iPad shipments grew only slightly last quarter, according to a market research firm, despite the release of new high-end and mid-range tablets in the spring. The lack of a new entry-level tablet from Apple significantly affected the shipment total.
Still, Apple itself showed a larger year-over-year bump in revenue during the third quarter of 2024 from this class of computer.
According to a reputed Apple analyst, Apple’s cheaper Vision might only arrive after 2027. This contradicts recent reports of the AR/VR headset launching in 2025.
Instead, Apple will seemingly launch an upgraded Vision Pro with an M5 chip in 2025.
Apple apparently plans to release iOS 18.2 in early December, introducing several new Apple Intelligence features to the iPhone.
Apple’s next major MacBook Pro design refresh reportedly will arrive in 2026. It will apparently feature a new display technology and a 2nm M6 chip.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: After a whirlwind week of M4 Mac releases, we weigh up the pros (tons) and cons (very few). Mostly it’s a lovefest as we talk about the new M4 Mac mini, iMac and MacBook Pros.
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.
Apple will fix iPhone 14 Plus models with a camera problem for free through a service program that launched Friday. The company says the “rear camera on a very small percentage of iPhone 14 Plus devices may exhibit no preview.”
Anybody care for a big taste of Silo season 2 ahead of the hit sci-fi series’ November 15 air date on Apple TV+? The streamer dropped a “sneak peak” Friday of the show’s new season — literally the first five minutes of episode one. Outside the silo in which countless generations have lived, main character Juliette not only explores the hellscape that supposedly will kill her, but sees ominous signs of what came (way) before. We get a major flashback.
“Watch the first 5 minutes of Silo Season 2,” the YouTube page says. “Juliette lives.” So yeah, she’s not dead. At least not yet.
The developer of the Pixelmator family of image-editing applications for Mac, iPad, and iPhone announced Friday that the company has been acquired by Apple.
The move leaves the many fans of the apps nervous about the fate of the software.
The new mophie Juice Pack specifically for the iPhone 16 series merges a power bank into a form-fitting protective case. Put Apple’s latest handsets in the case to greatly extend the battery life and add 6 feet of drop protection.
External magnets allow the case to attach to other MagSafe/Qi2 accessories, like car mounts.
Early Geekbench 6 benchmarks show Apple’s new M4 Pro and M4 Max chips deliver major performance improvements for Macs. Most surprisingly, the M4 Pro chip outperforms even the previously top-tier M2 Ultra chip in multi-core performance, despite having fewer CPU cores. And the higher-end M4 Max proves even more impressive, of course.
So if you’re on the fence about upgrading to a Mac with either of these chips, these results should encourage you.
Apple pays Globalstar to provide the satellites needed for the iPhone’s Messages via satellite service, and an updated agreement between the two companies includes a $1.1 billion payment for the infrastructure.
Clearly, this is an iPhone feature that’ll be available for years to come.
Apple might switch to in-house Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips starting with next year’s iPhone 17. The company plans to fully transition to its custom Wi-Fi chips within three years after that.
Broadcom currently supplies Apple with more than 300 million Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modules yearly for its products.
In an indication that iPhone users are eager to try out Apple Intelligence, the iOS 18.1 install rate is twice as high as iOS 17.1 was a year ago, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
The AI features in iOS 18.1 provide a big impetus for people to update their iPhones, Cook said Thursday during a quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts.
Apple on Thursday announced record total revenue for the September 2024 quarter. The Mac-maker took in $94.9 billion, a 6% increase over the same quarter a year ago. Much of the increase can be pegged to sales of the iPhone, by far Apple’s largest product. Revenue from iOS devices grew 6%.
“Our record business performance during the September quarter drove nearly $27 billion in operating cash flow, allowing us to return over $29 billion to our shareholders,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO, in a statement. Apple’s board of directors declared a cash dividend of $0.25 per share of Apple common stock.
