The first-ever biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook hits bookstores today, and it’s written by none other than Cult of Mac founder, Leander Kahney.

I haven’t heard from Leander in god knows how long while he’s been writing this book. But based on the early reviews, it appears like it was all worth it. No one has written a full book about Cook until now. Leander’s book, Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level, details how Cook took on Steve Jobs’ mantle. While nearly any other human would have crumbled under that pressure, Cook thrived.

Early reviews for the book have been coming in all week, and so far they’re pretty positive. Here are some of the highlights.

Installing the latest macOS version on a 2018 MacBook Air increases the maximum screen brightness.

Apple’s own description of this notebook indicates that the highest potential brightness level is now 400 nits. That’s much higher than with this laptop launched.

At first glance, the decade-old OP-1 synthesizer from Swedish musical instrument makers Teenage Engineering looks about as standalone as it gets.

The tiny device couples a short, piano-style keyboard with a screen. And it contains a drum machine, several synthesizers, a sampler, a handful of sequencers, a virtual four-track tape recorder and even an FM radio. You can create entire tracks on it with no other gear, or you can hook it up to electric guitars and microphones and bring the outside world in.

But it also pairs surprisingly well with an iPad. You can record audio back and forth, but things go much deeper than that. You also can use the OP-1’s hardware keyboard to play instruments on the iPad, and use iPad MIDI apps to control the synthesizers on the OP-1.

Making music with an iPad and a synth

If you own both pieces of gear already, hopefully this how-to will give you some new ideas about making music with an iPad. But if you only own an iPad, this in-depth article will provide tips for using your tablet with other music gear.

And if you know nothing about the OP-1, or about Teenage Engineering’s work in general, you’ll learn why the company is kind of the Apple of the synth world. Teenage Engineering is known for its incredible interface design — and for having a quirky personality similar to 1984-era Apple, when the brand-new Mac was making waves.

Amazon and Best Buy are now offering some of the biggest discounts we’ve seen on Apple’s latest iPad Pro lineup. And you can make yours even more affordable by selling your old model when you upgrade.

Cult of Mac offers real cash for your old Apple devices, and we typically pay more than anyone else. What’s more, it’s incredibly quick and simple, and we will even buy back battered tech in need of repair.

At first glance, the iPhone Activity app seems pretty simple. It’s basically just a calendar to keep track of your daily Activity Rings. But if you know where to look, you’ll find a surprising number of pro features buried beneath that slick, simple interface.

So check out our top 10 iPhone Activity app tips and discover some indispensable stats that will help take your fitness to the next level.

This weekend I made a shortcut that takes a list of songs, adds up the total duration, and shows it in a notification.

The first part was easy. The Shortcuts app has a great action that can tell you anything about an iTunes Media file (or any other media file), including its duration. I whipped up a shortcut to cycle through a list of music tracks, adding up the durations along the way. It took five minutes, tops.

Then things started to go wrong. The shortcut returned the total duration in seconds. I don’t know about you, but for me, a number like 4,166.867 isn’t that useful. I prefer something like 01:09:26, or 1 hour 9 minutes and 36 seconds. The problem was, I couldn’t get from one to the other.

Some of the biggest names in sports can be seen rocking the new Powerbeats Pro in the latest video put out by Apple’s headphone company.

Beats’ new ad unleashes the Powerbeats Pro everywhere from the basketball court to the skate park as superstars like LeBron James and Serena Williams train to dominate their respective games. With over a dozen athletes making a cameo, the action-packed ad has a lot to take in.

How many familiar faces can you spot?

Another of Apple’s rivals have apparently noticed what a huge success AirPods have turned into. Microsoft is supposedly developing its own earbuds.

These will have to face competition from Samsung Galaxy Buds as well as some possible earbuds coming from Amazon. And AirPods too, of course.

Today is the dreaded deadline for filing U.S. income tax returns, and we know how much of a drag that is. So the Cult of Mac Watch Store is bringing you some tax relief with discounts on select watch bands, chargers, stands and cases.

We’ve rounded up offerings from these great companies: Ottm, Strapa, Twelve South and Wiplabs. Save 10% on these products at the Cult of Mac Watch Store this week!

iOS 13 will bring big improvements and a whole bunch of new features to iPhone and iPad users this fall.

Many of the changes have been spilled in a new report that cites people familiar with the update. You can look forward to a real dark mode, better multitasking, a font manager, and more.