If you were looking forward to iPhone 18 as a meaningful upgrade of last year’s model, new rumors out of China might give you pause. Apple reportedly plans to cut costs on the standard iPhone 18 by paring back several of its manufacturing processes.
That would bring the iPhone 18 significantly closer in specs to the budget-oriented iPhone 18e, according to a prominent Weibo leaker.
April 20, 2010: A day after the most high-profile iPhone leak in history, tech news site Gizmodo dissects a prototype iPhone 4, then publishes the teardown — showing the world exactly what’s inside the soon-to-be-released device.
The iPhone 4 prototype, accidentally left in a bar by 27-year-old Apple software engineer Gray Powell, quickly becomes the biggest story in the tech world. And that’s where the trouble begins.
Potential folding iPhone buyers can breathe a sigh of relief. New images of cases for the device — supposedly dubbed the iPhone Ultra — show it including MagSafe. Previously, we saw no sign of this feature in leaks about the much-anticipated handset.
This could have been a deal-breaker for some buyers.
Apple will bring a minor but important upgrade to the iPhone’s Home Screen customization experience in iOS 27. It will reportedly allow you to “undo” and “redo” changes to your Home Screen.
This small tweak should make rearranging apps and widgets far less frustrating, especially when you accidentally move or delete something.
★★★★☆
Apple users are trained to reach for AirPods. It’s Pavlovian at this point. But at a regular price of $79 or less — roughly the price of a single AirPods replacement bud — the new Tozo NC20 Pro does things AirPods 4 won’t. And Tozo launch deals get you these excellent buds for much less than the list price — currently $59.49 on Amazon, for example.
April 19, 1994: Gaston Bastiaens, the executive in charge of Apple’s revolutionary new Newton MessagePad product line, parts ways with the company.
“We can’t say whether he fell or was pushed,” says an Apple spokesman. Reports suggest that the departing Bastiaens, general manager of Apple’s personal interactive electronics division, is leaving due to his failure to make the Newton a financial success.
The wait for Apple’s much-anticipated M5 refresh of the Mac Studio just got longer. The company will reportedly delay the launch of the next big MacBook Pro refresh to 2027 as well.
The ongoing DRAM and NAND flash shortages are to blame for the delay, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
There’s a setting called Lockdown Mode you can activate on your iPhone that will make it virtually impossible to hack. Just by flipping a switch, you can make your iPhone incredibly secure. So secure, in fact, that Apple says no phone using Lockdown Mode has ever been hacked.
Sure sounds great. Surprise — here’s why you don’t want to use it.
This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: New details emerge about Apple’s smart glasses, including possible shapes, sizes and colors.
Now for the important question: Will we — or anybody else — actually want to wear a pair?
Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:
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.
April 18, 1996: Apple unveils a massive $15 million promotional tie-in for the Mission: Impossible movie starring Tom Cruise.
Designed to promote the PowerBook, which Cruise uses in the spy flick, the marketing campaign comes at a particularly bad time. Attempting to climb back into the black after reporting its largest quarterly loss ever, Apple is in the middle of trying to perform its very own impossible mission. And that’s just the start of the problems.
The Camera Control button on the iPhone opens the Camera app, takes pictures and can even adjust camera settings on the fly. It offers a quick shortcut to using one of the most popular and important iPhone features.
By default, it’s a simple button to quickly take pictures, but there’s so much more you can do with it — if you choose. The physically clicking button also accepts touch input when you swipe your finger along it. And it utilizes pressure sensitivity and haptic feedback for you to adjust different camera settings.
Learn how to master the iPhone’s Camera Control button in our guide below, or watch our quick video.
A year into owning an M4 Pro Mac mini, it began feeling slow. With dozens of Chrome tabs and numerous other apps running in the background, everything felt more sluggish than it should.
I was already convinced I needed an upgrade. Turns out, I just needed to do a little spring cleaning. Here’s what I did to speed up my slow Mac mini.
iPhone Game Mode enhances graphics and reduces controller latency automatically when you launch a game. This optimizes performance to make your iPhone gaming as fantastic as possible.
Game Mode also reduces the background activities and services running on your phone. Luckily, if you don’t want that to happen, you can turn off Game Mode from your iPhone’s Control Center.
Here’s everything you need to know about how Game Mode works.
Phone users are sticking with Apple at unprecedented levels, according to a new nationwide survey, underscoring the growing strength of the company’s ecosystem and the challenges facing rivals trying to win them over.
