meditation

Health care leaders from 10 countries gathered in San Diego Thursday to explore Apple’s Vision Pro for surgery and other medical uses, and especially how it can further transform medical procedures and patient care, according to a new report.

The 300-person summit, hosted by Sharp HealthCare, marks another milestone in the device’s adoption by medical institutions since its 2024 launch, almost exactly a year ago. While broader public discussion of the headset tends to pine for a cheaper version, health care pros seem over the moon about how cheap $3,500 per unit is compared to their usual gear.

Apple’s subscription fitness service kicks off 2025 with its most extensive programming lineup yet, featuring new Apple Fitness+ workouts in strength training, pickleball conditioning and a collaboration with popular fitness app Strava.

“Fitness+ is designed to support everyone’s unique fitness and wellness journey,” said Jay Blahnik, Apple’s vice president of fitness technologies, in a press release Friday. “From workouts that can boost power and precision for pickleball, to breath meditations that help relieve stress, along with Artist Spotlight sessions featuring iconic hits and an exciting collaboration with Strava, Fitness+ has something to inspire, motivate and help everyone feel their best in 2025.”

Apple Fitness+ brings fresh ways for users to stay active and mindful in the new year with new activities starting January 8, Apple said Thursday.

You can try a new sound meditation theme, a workout program with golfer Rose Zhang, an Artist Spotlight series tied to the Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show, Time to Walk episodes available on Apple Podcasts for the first time and more.

More and more people are realizing that mindfulness and meditation can help with a more balanced daily life. But anyone who tries meditating knows it can be hard at first. Calming an active mind is difficult enough, but distractions are everywhere, so this meditation kit aims for full immersion.

“Distraction-free” apps are ridiculous. They don’t help at all. In fact, if you have trouble focusing on the task on hand, then the problem isn’t the app. The problem is you.

Removing clutter from an app’s interface won’t stop you from flipping to Twitter every five minutes. A carefully chosen font won’t stop you from whipping your iPhone from your pocket every time a question pops into your head.

The problem is not even distraction. The problem is overstimulation, and it’s going to take some effort for you to fix it.

Music does many things: It soothes, it inspires, it excites, it distracts. But music also can be made into an instrument for staying on task, reducing stress and producing other productive and healthy results.

When we think about the effects of our always-on culture on our minds, the picture isn’t always pretty. Our smartphones often cause us plenty of distraction, so it might be surprising to learn that they can actually help us stay focused.

Music exclusives are nothing unusual when it comes to streaming music services, such as Tidal and Apple Music. But electronic music legend Moby has thought different with his approach to releasing his latest album.

Fans wanting to get hold of Moby’s “Long Ambients 2” can do so only by downloading the Calm meditation app.

As spring approaches, we’re stocking up on discounted gear, gadgets and more. This week, we’ve got deals on a burner phone number, lessons in social media marketing, a music subscription that fosters focus, and a set of workout-ready earbuds.

Most of these hot deals are discounted by 70 percent or more!

In today’s fast-paced, connected world, the demands on our time seem endless. We spend much of our day in a state of constant hyperactivity. Apple Watch and iPhone add to the pressure, with their endless notifications telling us what we should be doing, who we should be speaking to and where we should be going.

Fortunately, Apple also offers an oasis of calm that can help us slow down this frenetic pace. The Apple Watch Breathe app draws on the ancient wisdom of Buddhist monks and yogis who practice a technique called “resonant breathing.”

Luckily, you don’t need to be a master of meditation to use the Breathe app that comes built into your Apple Watch. With clever visuals and smart features, it will guide you through this time-honored method for relaxing your body and clearing your mind. It’s a surprisingly subtle and relaxing experience that you might really enjoy.

In this quick guide, we’ll take a look at the origins of the Breathe app, how it works, what the benefits of resonant breathing are, and how to take advantage of this calming tech. So take a deep breath and let’s get started.

For all their many uses, let’s face it: our smartphones are a major source of distraction. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, with the right app, your phone can actually help you regain focus and reduce stress.

Let’s be honest, many of us have pretty unhealthy relationships to our phones. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Your phone can become a reminder to take your eyes off the screen and keep your mind centered.

Keeping a clear mind takes discipline and practice. And in the age of smartphones and constant distractions, mindfulness is more of a challenge than ever. So it makes sense that your phone might also offer a solution.

Keeping up with all the feeds and threads and reminders and messages and so on that our phones throw at us gets stressful. Technology might be winding us all up, but it can also help us relax.

New year may mean a new you. But the same old stress and distractions are probably going to stick around. Of course, technology is responsible for a lot of that, but it might also be able to offer some help.

Here at the Cult of Mac Store, we delight in finding great new deals on tools and tech every week. This go around, we’ve got a gravity-operated mobile car mount, and a super useful writing assistant. Additionally, we’ve got an app to guide you in meditating (really), and a phone plan year of unlimited talk and text. Discounts run from a third to as much as 90 percent off, red on for more details:

It’s getting hot out there. But it’s still nowhere near as hot as the new deals coming into the Cult of Mac Store. This week we’ve added an app that’ll change how you work with PDFs, and a set of future-ready Bluetooth earbuds. There’s also a comprehensive set of courses in Apple’s Swift coding language, and an app that turns your phone into a mindfulness tool. Most are discounted by half or more, read on for more details:

At WWDC this week, Apple all but confirmed that Apple Watch is really just a health gadget. Tim Cook described it offhandedly as a “device for a healthy life,” and most of the watchOS 3 segment of the keynote was devoted to health and fitness.

This focus on health makes sense. As an activity tracker, Apple Watch is arguably the best on the market, and watchOS 3 will make it even better. Apple’s wearable is ideal if you are simply looking to live a healthier day. But, despite some minor improvements, Apple Watch still sucks if you are into running.

You might have suspected that the right music – whether it’s thrash metal or Mozart – keeps you more focused or relaxed.

Now a trio of brain researchers have studied the effects of playlists on the brain, resulting in a nifty little book called  Your Playlist Can Change Your Life. In the book’s 200-or so pages, they explain how to use specific playlists to alleviate anxiety, promote concentration, get happy or move into a flow state thanks to Brain Music Treatment or BMT.

If you can’t make it to New York for BMT therapy, for $9.99, you can also download a Common BMT File. Created from more than 2,000 people’s brain waves with the help of evidence-based BMT tech, they say it acts as a kind of aural “first-aid” before you get your own playlists together.

Intrigued (my current nightstand read is Mark Changizi’s excellent Harnessed about music and the brain), I talked to author Dr. Galina Mindlin about what playlists have the most impact, cleaning up your music collection and her current heavy rotations.

We’re all about calm abiding here at Cult of Mac (you guys read the comments, right?) So we were pleased to try out the portable version of emWave2, a computer-assisted meditation program for Mac.

The emWave2 ($229) is useful for all of those anxiety-inducing situations people face when not in front of their computers. A bit bigger than the iPod Mini, it comes with an ear sensor that plugs into a USB key and a software program that monitors your heart rhythms and breathing, plus a CD training guide.