“Ghost jobs,” or job postings for positions that aren’t actually open, have become a widespread concern in today’s job market, particularly for recently laid-off workers in industries like technology, according to a scary new report (that just happens to fall on Halloween, bwah ha ha). And, no joke, it likens the phenomenon of ghost listings to “psychological warfare.”
Monday’s launch of a 24-inch iMac renewed calls for a 27-inch version. While this is a product Apple made before, there are multiple reasons why it hasn’t come back and almost certainly isn’t going to.
I’m not arguing that an extra-large all-in-one desktop is a bad device, but it does have at least one serious drawback. And it’s also apparently weak in a critical area. Plus there’s one more reason that’s hard to argue with.
Right after Apple unveiled the redesigned M4 Mac mini on Tuesday, people noticed the power button’s odd placement — on the bottom of the tiny but potent machine! The design provides precious little room for a fleshy finger to reach without tipping the whole computer to get at it. Since then, a variety of “fixes” have poked fun at this perceived error, which is most likely a very intentional Apple design choice.
Check out some of the best “Buttongate” fixes below.
Wall Street analysts think the financial results Apple will announce Thursday will include record revenue for the quarter. They also expect year-over-year growth in iPhone revenue.
Their optimism helps explain the AAPL share price, which is high enough to make the Mac-maker the world’s most valuable publicly traded company.
Apple is expanding Vision Pro’s availability to more countries. The company announced on Thursday that its spatial computing headset will launch in South Korea and the United Arab Emirates on November 15.
Greg Joswiak, Apple’s SVP of marketing, said in a post on X, “Apple Vision Pro is coming to South Korea and the United Arab Emirates on November 15! We’re excited that customers in a dozen countries and regions will get to immerse themselves in the world of spatial computing!”
With the release this week of new M4 Mac mini and M4 MacBook Pro computers comes a return to form for Apple advertising, with delightful M4 promotional videos that give the new hardware relatable human characteristics. They’re fun to watch, and you can do so below.
Tuesday’s animated video turns Mac mini into an affable yet capable and hyper-productive guy you might want to get a beer with. Wednesday’s MacBook Pro video depicts a power lifter-turned-showman flaunting effortless feats of strength, not to mention acrobatic prowess and grace.
Apple’s announcements this week of the first M4 Macs were impressive and full of surprises. But if you don’t have time to sit through all three videos, totaling nearly 40 minutes, you can watch our edit of it all in just 90 seconds.
Apple on Wednesday increased the RAM in the base model M2 and M3 MacBook Air from 8GB to 16GB. And the enhancement comes without a price increase.
Seems like Apple’s days of being stingy with RAM are over. The Apple store no longer sells a Mac with only 8GB.
Apple took the wraps off M4-powered MacBook Pros on Wednesday. While the new laptops sport the same design as their predecessors, they deliver faster performance and a staggering 24 hours of battery life, the company said in a press release announcing the M4 MacBook Pro launch.
“MacBook Pro is an incredibly powerful tool that millions of people use to do their life’s best work, and today we’re making it even better,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering.
The new M4 Pro and M4 Max chips Apple unveiled Wednesday for new, higher-end MacBook Pro models will bring more than enough power to handle Apple Intelligence and plenty of other complex computing tasks, Apple said. M4 Pro actually made its debut Tuesday with the redesigned M4 Pro Mac mini. The new chips may find their way into other machines, like Mac Studio, next year.
“Apple silicon has taken the Mac to unprecedented heights, and the rapid pace of innovation continues with M4 Pro and M4 Max,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies. “With the world’s fastest CPU core, immensely more powerful GPUs, and the fastest Neural Engine ever, the power-efficient performance and capabilities of the M4 family extend its lead as the most advanced lineup of chips in the industry.”
Apple added the ability to capture HDR photos with the iPhone 13 Pro back in 2021. Google introduced its own take, Ultra HDR, starting with Android 14 in 2023. Despite this, HDR photos from iPhones typically open as SDR images on Android phones and vice versa.
Thankfully, Apple and Google are working to resolve this issue by supporting a common standard for HDR gain map metadata.