This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: The M2 Pro-powered Mac mini is a dream machine for creative types, according to our reviewer D. Griffin Jones. He joins us to sing the praises of this pint-size powerhouse. (It’s quite an upgrade from the 2015 MacBook Pro he used before.)

Also on The CultCast:

• It’s just two months until we’ll see Apple’s mixed-reality headset. We can’t help thinking this pricey “star product” is gonna flop hard, even as it points the way toward the future.
• A free book coming next week will reveal Steve Jobs “in his own words.”
• Will the next version of watchOS really bring big changes?
• Erfon knows where you can find a steady supply of genuine Apple accessories at cut-rate prices.

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast 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 live stream, embedded below.

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Is the car made of jelly? Or is the world? It’s both! It’s JellyCar Worlds. The game is a triumph of squishy physics, and a lot of fun to play.

If you enjoy driving games and puzzlers, you really owe it to yourself to try this. I have seven good reasons why it needs to be on your weekend agenda.

Considering how much time you spend online, are you doing enough to ensure complete privacy and safety? Cybersecurity threats continue to increase and evolve, leaving millions of internet users vulnerable. But, a strong VPN can provide protection.

For a limited time, you can pick up a lifetime subscription to Ivacy VPN for only $18.99 by using coupon code IVACY5 at checkout. This sub works with up to five devices. And it offers compatibility with macOS, iOS, Windows, Android, Linux, Roku, PS4, Xbox and more.

However, this deal lasts only through April 11.

Plenty of people dedicate serious time to gaming, but do you have what it takes to design a game yourself? If you’re curious about the process, or want to take a serious professional plunge, pick up this low-priced package of courses on game art development.

The 2023 Complete Blender Bundle is currently available for only $34.99 (regularly $655), with no coupon necessary. You’ll score enormous savings on instant access to five comprehensive courses on game art creation that total nearly 50 hours.

Doctor Who: An Unlikely Heist challenges players to solve mysteries by finding clues. The story-driven hidden-objects game debuted on Apple Arcade on Friday.

It’s the latest addition to Apple’s gaming service, which adds a new title almost every week.

Extrapolations, the too-ambitious-in-all-the-wrong-ways Apple TV+ science fiction show “about” global climate change, revisits an old friend this week for a look at the courier job from hell.

The show’s focus this time around is not on the environment but rather on the personal toll of living in a future you can’t control or understand. The episode, entitled “2066: Lola,” is a laborious and overfamiliar story that is, for no good reason, longer than almost every other episode of Extrapolations.

iPhone, Mac and iPad users got fresh operating system updates on Friday. iOS 16.4.1, macOS 13.3.1 and iPadOS 16.4.1 fix a smattering of bugs on the devices — including some security vulnerabilities that Apple admits may have been exploited — but there are no new features.

At this time, there are no equivalent updates for Apple Watch or Apple TV.

No matter which AirPods you have, the Cult of Mac Easter Sale has something for you. Check out the selection of cool cases and stands in the Easter Savings collection.

See some highlights below, where the links go straight to the products. And if you think this sale is probably only for AirPods Pro, AirPods 3 and AirPods Max, guess again. Here’s six cases for AirPods 1 and 2, for example — all 25% off.

The first season of Hello Tomorrow!, the Apple TV+ show about men selling lunar dreams and lies, comes to a close this week in high style.

Jack needs to tie up some loose ends, and he has no plan for what happens when his clients finally get to the moon. His son Joey must figure out who to honor, his mother or his father. Eddie has butterfingers and Shirley has to pay for it. And someone is, at long last, awake.

The season finale, entitled “What Could Be Better?,” is a great conclusion to a great season.

We often see computer setups festooned with several big external monitors, Mission Control style. But some great setups get by with zero external displays, like today’s featured iMac setup.

The iMac provides the main screen, of course. And then “black magic” makes the iPad Pro levitate as a second screen. Or something like that. See below.

Silo premieres in May, and Apple TV+ just released the full trailer for the upcoming drama series based on a bestselling trilogy of dystopian novels.

In the series, a few thousand people are left on earth hiding in a mile-deep silo. But what if everything they’ve ever been told about the outside world is a lie?

There’s nothing like an Easter egg hunt. And you can find fresh springtime deals on Microsoft software during the big Easter Sale at software activation keys provider CdkeySales.com. This week, you can take advantage of great prices on Microsoft Windows, Office and more. Don’t miss this chance for great bargains.

