Top Stories - page 19

If you’ve been green with envy watching those grainy fan clips of Paul McCartney lighting up Apple Park last month for the iPhone giant’s 50th anniversary, Sir Paul just gave the rest of us a proper consolation prize. McCartney posted a polished, three-minute, behind-the-scenes film to his YouTube channel Tuesday, offering an intimate look at his celebrated March 31 performance.

Soundcore, Anker Innovations’ audio brand, quietly built a reputation as the go-to name for people who want serious headphone performance without the flagship price tag. Its Space One headphones earned a following as one of the best budget ANC options on the market, and that set the bar for their successor quite high. The new Soundcore Space 2, which launched at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona before going on sale Tuesday, clears that bar with room to spare.

Is Tim Cook Apple’s best CEO? No, that title belongs to Steve Jobs — but Cook definitely comes in a very close second.

In a remarkable 15 years at the helm of Apple, Cook oversaw extraordinary growth, released a string of innovative products, and instituted important internal changes.

He performed almost flawlessly, and, to my mind, has only done one thing wrong.

Apple announced a sweeping leadership transition on Monday, naming longtime executive John Ternus as its next chief executive officer in September. Current CEO Tim Cook will move into a new role as executive chairman of Apple’s board of directors at that time.

“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company,” said Cook in a statement. “I love Apple with all of my being, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with a team of such ingenious, innovative, creative, and deeply caring people who have been unwavering in their dedication to enriching the lives of our customers and creating the best products and services in the world.”

If you forgot your new iPhone passcode, you can reset it with your old one up to three days later. This can save you hours of trying to remember the new passcode, or worse, resetting your phone from a backup.

You just have to tap Forgot Passcode? on the Lock Screen after you enter it several incorrect times.

Keep reading for a detailed walkthrough. And don’t worry — if you change your passcode intentionally to keep someone out, you can instantly expire your old one.

April 20, 2010: A day after the most high-profile iPhone leak in history, tech news site Gizmodo dissects a prototype iPhone 4, then publishes the teardown — showing the world exactly what’s inside the soon-to-be-released device.

The iPhone 4 prototype, accidentally left in a bar by 27-year-old Apple software engineer Gray Powell, quickly becomes the biggest story in the tech world. And that’s where the trouble begins.

Apple users are trained to reach for AirPods. It’s Pavlovian at this point. But at a regular price of $79 or less — roughly the price of a single AirPods replacement bud — the new Tozo NC20 Pro does things AirPods 4 won’t. And Tozo launch deals get you these excellent buds for much less than the list price — currently $59.49 on Amazon, for example.

April 19, 1994: Gaston Bastiaens, the executive in charge of Apple’s revolutionary new Newton MessagePad product line, parts ways with the company.

“We can’t say whether he fell or was pushed,” says an Apple spokesman. Reports suggest that the departing Bastiaens, general manager of Apple’s personal interactive electronics division, is leaving due to his failure to make the Newton a financial success.

The Camera Control button on the iPhone opens the Camera app, takes pictures and can even adjust camera settings on the fly. It offers a quick shortcut to using one of the most popular and important iPhone features.

By default, it’s a simple button to quickly take pictures, but there’s so much more you can do with it — if you choose. The physically clicking button also accepts touch input when you swipe your finger along it. And it utilizes pressure sensitivity and haptic feedback for you to adjust different camera settings. 

Learn how to master the iPhone’s Camera Control button in our guide below, or watch our quick video.

A year into owning an M4 Pro Mac mini, it began feeling slow. With dozens of Chrome tabs and numerous other apps running in the background, everything felt more sluggish than it should. 

I was already convinced I needed an upgrade. Turns out, I just needed to do a little spring cleaning.  Here’s what I did to speed up my slow Mac mini.

iPhone Game Mode enhances graphics and reduces controller latency automatically when you launch a game. This optimizes performance to make your iPhone gaming as fantastic as possible.

Game Mode also reduces the background activities and services running on your phone. Luckily, if you don’t want that to happen, you can turn off Game Mode from your iPhone’s Control Center.

Here’s everything you need to know about how Game Mode works.

Docking stations and USB/Thunderbolt hubs are the unsung heroes of modern Mac workstations. While flashy displays and mechanical keyboards get a lot of glory in computer setup photos, it’s often a hub or dock quietly humming away that makes the whole thing possible — connecting multiple monitors, peripheral devices, external storage and audio gear through a single cable to the host computer. Here’s a roundup of the best-connected — and most impressive — Mac workstations from Cult of Mac‘s Setups section.

Update: Perplexity said in March it would unleash Personal Computer software to work as an artificial intelligence manager for Mac, and now it’s available. 

Today we're releasing Personal Computer.

Personal Computer integrates with the Perplexity Mac App for secure orchestration across your local files, native apps, and browser.

We’re rolling this out to all Perplexity Max subscribers and everyone on the waitlist starting today. pic.twitter.com/kxgFQFo7BB

— Perplexity (@perplexity_ai) April 16, 2026

Original post:

Artificial intelligence search engine company Perplexity just unveiled what it calls Personal Computer. It’s not a new piece of hardware, but a layer of software that transforms a Mac — specifically an M4 Mac mini in the company’s promotions — into a tireless AI employee.

It works around the clock, coordinates other artificial intelligence systems, accesses your local files and can be controlled from anywhere in the world. Mac users might be intrigued. Privacy advocates may not be so sure.

