Some power banks feel like a compromise until your phone finishes recharging: You plug in, put your iPhone down and wait. The Vionta B5 solid-state power bank by Adam Elements attaches magnetically to your iPhone, charges it wirelessly and flips out into a 360-degree adjustable stand so you can keep using your phone while it tops off.
It’s on sale for just $59.99 (MSRP $75) — and it fits in a pocket!
Apple might be planning to make Genmoji much more useful in iOS 27. The feature, which currently lets users create custom emoji, could soon suggest AI-generated emoji based on your personal photo library and the phrases you type most often.
That would solve one of the biggest problems with Genmoji: Most iPhone users forget it exists. Despite being genuinely fun and useful, Genmoji remains one of the most overlooked Apple Intelligence features.
But Apple might change that with iOS 27.
iOS 27 will offer additional AI-powered grammar assistance, according to an unconfirmed report Monday. This will go beyond the writing tools already available through Apple Intelligence and will work in macOS and iPadOS, too.
In addition, Apple will also use AI to generate wallpapers for their devices and also make shortcuts easier to create in the Shortcuts app.
MacMagic is the Swiss Army knife of Mac utilities: It can perform scores of optimization tasks, from clearing gigabytes of storage to batch processing hundreds of files.
A MacMagic lifetime upgrades license is currently on sale for just $22.98 with code MACSAVE.
Anthropic’s Mythos AI helped indie hackers bypass Apple’s Memory Integrity Enforcement, a hardware security system used in the M5 processors that power the latest MacBook Pros.
Apple spent five years developing MIE, but the hacking team at Calif, a small security startup based in Palo Alto, California, said it used Mythos Preview to find bugs in the M5 chip — and built a working exploit in just five days.
This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: A fresh iOS 27 rumor says the iPhone’s Camera app will get a serious upgrade. And it sounds like the best of both worlds — heavy customization if you want it, status quo if you don’t.
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.
The new Govee TV Backlight 3 camera-based TV ambient lighting system sets a category record for imaging resolution, the company said Monday. And, crucially for Apple users, it works natively with Apple Home via Matter right out of the box.
May 18, 2006: The world — and, more specifically, the Apple-watching press — gets its first glimpse of the swanky new Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York City.
Previously hidden behind a black plastic wrapper during development, that all changes a day before the store’s grand opening. Workers remove the covering to reveal a 32-foot glass cube adorned with a floating, white Apple logo. At 10 a.m., members of the press go on an exclusive tour of the new venue.
All signs point to Apple reinventing Siri as a conversational AI chatbot in iOS 27, complete with a standalone Siri app. With privacy in mind, the app will reportedly contain an option to automatically delete your Siri chats every 30 days.
This privacy-first approach should give Apple’s AI chatbot an edge over its competitors.
The Apple Magic Mouse doesn’t go on sale very often, so don’t miss a rare deal that saves you 19% on the svelte input device for your Mac or iPad. This new Apple Magic Mouse deal drops the price to just $63.99.
The sale is on the USB-C version, not the older Lightning model, so it’s a great opportunity to upgrade.
May 17, 1983: John Sculley takes the helm as Apple’s third president and CEO. The former Pepsi-Cola boss is short on tech experience but long on marketing, which will become increasingly important as the personal computer revolution ramps up.
Steve Jobs personally lured Sculley to Apple using one of the most famous lines in the history of business. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water,” Jobs asked Sculley, “or do you want a chance to change the world?”
Rumors point to an updated version of the HomePod mini and a new Apple TV 4K coming this year. What’s holding them up? The same thing that’s been giving Apple problems for years: AI.
Here’s what to expect from these two smart home accessories, and why Apple’s struggles with artificial intelligence have kept them off the market.
The SanDisk Extreme is a pocket-size 2TB SSD that’s speedy and reliable. It hits read speeds up to 1,050 MB/s and write speeds up to 1,000 MB/s over USB 3.2 Gen 2.
And right now, you can grab this tiny SSD (that’s gigantic on the inside) on sale for just $269.99. That’s nearly half off the regular price of $499.99.
