Apple TV+ limited series Extrapolations steeps itself in sci-fi wonkery this week as members of a tech billionaire family find themselves on opposing sides of a terrorist action meant to move the needle on climate change.

Novelist Dave Eggers joins the show’s writing team this week, and Edward Norton, Indira Varma and Michael Gandolfini lead the cast.

While this isn’t a bad version of what Extrapolations set out to do, the show’s sprawling mission statement remains blinkered.

5 Movies, likely the first iPhone app generated almost entirely by ChatGPT, was approved by Apple and published on the App Store late Thursday night.

Morten Just, an independent developer of Mac apps who’s based in Switzerland, guided ChatGPT through the creation of the movie-recommendation app. Just said he told the AI what he wanted, then pasted its output into an Xcode project, writing only an estimated 2% to 5% of the code himself. The chatbot even fixed bugs as Just pasted in error messages.

“What matters to me is creating software that is useful and solves real problems,” Just told Cult of Mac after his 5 Movies app went live. “If I can do that faster with AI, I will.”

Apple’s 2023 14-inch MacBook Pro is available with massive discounts of up to $200. The entry-level model is available with a $100 discount on Amazon, bringing its price down to $1,899 from $1,999.

The best deal is on the 1TB configuration of the machine. After a $200 off, you can get the M2 MacBook Pro for $2,299.

It’s wedding time this week on the season finale of Shrinking, the Apple TV+ comedy where no one has problems — and everyone has to solve them anyway.

Brian’s dad has a short time to make his son’s day by agreeing to be his best man, even if the idea of a gay wedding makes him uncomfortable. Jimmy helps Alice get over her latest round of depression about her deceased mom. Sean and Liz head into business together. And Gaby looks for a second job with a little help from Paul.

It’s truly one half of an hour of TV — you can’t take that away from it.

Today’s featured setup carries a strong vibe of minimalism — so much so it appeared to lack even a computer, at least at a glance at the photograph. But then we realized the laptop was stashed away in unusual (and questionable) fashion.

We recently featured a setup with the MacBook Pro and iPad hidden on a little shelf mounted under the desk. This time the laptop is stashed in a case sitting directly under the monitor stand’s base (not recommended).

The big March Sale at software activation keys provider CdkeySales.com blooms with big deals ahead of spring. This week, you can take advantage of great sales on Microsoft Windows, Office and more. Don’t miss this one. It’s your chance for major savings.

The mystery AirPods referenced in iOS 16.4 are a new version of AirPods Pro 2 with a USB-C case, according to a reliable Apple tipster. And the product could be out in the next few months.

If true, these will be a significant step in transitioning the iPhone ecosystem away from Lightning and to USB-C.

Eva’s been shot and might be dying on this week’s season three finale of Truth Be Told, the Apple TV+ show about a true crime podcaster.

After last week’s shooting, podcaster Poppy goes looking for the truth behind the recent grim series of events. Trini blames herself for Eva’s fate, and Markus has only one more chance to redeem himself. Can they catch the person responsible for all this misery before it’s too late?

The episode, entitled “A Kiss Not Mine Alone,” brings a nicely plotted, excellently performed close to a very fine season.

We’ve all heard of tablets you can draw on — looking at you, iPad lineup — but how about a 24-inch drawing display?

Xencelabs Technologies unveiled its new Pen Display 24 Studio Series at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, which ends Friday.

If you’re serious about your art, it could be for you.

There’s more than one place in your home that might need a little spring cleaning. (And no, this time we’re not talking about your waxy ears.) You may have remembered to clean the little area beneath the fridge, but your internet could still be clogged with ads and third-party onlookers.

Luckily, there’s a way to clean that up, too. AdGuard can give you safer, ad-free browsing on up to 10 devices simultaneously. And now, you can get a five-year subscription to this easy-to-use VPN for only $34.99 (regularly $359) with coupon code SPRING15. But, you better hurry. This sale ends at 11:59 p.m. Pacific on April 3.

New Apple TV+ competition show My Kind of Country gives three celebrity judges a chance to train burgeoning country musicians in an attempt to turn them into superstars.

The talent is unconventional and the stakes are high in the show, which is executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and Kacey Musgraves (and underwritten by Apple Music). Nashville better get ready. (And judge Orville Peck better take that thing off his face.)

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency put an AirTag into an item that was suspected to be on its way to illegal drug dealers. The hope was that Apple’s item tracker would enable DEA agents to discover the location of the criminals.

This may be the first time this has happened, and it also may be the last. We don’t know how useful the AirTag was in the investigation, but Apple deliberately makes the device very hard to use for surveillance of any type.

