If you like the design of AirPods Pro but don’t want active noise cancellation — or a huge Apple price tag — these sub-$50 Bluetooth earbuds might be just the thing.

Just like AirPods Pro, Xpods Pro come with silicone tips that seal off outside sounds and provide a better fit for some folks. Unlike AirPods Pro, they don’t cost hundreds of dollars.

Even better, right now you can take an extra $20 off, driving the Xpods Pro’s normal affordable price of $69.99 all the way down to $49.99. Just remember to enter the code XPOD20 at checkout.

The iMac Pro might start reaching customers in early summer, according to a very reliable tipster. While some are hoping for a debut as soon as March, that’s apparently overly optimistic.

And the leaker says reiterates that the all-in-one desktop will have a mini-LED display.

If you want more Thunderbolt ports for your Mac, the Plugable USB4-HUB3A hub offers a trio of them. And they are fully functional, offering up to 40 Gbps transfer speeds and support for 4K monitors. Plus, there’s a USB-A port for good measure.

I put Plugable’s new Thunderbolt hub through a round of testing to be sure it lives up to specs.

Dutch regulators hit Apple with another $5 million fine Monday for not properly complying with new rules that say dating apps should be allowed to accept alternative payment methods. The penalty now totals $20 million.

The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) dismissed Cupertino’s feeble attempts to satisfy its requirements and said developers should not have to build brand-new apps to offer alternative payments options.

There’s something special about old Apple gear. Maybe that’s why it comes up fairly frequently in Cult of Mac‘s Setups coverage. One of the most-beloved classics in Apple’s storied history of beloved products is the Cinema Display. Today’s featured setup sports not one but two 30-inch Cinema Displays, the big stunners Steve Jobs introduced to an absolutely dazzled Worldwide Developers Conference audience in 2004.

So, naturally, questions came up about how to best use them with a newer Mac.

Zoom issued a quick fix for its native macOS app over the weekend to address a concerning bug that left microphones active when they shouldn’t have been.

It comes after many Mac users complained the app was still listening in after calls had ended. It is the second time Zoom has attempted to eliminate this issue, so here’s to hoping this update actually does its job.

Missed out on getting the perfect Valentine’s Day gift? Make it up to them with help from the Cult of Mac Store, where you can save on stellar iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch accessories.

Buy one, get one half-price on the entire lineup of SwitchEasy products — which includes great cases, bands, stands and more. This deal ends at 11:59 p.m. PT Monday, so enjoy it while you still can.

There’s no doubt about it: Cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens and the metaverse are at the forefront of Web 3.0 — and the future of the internet.

If you’re a total noob looking to learn, The Beginner’s Guide: Cryptocurrency Trading, NFTs & Metaverse Bundle is a great place to start. It’s on sale for just $21 (regularly $1,400). And, with seven different courses included in this bundle, that works out to just $3 a course.

Regulatory filings for three new Mac models have been spotted ahead of Apple’s rumored spring event next month. Recent reports suggest Cupertino could be planning a new MacBook Pro with a next-generation “M2” chipset. Rumors also indicate Apple continues to work on a bigger iMac, a new MacBook Air and a new Mac mini.

The filings come after Apple last month registered a new iPhone and a new iPad — believed to be an upgraded iPhone SE with 5G support and a refreshed iPad Air likely to pack the newest A15 Bionic processor.

Getting ahead in the world as a young professional isn’t exactly easy. And even when you’re successful, building an early adulthood home is something most of us do as renters.

Regardless of your rent, when you start to earn “grownup” money, you’ll be investing in valuables, technology, nice furniture, etc. And as you fill out your home, you need to make sure you protect what you’re buying with renter’s insurance.

This cloud storage post is presented by pCloud. 

If you’re looking for reliable cloud storage, you might want to skip the likes of Google Drive and Dropbox and go straight for pCloud. The Switzerland-based company, subject to strong privacy laws, offers affordable, super-secure cloud-based storage and backup for individuals and businesses.

Even better, right now you can get 75% off all individual lifetime plans in the company’s Valentine’s Day promotion. You can read more about that, as well as pCloud’s benefits, below.

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It’s no secret that we love to upgrade our tech. But there’s no better investment you can make than in yourself. That’s why we’re big fans of e-learning courses, which you can take in your own time, from anywhere — and this is one of the very best bundles we’ve found.

Right now, you can grab The Unlimited Lifetime Learning Subscription Bundle, which includes award-winning language software Rosetta Stone and a lifetime of unlimited online courses.

Ask someone for their New Year’s resolution, and there’s a decent chance you could tell them their answer before they do. That’s because most of us are thinking about the same areas of self-improvement each year. There’s exercising, losing weight, and getting organized. Another top 5 resolution: learning a new skill … like maybe a languae.

