Apple launched the M5 Vision Pro on Wednesday, bumping the impressive headset up from the years-old M2 processor. The punchier M5 processor boosts the headset’s video resolution and refresh rate for a clearer, sharper image.

The updated Vision Pro is “setting a new standard for what’s possible in spatial computing,” said Apple Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Bob Borchers in Apple’s press release. “Spatial computing is even more capable, entertaining, and magical with the new Vision Pro.”

The M5 isn’t the only upgrade, either. A new Dual Knit Band elegantly adds comfort and style to the headset. And as icing on the cake, the M5 Vision Pro boasts noticeably improved battery life. 

The M5 Vision Pro starts at the same high price of $3,499 with 256GB of storage. It’s available for preorder today, with deliveries and in-store availability beginning on October 22. 

Apple’s new M5 chip packs more power than predecessors, with advanced performance for Apple Intelligence and pumped up GPU performance boosting graphics processing, among other incremental improvements across the chip.

“M5 ushers in the next big leap in AI performance for Apple silicon,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies. “With the introduction of Neural Accelerators in the GPU, M5 delivers a huge boost to AI workloads.”

“Combined with a big increase in graphics performance, the world’s fastest CPU core, a faster Neural Engine, and even higher unified memory bandwidth,” he added, “M5 brings far more performance and capabilities to MacBook Pro, iPad Pro and Apple Vision Pro.”

Apple unveiled an upgraded 14-inch MacBook Pro powered by the new M5 chip on Wednesday. While the laptop looks the same as its predecessor, it sports a faster new Apple silicon processor to deliver even better performance.

“MacBook Pro continues to be the world’s best pro laptop, and today, the 14-inch MacBook Pro gets even better with the arrival of the M5 chip,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, in a press release.

Hey Google Workspace users: Whether you’re juggling content in Docs, analyzing data in Sheets or just trying to make Slides look halfway decent, AiAssistWorks is basically the AI productivity buddy you wish came bundled in Google’s popular tools.

It taps top AIs so you can get the results you need using plain-language commands. And right now, you can save big-time on this Google Workspace booster. For a limited time, you can get a lifetime subscription to AiAssistWorks’ Plus Plan for just $39.99 (MSRP $480) with code AI20. 

It’s a quick and easy way supercharge your workflow and reclaim your evenings.

Ugreen’s new NASync DH2300 and DH4300 Plus network-attached storage devices aim squarely at everyday home users, the consumer electronics maker said Wednesday. In other words, those who want local storage as an alternative to iCloud, but without the complexity typically associated with NAS systems.

Starting at a low price of $209.99 $188.99, the two-bay DH 2300 device joins the more capable four-bay DH4300 Plus ($429.99 $364.99) in Ugreen’s effort to make personal cloud storage accessible to non-technical users. Both are on sale for launch, too. 

Apple will build its upcoming smart home products in Vietnam to diversify its manufacturing away from China. This includes indoor security cameras, a smart display and a tabletop robot. 

A $350 smart display will be the first to launch in spring 2026. 

Apple’s SVP of Marketing, Greg Joswiak, teased the imminent launch of the M5 MacBook Pro on X today.

“Mmmmm… something powerful is coming,” Joswiak said on X, with his post accompanied by a short clip giving a quick glimpse at the upcoming MacBook Pro.

This Western Digital Elements SSD gives you 2TB of external hard drive storage you can take anywhere. Now on sale for just $64.99 (MSRP $79.99), this little powerhouse is the storage solution your setup didn’t know it needed.

Whether you’re juggling high-res photos and videos on your phone or tablet, or heavy project files on your desktop, the WD Elements drive offers 2TB of space in a pocket-size design. That’s enough to stash years of photos, entire movie libraries and way more spreadsheets than you’ll ever want to open.

In iOS 26, you can use Apple Cash in a group chat to make it super-easy to split a bill. You won’t need to chase down everyone separately if you use this incredibly convenient feature.
Here’s how to request money and send payments using Apple Cash from a group chat.

Apple shipped 58.6 million iPhones and captured 18.2% of the global smartphone market, the company’s “best results ever in a July quarter,” according to new data from the International Data Corporation. The iPhone nearly matched Samsung’s 19% market share.

Demand for innovation, like new artificial intelligence features, plus aggressive trade-in programs, helped fuel the surge, despite tariff woes, IDC said.

Apple’s next Pro Display XDR monitor could take a cue from MacBooks and iPhones and feature a Center Stage camera. Code strings referencing the monitor with the camera were discovered in the latest macOS 26.1 beta.

The Pro Display XDR is long overdue for a refresh, with the current model debuting in late 2019 for $4,999.

After a month’s delay, Apple will launch the iPhone Air in China on Wednesday, October 22. Preorders for the device will begin this Friday, October 17.

Apple pushed back the iPhone Air’s September launch in China at the last minute due to regulatory hurdles around eSIM support.

F1: The Movie with Brad Pitt as a racer will make its streaming debut on Friday, December 12, following the film’s record-breaking theatrical run, Apple said Monday. And the announcement came with a surprise twist: Apple TV+ gets rebranded as simply “Apple TV” (no “+”) with what the company called a “vibrant new identity.”

It remains to be seen how vibrant the identity is, but it’s the same exact name as the Apple TV hardware and the Apple TV app. Maybe they meant “confusing new identity.”

