My favorite change in iOS 26.1 has nothing to do with Liquid Glass, though cosmetic tweaks to the glossy user interface have drawn the most attention in the latest OS update. To me, the biggest improvement is the option to disable the Lock Screen swipe to open the iPhone’s Camera app.

I frequently pull out my iPhone to find the Camera app has been running in my pocket, draining the battery. It’s that damn Lock Screen swipe at fault. If this happens to you, too, here’s how to disable it in iOS 26.1.

November 5, 2009: Fortune magazine names Steve Jobs “CEO of the decade.” The accolade comes just four months after Jobs returned to Apple after undergoing a liver transplant.
The business publication credits Jobs with transforming multiple industries, as well as continuing Apple’s meteoric rise. These achievements seem particularly noteworthy considering the tough economic conditions of the 2008 financial crash.

Nomad launched updated versions of its Stand One and Stand One Max wireless chargers Tuesday, bringing support for the new Qi2.2 standard. It enables 25W fast charging for compatible iPhones. The upgrade matches the charging speeds of Apple’s latest MagSafe chargers and represents a significant improvement over the 15W charging supported by previous Qi2 models.

This grade-A refurbished first-gen Apple Pencil comes with a USB-C adapter and costs just $44.99. It gives iPad owners powerful drawing, writing and productivity features, without the full retail cost of the latest models.
Check compatibility below to see if this stylus will work with your iPad. If it does, get ready to save!

Apple makes some of the best tech products in the world — beautifully designed, powerful and reliable. But even the best stumble sometimes.
Over the years, I’ve used plenty of Apple devices that looked great on paper but turned out to be frustrating in practice. Here are the ones that made me question Apple’s “it just works” mantra.

The M3 Ultra-equipped Mac Studio is among the most powerful Macs you can currently buy. Despite featuring faster cores, Apple indirectly confirmed it will not launch an M4 Ultra chip. 
This won’t be the case with the M5, as the company reportedly plans to launch an M5 Ultra-powered Mac Studio in 2026.

Apple’s nifty new feature that lets AirPods translate speech in real time will reportedly become available to EU residents while they’re in Europe next month.
That will put an end to an odd situation: Currently, non-Europeans can use the AirPods Live Translation feature while in Europe, and EU residents can use it when traveling outside the European Union but not within the EU.

Apple is working on its first low-cost laptop, a strategic departure from its traditional premium approach that could shake up the education and entry-level PC markets, according to a new report. And some responses on social media suggest the PC industry is, indeed, “freaking out” over it.

A decade after Apple Watch launched, WhatsApp finally launched a dedicated app for the smartwatch Tuesday — ending years of frustration for users who could only respond to notifications from their wrist. The messaging service brings full chat functionality to your wrist with support for messages, voice notes and calls, Meta said. 

November 4, 1997: Apple unveils its plan to open small “store within a store” areas inside CompUSA outlets around the United States. Apple-trained employees will staff these mini-stores and sing the praises of the Mac and other Apple products.
The move gives Cupertino more control over the way its products are displayed and demoed to consumers. While ultimately disappointing, Apple’s CompUSA experiment paves the way for the flagship Apple Stores that will launch four years later and become the world’s most profitable retail outlets.

The SanDisk Extreme Fit USB-C Flash Drive packs up to a terabyte of storage, but is tiny enough that you can leave it plugged into your MacBook. SanDisk touts it as “the world’s smallest 1TB USB-C flash drive.”
Outgrown the storage capacity of your older MacBook? This drive could be just the boost you’re looking for.
The mini SSD can even be used with an iPhone, as well as an iPad.

Can you put a price on online privacy and cloud storage? We can, and it’s a remarkably tiny one.
The 2026 Cloud Storage & Internet Privacy Lifetime Subscription Bundle gives you a lifetime of storage and security for a small one-time payment. It pairs 1TB of FolderFort cloud storage with OysterVPN — and you get it all for just $59.99 (MSRP $598.97).

Slide Over, one of the best iPad multitasking features, got rescued from the rubbish heap with the new iPadOS 26.1. It’s an ideal way to keep an application that you check frequently but not constantly within easy reach — it’s offscreen but accessible with just a flick of a finger.
Here’s how to use Slide Over, and why you shouldn’t ignore the option now that it’s back in iPadOS 26.1, which launched on Monday.