Of course, nobody wants to be slaving away on a New Year’s resolution by early summer. So, the Babbel Language Learning App gives users the chance to knock it out in three weeks.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Apple code once again refers to a mysterious “realityOS” for a virtual/augmented-reality headset. Vague rumors about the new device, which we’ve been hearing for years now, look set to become very real, very soon.

Also on The CultCast:

• Why no Face ID on Macs?
• Apple’s workaround for accepting third-party payments is a joke, but developers definitely aren’t laughing.
• iPhones are about to become cash registers!

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast 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 livestream, embedded below.

Who said Valentine’s Day is all about flowers and chocolate? We may be biased, but you know what really sets our hearts aflutter? Game-changing Mac and iOS apps that make our Apple devices more productive and our days even easier.

So, if you want to treat yourself to something you’ll fall in love with this year, may we suggest some of the very best apps around? These all come highly rated by experts and users alike. And right now, you can take an extra 15% off their sale prices when you enter the code VDAY2022 at checkout.

Now that’s enough to set pulses racing.

The Afterparty, Apple TV+’s Rashomon-style comedy of perspectives, finally looks back at the party before the party. Outkast is on the stereo, the cast get bad haircuts, and everyone makes embarrassing mistakes. Could this explain Xavier’s death?

The show hasn’t done much to engender any good will toward its cast of characters, and this week’s stunt episode doesn’t help things. The Afterparty seems quite taken with the idea of the cast reliving their glory days. But the sight of them all looking younger isn’t quite the gas the writers and director Chris Miller seem to think it is.

If you’ve been thinking about buying a camera drone to take stunning aerial photography, now is the time to do it. That’s not just because you can grab great prices these days on refurbished high-spec tech like this Vivitar VTI Phoenix Foldable Drone. Or even because this particular model is on sale right now.

Now’s the time to pull the trigger on a camera drone because in Cult of Mac Deals’ Valentine’s Day Sale, you can drive down the low sale price even further. You can take an extra 15% off when you enter the code VDAY2022 at checkout.

That means you can scoop up this drone for just $135.15. And that’s more than $100 off the regular price of $249.

Servant conjures up a storm in a teacup this week on Apple TV+. Leanne, the nanny with strange powers, finds herself losing control just as the desperate family she’s here to save needs her most.

Threatened by creeps, stalkers, and pretenders, Leanne has little choice but to let bad things happen to bad people. Writer Laura Marks and director Dylan Holmes Williams create a memorably harrowing half-hour in this week’s episode, entitled “Ring.”

Just a day after Apple touted its beefed-up privacy precautions for AirTags — in the wake of criminal incidents involving the tracking devices — an article in The New York Times on Friday showed their superiority to Tile and GPS trackers.

A reporter tracked her husband using all three kinds of devices. She found the AirTags not only better at tracking him in an urban area, but also better at tipping him off to the tracking.

The Samsung Galaxy S22 has the best chip available for an Android smartphone, but it can’t keep up with Apple’s A-series processor in the iPhone 13 series. Apple’s flagship solidly beats Samsung’s new top-tier models in benchmark tests. It isn’t even close.

And this is despite the iPhone 13 coming out months ago.

Keep your beloved Apple Watch looking brand-new with the SwitchEasy protective bumper from just $14.99. Buy it with a band, such as the outstanding Steel Mesh — or any other SwitchEasy product — and enjoy a 50% discount on the more affordable product.

Made from a flexible but sturdy TPU, the bumper covers the back and sides of your Apple Watch to keep them free from dents, dirt, scratches, and shattered screens.

The Sky Is Everywhere, the new Apple TV+ film based on the young adult novel by Jandy Nelson, is exactly what you’re picturing based on its title.

Director Josephine Decker steps away from the indie film world to embrace the things a big studio budget can afford (in this case A24 as well as Apple). And she makes sure that every cent is up there on the screen. Decker gives in too much to the sugar high of teen romance, but she and her very committed cast get an A for effort.

An increasing number of Mac users say Zoom is using their machine’s microphone even when the app is not in use.

Zoom rolled out an update last December for its native Mac app that supposedly resolved “an issue regarding the microphone light indicator being triggered when not in a meeting.” But it doesn’t appear to have worked.

Blogger Derek Seaman may be an IT systems architect in his day job, but he also designs and builds advanced computer setups. That is, if his home office is any indication. Which it is.

He shared his MacBook Pro-driven workstation — actually, the whole room — with Cult of Mac recently.

This discount software activation keys post is brought to you by CDKeylord.com.

In its Valentine’s Day Sale, software seller CDKeylord.com offers more unbeatable deals on genuine Microsoft software. Cult of Mac readers can get 30% off the regular price of a Windows 10 Pro key. And when you buy a Windows 10 key, you can get a free upgrade to Windows 11! Just enter the special discount code CULT when you check out to grab the exceptional savings.

See currently available discounts on various Microsoft software titles in the list below.