Cult of Mac

If you’re short on know-how or entering unfamiliar territory, an AI consultant can help you tap into the collective intelligence of experts — without prohibitive costs.

Consultio Pro gives you 24/7 access to more than 50 AI-powered experts across a range of topics that will help your business (and yourself!) excel. Right now, you can get a lifetime subscription for only $29.99 (regularly $199).

If you want to get work done on your Vision Pro, you’ll really want a Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad for precision input and pointing. And for gaming, you can connect a controller, too. The Vision Pro officially supports Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch controllers, with support for some other Bluetooth models as well.

Follow these instructions to pair a Bluetooth device with Vision Pro.

Apple’s rumored OLED iPad Pro will reportedly be significantly thinner than existing models. The switch to slimmer Organic Light-Emitting Diode panels will make this possible.

Besides the thinner chassis, the 2024 OLED iPad Pros will have slightly bigger dimensions than its predecessors.

Electric bikes are having a moment, and Cult of Mac Deals has e-bikes on sale at the lowest price yet for a limited time.

If you want all the fun of a bicycle, with on-demand power to push up a hill, don’t miss this deal: Get a popular BirdBike in a variety of styles for just $699.97, with free delivery.

The batteries in the iPhone 15 series are even better than Apple realized. It takes twice as many charge cycles to wear one out than previously thought, greatly expanding the time before the battery needs to be replaced.

We already knew Apple’s latest goes a long time without needing a recharge. And now we know the battery itself is good for years of heavy use while remaining healthy.

New research suggests attackers can use the sound of a user’s finger swiping on a touchscreen to recreate their fingerprint pattern, according to a report Tuesday. And that biometric security risk could lead to trouble, of course.

All it takes is casual swiping in popular apps while a device microphone is on.

Great. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, biometic-security-wise.

Tuesday is the first day Apple Music users can see their Apple Music Replay 24 favorites so far for the new year — but that’s not all. There’s a fresh new feature to help you obsess over past listening.

Apple Music Replay now gives you monthly stats, including month-by-month lists of your top artists, albums and songs going back to through your history with Replay. So now you have even more proof of your listening habits (good or bad).

Getting 2nm processors into Mac and iPhone is reportedly proceeding as scheduled, and TSMC will begin making these in 2025.

The on-schedule progress report comes as very good news. Especially considering that the Taiwanese chipmaker ran into significant delays developing the 3nm processors currently in use.

Amazon bargain site Woot! is quietly offering some fantastic refurbished Apple gear deals, including iPhones, Apple Watches and AirPods.

Woot refers to its deals lineup as “basically an Apple soup.” It’s your chance to slurp up bargains (if you don’t need the newest gadgets).

The sale ends Monday, February 26, at 10 p.m. PT.

Those looking for loads of screen space can connect a pair of HDMI monitors to their MacBook with the newly released Plugable USBC-6950M adapter.

And it can do this with Macs that ordinarily support only one external display.

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.

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.

The best Vision Pro apps, games, demos and experiences showcase the AR capabilities of Apple’s headset.

If you own a Vision Pro and don’t know where to start, I put together a list of apps and games to try out first. Alternatively, if you can’t afford a headset (or if you live outside the United States), you can live vicariously through me as I show you all of the most interesting Vision Pro apps I’ve found.

I highly recommend you check out the companion video to this article to see these apps in action. Alternatively, you can continue reading below.

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.

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.”

Ever feel like your weekly Screen Time report shows you spend a little too much time on social media and entertainment? If so, you might want to invest in an app that can improve your cognition and open up opportunities for traveling — or even working — abroad. The Babbel language app makes it easy to learn multiple languages, and it’s available at a deep discount now.

In this flash sale, which ends tonight, you can get a lifetime subscription to the Babbel language app (all languages) for just $149.97. That’s a huge discount off the regular price of $599.

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.

Foundation season three production reportedly will resume in early March, after problems with the Apple TV+ sci-fi epic were ironed out.

Production for the popular series was put on hold in February due to cost-cutting efforts.

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.

Note: This deal appears to be sold out on Amazon (which may be temporary; items often get restocked), but is available at the same price at Best Buy.

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.

qCharge 2.0 from Citius Systems is a power bank with built-in charger especially for Apple Watch. With one of these, you can replenish the device almost anywhere, no wall socket needed.

I tested it out with my own Watch. Here’s why I like it.

In this week’s Awesome Apps roundup, you’ll find apps for managing files, using AI to boost your writing, and turning an iPad into a creative input device for a Mac.

And if all that productivity wears you out, we’ve got other options. You can relax with a charmingly peaceful Apple Arcade game with a delightful Japanese theme. Or you can blast enemy spaceships in an arcade-style game that’s great on iPhone — but even better on Vision Pro.

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready to download.

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.

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.

I’ve had a lot of fun playing Void-X, a modern arcade shooter game. If you’ve ever emptied a whole pocketful of quarters into Galaga or Zaxxon, then you’ll love playing it, too. And you’ll like it even more if you play Void-X on Vision Pro. (You can play the tame on iPhone and iPad, too.)