The Cult of Mac Store’s Easter Sale is winding down. Before it ends, don’t miss your chance to get up to 60% off a variety of accessories, including Apple Watch bands, iPhone and AirPods cases and more.
Visit the Easter Savings collection for all the deals and see some cool highlights below.
New computer displays tend to get not just better over time, but bigger — within reason. Unlike TVs, they’re designed to be viewed from just a few feet away at most. But increasingly, we see people using smart TVs as external monitors to get that extra size into their desktop setups.
Today’s featured setup sports an M2 MacBook Pro driving a 42-inch LG OLED smart TV that the user describes as “perfect.”
The powerful image-editing application Pixelmator Photo is now Photomator. Beyond the name change, the app for iPad and iPhone has been redesigned, and also now lets users easily select and edit specific areas of a photo.
In addition, a public beta of Photomator for Mac is now available.
★★★☆☆
Apple TV+ smash hit Ted Lasso needs a win this week, as AFC Richmond’s losing streak makes the team a laughing stock.
Ted’s not thinking clearly. Rebecca is seeing evidence everywhere that a psychic prediction about her is coming true — and it’s freaking her out. Keeley handles an unruly employee and makes a new friend. Nate has a minor victory off the pitch.
The episode, entitled “Signs,” is a perfectly good outing of the perennially upbeat football show.
If you constantly struggle with a spaghetti tangle of wires taking up space on desks, kitchen counters and bedside tables, there’s a better way to charge you and your family’s precious devices.
This seven-in-one charging station can power up an entire household’s worth of gadgets in a compact hub that takes up less than 8 inches of space. Even better, it’s now on sale for only $59.99 (regularly $89).
A popular magnetic iPad stand is about to be relaunched, better than ever.
The MagFlött Pro is one of the few iPad stands that is height-adjustable, making it versatile as well as ergonomic. It launched on Kickstarter on April 11, and you can get a whopping 26% discount by ordering now.
Apple may not ship the iPhone 15 Pro series with the rumored unified solid-state capacitive buttons. TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple abandoned the plan due to “unresolved technical issues.”
Previously, multiple rumors indicated Apple would replace the physical buttons on the iPhone 15 Pro with capacitive keys. The design also would have added two new Taptic Engines to simulate the feeling of pressing physical buttons.
You don’t need to shell out for a piano teacher if you want to learn to play a tune on the ivory keys. With Skoove Premium, you can get hundreds of lessons and thousands of instructional videos to help you learn everything from the basics to improv and chart hits. Get a lifetime subscription to Skoove Premium Piano Lessons for only $139.97. That’s over 50% in savings and the best price online.
An Apple TV+ series that turns a murder mystery into a genre-mixing comedy will soon return. Season two of the The Afterparty premieres in July.
There’s a new mystery to solve with a fresh cast of suspects, though Tiffany Haddish and some of the other stars of season one will be back.
With Earth Day coming up, Apple says it’s doubling its total commitment to “nature-based carbon removal projects” with an additional $200 million investment. In less technical terms, it’s backing projects to plant trees.
And it’s not just trees for trees’ sake. Part of Apple’s Restore Fund goes to agricultural projects that generate income from sustainably managed tree farms.
★★★★☆
The just-released Plugable AMS-5IN1E is a USB-C hub that attaches to the side of a MacBook and adds ports that Apple won’t, including USB-A and Ethernet. And it does so without blocking one of the USB-C/Thunderbolt ports and MagSafe charging.
I tested the five ports in this affordable hub to see how well they perform in the real world.
Apple’s 2023 MacBook Pro lineup is available with a massive $150 discount on Amazon. The deal applies to all configurations of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros.
This fantastic deal is unlikely to last long, so buy the MacBook you want before stocks run out.
The Steve Jobs Archive released its first book Tuesday, Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words. It’s a memoir of sorts because almost everything in it comes directly from Jobs, from major speeches and interviews to emails he sent to himself. It covers the Apple co-founder’s life from a young age until he passed away in 2011.
