News

This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: Holy mackerel, Tim Cook really is stepping down from his CEO role at Apple! And it’s happening sooner than most of us thought. His replacement, John Ternus, sounds like a solid pick — a hardware guy with a long history in Cupertino.

Cook himself says he wants the four-month transition to be “a textbook succession plan, the best in the world.” So the big question is, what will this transition look like for Apple? We’ve got some thoughts. (Lots of ’em, actually.)

Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:

• Is Tim Cook the best Apple CEO ever? Well, no, that would be Steve Jobs. Still, Cook’s time at the top has clearly been exceptional.
• Word on the street is that John Ternus might be a bit more Jobsian when it comes to his decision-making. And he’s already promising that Apple will “change the world once again” with its upcoming products.
• New rumors give us something else to ponder: the buzzy color of the iPhone 18 Pro and a key feature coming to the first folding iPhone that we feared we weren’t getting.

Listen to this week’s episode of the Cult of Mac podcast 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 version, embedded below.

Apple rolled out version 1.8 of its Apple Invites app Thursday, bringing seven new features that make planning and sharing events easier than ever. The update, available on the App Store, is the second recent upgrade for the iCloud+-exclusive digital invitation service.

Apple TV picked up a pair of prestigious Peabody Awards Thursday for hit drama Pluribus and documentary Come See Me in the Good Light. People think of the awards as the Pulitzer Prizes of radio, TV and online media. 

Apple Maps rolled out an immersive new experience for the Miami Formula 1 Grand Prix, giving fans a detailed, interactive look at the race circuit ahead of the May 3 event. And it’s part of a broader plan to cover races throughout the 2026 F1 season.

As the upcoming CEO of Apple, John Ternus is surely getting deluged with advice, and I do not have the hubris to tell him what he should do. But my decades of reporting on the tech business have shown me that there’s something he absolutely must not do … because it could ruin the company.

Do not ship anything before it’s finished. You’d think that would be obvious, but it’s a mistake companies make over and over. Even Apple has done it a time or two — and that includes with a product still in its lineup today.

Apple’s $599 M4 Mac mini is the latest casualty of the ongoing DRAM shortage. The machine is no longer available for purchase on Apple’s website.

It’s possible this is a sign that a new model with a faster processor is imminent.  But for now, only the M4 Pro Mac mini is available, and with ridiculous wait times stretching into July.

Apple on Wednesday released iOS 26.4.2 to fix a bug that allowed messages deleted by a user to remain on the iPhone.

“Notifications marked for deletion could be unexpectedly retained on the device,” Apple said in its security notes about the update. “A logging issue was addressed with improved data redaction.”

Beyond that, it seems like a minor update that focuses on various bug fixes and incremental performance improvements rather than new features. Tablet users got iPadOS 26.4.2 at the same time.

Plus, those not yet willing to make the jump to iOS 26 got their own update — iOS 18.7.8 also appeared on Wednesday, along with iPadOS 18.7.8.

Anker just quietly did something no accessory maker has attempted before: It built its own AI chip from the ground up, specifically designed to run powerful neural networks inside tiny, battery-powered devices. It announced the chip, called “Thus,” on Wednesday and plans to release it on Anker Day (May 21) inside its earbuds.

If the chip delivers on its promises, it could fundamentally change what we expect from earbuds — possibly including Apple AirPods — and other devices.

“Every AI chip built to date stores the model on one side and performs the computation on the other,” said Steven Yang, Anker’s founder and CEO. “To ‘think,’ the device must shuttle these parameters back and forth many times per second for every single query. Thus brings the computing power to where the model already resides. The model never has to move again.”

Apple briefly removed the popular calorie-counting app Cal AI from the App Store last week. The episode offers a clear message to developers everywhere, according to a new report: The company is still very much in charge of how apps handle payments — even in the wake of a landmark court ruling that loosened some of its long-standing rules.

Apple reportedly plans to make major upgrades to the iPhone’s cameras in the coming years, starting with the introduction of a variable aperture lens on the iPhone 18 Pro this fall.

But that’s just the start. The company eventually plans to utilize a bigger 200MP sensor on its primary camera, with a periscope telephoto lens for better image quality.

John Ternus, the Apple exec slated to become CEO in September, said Tuesday that the company is “about to change the world once again.”

Ternus, currently Apple’s senior vice president of 
hardware engineering, made the pledge to Apple employees during an all-hands meeting. During the talk, Ternus and retiring Apple CEO Tim Cook promised to work together to bring great new products and services to market.

President Donald J. Trump paid tribute to outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook on Tuesday. In a post on Truth Social, the president’s social network, Trump praised Cook in his signature style, calling Cook “Tim Apple” and claiming he called to “kiss my ass.”

