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iOS 26.4, which Apple released Tuesday, brings a bunch of great new features to your iPhone.

It adds eight all-new emoji — a couple that I’ll definitely start using often (in addition to a few weird ones, as always). Apple Music also receives several excellent new features, like concert listings coming up in your area, in addition to a refined user interface. And the Apple Podcasts app gets a big video upgrade. 

Those come in addition to tons of other interface tweaks and a fix for a typing bug that has been annoying iPhone users. Here are all the new features you can look forward to in iOS 26.4.

Your iPad is fun and relaxing, but it can also be the heart of a compact workstation with the Satechi OntheGo Foldable Stand Hub. This holds up your tablet while simultaneously expanding its connectivity with five additional ports.

It’s so useful in the office, it’s easy to forget the accessory folds down so you can take it with you. Satechi says it’s made for creatives on the move.

I tested the stand+hub in my home office and when traveling. Here’s what I found.

Update: The sophisticated DarkSword hacking technique that came to light last week — capable of silently taking over iPhones the moment a user visits an infected website — just got worse for Apple users running older software, TechCrunch reported Monday.

Someone leaked versions of DarkSword on code-sharing site GitHub. That means DarkSword attacks likely will increase — especially since iOS expertise is not required to deploy the technique.

“This is bad. They are way too easy to repurpose,” iVerify co-founder Matthias Frielingsdorf told TechCrunch. “I don’t think that can be contained anymore. So we need to expect criminals and others to start deploying this.”

Apple spokesperson Sarah O’Rourke reminded people that “keeping software up to date is the single most important thing you can do to maintain the security of your Apple products.” So if you haven’t updated to the latest iOS for your device, do so now.

The Voibe dictation app for Mac lets you talk instead of typing. It’s fast, efficient and works inside any Mac app. Plus, since it works offline, it’s totally private.

It’s a voice-first way to work across your Mac, without relying on cloud processing or extra apps. And right now, a lifetime subscription to Voibe costs just $49.99 (MSRP $149). And you can save even more using code MARCH15, which takes an extra 15% off almost everything in the Cult of Mac Deals store.

Every MacBook boasts industry-leading battery life. But everything comes to an end. It may take a full day or more, but MacBooks do eventually run out of charge. 

If you want to take your M5 Max MacBook Pro to the coffee shop to get work done, and you leave your power cable at home — even if you’re editing 8K ProRes video streams in Final Cut Pro — you still might be ordering breakfast, lunch and staying for dinner. 

Of course, that low battery warning always comes at the most inopportune time. With that in mind, there are a few tricks to get even more unplugged time with your MacBook. Keep reading or watch our quick video.

The annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC26) will take place June 8–12, according to an update Monday on the Apple Developer website — setting the stage for what promises to be one of the company’s most anticipated software events in years. The event will mark the arrival of iOS 27, macOS 27 and more.

March 23, 1992: The “headless” Macintosh LC II arrives, wooing value-oriented customers with a beguiling mix of updated internals and budget pricing.

Designed to take up minimal space underneath a monitor (sold separately), the Mac LC II is destined to become a hit. In retrospect, the entry-level machine is roughly analogous to today’s Mac mini.

You can turn your iPhone, iPad or Mac into a piano teacher with Flowkey’s interactive lessons, real-time feedback and song-first approach to learning.

Flowkey is designed to meet you where you are, whether you’ve never touched a keyboard or you already know your way around one. And it costs just $59.50 for three years with code MARCH15 (which also takes 15% off many other items in the Cult of Mac Deals store through March 29). A flesh-and-blood piano teacher might charge that much for a single lesson!

March 22, 1993: Apple launches the PowerCD, the first device from the company that doesn’t require a computer to work.

A portable CD player that also works as an external CD drive for Macs, it offers a glimpse of the extremely lucrative path Apple will follow a decade later. However, the PowerCD itself will ultimately fail to take off.

Safari’s Hide Distracting Items feature lets you remove ads from your iPhone, along with other elements on the page that irritate you. It doesn’t require an ad blocker or a paid extension — Apple built it right into the browser in iOS 18.

Hide Distracting Items is not an ad blocker per se. But if pop-ups and other items with no obvious close button pester you, Hide Distracting Items can come to the rescue. Here’s how to use it — keep reading or watch our video.

An analyst’s report shows Apple’s new MacBook Neo is even more affordable than it first appears. The total cost of ownership is about half that of comparable Windows PCs.

It may sound counterintuitive at first — how can a $599 Mac be half the cost of a $599 PC? — but the analyst showed that the typical lifespan of a Mac is so much longer than that of a Windows PC that the Apple model costs much less over time.

The iMac has always occupied a special place in Apple’s lineup — a beautifully integrated all-in-one desktop computer that bundles a 4.5K Retina display, camera, speakers and microphone into a single elegant slab of aluminium with color-matched accessories.

Yet despite the machine’s considerable visual appeal, iMac setups are a surprisingly rare sight in Cult of Mac‘s long-running Setups section. I noted in March 2025 that, out of 616 Setups articles written over more than four years at that time, only 11 featured an iMac as the centrepiece. That’s partly due to the fact that Apple desktop sales. They made up just 14% of Mac sales in 2024, while MacBooks accounted for a whopping 86%.

Apple had years to refine its high-end headphones, the AirPods Max. But with the just-announced AirPods Max 2, the company played it safe.