Some software is just essential. And until April 3 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific, we’ve got a great deal on one of computing’s bedrock software suites: Microsoft Office Pro for Mac or Windows. This multi-app bundle comes with the software that functionally runs the professional world.

Right now, a lifetime license to these essential Microsoft Office programs is on sale for just $39.97 (regularly $349) during our Spring Digital Blowout sale.

The Federal Trade Commission wants to make cancelling subscriptions as simple as starting them. The US government agency proposed a “click to cancel” rule that would make it easy for consumers to escape recurring subscriptions and memberships.

Apple users can easily leave subscriptions they signed up for thorough the App Store. That’s not necessarily true for ones started elsewhere.

Nanoleaf opened up preorders for its newly Matter-enabled Essentials lineup of smart bulbs and light strips Wednesday.

Thanks to the Matter smart-home standard, they work with HomeKit and other smart-home platforms. But there is one catch regarding their use with HomeKit.

COVID-19 lockdowns in China didn’t just mess up iPhone production, they inspired the invention of a bizarre new machine with fake lips you can use with your smartphone to “kiss” someone far away.

Chinese startup Siweifushe launched the MUA — named after kissing sounds — a couple of weeks ago, selling more than 3,000 of them and receiving orders for 20,000 more, a new report said.

Bluetti noticed a gap in the portable power market. There are many solar power stations, but small ones offer questionable capacity. And the high-capacity power banks tend to be big and heavy.

Apple’s 2021 16-inch MacBook Pro might not be the latest MacBook around. But it is still more than powerful for almost any task you can throw at it.

If you don’t mind going for the 2021 model, you can save a whopping $500. The deal brings the price of the entry-level 16-inch MacBook Pro down to just $1,999 from $2,499.

Aqara unveiled its new Video Doorbell G4 in January. It’s the first battery-powered, easy-install doorbell to integrate HomeKit Secure Video. And now it’s available to buy.

This is good news for HomeKit users who don’t like to mess with wiring but would love to have a artificially intelligent video doorbell that triggers automations.

Apple reportedly hopes to make a big splash at your local movie theater in the very near future. The company supposedly will spend $1 billion to make films for the big screen.

These also will appear on the Apple TV+ streaming service, of course.

Planning a vacation isn’t cheap. If you’re already searching for cheap flights and lodging, you might be able to save some additional cash by avoiding extra data charges when you try to use your phone in another country.

With aloSIM, you can evade roaming charges (which can be a costly addition when traveling) and use your phone in more than 120 different countries. During our Spring Digital Blowout through April 3, you can get $50 of eSIM credit for just $19.97.

Planet of the Apps is a series of interviews with app developers about making, marketing and maintaining apps in the App Store.

Swiss developer Morten Just has built a whole slew of useful Mac apps under the name Otato. But his latest app wasn’t made by him at all: He asked ChatGPT to build it for him.

While Just earned his stripes as a professional programmer, he didn’t write a single line of code to create 5 Movies. It’s an iPhone app that gives you five daily movie recommendations, shows you the trailers on YouTube and tells you where you can stream the films. (It’s currently pending App Store approval.)

These days, artificial intelligence is making headlines for giving users powerful tools that can write essays, recreate impressive art and give technology journalists the heebie-jeebies. 5 Movies is proof that, with a big assist from AI, it only takes a few prompts and a basic understanding of Xcode to create an iPhone app without any coding yourself.

When I interviewed Morten earlier this week for Cult of Mac, I asked him how he got ChatGPT to build his app, what the generated code looked like, and how AI-coded apps will impact ordinary people as well as software developers.

The Nothing company followed up its Ear (1) noise-canceling earbuds with the new Ear (2) version Wednesday, offering hip, hi-tech earbuds comparable to Apple’s AirPods Pro — but at a lower price of $149.

The new Nothing earbuds feature active noise cancellation, Hi-Res Audio certification, partially transparent casings for a cool look, and more personalization options than the originals.

The Amazon Luna cloud-gaming service will soon include the Batman: Arkham Knight, Lego DC Super-Villains and three other premium games. They will be added in April.

And this applies to more than the United States, because Amazon also announced on Wednesday that residents of Canada, the UK and Germany now have access to Luna, which means they can play console-quality games on Mac, iPad and iPhone. There are even free games for Prime members.

People go nuts for solid wood on everything from guitars to flooring. But how about an all-solid-wood mechanical keyboard?

Japanese outfit Hacoa has one decked out in wood from the keycaps down through the housing, in either walnut or cherry. It’s called the Hacoa Full Ki-Board Wireless.

And it can be yours for the stout price of 99,000Yen ($745) plus shipping costs. That’s more than a base Mac mini.