This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Everyone’s raving about the new M2-powered MacBook Air — and so are we. Although Erfon just bought a different Apple laptop (and offers up a pro tip for anybody thinking of getting the hot new MBA).

Also on The CultCast:

• Bye-bye, Jony Ive. We’re gonna miss ya. Mostly.
• The emoji people scrape the bottom of the barrel.
• Toys are about to get personal (but brace yourself for disfigured plastic selfies).
• BMW foists an outrageous subscription plan on car buyers.

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.

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Is your home safe? With more than a million burglaries every year in the United States, it could be worth double-checking. If you want to ensure your home’s safety even when you aren’t there, you don’t need an expensive security system. The Smart Home DIY Wireless Alarm Security System is easy to install and can alert you 24/7 to a break-in.

For a limited time, it’s only $69.99 (regularly $89). And you won’t need to pay exorbitant monthly fees, like most other systems require.

Sometimes you see a pristine computer setup flaunted on social media and you think, how is that even real? Is it staged? Is it a render? At the very least, it looks like they left out all the cables for the photograph. But that’s not necessarily the case.

A lot of us live with messy setups, in part due to cable clutter. But neatening things up doesn’t have to be next-to impossible, as today’s featured Mac mini setup demonstrates.

Missed out on buying the 16-inch MacBook Pro for Prime Day? Worry not, as Amazon is still offering a whopping $250 off on the lineup.

The deal drops the price of the entry-level 16-inch MacBook Pro to just $2,249 — down from $2,499. A similar discount is also available on the more powerful M1 Max model, dropping its price to a new low.

The right lamp can help you see your home in a new light. Whether you’re trying to match a specific aesthetic to make your setup shine or want your home to feel like an extension of you, you can customize your lighting with one addition: The Lamp Depot Minimalist LED Corner Floor Lamp.

It lets light your home with more than 16 million color options. And it’s discounted to $59.99 during our Deal Days sale, which ends today.

Google’s Chrome OS Flex is now ready to revive Macs that are too elderly to run the latest macOS version. That includes models as far back as 2010. It turns the Mac into a Chromebook, but at least it’s an up-to-date one.

The free OS is targeted at businesses and schools, but it might become a way for individuals to bring some new life to their obsolete Macs.

The OWC MiniStack STX is just the right size to stack with a Mac mini. The hub adds three Thunderbolt 4/USB-C ports that can be hooked to high-resolution displays and external drives.

It also includes bays for SATA and/or NVMe M.2 drives. That’s space for up to 18TB of storage. Install your own drives or buy them from OWC.

I put the powerful accessory for Mac or iPad to the test over several weeks of daily use.

The first reviews of the M2 MacBook Air praise its slimmer design and speedy M2 processor. “Apple’s near-perfect Mac,” says Engadget.

Sometimes reviews are a mix of positives and negatives. Not this time – reviewers found very little to criticize in Apple’s newest notebook.

If you own an iPad mini 6, Lululook’s magnetic stand can turn your tiny tablet into a miniature iMac. And this week, we’re teaming up with Lululook to give away five of these great stands, which retail for $80, to five lucky winners.

Enter below for your chance to win.

Some people dislike using a mouse. Others can’t fathom a trackpad. And believe it or not, some folks hate both. So what do they do to get their brilliant thoughts onto the computer screen?

Knowing it’s hard to get by in life on just a keyboard, what input device can they use in addition to it? As today’s featured computer setup illustrates, they might try using a certain tablet like it’s a cross between a trackpad and a mouse.