September 3, 1982: The US Festival, an extravagant music and technology event staged by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, kicks off in California. The festival costs $8 million to stage, and boasts appearances from some of the biggest musical acts of the day.

It’s a wild venture for Woz, who is on hiatus from Apple after surviving a serious plane crash in 1981.

In a pinch, you can charge your AirPods with your iPhone. This feature is very convenient if you know how to use it.  You can also use your iPhone to charge your Apple Watch, or even another iPhone.

Here’s how to take advantage of this capability.

Dolby unveiled Dolby Vision 2 Tuesday with big changes to the industry-leading HDR picture quality technology — and the timing couldn’t be better for Apple users. With Apple expected to announce next-gen Apple TV 4K at its September 9 Awe dropping event or shortly thereafter, the streaming device could be perfectly positioned to support the updated display standard as Dolby Vision 2 arrives, from day one or soon.

And Dolby Vision 2 could even solve users’ “too dark” complaint about Apple TV content.

Hohem’s new iSteady V3 Ultra phone gimbal gives iPhone filmmakers a powerful new tool to elevate their mobile videography game. Released today, it brings significant upgrades to the company’s already impressive stabilization technology.

With this new version of Hohem’s phone gimbal, you can pretty much bid farewell to shaky iPhone videos.

Few items in computer setups flaunted online induce more envy than Apple displays, particularly the one many people find almost financially within reach — the 27-inch 5K resolution Studio Display. (And let’s just stop frightening our wallets with any talk at all of the vaunted Pro Display XDR, starting at $5,000). So what’s even better than one amazingly vibrant, color-accurate Studio Display? Well, two of them, of course. We found 12 setups that might make you green with envy — the best dual Studio Display setups.

Apple’s foldable iPhone won’t launch until at least H2 2026. Yet, the company is seemingly already optimistic about its demand, raising its shipment forecast.

A reputed Apple analyst says Apple has bumped its 2026 and 2027 shipment forecasts by a few million units.

Google can continue its search deal to pay Apple billions of dollars a year for a prime spot as Safari’s default search engine, as long as it’s not an exclusive placement, a court ruled Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta said the proposed banning of such payments — which amounted to $26 billion to Apple and others in 2021, and likely grew since then — would actually help Google. Such a move also posed a “substantial risk of harm” to Apple, consumers and Google’s other partners, he said.

“Google will not be barred from making payments or offering other consideration to distribution partners for preloading or placement of Google Search, Chrome, or its GenAI products,” Mehta wrote in the 226-page ruling released Tuesday. “Cutting off payments from Google almost certainly will impose substantial — in some cases, crippling — downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets, and consumers, which counsels against a broad payment ban.”

Apple must have heard the complaints about the cost and weight of the Vision Pro AR headset, because it’s reportedly working on a Vision Air that will be half as expensive and almost half the weight. That’s the word coming Tuesday from a source who’s built a reputation by often being accurate in predictions about future Apple products.

It’ll take Apple a while to develop the new product, though.

The new Komutr earbuds from Artronic Designs do a trick that any Apple AirPods user can envy. Their charging case uses MagSafe, so it magnetically attaches to the back of an iPhone.

“They’re almost impossible to lose,” boasts Artronic.

There is a significant drawback to the Komutr’s design, though.

If you stumble across a webpage or a link in a different language, you can instantly translate the website to English directly from Safari. Unlike Google Chrome, Safari even translates the text inside images using Live Text.

And, if you accidentally change the language of a website to one you don’t speak, you can turn this feature on to help you change it back. At Cult of Mac, we use the feature to translate rumors or blog posts often written in Chinese, Korean or Japanese, like this.

You don’t need to select the words paragraph by paragraph and copy them into Google Translate (or even Apple’s own Translate app). Get the entire page in English at the tap of a button. Here’s how to make the most out of this handy Safari feature.

September 2, 1985: Reports claim Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is on the verge of setting up a new company to compete with Cupertino. The rumors fly after Jobs sells Apple stock holdings worth $21.43 million.

For anyone who thinks speculation about Apple’s future is an invention of the blog era, today’s edition of “Today in Apple history” is a reminder that the tech rumor mill was alive and well in 1985.

September 1, 2010: Apple’s new music-focused social network, Ping, ships as part of iTunes 10. Apple says the service will let users discover new music and more easily follow their favorite artists.