TL;DR: If you’re tired of forgetting passwords, a lifetime subscription to Sticky Password Premium can help. And it now costs only $23.97 until April 11.

New Apple TV+ docuseries Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker centers on a famous tennis player embroiled in a scandal. Directed by prolific but utterly predictable documentarian Alex Gibney, the two-part series charts the rise and fall of the youngest Wimbledon champion in history.

Debuting today on Apple TV+, the straight-ahead documentary goes from Boris Becker’s historic wins to his similarly historic losses on the world stage thanks to dicey financial decisions. And it does so in the most formulaic fashion possible. That’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s no ace, either.

Thieves were apparently stymied by the security on an Apple store in Washington so they broke into an adjacent store and cut a hole in the wall. That reportedly enabled them to make off with $500 thousand in Apple gear.

The haul included hundreds of iPhones.

The cybersecurity industry is enormous, and it’s only getting bigger. By 2029, the cybersecurity market is estimated to be worth just shy of $400 billion. Still, that doesn’t mean that those jobs will be easy grabs. Get ahead of competing job applicants with a comprehensive overview of the field and essential skills with this cybersecurity developer and IT skills bundle.

This comprehensive bundle of courses gives you more than 400 hours of training from iCollege professionals. And it’s on sale for $47.99 (regularly $7,774) if you use code SECURITY40.

USB-C is finally coming to the iPhone, but there are rumors and speculation that only Apple-approved cables will be able to charge the device. Realistically, though, there’s no way Apple would be allowed to get away with that.

The European Union is forcing Apple to drop the Lightning port, and would surely squash attempts to make USB-C into anything but a universal standard. That’s if Apple is even trying to do that, which is questionable.

The Easter Sale in the Cult of Mac Store features an array of iPhone cases and accessories at great discounts — up to 40% off!

You can find a huge selection of Laut cases to fit any taste and almost any recent iPhone (not just iPhone 14 series). And if you want a screen or lens protector, the sale has you covered with various options.

Check out the Easter Savings collection! And see below for some sale highlights for iPhone. The links below go directly to products.

The new Mac mini is the best value in the entire computer industry, point blank. It’s a $700 computer that won’t break a sweat editing high-resolution video, exhaustively long podcasts or giant graphic design projects — all at the same time. The M2 Pro model takes it even further.

Because of my job here at Cult of Mac, I wear a lot of hats. In a typical week, I edit videos, record a podcast, dabble in graphic design, compile open-source projects in Xcode and research topics for my writing. I’m basically all the creative professional stereotypes Apple loves to put in their promotional videos rolled into one.

After living with the new Mac mini for over a month, I can confidently say this is a fantastically powerful machine within the reach of independent creators, small businesses and schools.

For some reason, the white paper that first proposed Bitcoin has been included in every version of macOS since Mojave.

Why this document has been on every Mac released in the past five years is a mystery.

It’s time to part ways with low-storage warnings. A good cloud drive can help you free up your devices’ local storage. And if you need a lot of room for a long time, here’s your chance to get a 10TB lifetime subscription to Prism Drive for the best price online. It’s going for just $69.97 (regularly $2,490) until April 11 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific. No coupon needed.

High Desert will join the collection of comedies on Apple TV+ when it premieres in May. This won’t be light fare, as it follows an addict who decides to become a private investigator.

The upcoming series stars Patricia Arquette, winner of several Oscar, Golden Globe and Emmy awards.

We could all use more space on our devices and a bit more fun and flair for said storage. The Seagate FireCuda Gaming Hard Drive combines a massive 2TB of storage with RGB LED lighting, and it’s now on sale for only $69.99 (regularly $104).

Don’t be jealous of Microsoft Bing’s new AI capabilities: A new Shortcut called S-GPT integrates OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot into Apple devices. It works as a conversational search engine but can do much more, including summarizing a webpage and creating an Apple Music playlist from a list of suggested songs.

It’s a Shortcut rather than an app, and it’s free to download. There’s a very small fee for using it.

Apple TV+’s high-concept existential comedy The Big Door Prize tackles the big questions this week. A small town has been invaded by something called the Morpho machine, a device that prints out cards based on people’s identities and tells them what they’re meant to be in life.

Some people love the Morpho machine and the big changes it triggers. Others, like our hero Dusty and a local priest, have issues with it. A strong showing from The Big Door Prize cast helps this week’s episode, entitled, “Father Reuben,” go down easy.