April 16, 2009: Apple hits back at Microsoft following an advertisement that criticizes Cupertino for failing to sell decent laptops for less than $1,000.

“A PC is no bargain when it doesn’t do what you want,” Mac PR director Bill Evans tells Bloomberg. “The one thing that both Apple and Microsoft can agree on is that everyone thinks the Mac is cool. With its great designs and advanced software, nothing matches it at any price.”

What makes the Apple ecosystem so alluring? Individually, the iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple Watch might not be the best devices in their respective categories. Yet, when combined, they form one of the best ecosystems in the world.

It’s this Apple ecosystem — the so-called walled garden — that makes it almost impossible to ditch Apple devices. But what makes it so good?

If you’re working in an office or in the city, you’re probably inundated with noise from people chattering, cars running and nearby music. Your iPhone has a built-in feature called Background Sounds for playing rain noises or white noise to tune it all out.

Or, if you work at home and want some of that office or coffee shop ambiance, you can add some of those chatter sounds back in. You can even simulate a commute, with sounds of a bus, train, airplane or even boat.

You don’t need to download any apps or pay a cent. Background Sounds is a free feature on your iPhone, iPad and Mac. Let me show you how it works.

April 15, 1981: Apple CEO Mike Markkula defends the struggling Apple III computer with a surprisingly straightforward admission. The comment comes even as the company pushes an unorthodox “fix” for the Apple III motherboard, which tends to overheat due to a questionable design.

“It would be dishonest for me to sit here and say that it’s perfect,” Markkula tells The Wall Street Journal, after critics blast the new computer for its overheating motherboard. Apple’s official solution to the problem? Ask users to drop their Apple III from a height of 6 inches to reseat the chips.

Stop me if this sounds familiar: Your old iPhone just doesn’t have the same pep it used to and you’re desperate to speed it up. Ignore the nasty iPhone conspiracy theory — the real reason for the slowdown is rooted in battery chemistry, diminishing amounts of available memory, and the evolving demands of modern iOS apps.

Fortunately, you can take steps to improve the speed of your older iPhone. Here’s what to do.

April 14, 1986: The “low-cost” Macintosh 512Ke brings hardware upgrades — and a bit of confusion — to the low end of the Mac lineup.

The Mac 512Ke is an “enhanced” (hence the “e”) model of the Mac 512K. The upgrade addresses complaints that the original Mac lacked enough memory. The 512Ke adds a double-density 800KB floppy drive and a 128KB ROM to the Mac 512K formula.

The Clutch Pro is for anyone who wants a very slim power bank that magnetically attaches to their iPhone, but who doesn’t like wireless charging. This tiny 5,000mAh external battery includes a USB-C connector on a cable for easy charging.

I tested it with my iPhone 17 and my iPad too. Here’s why I like it.

The macOS Tahoe menu bar icons are one of the more universally panned changes in Apple’s redesigned Mac operating system. They clutter the interface, making it hard to find what you’re actually looking for. And on top of that, different apps use different icons for different actions — it’s not remotely consistent. 

You don’t need to live your life this way, though. Developer and hacker Steve Troughton-Smith figured out a quick way to disable the icons. You need to crack open the Mac’s Terminal app, but luckily, you can paste a single command in to bid (most of) the icons adieu. 

April 13, 2005: The tech world gets excited when a sketchy rumor suggests Apple is building a tablet computer.

The Chinese-language report claims Quanta will build a 15-inch touchscreen tablet PC with a detachable keyboard. Apple will supposedly ship the device in the first quarter of 2006. Things don’t turn out quite like that, but the rumor offers the first hint about Apple’s secret iPad project.

April 12, 1976: Apple’s third co-founder, a former Atari colleague of Steve Wozniak’s named Ron Wayne, cashes in his Apple shares for just $800.

Wayne, who owns a 10% stake in the company, throws in the towel after worrying that he doesn’t have the time or energy to properly invest in Apple. He later receives an extra $1,500 check to seal the deal. When he cashes it, he loses out on an investment that could have been worth billions.

“I was 40 and these kids were in their 20s,” Wayne told Cult of Mac decades later, referring to Apple co-founders Wozniak and Steve Jobs. “They were whirlwinds — it was like having a tiger by the tail. If I had stayed with Apple, I probably would have wound up the richest man in the cemetery.”

Anyone still dissatisfied with the amount of RAM in the MacBook Neo should be pleased to learn that the second-generation version of Apple’s hit entry-level notebook will almost certainly boast 50% more RAM.

And that’s not a guess. Apple is already making the processor/RAM combos to go into the notebook, even though the release is not expected for almost another year.

To understand why, you need to know where Apple gets the chips for this popular computer. And once you know that, you’ll realize why we can confidently say the 2027 MacBook Neo will include 12GB of RAM.

You can change out your iPhone Lock Screen buttons from the standard flashlight and camera icons to whatever you want. There’s a huge selection of buttons you can swap in their place. Just about any button you can put in Control Center is a button you can put on your iPhone’s Lock Screen.

Plus, you can assign different shortcut buttons on different Lock Screens, making them context-dependent (and tied to a Focus Mode if you like). Apple offers a standard selection, but your options will vary depending on what apps you’ve installed.

Here’s how to swap out the iPhone Lock Screen buttons to put whatever you want at your beck and call.