★★★★☆
Anker’s Soundcore sub-brand spent years punching above its weight in the budget and midrange earbuds market, and Liberty 5 Pro is an ambitious new swing. Released alongside the pricier Liberty 5 Pro Max (reviewed separately tomorrow), these $169.99 earbuds aim squarely at anyone who wants AirPods Pro-level features without paying AirPods Pro prices.
This Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro earbuds review finds them excellent overall. They particularly excel at call clarity.
If you feel like every photo you take looks boring and overprocessed, you can change your iPhone camera settings to take natural, lo-fi pictures.
Turning down the exposure can prevent the photo from looking unnaturally bright (and more like something shot on an older digital camera). If you have a newer iPhone, you can even change its Photographic Style to “Natural,” for better-looking colors. A few quick trips into the Settings app can turn off the lens distortion on the Ultra Wide and selfie cameras, for that pure fisheye look.
You can even take things a step further and download a different camera app — one that captures totally unprocessed photos straight from your iPhone’s sensor.
Here are my top tips for taking lo-fi iPhone photos.
AI prompts generator Prompting Systems turns plain-text directions into effective directives that work with popular models like ChatGPT and Claude.
It makes it simple to get the results you want without burning an afternoon iterating on prompts that don’t deliver the goods. And a lifetime subscription to this tool for AI mastery just dropped to $24 with code PROMPT20 (regularly $360).
Apple appears to be working on a new pair of over-ear headphones, possibly Beats Studio Pro 2. A recently discovered filing in a Federal Communications Commission database describes an unreleased device as “Bluetooth over-ear headphones” with an antenna, battery and microphone.
The best guess right now is a long-overdue refresh of the Beats Studio Pro, which Apple released in 2023. Apple just released the AirPods Max 2, so it is unlikely the company will announce a new set of over-ear Apple headphones.
Apple is reportedly preparing to overhaul one of the iPhone’s most cluttered menus: the AirPods settings screen.
Over the years, the AirPods settings screen has grown more cluttered with every new feature Apple introduces to the popular earbuds. That could change with iOS 27, which could come with a completely revamped layout for the AirPods settings.
May 25, 2010: Apple opens an investigation into a string of suicides at Foxconn, its Chinese manufacturing partner for assembling iPhones.
After reports of a ninth death at a Foxconn factory, Apple says it is “independently evaluating” Foxconn’s response. Cupertino vows to take a long, hard look at the facilities that manufacture its products. It’s a tough challenge for Apple to deal with — and CEO Steve Jobs’ controversial comments don’t exactly help.
The charging port on the bottom of the Magic Mouse draws criticism — mostly from people who’ve never actually used one. But there’s a way Apple could quiet the complaints and improve the product at the same time: add MagSafe wireless charging.
The mouse could keep its iconic design, become easier to charge and the critics would have to find something else to complain about.
The Apple Watch’s next big software update — watchOS 27 — will supposedly follow the same strategy as iOS 27: It will focus on stability and performance rather than introducing radical new features.
Apple will not launch its AI-powered health coaching service with the initial build, according to a new report.
Details continue to emerge about Apple’s next-generation premium earbuds, widely referred to as “AirPods Ultra” and sometimes described in leaks as fourth-generation AirPods Pro. The next-gen earbuds reportedly will bring a significant jump forward, including adding cameras and health-monitoring features. And they aren’t too far away.
Here’s what to expect.
On the latest episode of the Cult of Mac podcast: Apple might go back to the iPhone future, thanks to some metallurgical magic that involves a special titanium alloy.
We discuss the pros, the cons and the possible timeline for such a retro upgrade.
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.
May 24, 2013: Apple begins phasing out the option to download movie trailers from its once enormously popular iTunes Movie Trailers website.
The move signals a major change in the way people consume digital content as the internet evolves. Downloads will continue to decline, as streaming services like YouTube and Netflix gain steam.
The FastestVPN & Security Lifetime Bundle gives you two essential tools for safeguarding your data — a VPN and a password manager — all for one low price.
You can lock down your devices with this lifetime VPN and password manager bundle for just $39.99. That means no monthly subscriptions, just security that sticks.
May 23, 1985: Bitter about being ousted from his position running the Macintosh division, Steve Jobs attempts to stage a boardroom coup to seize control of Apple from CEO John Sculley.
The 30-year-old Apple co-founder plans to overthrow Sculley while the CEO is away on a business trip in China. Unfortunately for Jobs, he makes a critical mistake when he tries to recruit the support of Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée, who informs Sculley of the plot.
It’s the beginning of the end for Jobs’ first tenure at Apple.
As it struggles to catch up on AI, Apple almost undoubtedly plans to focus on Apple Intelligence in iOS 27. But the company will also reportedly focus on refining the iPhone experience and tidying up existing features.