And while Android users’ loyalty to their smartphone maker is noticeably weaker, that doesn’t mean huge numbers are switching to Apple.
New supply chain information reveals the four iPhone 18 Pro colors Apple might release this September. The popular and vibrant cosmic orange is gone, with a dark, wine-colored cherry red in its place, according to a new report.
April 17, 1977: The Apple II launch at the West Coast Computer Faire positions Apple at the forefront of the looming personal computer revolution.
The company’s first mass-market computer, the Apple II boasts an attractively machined case designed by Jerry Manock (who will later design the first Macintosh). It also packs a keyboard, BASIC compatibility and, most importantly, color graphics.
Fueled by some marketing savvy from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, the Apple II launch makes quite a splash at the San Francisco Bay Area’s first personal computer convention.
Docking stations and USB/Thunderbolt hubs are the unsung heroes of modern Mac workstations. While flashy displays and mechanical keyboards get a lot of glory in computer setup photos, it’s often a hub or dock quietly humming away that makes the whole thing possible — connecting multiple monitors, peripheral devices, external storage and audio gear through a single cable to the host computer. Here’s a roundup of the best-connected — and most impressive — Mac workstations from Cult of Mac‘s Setups section.
ChatGPT is making its Codex app for Mac more powerful. It can now operate your Mac in the background, plug into more apps and services and even browse the web.
OpenAI initially launched Codex primarily for coding purposes. But the latest update greatly expands its capabilities.
Pansophy is a secure personal AI assistant that runs on your Mac (or other computer). Once installed, Pansophy acts like a constant companion that can help with writing, coding, research, planning and everyday problem-solving.
You can ask it to draft emails, clean up text, brainstorm marketing ideas, outline projects or walk through tricky concepts. It feels similar to chatting with a cloud-based model, only everything happens on your CPU. It’s a fully local AI assistant that runs without accounts, subscriptions or cloud processing. And right now, you can get a lifetime subscription to Pansophy for just $79 (regularly $199).
Update: Introduced at CES 2026, Edifier’s new M90 Comact Active Speakers finally went on sale Wednesday. They’re the company’s first compact active speaker with HDMI eARC for easy use across desktop and TV-based setups. Available in black or white colors, they cost $370 per pair (not cheap, but incredibly versatile).
Edifier introduced a new lineup of speakers at CES 2026 designed specifically for users who need seamless audio across multiple devices and environments, the China-based audio manufacturer said.
The collection addresses a growing need among consumers who work, stream, game, and entertain from the same space, often switching between desktop computers, TVs, gaming consoles and mobile devices throughout the day.
Update: Perplexity said in March it would unleash Personal Computer software to work as an artificial intelligence manager for Mac, and now it’s available.
Today we're releasing Personal Computer.
Personal Computer integrates with the Perplexity Mac App for secure orchestration across your local files, native apps, and browser.
We’re rolling this out to all Perplexity Max subscribers and everyone on the waitlist starting today. pic.twitter.com/kxgFQFo7BB
— Perplexity (@perplexity_ai) April 16, 2026
Original post:
Artificial intelligence search engine company Perplexity just unveiled what it calls Personal Computer. It’s not a new piece of hardware, but a layer of software that transforms a Mac — specifically an M4 Mac mini in the company’s promotions — into a tireless AI employee.
It works around the clock, coordinates other artificial intelligence systems, accesses your local files and can be controlled from anywhere in the world. Mac users might be intrigued. Privacy advocates may not be so sure.
A fatal microlight aircraft accident in 2024 has been linked to production of Apple’s Adventure immersive video series for Vision Pro, according to a new report. And it seems crew members raised safety concerns before the accident.
April 16, 2009: Apple hits back at Microsoft following an advertisement that criticizes Cupertino for failing to sell decent laptops for less than $1,000.
“A PC is no bargain when it doesn’t do what you want,” Mac PR director Bill Evans tells Bloomberg. “The one thing that both Apple and Microsoft can agree on is that everyone thinks the Mac is cool. With its great designs and advanced software, nothing matches it at any price.”
Apple hit record recycled material use and other environmental milestones according to its annual Environmental Progress Report, the iPhone giant said Thursday. In 2025, 30% of the material in all Apple products shipped came from recycled sources — a record.
What makes the Apple ecosystem so alluring? Individually, the iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple Watch might not be the best devices in their respective categories. Yet, when combined, they form one of the best ecosystems in the world.
It’s this Apple ecosystem — the so-called walled garden — that makes it almost impossible to ditch Apple devices. But what makes it so good?