Apple Clips, a free video-creation tool created for the Instagram era, just came to an abrupt end. Not only did Apple cease development of the software, the app can’t even be downloaded anymore.

But odds are you aren‘t too upset, given that Apple likely cancelled the app because it never found a big audience.

Apple is already working on future generations of its AirPods lineup despite only recently releasing the AirPods Pro 3, according to a new report. The company focuses development efforts on transforming its popular earbuds into AI-powered devices with enhanced health tracking capabilities.

The new Elgato Prompter XL teleprompter, a significantly larger version of the company’s popular Prompter teleprompter, is designed specifically for professional studio environments. The Corsair-owned Elgato said the new model addresses the most common complaint about the original: size.

“We heard it constantly: ‘Love Prompter, but we need something bigger for our studio,'” said Julian Fest, general manager at Elgato. “Prompter XL takes what creators loved about the original — the versatility, the simple setup, the reliability — and scales it up for studio environments.”

Your iPhone is too trusting of new USB accessories. Plug your handset into the wrong public charger at an airport or coffee shop and it might get hacked. Fortunately, there’s a setting you can (and should) change that prevents your iPhone from falling victim to data theft via juice jacking.
Here’s what to do. And don’t worry … it’s easy. I’ll walk you through it.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: After OpenAI’s Sora app races to the top of the App Store charts, it’s time to consider how fantastic and terrifying it really is.

The iPhone-only app produces startlingly photorealistic videos of wacky things like Pikachu as a World War II soldier and iJustine wrestling an elephant. Will we ever be able to believe our eyes again?

Also on The CultCast:

• Former Apple design chief Jony Ive and his new BFFs at OpenAI reportedly run into some serious problems as they work to create an AI device to take on the iPhone.
• iOS 26 lets you screen iPhone calls even more efficiently than before. Griffin shows us how it the upgraded features work.
• A switcher lands a great deal on a MacBook Air, then goes all in on the Apple ecosystem. Talk about the halo effect!
• And finally, the latest iOS 26.1 beta brings some interesting new features — Griffin tells us all about them.

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.

It’s the ultimate battle of the small Mac keyboards: Logitech MX Keys Mini vs. Apple Magic Keyboard. Choosing between these two premium compact keyboards is tough, and the decisions you make can significantly impact your daily typing experience and productivity.

They’ve both become top contenders for professionals and tech enthusiasts alike. And while they’re similar, they’re not the same.

Find out which is better for you in our head-to-head comparison. 

Some previous rumors point to an upgraded MacBook Pro with Apple’s M5 processor launching very soon, but other reports say it won’t be out until 2026. Turns out both might be correct.

A leak on Friday indicates the MacBook Pro running the base version M5 chip will debut quite soon. However, the variants with the M5 Pro and M5 Max supposedly won‘t launch before 2026.

If you’re uncomfortable with social media apps tracking your movements, or worried about data falling into the wrong hands, here’s how to stop them using your iPhone’s built-in location settings.
If you find yourself traveling to a country with an authoritarian government, clearing your phone’s location history is a safe bet. Or if you’re moving to a different city or to a new job, it can be annoying seeing travel suggestions to the wrong place. Resetting your location history will start from a clean slate.
These moves may also protect you from shady data brokers, who spy on and sell your movements. Here’s how.

An Apple each day becomes your doctor someday. That’s the rumor anyway: Apple is reportedly prepping a Health+ service for launch in 2026 that will use AI to dispense advice on nutrition, exercise and more.

Whether the service will someday give out medical diagnoses remains a much murkier question.

The Dragon G3X gaming headset is built for long sessions, clear comms and serious style — all without costing a fortune. It comes with a retractable microphone, a comfortable handband and wild lights for your RGB gaming setup.

Whether you’re grinding ranked matches, streaming or just hopping on a late-night raid, this headset brings immersive sound and comfort that lasts. Plus, it’s currently on sale for just $49.99, a 37% discount off the regular price of $79.99.

How would you like to be the lone U.S. marshal covering a vast Alaska region when a jet loaded with dangerous convicts crashes, setting dozens of killers free? That’s the premise for Apple TV+’s new The Last Frontier series. And before long it becomes clear it may not have been an accident at all, but just the first step in a terrifying plan.

The good news is you don’t have to be the marshal. You can just watch his struggle in the tense, 10-episode series starting Friday.

Reviews so far are mixed. Collider said: “The Last Frontier is an engaging, often surprising manhunt thriller that elevates itself through a great central performance from Jason Clarke and smart, unexpected plotting that constantly evolves as the story unfolds.” But The Hollywood Reporter noted the show “goes from fun to tedious in a hurry.” AV Club called it “far more silly than chilly,” teeming with “exposition dumps” and “inane twists.”

Streaming Friday, the new Apple TV+ documentary series Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars gives an unprecedented look behind the scenes of the world’s most prestigious restaurants in their quest for coveted Michelin stars.

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and his Studio Ramsay Global production company produce the eight-part series. It promises to deliver high-stakes culinary drama and unprecedented access to the secretive Michelin ratings process. Watch the trailer below. 

Reviews so far lean positive, calling the show “riveting” and praising its realistic, fly-on-the-wall look at chef’s lives and what drives them.