Cult of Mac

Pretzel and the Puppies, the adorable Apple TV+ kids’ show about a family of dachshunds and their gentle misadventures in their hometown of Muttgomery, returns for a second season today.

Created by relative newcomer Kim Howitt and veteran Steven Altiere (Scooby-Doo!, Dinotrux), this show serves up low-stakes lessons of acceptance and perseverance —  everything that needs to be reinforced during a child’s formative years. Plus, it’s got cute dogs animated with care. Nobody with a heart can say no to this charming animated series.

A new report lays out possible new colors coming to the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro lineup this year. Thursday’s leak comes just days after the arrival of detailed CAD renders of the upcoming iPhones, revealing upcoming design changes.

An Apple museum could be made of just the items currently up for bid at a single auction. There’s a fully functional Apple-1, an Apple Lisa 1, some technical notes handwritten by Steve Jobs, an original iPhone still sealed in the plastic and much, more.

Many of these items are expected to bring in big bucks.

Apple is having a major outage of its online services. No less than 29 of them are reporting major problems, including the App Store, Apple TV+, Apple Music, Podcasts, and some iCloud services.

So it’s not just you. Stop rebooting your computer trying to fix it.

Update: Apple was able to quickly fix some of these, so the current total is eight services still having problems.

Update 2: All problems with Apple online services have now been resolved.

Gas prices are cause for financial frustrations, and warmer weather is on the way. So why not explore the benefits of an electric kickscooter? This budget-friendly and efficient transportation option is perfect for getting around town or campus, and you can currently pick up a premium product for half the regular price.

Get cruising with a Segway Ninebot Air T15E Electric KickScooter, now only $399.99 (regularly $799). Whether you want one for yourself or think it would be a great gift for someone else, don’t miss this opportunity to save some serious cash.

Not into paying what Apple’s top-shelf noise-cancelling AirPods Max headphones cost? You have options. In fact, Sony Electronics rolled out two new mid-tier headphones Tuesday at modest price points — the over-ear WH-CH72ON and the smaller, on-ear WH-CH520.

The higher-end WH-CH72ON set, at $150, costs well under half the price of the brand’s acclaimed WH-1000XM5 noise-cancelling cans, but uses the same V1 chip. And the lower-end WH-CH520 headphones, at $60, are just downright affordable.

The new Mophie Powerstation Pro AC is for anyone who has multiple devices they need to charge on the go, and not just phones and tablets. The 27,000mAh external battery includes four charging ports, including an AC socket.

Mophie also introduced updated versions of its more basic Powerstation and Powerstation XL offerings on Thursday. These pack 10,000mAh and 20,000mAh, respectively.

Got access to a 3D printer? You can make your own Apple Watch charging stand in the form of “Thing,” the disembodied hand from the Netflix series Wednesday and its Addams Family predecessors, all the way back to the original magazine cartoons.

It might scare some people, but ghoulish types are going to want to make his thing pronto.

Apple’s powerful M2 and M2 Pro Mac mini are available with their first-ever discount since launch. Depending on your configuration, you can save between $19 to $49 on the 2023 Mac mini.

Amazon is providing a modest $19 discount on the entry-level M2 Mac mini. On the more powerful M2 Pro Mac mini with 512GB storage, you can save $49.

If you’ve got one of Apple’s wonderful iPads, you need a case to keep it safe. And the cool thing about iPad cases and folios is that they often serve as both protective cases as well as stands. Some even store your Apple Pencil.

And right now you can take 20% off every SwitchEasy iPad case in the Cult of Mac Store. That gives you a choice of 12 different products and a savings of up to $10 each. The sale goes through Thursday, March 2.

The earliest Macintosh models used an iconic design — one that many longtime Mac users like me feel nostalgic about. The Shargeek Retro 67 is a salute to those early Macs that’s useful, not just decorative.

It’s a palm-size wall charger that pumps up to 67 watts through a trio of USB-C ports. With it, you can make a Macintosh juice up your iPhone and MacBook.

As someone who still has a Mac from the 1980s, it was a delight to test the Retro 67.

Google is bringing one of the key Pixel-exclusive camera features, Magic Eraser, to the iPhone. The feature is now available on all smartphones as a part of Google One.

Using Magic Eraser, you can erase unwanted people and objects from your photos with a tap.

Add your COVID-19 vaccine card to Apple Wallet on your iPhone, and you can leave your physical card safe at home. Some places may require proof of vaccination to enter, like international airports, concert venues and cruise ships.

