Now you can pick from five colors, including orange and green. Photo: Mifa
Mifa’s Every-Day-Carry (EDC) Nylon Sports Leather Apple Watch Band is a favorite item in the Cult of Mac Store for its cool, tactical look. And now you can get it in two eye-catching new colors — orange and green.
It doesn’t matter if your Apple Watch is made of aluminum or stainless steel, Mifa’s rugged EDC band can be a great complement to it.
Humane's AI Pin projector in action. Photo: Humane
So far, all the demos of Humane’s supposedly iPhone-killing Ai Pin have been underwhelming.
Humane pitched the small, screenless device — which ships next month — as a successor to smartphones. However, it is garnering almost no buzz at all, no thanks to its lackluster marketing. The Ai Pin’s first introductory video looked especially bad. It proved so head-scratchingly awful, it made you wonder if the company wants the device to bomb, like some kind of high-tech The Producers investor/insurance scam.
But a new video just emerged that actually makes the device look cool. It’s the demo Humane should have made.
Buy refurbished and save big on your new M3 Pro/Max MacBook Pro. Photo: Apple
Apple’s Certified Refurbished store in the US is now selling MacBook Pros with M3 Pro and M3 Max chips. Refurbished models are available in 14-inch and 16-inch displays.
Buying a refurbished unit can help you save up to $300 on the M3 Pro MacBook. On laptops with the M3 Max chip, the savings can be as high as $530.
Eight teams will receive custom Beats headphones to start, with the 22 other clubs to follow. Photo: Major League Soccer
Beats and Major League Soccer (MLS) struck a multi-year deal Monday to make the Apple headphones subidiary the official consumer audio products partner of the league. That will include eight custom-branded Beats headphones for MLS teams delivered initially. Headphones for the other 22 clubs will follow.
“We are extremely excited to join forces with the MLS, one of the fastest growing and most dynamic sports leagues in the world,” said Chris Thorne, Beats CMO. “Beats will be working closely with the MLS clubs and top players to deliver amazing experiences throughout the upcoming season.”
The chunky little Tangara is like your old iPod, except you can totally mess with it. Photo: Cool Tech Zone
Tangara, a new portable music player that sports serious iPod Classic vibes, totally eclipsed its initial crowd-funding goal as of Monday. So the open-source iPod alternative could become a reality.
Complete with a touchwheel, the nostalgia-provoking player from startup Cool Tech Zone differs from Apple’s famous iPods in major ways. Mainly, its open hardware and open-source software make it easy to access, customize, repair and upgrade.
It's amazing what an atmospheric effect a light strip can have on a setup. Photo: Philips Hue
As we’ve seen so often in our endless tour of computer setups on social media, ambient lighting matters. Sure, you want proper lighting so you can see what you’re doing, but extra-mile work like setting Philips Hue ambient lighting — as in today’s Mac Studio setup — can make a big difference cosmetically and in more practical ways.
There’s no better tablet than the M1 iPad Air for most users. It uses the same M1 chip as Apple’s previous-generation iPad Pro and Macs to deliver excellent price-to-performance. Amazon is taking a stellar $149 off the tablet, making it an even better deal.
With the discount, you can get the M1 iPad Air for only $449. At this price point, you cannot find a better option than Apple’s offering.
Stop thinking of Vision Pro as a clunky thing you strap to your face. Instead, consider visionOS as a window into the future of computers. Screenshot: Apple
Vision Pro is years ahead of its time. Apple’s AR headset lets us see today what using an average computer a decade in the future will be like.
In 2034, being surrounded by physical screens will seem charmingly obsolete. Virtual displays of any size generated by an AR headset from Apple (or its rivals) will take the place of displays connected to our computers, phones, watches, etc. And that’s only the start.
You can experience the coming revolution now because Vision Pro is another example of Apple giving us a glimpse of the future.
This mockup illustrates a radical redesign purportedly coming to the iPhone 16 Pro's camera module. Image: Majin Bu
The latest iPhone 16 Pro camera rumor comes with an image that shows a radically redesigned lens module. It looks like a fidget spinner, or an 18th-century tricorn hat seen from above, and would represent a striking departure from Apple’s current design language.
If the iPhone 16 Pro actually looks like this, it would instantly put to bed perennial complaints that the new iPhone looks just like the old one.
Android users are more likely to switch to iPhone than fans of Apple's OS are to go over to Google's. Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
The percentage of iPhone buyers in the U.S. whose last device was an Android was at 13% in 2023. The figure of Android users who previously used iPhone is much lower.
Apple already leads the smartphone race in the United States, and the poll data shows that’s not going to change.
The bezels joining in the middle where these side-by-side Studio Displays meet doesn't much bother the user. Photo: [email protected]
Dual Studio Displays are a popular-if-pricey choice among Mac users. In addition to making a case for going with the configuration in the first place, today’s Mac Studio setup offers some helpful tips for creating synced dual Studio Displays.
It suggests third-party tools to help sync audio and brightness levels across the two monitors.
The few available iPhone web apps are about to break in the EU. Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
Are you familiar with iPhone web apps? No? Turns out you aren’t alone. Apple admitted that the method for turning websites into applications never caught on.
It must have been a tough admission, given that Steve Jobs’ original plan for iPhone was that it would only support web apps, with no native third-party applications allowed.
