AirDrop now works with Samsung's flagship Galaxy phone. Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Following in Google’s footsteps, Samsung added AirDrop support to its newest flagship phones: the Galaxy S26 series. This enables iPhone and Galaxy S26 users to transfer files between devices seamlessly.
Top be clear, Google and Samsung enabled AirDrop support in Quick Share without Apple’s help.
This CD player offered a glimpse of Apple's post-desktop game plan. Photo: Jonathan Zufi
March 22, 1993: Apple launches the PowerCD, the first device from the company that doesn’t require a computer to work.
A portable CD player that also works as an external CD drive for Macs, it offers a glimpse of the extremely lucrative path Apple will follow a decade later. However, the PowerCD itself will ultimately fail to take off.
Apple's new headphones seem awfully familiar ... Image: Cult of Mac
This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: The surprise release of AirPods Max 2 gives us plenty to talk about (including all the things Apple didn’t fix about the high-end headphones).
Plus, special guest Christina Warren (developer advocate at GitHub and co-host of the MacBreak Weekly podcast) joins us for a deep dive into one of Leander’s favorite topics — OpenClaw, the open-source AI agent that’s got everyone snapping up Mac minis, and the rise of agentic coding.
Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:
More on the MacBook Neo, including why every Mac owner should be thrilled that it comes with just 8GB of unified memory.
Griffin reviews the new Studio Display XDR and iPhone 17e.
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.
Enjoy lifetime access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more. Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
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And if you need Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows, you can secure a lifetime license for even less: just $35.97 using the same code. (Note: You also can use code MARCH15 to save 15% on almost every item in the Cult of Mac Deals store through March 29.)
Simplify the web, one annoyance at a time. Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Safari’s Hide Distracting Items feature lets you remove ads from your iPhone, along with other elements on the page that irritate you. It doesn’t require an ad blocker or a paid extension — Apple built it right into the browser.
Hide Distracting Items is not an ad blocker per se. But if pop-ups and other items that cover the page with no obvious close button pester you (like a cookie banner) Hide Distracting Items can come to the rescue. Here’s how to use it — keep reading or watch our video.
Tim Cook is excited about MacBook Neo. Image: Apple/Cult of Mac
CEO Tim Cook says Apple just had its “best launch week ever for first-time Mac customers.” That means the MacBook Neo is doing exactly what it was designed to do: bring in people who have never owned a Mac before.
The first entry-level macOS notebook launched on March 11, and Apple can’t keep up with demand. Orders placed today come with wait times of several weeks.
The Twentieth Anniversary Mac offered a glimpse of the future. Photo: Apple
March 20, 1997: Apple launches its Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, a futuristic, special-edition Mac that’s ahead of its time in every way. Not part of any established Mac line, it brings a look (and a price!) unlike anything else available — and Apple delivers them to buyers in a limo!
And yet the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh promptly bombs. Today, it’s a collector’s piece.
Think long term, and the MacBook Neo costs far less than you might realize. AI image: Apple/ChatGPT/Cult of Mac
An analyst’s report shows Apple’s new MacBook Neo is even more affordable than it first appears. The total cost of ownership is about half that of comparable Windows PCs.
It may sound counterintuitive at first — how can a $599 Mac be half the cost of a $599 PC? — but the analyst showed that the typical lifespan of a Mac is so much longer than that of a Windows PC that the Apple model costs much less over time.
This M4 iMac setup packs great audio gear, too. Photo: [email protected]
The iMac has always occupied a special place in Apple’s lineup — a beautifully integrated all-in-one desktop computer that bundles a 4.5K Retina display, camera, speakers and microphone into a single elegant slab of aluminium with color-matched accessories.
Yet despite the machine’s considerable visual appeal, iMac setups are a surprisingly rare sight in Cult of Mac‘s long-running Setups section. I noted in March 2025 that, out of 616 Setups articles written over more than four years at that time, only 11 featured an iMac as the centrepiece. That’s partly due to the fact that Apple desktop sales. They made up just 14% of Mac sales in 2024, while MacBooks accounted for a whopping 86%.
New model number, same old drawbacks. Photo: Jason Zhang/Unsplash License
Apple had years to refine its high-end headphones, the AirPods Max. But with the just-announced AirPods Max 2, the company played it safe.
An upgrade to Apple’s H2 chip brings some notable new features to AirPods Max 2. However, with many of the original model’s shortcomings still present, the revamp feels like a missed opportunity.
Gemini could soon get a dedicated Mac app. AI image: ChatGPT
Google has begun internally testing a dedicated Gemini app for macOS. While the company continues to improve its AI tool almost every other week, the lack of a native Mac app limits its full potential.
A dedicated app will make Gemini more accessible and better integrated into everyday workflows on macOS.