If your health care provider can share data with the Apple Health app, and if digital cards are considered valid proof of vaccination where you’re going, and if the stars are in the right place, too, you just might be able to go all-in on Apple Wallet. Let me show you how.

Shift Happens, a book about keyboards, is now 400% funded on Kickstarter. This makes it the second-most funded non-fiction book ever on the crowdfunding site. The book, by designer/writer Marcin Wichary, “tells the story of keyboards like no book ever before, covering 150 years from the early typewriters to the pixellated keyboards in our pockets,” according to the project website.

Shift Happens is available on Kickstarter until March 9. Donate $150 and you can get the two-volume hardcover set inside a slipcase.

Looking to take your WordPress endeavors to the next level? OpenAI’s increasingly popular product ChatGPT is an effective way to amplify your site, and can open up a whole new world of possibilities, and now you can bring its AI talents to your very own website.
Typically $299, this lifetime license for a ChatGPT plugin is available for only $59. It’s the perfect opportunity to boost your creative content, overall online presence and so much more.

3D CAD renders of the 2023 iPhone 15 have leaked online, revealing all the design changes Apple is planning. This includes bringing the iPhone 14 Pro’s Dynamic Island to the non-Pro iPhones this year.

Like the iPhone 15 Pro, the non-Pro variants will switch to USB-C for charging and data transfer. Thanks to an EU mandate, the iPhone maker seems set on retiring the Lightning connector this year.

Apple Watch is well-known as a health tracker, but a new report said a secret project dating back to Steve Jobs’ era — to use the wearable to monitor glucose without pricking the skin to get blood — has made headway recently. And that has major implications.

The secret effort, known as E5, could involve a device that straps to the bicep and works with the watch. If it comes to market, it could disrupt industries and help millions of diabetics.

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The OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock was designed to be taken on trips, which is unusual for a hub that uses this extremely fast connection standard. While portable, it still has room for eleven ports in a range useful types, including Thunderbolt 4 (of course), USB-A, HDMI, USB-C and more.

I put the dock through a series of real-world tests to see how well it performs.

Jon Stewart, longtime host of The Daily Show and current host of The Problem with Jon Stewart on Apple TV+ — and to many folks a sort of comedic conscience of the nation — will take your calls on Thursday, February 23.

That’s the same day the streaming service said six new episodes of Stewart’s show would air weekly starting Friday, March 3.

Meanwhile, he’s doing a livestream on the The Problem‘s YouTube channel at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT. “He’ll be taking your calls,” the show tweeted.

Apple’s 2022 11-inch iPad Pro is available with massive discounts of up to $200 on Amazon. The deals are on the 1TB and 2TB variants, with the 512GB configuration seeing a sweet $50 discount.

Amazon is discounting both Wi-Fi and LTE models of the M2 11-inch iPad Pro to record low prices.

The main gear in a computer setup might be perfectly impressive, like the Mac Studio desktop machine in today’s featured setup. But that’s not what everyone looking at the workstation notices and talks about on social media.

Instead, the coveted items in this particular setup are a Bose speaker system folks are having a hard time finding, plus a Belkin Continuity Camera mount that helps you use an iPhone as a webcam.

These days, with data breaches on the rise, even companies whose job is to keep you secure online are suffering data disasters. But not security-first password manager Dashlane. It has never been breached. Not every password management company can say that.

A new leak indicates Sonos will release its new Sonos Era 100 and 300 smart speakers in March with a slew of features that challenge Apple’s recently relaunched HomePod.

Of the two new Sonos speakers, the pricier Era 300 features a version of spatial audio. Both support Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and USB-C line-in for versatile connectivity. The Era 100 is likely to replace the much-liked Sonos One, launched in 2017.

TSMC can now make 3nm processors, and Apple is all in. Literally all in — it’s reportedly buying the Taiwanese foundry’s complete output of 3nm chips.

This will be in the form of the upcoming Apple A17 and M3 processors, which are expected to both be made with the new process. It will make them faster and more energy efficient.

While Apple’s chips are undeniably impressive, you may need an Intel Mac, especially if you’re working a hybrid or remote schedule and need to use certain software. This refurbished MacBook Air offers all the convenience of a lightweight macOS device, with an Intel chip inside for $459.99 during our Refurbished Event.

You’ll have to act fast, though, as this promotion ends on February 23.