Desk lighting plays a surprisingly transformative role in creating memorable workspaces. Here are seven Mac setups where lighting — whether RGB gaming effects, professional video illumination or ambient mood enhancement — elevates the entire experience.

Indy software for freelancers is an AI-powered, all-in-one business platform for solopreneurs and small teams who want everything in one place — and who don’t want to waste time on the boring tasks that are part of being your own boss.

With nine core tools inside a single dashboard, Indy lets you manage proposals, contracts, projects, invoices, payments, files, tasks, forms, time tracking and your calendar without switching apps every five minutes.

And right now, you can get five years of Indy Pro access for just $59.99 (regular price $1,125).

After the purported dimensions of the first folding iPhone leaked a few weeks ago, it didn’t take long for mockups to hit MakerWorld, a popular site for people with 3D printers to share their models. I got my hands on one of those models, and I have lots of thoughts. If the rumored folding iPhone looks anything like this, it’ll be weird.

For one thing, it’s almost as short as the original iPhone, but wider than the widest iPhone ever. Lots of design questions remain unanswered, too. Where will the volume buttons go, since there isn’t any room on the left side? Will it only have one speaker, like the iPhone Air? Will the two cameras arranged horizontally across the back mean the camera sensors are in landscape, not portrait?

I’ve been fiddling with a 3D model of the first folding iPhone all week. Here are my thoughts and observations.

Following the launch of the Apple Creator Studio bundle on January 13, 2026, Apple has discontinued the individual free trial for its professional creative apps. This means you can no longer individually download Final Cut Pro or Logic Pro on their own to try them out for free.

Instead, Apple now wants you to use the Creator Studio Bundle. It bundles access to all of the company’s pro creative tools in a single subscription. 

Spotify is once again raising prices in the United States. This is the streaming service’s third price bump in four years. By comparison, Apple Music hasn’t raised its price since 2022.

Not a fan of monthly fees for software like Microsoft 365? This deal lands you a lifetime license to Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024 for Mac or PC.

It comes with all the Microsoft programs you know and love. And it’s on sale for a limited time. So instead of paying $249.99, you can get a lifetime license to Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024 for $99.97.

Some people achieve and maintain zero unread emails; some let that red badge climb into the thousands. It’s never too late to change your ways — you can become one of those clean inbox people like me. These six tips will help you get to Inbox Zero using features in Apple’s Mail app that you might not have known about.

The obvious Tip No. 0 is this: You should always hit the Unsubscribe button at the bottom of every unsolicited promotional email as soon as you get the first one.

After you kill all those unwanted subscriptions, these six lesser-known features of the Apple Mail app on iPhone, Mac and iPad will make you a true pro at managing your email.

The fact that Google Gemini will power the revamped Siri is drawing criticism from people convinced that Apple should have developed its own AI in-house to bring the voice assistant up to speed.

Some of the critics seem to think Apple always made its own software before now. Therefore they regard the deal with Google as a major policy shift — and a sign of weakness that would horrify Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

No. Just … no. These critics will be shocked to learn that many Apple products are built on top of tech developed outside the company … and often, it was Steve Jobs who did it!

January 15, 2008: Apple CEO Steve Jobs shows off the first MacBook Air at the Macworld conference in San Francisco, calling the revolutionary computer the “world’s thinnest notebook.”

The 13.3-inch laptop measures only 0.76 inches at its thickest point and 0.16 inches at its tapered thinnest. It also boasts a unibody aluminum design, thanks to an Apple engineering breakthrough that allows the crafting of a complicated computer case from a single block of finely machined metal.

In a brilliant piece of showmanship during the MacBook Air launch, Jobs pulls the super-slim laptop out of a standard interoffice envelope. (You can watch his keynote introducing the MacBook Air below.)

The Kingston Dual Portable SSD brings up to 2TB of storage to anyone in the process of transitioning from the old USB-A to the smaller USB-C standard. It’s small enough to easily carry around, and fast enough to quickly handle large files.

I ran tests on the drive to see how the portable SSD fares in real-world use. Read on to see how well it performed.

Setapp Mobile, MacPaw’s ambitious alternative iOS app store for European Union users, will close its doors in February after just over a year of operation, the service said Thursday.

On a support page, MacPaw cited Apple’s “still-evolving and complex business terms that don’t fit Setapp’s current business model” as the reason.

Retro tech is back, and it doesn’t get much more nostalgic than transforming a new M4 Mac mini into a Macintosh straight out of the 1980s. Better yet, the process is simple: Just pop the Mac mini into the Wokyis M5 dock and you’re done.

Don’t mistake this for simple cosmetic trickery. The add-on includes a functional 5-inch screen. Plus, it’s a hub that adds a variety of ports to the Mac as well as a slot for an internal SSD.

The Keychron K3 keyboard delivers real mechanical typing in a slim, wireless, Apple-friendly design. The low-profile design gives you that satisfying mechanical feel, without taking over your desk. It’s also pretty quiet, which is great if you (or the people around you) get annoyed by the clickity-clack of typical mechanical keyboards.

Right now, you can grab this fan favorite mechanical keyboard for just $74.99 — with free shipping to the contiguous United States.

Finishing a book takes time, patience and a whole lot of follow-through — but AI-powered book writing software BookBud.ai can help.

