Apple’s HomePod smart speaker isn’t off to the best start in terms of sales. A new report claims that lack of demand for the speakers has resulted in Apple cutting orders from 500,000 units per month to just 200,000.

Extrapolated over the course of a year that would mean that Apple expects to sell around 2.4 million HomePods in 12 months. That would put it on a level with the 2015 first year sales of the Amazon Echo, but would be highly disappointing given the relative maturity of the smart speaker market and Apple’s name recognition.

Facebook’s smart speaker will reportedly launch in October, a new report claims. The social media giant’s entry into the AI speaker market already home to Apple’s HomePod, Amazon’s Echo and Google Home was allegedly delayed several months as a result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

As a result, Facebook has cut its 2018 order volume by around 20 percent, although orders for 2019 will remain unchanged.

Apple admits that some MacBook Pro laptops have a problem that causes their batteries to swell up. The company is replacing these free of charge.

This affects only the non-touchbar version of the macOS laptop, and only models with a 13-inch screen. In addition, the device needs to have been produced in a specific timeframe.

This week has been big on big updates. Drafts, the best text-capture app for iOS, got a brand-new version. Cultured Code’s Things also received a big update (but still doesn’t allow drag-and-drop to task lists). And Dropbox finally did add drag-and-drop, just seven months after iOS 11 added the feature.

Well done!

Charging up a device without wires used to sound like science fiction, but now it’s getting more and more common. With Qi charging technology, it’s a capability that most new devices will have. Wireless charging is growing more popular, so the charging stations are growing too.

The iOS App Store got a new look last fall, and the change has greatly benefited developers of third-party applications, as Apple intended. A new study found that getting named Game of the Day results in an 800 percent increase in downloads.

Inclusion in the other segments of the App Store Today screen brought improved performance as well.

Audio accessories have come a long way since those iconic earmuff-like headphones some of you might remember from the 70s. Nowadays, it’s common to see people listening to music with sleek portable earphones at cafes or the gym.

The Department of Justice is investigating whether AT&T and Verizon colluded to subvert the primary goal of electronic SIMs. This new tech makes it easy to switch between service providers, something to two largest wireless carriers apparently wanted to prevent. 

Apple uses an eSIM in the Apple Watch Series 3. And last year this company formally complained to the DoJ that the two carriers were pressuring an international standards body to make an anticompetitive change to this emerging tech. 

Official details of the processor for the 2018 iPhone are months away, but we can already be confident the Apple A12 will be at least 20 percent faster than the current chip, while using 40 percent less power.

And this is the minimal performance improvement to be expected. Apple’s next devices will almost certainly be even speedier.

The iPad and iPhone can be great learning tools for kids, just the same as they are for adults (only with more clowns and talking animals). But even if you don’t want to fully lock-down your iPad to restrict what your kids can do, you might want to stop then from downloading adult-oriented apps. That includes violent games, scary books, and dirty movies.

Knowing when to answer a call from an unknown number is a game of chance. It might be a family emergency, or it might be a scammer trying to rip you off. Hiya Caller ID and Block is a simple iOS app that attempts to determine whether incoming phone calls are telemarketers, spam, or something worth picking up for.

With smartphone sales plateauing, the iPhone can no longer propel Apple to the sort of stratospheric success the company (and its shareholders) enjoyed over the past decade.

Is Apple CEO Tim Cook clueless? Will Apple be caught flat-footed, unable to pivot and move to the next big thing? The latest prediction of Apple’s impending doom sounds particularly dire.

Apple’s Newton MessagePad is one of the most intriguing Apple products in history: a product people considered a flop, but which was actually years ahead of its time.

If you’re a fan of the device, then this weekend you’ve got the chance to attend an exclusive screening of forthcoming documentary, Love Notes to Newton. It tells the story of the rise, fall, and rise again of one of Apple’s most fascinating (and misunderstood) product lines.

Check out the trailer below.

Apple is expected to deliver a new iPhone SE next month, complete with refreshed internals that make it significantly snappier. But it may not be all good news for fans of Apple’s smallest smartphone.

A new report claims one hugely popular feature will be missing.

At this point, if you don’t know that the internet is risky place, you aren’t paying attention. Every click, every post, every bit of content consumed, is an opportunity to have data collected on you. It’s important to protect your data and identity online, and one of the best ways is with a VPN.

Apple is having a tough time trying to diversify iPhone screen suppliers and break away from Samsung.

LG Display was lined up to become a second supplier of OLED displays for this year’s iPhone lineup, but after running into manufacturing troubles, it may not be able to meet Apple’s demands.

Apple Store logos have begun going green in celebration of Earth Day, the annual event intended to show support for environmental protection. While Earth Day doesn’t actually take place until this Sunday, this year — as in previous years — Apple has tweaked the logo on its stores two days early.

The recolored logo includes a green leaf in place of the usual all-white logo. Staff at the Apple Stores also wear green shirts for the days, instead of their usual blue ones.

Apple has open-sourced FoundationDB, the NoSQL database it bought back in 2015. The goal? Building an open community that will allow FoundationDB to become “the foundation of the next generation of distributed databases.”

There’s no more famous name in computer icon design than Susan Kare, who remains best known for creating the famous icons for the original Macintosh.

Having spent three decades working in the tech space, Kare is now being honored with an American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) medal, whose previous winners have included the likes of Paul Rand, and Charles and Ray Eames.

The point of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is to throw you into a battle and see if you survive. But that can be a bit intimidating for those who’ve never played before, so Tencent just added two practice modes to the mobile version. One of these involves playing in a smaller area, and can become its own challenge with the right settings.

Sadly, the iOS version doesn’t have these new modes yet, but an upgrade is expected soon.

Verizon’s new service lets parents limit their children’s’ screen time, monitor who they’re texting (and how often), and track their location. 

The Smart Family program also includes content filters, and can even tell a parent how much battery life their child’s phone has left.

Drafts 5 has launched, the sequel to Drafts 4, and you may be a little confused as too what it actually new. Should you upgrade, for example? After all, it’s just the same old note-creating app with a lick of paint, right? Well, the definitive answer to that is “Hmmm, kinda…” While Drafts 5 doesn’t get many big new features, it has been completely redesigned. It looks better, works better, and the settings are way less confusing.

Oh, and you can finally use it as your only notes app, without feeling like you’re doing something dirty.

Apple’s loveable robot Liam has been fired.

As part of Apple’s Earth Day 2018 initiative, the company unveiled Liam’s replacement today named Daisy. The new robot borrows some of the technology from Liam to make an even more efficient iPhone disassembly machine.

Take a look:

Creating a spiritual successor to 2014’s lovable platformer Leo’s Fortune was a labor of love for its developers. Now, four years later the Norse-themed platformer Oddmar finally debuts on iOS. (Check out our review here.)

“The story is set in a Viking universe and is our take on Norse mythology,” designer and director Ozgur Taskin told Cult of Mac. “Developing this game gave us a great opportunity to imagine the environments of the North through art and animation.”

Cult of Mac got a look behind the scenes of a future gaming classic.

Tim Cook generally stays quiet about Apple’s plans, but there’s one thing he’s open about: his company’s laptops and tablets aren’t going to merge together.

It’s a question that comes up every couple of years. Which is understandable, given the recent rumors that macOS is migrating to the same type of processors as iOS, allegedly to enable apps to run on both Mac and iPad.