Trump applauded Cook’s leadership at Apple, saying he did a better job than Apple co-founder Steve Jobs himself would have. And, as is his way, Trump littered the post with capital letters, hyperbole and a fair amount of not-so-humble brags.

The Satechi ChargeView 140W Desktop Charger offers four USB-C ports to power up a MacBook, iPad, iPhone and other accessories all at once.

A highlight is a display that shows how much current is flowing through each port.

If you’ve been green with envy watching those grainy fan clips of Paul McCartney lighting up Apple Park last month for the iPhone giant’s 50th anniversary, Sir Paul just gave the rest of us a proper consolation prize. McCartney posted a polished, three-minute, behind-the-scenes film to his YouTube channel Tuesday, offering an intimate look at his celebrated March 31 performance.

Apple’s appointment of John Ternus as its next CEO signals a potential shift in leadership style at the company, with insiders pointing to his decisive approach to decision-making.

In contrast, outgoing CEO Tim Cook is more of a consensus builder.

Is Tim Cook Apple’s best CEO? No, that title belongs to Steve Jobs — but Cook definitely comes in a very close second.

In a remarkable 15 years at the helm of Apple, Cook oversaw extraordinary growth, released a string of innovative products, and instituted important internal changes.

He performed almost flawlessly, and, to my mind, has only done one thing wrong.

Outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote a heartfelt letter of thanks to Apple users.

As Cook gets ready to step down as CEO on September 1, 2026, he expressed his gratitude to the Apple community for making his work meaningful.

It’s a nice, sincere note of appreciation — and typically humble. You can read the full text of Cook’s letter below.

Apple announced a sweeping leadership transition on Monday, naming longtime executive John Ternus as its next chief executive officer in September. Current CEO Tim Cook will move into a new role as executive chairman of Apple’s board of directors at that time.

“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company,” said Cook in a statement. “I love Apple with all of my being, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with a team of such ingenious, innovative, creative, and deeply caring people who have been unwavering in their dedication to enriching the lives of our customers and creating the best products and services in the world.”

If you were looking forward to iPhone 18 as a meaningful upgrade of last year’s model, new rumors out of China might give you pause. Apple reportedly plans to cut costs on the standard iPhone 18 by paring back several of its manufacturing processes.

That would bring the iPhone 18 significantly closer in specs to the budget-oriented iPhone 18e, according to a prominent Weibo leaker.

Potential folding iPhone buyers can breathe a sigh of relief. New images of cases for the device — supposedly dubbed the iPhone Ultra — show it including MagSafe. Previously, we saw no sign of this feature in leaks about the much-anticipated handset.

This could have been a deal-breaker for some buyers.

Apple will bring a minor but important upgrade to the iPhone’s Home Screen customization experience in iOS 27. It will reportedly allow you to “undo” and “redo” changes to your Home Screen.

This small tweak should make rearranging apps and widgets far less frustrating, especially when you accidentally move or delete something.

The wait for Apple’s much-anticipated M5 refresh of the Mac Studio just got longer. The company will reportedly delay the launch of the next big MacBook Pro refresh to 2027 as well.

The ongoing DRAM and NAND flash shortages are to blame for the delay, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

There’s a setting called Lockdown Mode you can activate on your iPhone that will make it virtually impossible to hack. Just by flipping a switch, you can make your iPhone incredibly secure. So secure, in fact, that Apple says no phone using Lockdown Mode has ever been hacked.

Sure sounds great. Surprise — here’s why you don’t want to use it.

This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: New details emerge about Apple’s smart glasses, including possible shapes, sizes and colors.

Now for the important question: Will we — or anybody else — actually want to wear a pair?

Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:

• Apple reportedly plans a last-ditch effort to get its Siri team up to speed on AI-powered coding. Meanwhile, Siri’s worse than ever! Will Apple make the WWDC26 deadline for the Siri upgrade?
• The tech behind the first folding iPhone’s (supposedly) crease-free screen sounds insane.
• A MacBook Pro setup puts the weirdest hinged screens we’ve ever seen front and center.
• And finally, Griffin shows us how to walk back one of macOS Tahoe’s most divisive design decisions.

Listen to this week’s episode of the Cult of Mac podcast 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 version, embedded below.

Phone users are sticking with Apple at unprecedented levels, according to a new nationwide survey, underscoring the growing strength of the company’s ecosystem and the challenges facing rivals trying to win them over.

And while Android users’ loyalty to their smartphone maker is noticeably weaker, that doesn’t mean huge numbers are switching to Apple.