May 16, 1994: Apple launches the PowerBook 540c, one of the best laptops in the company’s history.
Part of the innovative 500 series of PowerBooks, the 540c is the laptop to own in 1994. Blisteringly fast, packed with innovative features, and offering the best notebook display on the market, it’s a triumph on every level. Although for $5,539 (over $12,400 in today’s money), it had better be.
AI is changing the kind of apps you can run on a Mac. From voice-first writing tools to meeting assistants and smarter file management, these new AI apps can save hours every week.
After months of testing, these are the AI apps that earned a permanent spot in my workflow.
AI writing tools work wonders, but AI detectors can flag your content if it leans too heavily on robo-prose. If you want your AI writing to be undetectable, you must edit all that content yourself, but it takes time to add the human touch. Sometimes, there just isn’t room in the schedule, but that’s OK. There’s a robot for that, too. You can use an AI humanizer like Undetectable Humanizer.
The Undetectable Humanizer transforms your AI-generated text into natural, human-like prose to help it bypass AI detection systems. This tool is a great get for writers, content creators and business owners who need to save as much time as they can when creating engaging content. A lifetime subscription to this effective AI humanizer’s pro plan is on sale now for $139.99 (regularly $2,880).
Emojis are a fun and harmless way to lighten up work communication, right? Yes… most of the time. But some of these pictograms are downright creepy if you send them to a co-worker.
Here are some of the worst examples you should absolutely never use, and a few emojis you should use only cautiously.
May 15, 2001: Apple CEO Steve Jobs flips the script on the dreadful experience of computer shopping, unveiling an ambitious plan to open 25 innovative Apple stores across the United States. The first ones, located at Tysons Corner in McLean, Virginia, and the Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California, are set to open later that week.
However, this new Apple initiative is about much more than just a couple of retail outlets. It’s a radical reinvention of tech retail that will change the way computers get sold.
Adam Elements’ CQ3 Qi2 Cooling Car Mount Charger keeps your iPhone securely mounted, actively cooled and wirelessly charging at up to 25W as you roll down the road.
And right now, you can get this fully featured iPhone car charger for just $59.99 (MSRP $79).
Sitting at a computer for eight or 10 hours a day will eventually catch up with you. Stiff necks, sore wrists, aching backs, eye strain — the toll of a poorly designed workstation is real. And the Cult of Mac Setups archive is peppered with users who know it firsthand. But it also shows an increasingly thoughtful community that does something about it. Here are 10 of the best ergonomic Mac setups from the past several years.
Apple recently nixed the $599 Mac mini from its product lineup. And the most affordable version of the MacBook Pro also got cut.
This raises serious questions about how much longer Apple can keep offering the cheapest versions of the MacBook Air and MacBook Neo.
Spotify is making a big move toward video podcast interoperability, and Apple fans stand to benefit from it. The streaming service said Thursday that it will adopt Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming, or HLS, technology.
Apple rolled out HLS earlier this year to modernize video playback on Apple Podcasts, promising a seamless experience for both viewers and podcast creators. Spotify’s adoption of HLS later this year sounds like a win-win for video podcasts.
Apple might open the App Store to agentic AI, which could change how iPhone users interact with their smartphones every day. If the plan works, the App Store could expand from a straightforward marketplace for apps and instead become an intermediary for autonomous software.
That could be a much bigger deal than it sounds. These AI agents might be capable of performing complex things on your behalf, such as booking flights, managing your calendar, and even coordinating the whole day without you ever needing to tap a single button.
A once promising partnership between Apple and OpenAI could be heading for a legal confrontation, according to a report published Thursday.
OpenAI has been providing artificial intelligence services for iPhone and Mac users since 2024, but the deal is souring behind the scenes, with the software developer reportedly unhappy that it’s not getting much benefit from the partnership.
IQ Career Lab combines IQ testing, personality profiling and real-world job matching to help you discover better career opportunities. The platform combines a multidomain IQ assessment, Big Five personality testing and a career DNA report designed to help you understand how your brain actually works.
The data it generates can help you uncover stronger earning potential in jobs you’re less likely to hate by Wednesday afternoon. And right now, lifetime access costs just $19.99.