Thanks to leaks, we already have an early look at some of iOS 27’s biggest new features. While Apple certainly has some surprises planned, these are the leaked iOS 27 features I’m most excited to try.
OpenAI just gave its Codex for Mac programming app a feature called Appshots that makes copy-pasting code or describing what’s on the screen unnecessary. Just press Command twice, and the AI assistant automatically takes a screenshot and captures text from your window, including scrollable content that isn’t visible.
Appshots is the headline addition in this week’s Codex update, and it’s only available on Macs for now. Think of it as giving your AI assistant a pair of eyes, instead of always explaining what you are looking at.
Plug in the Mini Wireless CarPlay/Android Auto Adapter once, then pair it with your phone, and every time you start the car, you’ll enjoy a wireless infotainment experience.
That means no more plugging in your phone — a wireless CarPlay connection happens every time you start the car. And right now, the Mini Wireless CarPlay/Android Auto Adapter is on sale for just $34.99 (MSRP $59.99).
Apple’s next HomePod is reportedly stuck in limbo while the company works on its delayed AI Siri upgrade. And honestly? That might be what the HomePod 3 needs. But before Apple unveils the HomePod 3, it needs to address some serious gaps that make it feel far less intelligent than the competition.
The HomePod’s problem has never been its hardware. The speakers sound fantastic, and the device tightly integrates into Apple’s ecosystem. But the user experience still feels a generation behind competing smart speakers. If Apple wants the HomePod 3 to be the center of its smart home ambitions, a faster chip and a shinier enclosure won’t be enough. Here’s what actually needs to change.
★★★★★
The Ugreen DXP4800 Pro is the kind of network-attached storage device, aka NAS, that blurs the line between simple network storage and a compact home server. It packs enough power to handle Plex streaming, Docker containers, virtual machines and multidevice backups.
With a faster processor and improved bandwidth over its predecessor, the DXP4800 Pro delivers a noticeable performance boost for users who want more than just basic file storage.
This added flexibility makes the DXP4800 Pro stand out.
There’s a moment, familiar to anyone who has experienced it, when you move from a dual-monitor setup to a single ultrawide and realize the bezels were never doing you any favors. One seamless, curving (or not) expanse of glass — from 34 inches to 49 inches and beyond — that wraps gently around the periphery of your vision, eliminating the dead stripe down the middle of your workspace where two screens met. We found the best ultrawide Mac setups from years of Cult of Mac coverage.
Apple is reportedly testing a prototype quad-curved OLED screen for the iPhone 19 Pro as part of its push toward an all-screen iPhone. If the leaks prove accurate, it could mark Apple’s biggest redesign since the iPhone X.
The rumored 2027 flagship phone is said to come with under-display Face ID and be curved on all four sides. It could give buyers a compelling reason to skip the iPhone 18 Pro.
Apple stopped signing iOS 26.4.2, meaning iPhone users who updated to iOS 26.5 can no longer roll back to the previous version.
Whenever Apple rolls out an iOS update, it allows users to go back to the previous version if they run into bugs or other issues. But once the company considers the new release stable, it stops signing the older build.
One of the most dramatic ways you can customize your computer is to remap your Mac keyboard keys. You can make it your own with custom functionality, powerful keyboard shortcuts and advanced features.
Using the free app Karabiner Elements, switching out one key for another is super-easy. It’s a must-have if you use a PC keyboard with your Mac. You can also go one step further, making custom keyboard shortcuts.
But if that sounds too fiddly to do yourself, you can simply install some customizations made by the Karabiner Elements community. Someone might have set up a rule for your specific keyboard!
Here’s how to get started.
May 22, 1997: Apple spins off its Newton division, creating an independent company to manage the line of personal digital assistants. Newton Inc.’s first job? Selling the MessagePad 2000 PDA, the best Newton device yet.
But Apple also gave Newton Inc. a mandate to develop new technologies and market existing ones.
“We have a solid business plan and a strong management team in place to optimize the value of Newton technology for corporate users and take Newton technology into a new era,” says Sandy Benett, former vice president of Apple’s Newton Systems Group and chief operating officer of the new venture.
Instead, it turns out to be the beginning of the end for the ahead-of-its-time Apple PDA.
Apple’s Shortcuts app can be incredibly powerful, but building automations often requires patience and trial and error. A new AI-powered tool — Shortcuts Playground — aims to simplify the process by letting you create shortcuts on your iPhone or Mac with natural-language prompts.
The free and open source app requires Codex or Claude Code to work.
Two new sets of Soundcore flagship earbuds — Liberty 5 Pro and Liberty 5 Pro Max — introduce the company’s first product line built around a co-developed Thus AI chip, the Anker subsidiary said Thursday. Both models are available now, starting at $169.99 and $229.99 respectively. They’re compatible with Apple’s Find My network.