The new book includes never-before-seen content, the archive said, and it’s free from multiple sources.
Looking for your next science fiction binge? Apple TV+ offers some excellent sci-fi series to keep your eyes popping and (more importantly) your brain humming.
From mythic procedurals to New Testament space operas, Apple TV+ gives viewers a number of exciting science fiction series worthy of a watch. Some seem hilariously literal, while others prove truly fantastical. No matter your tastes, there’s something for every sci-fi fan.
Here are our picks for the best science fiction shows on Apple TV+.
MacWhisper is a great way to get text transcriptions for podcasts, live streams, meetings, videos — whatever you may need. Just drag a file onto the Mac app’s window and you’ll get a transcription generated on the fly. You can even use the microphone to make transcriptions live as you’re talking.
You can easily edit the transcription like a Word document and export it as a subtitle file for a video, a text file for reference or an HTML file for publishing online.
Apple’s next-gen Studio Display might not ship with a 120Hz ProMotion mini-LED panel as initially rumored. It’s reportedly still in development though, and the monitor could debut in 2024 or early 2025 with all the features of a “high-end monitor.”
Apple’s current 27-inch display features a 5K 60Hz panel. With its next upgrade, it could switch to a mini-LED backplane for thinner bezels.
Apple is finally ready to open its first retail store in India on April 18. And it will open its second store in the country just two days later.
The openings come after years of delay as Apple tried to establish a direct retail presence in the Asian country.
Soundcore unveiled its elegant new Motion X600 Portable High Fidelity Speaker Monday. The compact speaker offers hi-res, spatial audio in a handsome package with a metal grille and a choice of gray, green or blue colors.
When it becomes available in early May, it’ll go for $200. But you can get an early-bird discount. See below.
Testing shows that the recently released iOS 16.4.1 does not fix an iPhone battery problem introduced by its predecessor.
This wasn’t the usual small change in battery life that’s usual with updates. Many iPhone models saw significant drops with iOS 16.4. And the latest version isn’t a fix.
Another week, another set of active-noise-cancelling (ANC) wireless earbuds. The latest buds vying to take a piece of the AirPods pie are the updated OnePlus Nord Buds 2. They add ANC and improved sound quality over their super-affordable predecessor.
Nord Buds made a splash with good sound quality at a bargain-basement price of $39 when they came out. Now Nord Buds 2 piles on more features and boosts quality at a still-low $59 price point.
YouTube will soon get support for SharePlay, as well as videos with higher bitrates. And queuing up videos and jumping between devices will get easier, too.
The enhancements are part of Google efforts to get more subscribers for YouTube Premium.
Accessories maker ESR unveiled its new HaloLock Power Bank Wallet on Wednesday. Now on Amazon, the magnetic 3-in-1 device charges your phone, keep your cards in order and lets you “enjoy hands-free viewing in a sleek, pocket-friendly package,” the company said.
Not every computer setup flaunted and much-admired on social media is an Apple silicon powerhouse with an ultra-fast M1 or M2 chip. Today’s featured setup leans on a 6-year-old iMac and a MacBook Air almost twice as old as that.
But with the help of an impressive-yet-affordable audio gear list and a trio of gaming systems, the rig gets the work and play done. And don’t miss the beefed up iPod classic in the mix.
Mac shipments declined a jaw-dropping 41% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2023, according to a market-analysis firm. It seems Apple finally joined other PC makers in seeing reduced shipments of traditional computers.
PDFs are still the best way to send and share documents, contracts and invoices, whether you work from your office or run a small business at home. However, Apple users know it can be a nightmare to properly edit PDFs on standard Mac software.
But with a lifetime license to PDF Expert, you can create and convert beautifully readable documents and never have to struggle with trying to edit PDFs on macOS again. You can get it on sale for $69.99 (regularly $139), the best price online.