The Cult of Mac Store’s Easter Sale is winding down. Before it ends, don’t miss your chance to get up to 60% off a variety of accessories, including Apple Watch bands, iPhone and AirPods cases and more.
Visit the Easter Savings collection for all the deals and see some cool highlights below.
New computer displays tend to get not just better over time, but bigger — within reason. Unlike TVs, they’re designed to be viewed from just a few feet away at most. But increasingly, we see people using smart TVs as external monitors to get that extra size into their desktop setups.
Today’s featured setup sports an M2 MacBook Pro driving a 42-inch LG OLED smart TV that the user describes as “perfect.”
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.
Apple may not ship the iPhone 15 Pro series with the rumored unified solid-state capacitive buttons. TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple abandoned the plan due to “unresolved technical issues.”
Previously, multiple rumors indicated Apple would replace the physical buttons on the iPhone 15 Pro with capacitive keys. The design also would have added two new Taptic Engines to simulate the feeling of pressing physical buttons.
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.
Apple’s 2023 MacBook Pro lineup is available with a massive $150 discount on Amazon. The deal applies to all configurations of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros.
This fantastic deal is unlikely to last long, so buy the MacBook you want before stocks run out.
The Steve Jobs Archive released its first book Tuesday, Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words. It’s a memoir of sorts because almost everything in it comes directly from Jobs, from major speeches and interviews to emails he sent to himself. It covers the Apple co-founder’s life from a young age until he passed away in 2011.
The new book includes never-before-seen content, the archive said, and it’s free from multiple sources.
Apple’s next-gen Studio Display might not ship with a 120Hz ProMotion mini-LED panel as initially rumored. It’s reportedly still in development though, and the monitor could debut in 2024 or early 2025 with all the features of a “high-end monitor.”
Apple’s current 27-inch display features a 5K 60Hz panel. With its next upgrade, it could switch to a mini-LED backplane for thinner bezels.
Apple is finally ready to open its first retail store in India on April 18. And it will open its second store in the country just two days later.
The openings come after years of delay as Apple tried to establish a direct retail presence in the Asian country.
Soundcore unveiled its elegant new Motion X600 Portable High Fidelity Speaker Monday. The compact speaker offers hi-res, spatial audio in a handsome package with a metal grille and a choice of gray, green or blue colors.
When it becomes available in early May, it’ll go for $200. But you can get an early-bird discount. See below.
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.
Another week, another set of active-noise-cancelling (ANC) wireless earbuds. The latest buds vying to take a piece of the AirPods pie are the updated OnePlus Nord Buds 2. They add ANC and improved sound quality over their super-affordable predecessor.
Nord Buds made a splash with good sound quality at a bargain-basement price of $39 when they came out. Now Nord Buds 2 piles on more features and boosts quality at a still-low $59 price point.
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.
Accessories maker ESR unveiled its new HaloLock Power Bank Wallet on Wednesday. Now on Amazon, the magnetic 3-in-1 device charges your phone, keep your cards in order and lets you “enjoy hands-free viewing in a sleek, pocket-friendly package,” the company said.
Not every computer setup flaunted and much-admired on social media is an Apple silicon powerhouse with an ultra-fast M1 or M2 chip. Today’s featured setup leans on a 6-year-old iMac and a MacBook Air almost twice as old as that.
But with the help of an impressive-yet-affordable audio gear list and a trio of gaming systems, the rig gets the work and play done. And don’t miss the beefed up iPod classic in the mix.
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.
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.
New detailed renders detail the more extensive changes Apple is planning for the iPhone 15 Pro series. Leaked CADs have already revealed the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro design.
This includes a bigger camera hump, slightly more compact dimensions, curved edges for the titanium chassis and more.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: The M2 Pro-powered Mac mini is a dream machine for creative types, according to our reviewer D. Griffin Jones. He joins us to sing the praises of this pint-size powerhouse. (It’s quite an upgrade from the 2015 MacBook Pro he used before.)
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.
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.
No matter which AirPods you have, the Cult of Mac Easter Sale has something for you. Check out the selection of cool cases and stands in the Easter Savings collection.
See some highlights below, where the links go straight to the products. And if you think this sale is probably only for AirPods Pro, AirPods 3 and AirPods Max, guess again. Here’s six cases for AirPods 1 and 2, for example — all 25% off.
We often see computer setups festooned with several big external monitors, Mission Control style. But some great setups get by with zero external displays, like today’s featured iMac setup.
The iMac provides the main screen, of course. And then “black magic” makes the iPad Pro levitate as a second screen. Or something like that. See below.
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?