An iPhone typing bug that frustrates users gets a fix. AI image: Apple/ChatGPT/Cult of Mac
Apple’s iOS 26.4 update includes a small line in its release notes that is drawing outsized attention. It promises “improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly.”
While that might sound like a routine tweak, it appears to address a typing problem that has frustrated iPhone users for months.
The IIfx was the fastest Mac of its day. Photo: Old Computr
March 19, 1990: The ultra-fast Macintosh IIfx makes its debut, sporting a hefty price tag appropriate for such a speedy machine.
The fastest Macintosh of its day, it boasts a CPU running at a “wicked fast” 40 MHz. It gains an additional speed bump from a pair of Apple-designed, application-specific integrated circuits. Prices start at $9,870 and run up to $12,000 — the equivalent of $24,561 to $29,862 in 2026 money!
A developer did with a MacBook Pro what usually requires a whole rack of specialized, powerful gear. AI image: Grok/Cult of Mac
Over the past few years, the artificial intelligence race looked like a story about infrastructure. Which company can build the biggest, most power-hungry data center, stock it with the most Nvidia GPUs and spend the most money? OpenAI, Amazon, Google, xAI — they’re all in a competition to build industrial-scale computing factories just to run the most powerful AI models. But it looks like developer Dan Woods just upended that story by running a data-center AI model on MacBook.
And that could mean Apple wins the AI race after all.
★★★★☆
The Tessan Voyager 205W travel adapter is one-of-a-kind. Photo: Rajesh Pandey/Cult of Mac
The Tessan Voyager 205 Universal Travel Adapter combines a global plug adapter with a powerful 205W GaN charger with seven ports. It’s bigger and heavier than your usual travel adapter — but also far more capable.
Does the Voyager deserve a spot in your travel bag? Find out in our review.
Dream on: an Apple TV 4K can't be made into a useful Mac. Image: Apple/Cult of mac
The MacBook Neo runs macOS on an Apple A-series processor with excellent performance, which has caused people to suggest that the Apple TV 4K could be hacked to run macOS and create a full-featured desktop computer for $129.
Or they propose Apple itself port macOS onto the video streamer and release it as a desktop that costs $200 or less.
A smarter AI-powered browser is here for your iPhone. Photo: Perplexity
Perplexity’s AI-powered browser, Comet, is now available on iOS. It features AI Comet Assistant, which can analyze a webpage to provide a quick summary or pull specific details.
A dedicated voice mode lets you ask questions instead of typing, and it works across all your open tabs.
Apple took an important step toward the iOS 26.4 release date. Image: Apple/Cult of Mac
Apple on Wednesday seeded the iOS 26.4 Release Candidate to beta testers, signaling that eager iPhone users should circle March 25 on their calendars. The new version brings in fresh emoji, a tweak to Liquid Glass and other changes.
The macOS Tahoe 26.4 Release Candidate has also been released, as have equivalents for iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV and more.
The Camera Remote app will take your selfies to a whole new level. Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac
Everyone knows Apple Watch is an excellent health and fitness companion. But did you know it’s also handy for taking selfies? That’s thanks to Apple Watch’s best-kept secret: the Camera Remote app.
This indispensable Apple Watch app lets you use your iPhone’s best camera to take selfies. Using the app will elevate your selfie game, enabling you to take more flattering shots — with better compositions, more interesting poses and much, much more.
I use it all the time to take photos for Cult of Mac, and I’ve learned a few tricks along the way. So here’s my definitive guide to taking better selfies with Apple Watch.
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Photo: Cult of Mac Deals
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The latest Vision Pro headset boosts processing power and improves comfort. Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac
Nvidia’s RTX graphics cards — the kind already sitting inside many Windows PCs and workstations — can now stream high-fidelity, immersive content directly to an Apple Vision Pro headset via Nvidia CloudXR. It’s a collaboration the two companies announced Tuesday at Nvidia’s GTC conference in San Jose.
iOS 26.3.1 (a) is Apple's first ever Background Security Improvements patch for iPhone. Image: Apple/Cult of Mac
Apple updated iOS, macOS and iPadOS with a Background Security Improvements patch on Tuesday, the first time the company has used its new system for securing user devices. This patch fixes a flaw in WebKit that could have allowed malicious websites to access data from other websites.
Background Security Improvements are installed without requiring the iPhone, Mac or iPad user to do anything — or even be aware of the update.
Sometimes, picking a winner is not easy. Photo: Apple/Rajesh Pandey/Cult Of Mac
Apple’s budget-oriented iPhone 17e packs a faster processor and more base storage — at a lower price — than the iPhone 16. But despite launching more than a year earlier, the iPhone 16 still holds an edge in several important aspects.
Here’s how the two affordable iPhones compare — and which one you should buy.