The older Apple Home architecture will live for a few more months. Apple previously planned on phasing out the architecture in late 2025. 
Instead, the HomeKit architecture will stop functioning on February 10, 2026.

iOS 26.1, which Apple released Monday, brings five features you should check out immediately after you install the update.

The biggest change gives you a way to customize the legibility of Liquid Glass, the major user interface overhaul Apple delivered to all its software platforms this year. But there’s plenty of other cool stuff you don’t want to miss.

Other key upgrades come to Apple Music and the iPhone’s alarm clock interface. Plus, there’s a setting that can keep your iPhone battery from draining in your pocket. And for iPad owners, there’s the celebrated return of Slide Over on iPad.

The iPhone App Store is now accessible on a Mac. And iPad users can research what macOS applications are available. Anyone can see what Apple Watch apps are available. All of these are possible now that Apple finally put the App Store on the web Monday.

It’s long overdue, and still missing a feature many users would like.

November 3, 2010: Apple prepares to launch the Mac App Store, publicly accepting app submissions from registered developers — and kicking off a gold rush among coders.

After witnessing the enormous sums of money raked in by early entrants in the iOS App Store, the easy-to-use digital storefront that revolutionized software distribution on the iPhone, developers flood Apple with new Mac apps.

Apple’s long-delayed Siri upgrade will reportedly “lean on Google’s Gemini” model to power many of its features. It will also include an AI-powered web search.

However, this Gemini integration will supposedly function differently from how Apple currently integrates ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence.

November 2, 2012: The first iPad mini goes on sale, shrinking both the size and the price tag of Apple’s groundbreaking tablet computer.

With a reduced screen size of 7.9 inches – instead of the then-standard 9.7 inches – the original iPad mini is the fifth iPad to be released by Apple. Critics hail Apple’s most affordable iPad ever, although some people complain about the tablet’s lack of a Retina display.

Although Wi-Fi 7 is theoretically more than four times faster than Wi-Fi 6E, tests of wireless performance on newer iPhone models that support the upgraded standard show no real improvement in speed. This is reportedly because Apple did not implement the Wi-Fi 7 changes that would boost performance over iPhones with Wi-Fi 6E.

In Apple’s defense, it did implement the portion of Wi-Fi 7 intended to make wireless connections more reliable. That’s arguably the part of the standard that benefits average users the most.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: The latest rumor about the 20th anniversary iPhone whets our appetite for this glorious device. It’s just over the horizon, and it sounds like an absolute stunner.

Also on The CultCast:

• Apple reportedly plans to bring a gorgeous OLED screen to almost every iPad.
• A horrifying AirPods Pro 3 problem strikes when you need it least — while flying! Thankfully, it seems like the glitch is not that widespread. Still, we’ve got some tips on preparing for the worst.
• Griffin serves up his M5 Vision Pro review, and Leander talks up Apple Watch Series 11.

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 version, embedded below.

November 1, 2007: Six months after Steve Jobs showed it off, the original iPhone becomes Time magazine’s “best invention of the year.”

The iPhone stands out from the rest of 2007’s gadget pack, which includes the Nikon Coolpix S51c digital camera, the Netgear SPH200W Wi-Fi Phone and the Samsung P2 music player. Remember those? (Yeah, we thought not.)

In addition to a bunch of much-needed bug fixes, iOS 26.1 brings plenty of new features. Tweaks to Liquid Glass improve its legibility without sacrificing its cool effects. iPad multitaskers can rejoice the return of Slide Over, which returns better than before.

There are 20 new changes: A new user interface for alarms, improvements to Photos, a new gesture for quickly fast-forwarding music, a setting that fixes a long-standing problem with the Lock Screen, and much more.

Here’s the complete list. Read on or watch our hands-on video.

M. Night Shyamalan’s wonderfully dark series Servant is the creepiest horror show on Apple TV. The engrossing show, about a supernatural nanny with designs on an upper-class Philadelphia power couple and their missing baby, shines thanks to an amazing array of directorial talent and some fantastic on-screen presences.

Here’s why you should watch all four seasons of this runaway freight train of a show.

Record numbers of customers upgrading their gear helped push up Apple’s revenue into record territory last quarter, and that’s boosting AAPL’s stock price.

Here are the products that the company says are the most popular with upgraders in Q4 2025. Some you might be able to guess, but there’s a very conspicuous absence from the list.