Many would-be authors start drafting something, but never actually get it ready for readers. BookBud.ai gives you a way to move past that wall by smoothing out the hardest parts of the writing and publishing process. And for a limited time, you can get a lifetime subscription to BookBud.ai for just $99 (regularly $1,200).

You’ve probably seen some beautiful custom iPhone Home Screens on social media. Some people go to great lengths to creatively customize their Home Screen. You can go for a specific theme and aesthetic using custom icon colors and widgets.

Why spend so much time and effort? For one thing, you likely look at your Home Screen dozens (or even hundreds) of times every single day. A custom Home Screen that matches your style can bring a little spark of joy to your daily life every time you whip out your iPhone. And iOS makes Home Screen customization easier than ever.

Keep reading (or watch our video) for a quick introduction into the world of custom iPhone Home Screens. You’ll find out about new features in iOS 26, how to go above and beyond using Shortcuts, and how you can top off your iPhone aesthetic with widgets. I’ve scoured the internet (Reddit, mostly) to find the finest examples.

When it comes to keeping your devices powered up, the right charger makes all the difference. Right now, Amazon offers compelling deals on two exceptional Ugreen Nexode 100-watt chargers that serve different but complementary purposes in your charging arsenal. So get both while they’re cheap!

January 14, 2009: Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ cancer worsens to the point that he takes a medical leave from leading the company.

Despite his illness, Jobs remains reluctant to take the time off. When he does, he keeps quiet about the severity of the situation. He calls “the curiosity over my personal health” a distraction caused by prying bloggers and reporters. Nonetheless, he acknowledges that his health problems “are more complex than I originally thought.”

Apple Arcade subscribers will soon get access to one of gaming’s most legendary franchises when Sid Meier’s Civilization VII Arcade Edition arrives on the service February 5, Apple said Wednesday. It’s a first for Apple Arcade, though it joins some other civ- and sim- game options on the App Store.

And other new titles join it at the same time on Apple Arcade: the Retrocade collection of classic arcade games, the whimsical adventure Felicity’s Door and the I Love Hue Too+ puzzle game.

Apple released new firmware for AirPods Pro 3 on Tuesday that offers bug fixes, and there’s optimism that the new 8B34 version removes a bug that sometimes causes whistling noises when active noise cancellation is used.

Last year, Apple finally explained exactly how to update your AirPods firmware. The process can happen automatically, in the background, but there is a way to speed things up. It’s a good idea to manually check that you’re running the latest version, which brings bug fixes and sometimes great new features.

Read on for more details, and find all current AirPods firmware versions, along with instructions for getting the AirPods update as quickly as possible.

There’s a very specific moment every year when the holiday decorations come down, inboxes refill and reality taps you on the shoulder: tax season is coming. Instead of dreading the transition, H&R Block tax software makes filing feel far more manageable.

Built for people who like smart software that does the heavy lifting, H&R Block Deluxe + State walks you through federal and state tax filing with a clean, step-by-step Q&A format. And right now, you can get this surprisingly streamlined software on sale for just $49.99 (MSRP $59.99).

With Google’s Gemini AI working behind the scenes, the next-gen Siri will finally be able to deliver on some of Apple’s promises. The updated voice assistant will be able to answer questions it can’t currently handle, perform everyday tasks like booking travel, and even dabble in the dicey arena of providing emotional support to people during difficult moments.

A new report from The Information sheds additional light on how Apple will use Gemini to improve Siri.

A new leak reiterates Apple’s plan to switch to under-display Face ID on the iPhone 18 Pro models this year. The regular iPhone 18 and iPhone Air 2 will reportedly stick with displays featuring the Dynamic Island at the top.

The leak also suggests that Apple plans to retain the same display sizes across its 2026 iPhone lineup, mirroring the current-generation models. 

PDFs are arguably one of the most-used document formats by professionals, students and casual users alike. However, while they might be the best way to transmit documents, they’re not entirely easy to work with unless you own a capable PDF editor for Mac like PDF Expert.

Fortunately, this app makes handling, organizing, annotating, merging and editing PDFs effortless. And you can get a lifetime license to this award-winning Mac app for just $79.99 (regularly $139.99).

Update: Anker renamed the Soundcore Work AI Voice Recorder reviewed below as Soundcore Work AI Note Taker to more directly reflect the main use of the product, the company said Tuesday. Its listings tend to put it down now as “note taker/voice recorder.” Soundcore also noted the problem I had with Find My functionality should be fixed now on production units. 

Original review: In an ecosystem where seamless integration matters most, the new Soundcore voice recorder and note taker arrives with a compelling proposition for Apple users. As this Soundcore Work AI Note Taker review finds, the coin-sized device promises to transform how iPhone and Mac users capture, transcribe and organize voice recordings.

After examining its features through an Apple-centric lens, here’s what you need to know about whether this $159.99 recorder deserves a spot in your productivity arsenal.

iPad users will soon have access to a version of the Pixelmator Pro image editing application that previously was a Mac exclusive.

Apple promised that the upcoming tablet version of the application will be a significant step up from the features available in the current basic Pixelmator app for iPad. Plus, it will improve on the Mac version thanks to support for Apple Pencil.

But there’s bad news for users of the current, basic Pixelmator version.