A shockingly high number of Cult of Mac readers say they won't be keeping their Vision Pro headsets. Photo: Apple/Modified by Cult of Mac
You’d think readers of a website called Cult of Mac would be into Apple products. But a straw poll of Cult of Mac Today readers found a whopping 76% of respondents plan to return their Vision Pro to Apple.
The eye-popping number comes as droves of Vision Pro early adopters say they plan to take advantage of Apple’s generous return policy. Discomfort, the headset’s high price and the lack of a clear use case for the isolating device top the list of reasons cited by disaffected Vision Pro owners.
Xcode could use generative AI to help you write code. Photo: Cult of Mac
Apple is reportedly working on a major Xcode update with artificial integration. This functionality will apparently emulate Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot, generating code based on text input.
Work on the tool has been ongoing since last year, and its testing is now expanding internally inside Apple.
Make your iPad and Apple Pencil into a drawing pad for your Mac with Astropad Slate. Photo: Astropad
Astropad Slate turns an iPad and Apple Pencil into a drawing tablet for a Mac.
There’s no need to purchase a basic Wacom tablet or a similar accessory when the iPad and pen you already own can be used to draw into desktop creative application.
You haven't really seen TikTok videos until you've been immersed in them with Vision Pro. Screenshot: TikTok/ByteDance
TikTok just outraced some of its biggest rivals by releasing a native Vision Pro application. The short video service that’s become a global phenomenon can now be enjoyed on Apple’s AR headset thanks to the TikTok Vision Pro app.
The head of development for the new app says the company “redesigned the entire TikTok experience.”
Are you ready to blow your mind with new spatial games for the Vision Pro headset? Photo: Apple
Three games designed for visionOS spatial experiences through the new Vision Pro headset will soon join a dozen existing such titles, plus another 250 compatible games already in Apple Arcade, Apple said Thursday.
The company highlighted all the fun Vision Pro users can have, including descriptions of the upcoming versions of Alto’s Odyssey, Gibbon and Spire Blast for Vision Pro.
Attach AirTag beneath your bike's saddle, or under your bottle holder. Photo: Laut
If you love your AirTag soooooo much that you take it on romantic bike rides (or, more likely, you just want to track your sweet ride), check out these brilliant bike mounts from Laut. They’re well-designed and wonderfully affordable.
You can either attach your tracker to your saddle for less than $20, or beneath your water bottle for even less cash. And because Laut’s mounts are so inconspicuous, thieves won’t even see that your AirTag is there.
Using Vision Pro's virtual keyboard, you just reach out and touch parts of the screen when you need to. Photo: Apple
The Vision Pro’s virtual, floating-in-the-air keyboard has been nearly universally condemned. There’s no way around it: Typing on Vision Pro sucks.
But people said the same thing about the original iPhone, which ditched a physical keyboard compared to the BlackBerry. And these days, physical keyboards for your iPhone are more of a novelty than a standard accessory that everybody buys.
So to get to the bottom of exactly how bad the Vision Pro keyboard is, I took a bunch of different typing tests across a bunch of different keyboards. And the results I found were incredibly surprising. I accidentally discovered the best way to input text in Vision Pro.
Apple's next mobile SoC should bring a big boost in AI and ML performance. Photo: Apple
Apple’s next-gen A18 and M4 SoCs will reportedly feature an upgraded Neural Engine with a lot more cores. The additional horsepower in the A18 chip should help the iPhone 16 deliver better performance in AI/ML tasks.
Apple Vision Pro is being returned in droves by early adopters. Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
Many early adopters seem set on returning their Apple Vision Pro headsets. As the 14-day return window approaches for people who bought the device on launch day, an avalanche of posts on X and other social media channels point to a wave of Vision Pro returns.
Apparently, it’s not just Mark Zuckerberg who thinks Apple’s expensive headset isn’t worth the money. There appears to be a mass exodus of early adopters who ponied up the cash for Apple’s pricey headset. They cite three main reasons for returning Vision Pro. But is the situation really as bad as it seems?
Don't waste another minute. Seize these watch deals. Photo: D. Griffith Jones/Cult of Mac
Giant online retailers Amazon and Best Buy are offering deep discounts on Apple Watch 9. At Amazon you can choose different Series 9 versions ranging from $70 to $100 off regular prices. Best Buy offers tons of options, all at $70 off, from the cheapest to more pricey models.
And notably, Best Buy lists all of its $70-off sale items as “With blood oxygen feature.”
Quintessa Swindell and Leo Woodall star in upcoming series Prime Target, coming soon to Apple TV+. Photo: Apple TV+
Prime Target is an incoming Apple TV+ thriller that combines conspiracy theories with math theorems. Seriously. It’s about a mathematician whose research is being suppressed as part of a mysterious conspiracy.
The upcoming series will star Leo Woodall and Quintessa Swindell.
These intriguing studio monitors from France -- plus a massive subwoofer to match -- have never appeared in our Setups coverage before. Photo: Focal
We love it when an interesting computer setup on social media — something real and well-used, not staged — shows us a brand-new thing (new to us, that is). And this week that comes in an audio engineer’s iMac Pro setup featuring brilliant Focal studio-monitor speakers on stands above a massive Focal subwoofer under the custom-made desk.
We’re pretty sure Focal speakers have never appeared in setups featured on Cult of Mac. For one thing, they’re from France. That country comes to mind less for premium audio than the United States, UK, Germany, Japan and Denmark, to name a few leaders.