Ping racks up 1 million signups in the first 48 hours. Nevertheless, Apple’s social network is doomed from the start.

It’s hard to know where to start on Apple Arcade because the service offers so many titles. But we scoured the catalog and found all the best Apple Arcade games so you can get right to the good stuff.

Check out our latest video or keep reading below to see the best Apple Arcade games. And if you like what you see, you can pick up a subscription here.

Apple may ditch the physical SIM card in more countries with the iPhone 17. A report points to the company going eSIM-only with its upcoming iPhones in Europe this year.

Apple dropped the physical SIM slot entirely in the US starting with the iPhone 14 in 2022.

August 31, 2004: Apple launches the iMac G5, a distinctive, white plastic computer that looks a little like the world’s biggest iPod.

Housed in a 2-inch-thick enclosure reminiscent of Apple’s Cinema Displays, the new all-in-one machine bridges the gap between the pleasing plasticity of the iconic original iMac and the minimalist form factor of the ultra-slim aluminum Macs that will follow.

“Just like the iPod redefined portable digital music players, the new iMac G5 redefines what users expect from a consumer desktop,” says Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, in a press release. “With the entire system, including a gorgeous 17- or 20-inch display, just two inches thin, a lot of people will be wondering ‘where did the computer go?’”

Invasion season 3 is the most popular show on Apple TV+ and among the most watched series on any streaming service, according to a company that tracks ratings. New episodes resumed last week for the epic alien onslaught.

Speaking of sci-fi, the Apple TV+ adaptation of Foundation also found a large audience last week.

August 30, 2010: Just two years after opening its virtual doors, the iOS App Store passes a key milestone: one-quarter of a million apps for sale.

It’s a massive demonstration of success for a service Apple CEO Steve Jobs didn’t even initially want to offer.

Apple looks poised to unveil its highly anticipated AirPods Pro 3 at its Awe Dropping event on September 9, marking the first major update to the premium noise-canceling earbuds since 2022. Multiple sources suggest the third-generation model will bring significant hardware upgrades alongside Apple’s continued software feature rollouts. Check out all the AirPods Pro 3 rumors below.

This week, invites are out for the “awe dropping” iPhone event! Also: Touch ID and bumper cases making a comeback like it’s 2013, how to combine emojis, the first ergonomic dual-ultra-widescreen setup, Twitter versus Mastodon and Leander’s review of PowerBeats Pro 2!

The United Kingdom government is reportedly still demanding a secret backdoor into encrypted Apple iCloud accounts, despite the Trump administration stating recently that the demand had been dropped.

Apple’s attempt to block the U.K. Home Office efforts to violate the privacy of Americans is headed for court.

A proposed Lego set for Apple’s iconic iMac G3 needs your vote. If enough people support the suggestion, it could be turned into a real Lego product.

The set is an homage to the original desktop iMac, with translucent Bondi Blue parts, and even the controversial mouse.

August 29, 2001: During a meeting, Apple’s board of directors awards CEO Steve Jobs new stock options that will become part of a stock-backdating scandal several years later.

When the matter eventually ends up in court, Apple’s former general counsel pays $2.2 million to settle charges that she backdated stock options for Jobs, herself and others — and created fake paperwork to hide this fact.

Apple dropped a teaser video for Powerbeats Fit, wireless earbuds the company has not yet formally announced, on Thursday. Details remain sketchy, but video of athletes wearing the in-ear audio devices revealed a bit about the hardware.

The video promises that Powerbeats Fit will be “fit for every move” when they launch this fall.

Say you’re in the kitchen and you hear an alarm going off on the iPad in your living room. Rather than walking across the house to deactivate it, you can use Siri on your iPhone or HomePod to shut off the alarm. This method also works with timers (and a variety of devices, too).

Here’s how to do a handy trick that everyone should know.

EarFun Tune Pro noise-canceling headphones knocked my socks off when they came out, rivaling pricier sets like Beats Studio Pro. And now an EarFun Tune Pro headphones deal at Amazon puts them at just $55.99. That’s 38% off the regular price of $89.99.

They’re affordable even at their regular price. But at an incredibly low price of $56, they’re a steal — and worthy of being your audio daily drivers, not just backups.