra from Apple’s website. And by Christmas, the smartwatches will disappear from Apple Store shelves in the United States.
Who knew it would come to this? And what’s next for Apple Watch in this long legal battle?
Also on The CultCast:
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.
December 23, 2005: Apple files a patent application for its iconic “slide to unlock” gesture for the iPhone.
At this point, the iPhone remains a secret research project. However, the ability to unlock the device by sliding your finger across it signifies Apple’s big ambitions for its smartphone. Cupertino wants the iPhone to be easy to use, intuitive and miles ahead of the competition technologically.
December 22, 2013: After months of false starts, Apple finally secures a deal with China Mobile to bring the iPhone to the world’s largest telecom company.
With 760 million potential iPhone customers in the offing, the deal shapes up as Apple’s most important yet for growing its brand in China. In fact, Apple CEO Tim Cook says the country soon will become the company’s biggest market.