An upgrade to Apple’s H2 chip brings some notable new features to AirPods Max 2. However, with many of the original model’s shortcomings still present, the revamp feels like a missed opportunity.

Over the past few years, the artificial intelligence race looked like a story about infrastructure. Which company can build the biggest, most power-hungry data center, stock it with the most Nvidia GPUs and spend the most money? OpenAI, Amazon, Google, xAI — they’re all in a competition to build industrial-scale computing factories just to run the most powerful AI models. But it looks like developer Dan Woods just upended that story by running a data-center AI model on MacBook.

And that could mean Apple wins the AI race after all.

The Tessan Voyager 205 Universal Travel Adapter combines a global plug adapter with a powerful 205W GaN charger with seven ports. It’s bigger and heavier than your usual travel adapter — but also far more capable.

Does the Voyager deserve a spot in your travel bag? Find out in our review.

The MacBook Neo runs macOS on an Apple A-series processor with excellent performance, which has caused people to suggest that the Apple TV 4K could be hacked to run macOS and create a full-featured desktop computer for $129.

Or they propose Apple itself port macOS onto the video streamer and release it as a desktop that costs $200 or less.

Neither one is likely at all. Here’s why.

Nvidia’s RTX graphics cards — the kind already sitting inside many Windows PCs and workstations — can now stream high-fidelity, immersive content directly to an Apple Vision Pro headset via Nvidia CloudXR. It’s a collaboration the two companies announced Tuesday at Nvidia’s GTC conference in San Jose.

March 18, 1991: Steve Jobs marries 27-year-old Laurene Powell less than two years after a chance meeting.

The couple’s friends and family attend the wedding, which takes place at Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park in central California.

Apple’s budget-oriented iPhone 17e packs a faster processor and more base storage — at a lower price — than the iPhone 16. But despite launching more than a year earlier, the iPhone 16 still holds an edge in several important aspects.

Here’s how the two affordable iPhones compare — and which one you should buy.

The MacBook Neo comes with 8GB of RAM, and that’s great news for all Mac users, even if they never buy a Neo. It means current and older Apple computers will continue to offer speedy performance when running macOS for years to come.

Here’s why.

The iPhone 17e may be a subtle upgrade, but it’s a slight change that makes all the difference. Now with MagSafe, the budget smartphone doesn’t suffer much in the way of compromises. Storage capacity is doubled, making the base model an exceptional choice; the blistering A19 chip is even faster than its predecessor.

Although the lack of a Dynamic Island makes it feel like an older phone than it really is, unless you really care about photography or giant screens, there’s not a lot that seems missing. It’s just as gorgeous as before and still highly practical.

Here’s my full review.

March 15, 2004: The iTunes Music Store hits a crucial milestone, having sold an astonishing 50 million songs in less than a year. The achievement cements Apple’s place at the center of the rapidly changing music business — at least for the moment.

“Crossing 50 million songs is a major milestone for iTunes and the emerging digital music era,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs says in a statement. “With over 50 million songs already downloaded and an additional 2.5 million songs being downloaded every week, it’s increasingly difficult to imagine others ever catching up with iTunes.”

Apple’s new flagship desktop display, the Studio Display XDR, is what you get out of a blender when you combine a mini-LED with the high adaptive refresh rate of a MacBook Pro and the 27-inch 5K screen size of the regular Studio Display. 

It’s a brilliant combination. Starting at $3,299, it’s significantly cheaper — and unfortunately a little smaller — than the Pro Display XDR, the $5,000-plus monitor it replaces. However, it supersedes its high-end predecessor in all other specs. Apple made incredibly smart choices about what to include and what to cut.

Ironically, now the $1,599 regular Studio Display is the bunk product in Apple’s monitor lineup. It misses out on the Studio Display XDR’s top new feature — 120 Hz Adaptive Sync. And it’s about twice as expensive as competing monitors from Asus, BenQ and ViewSonic. 

Now, the Studio Display XDR stands in a class of its own. And for, like, half as much money as Apple’s previous top monitor. 

The MacBook Neo exceeds all expectations and defies all logic. It’s a $599 computer that’s not slow. The cheap laptop sports a light aluminum unibody with exceptional fit and finish, along with a gorgeous, bright Retina display. It runs on an iPhone chip, yet it’s incredibly fast with unbelievable battery life.

The name itself, Neo, reminds you that this is not a computer made out of spare parts. It’s a bespoke industrial design with a brand-new display and feature set. That feature set excludes things that longtime members of the cult consider quintessential Mac features — a backlit keyboard, an ambient light sensor and a MagSafe connection.

Nonetheless, the MacBook Neo will be a lot of people’s first exposure to the Mac. I wanted to know what their experience will be like — and I think they’ll be very happy.

In iOS 26, the awesome new Spatial Scenes feature lets you convert an ordinary 2D photo to a 3D scene that moves in your hand. It doesn’t have to be a recent picture or one taken with a special camera, either. You can try out Apple’s new 3D effect on any decent photo, even if it’s from 20 years ago.

You can play with Spatial Scenes in the Photos app, converting images and seeing how the effect works. But the best part is that you can set one as your iPhone’s Lock Screen wallpaper, and see it every time you unlock your phone. It even works with the excellent Photo Shuffle feature, so you’ll keep getting new ones to gawk at.

Check out the GIFs below that show how Spatial Scenes work, or watch our hands-on demo video.