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AirPods Max 2 are the surprise update to Apple’s premium over-the-ear headphones. Now offering feature parity with the regular AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 3 — thanks to the H2 chip inside — the headphones’ $549 price tag makes some kind of sense.

The design and controls remain unchanged from the originals, for better and worse. That includes the silly “Smart Case.” But the signature beautiful, booming sound and excellent noise cancellation are better than ever. If you’ve never tried AirPods Max before — only the lesser AirPods and maybe a few pairs of cheaper headphones — you are well and truly unprepared for the remarkable music these cans will pump into your ears.

You don’t need to be a big audiophile to love the AirPods Max 2. But considering how Apple has mistreated the product line so far, you have to be a little bold to buy them yourself. 

Apple TV built a reputation as a quality-first streamer. It gave us Severance, Ted Lasso, Slow Horses, and the first Best Picture Oscar from a streamer, 2022’s CODA. But even Apple can’t promise a universal guarantee of quality. Over the years, a handful of originals have landed with a thud, panned by critics, dismissed by audiences or both. See the eight worst-reviewed Apple TV shows and movies below.

The charger that came with your iPad Pro or iPad Air is wasting your time. Your tablet could be charging almost twice as fast (up to three times as fast for the latest iPad Pro). Plus, the included charger is not well-designed for travel.

Here’s what’s going on, along with recommendations for better options.

April 3, 2010: The first iPad hits store shelves after months of anticipation. The tablet Apple CEO Steve Jobs called “magical and revolutionary” at its unveiling earlier in the year quickly becomes a major success.

Following years of rumors, Jobs initially showed off Apple’s first tablet on January 27, 2010. But now, the wait for the iPad is finally over … at least for people in the United States. (The iPad’s international debut won’t happen until May.)

Cable management is the invisible infrastructure of every beautiful desk setup. Do it well and your workspace looks effortlessly minimal, almost wireless. Do it badly and a tangle of cords swallows every other design decision you’ve made. Cult of Mac’s Setups section chronicled the most impressive Apple-centric workstations on the internet for years, and cable management — how to hide it, route it, tame it and sometimes eliminate it entirely — is a recurring obsession among Mac owners. Behold the best cable management in setups, below.

Anker’s new Nano Power Strip (10-in-1, 70W, Clamp) thoughtfully reinvents one of the world’s most common electrical accessories to make it play nice with desks.

It comes with some caveats, but for anyone needing to tame cable clutter, it makes a solid addition to a setup.

Apple just finished its first 50 years, making this an ideal opportunity to look ahead to what we can expect from the next five decades.

Having watched the company progress from the Apple II to the iPhone, I’m as qualified as anyone to peer into the future of computing. Here’s what we can look forward to.

Apple is rolling out a firmware update for the AirTag 2 that makes it easier to locate one of the tracking tags if it’s being used to stalk someone.

You’ll probably want it, but it turns out that updating the AirTag’s software is both easy and hard. You don’t need to jump through hoops, but neither do you have much control.

Here’s what you need to do.

The BMX SolidSafe Air is the MagSafe power bank we’ve been waiting for. It’s a mere 0.27 inches (6.88mm) thin — slimmer than the iPhone 17 I tested it with.

The 5,000mAh iPhone accessory features a semi-solid-state cell design to reduce fire risk and a lightweight titanium build.

Here’s why it was such a pleasure to test out. This is the best MagSafe power bank I’ve ever used.

Apple started exactly 50 years ago, and most of the Cult of Mac staffers have been Mac users almost since the beginning. We have 170-plus years of experience!

Today’s milestone has us looking back on how we got started using Apple computers, from the original Macintosh to the first PowerBook to the early Mac mini.

April 1, 1976: The Apple Computer Company is founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. The trio sets out to sell the $666 Apple-1 computer.

Apple will not officially become a corporation until January 3 the following year. By that time, Wayne is no longer a part of the business.

Apple turned 50 on Wednesday, but the real party happened the night before. On Tuesday evening, Sir Paul McCartney took the rainbow stage at the heart of Apple Park and delivered a career-spanning performance for thousands of Apple employees.

It closed out weeks of global anniversary celebrations with one of the most storied voices in rock history — and a sky full of fireworks.

As Apple turns 50, it’s worth looking back on the company’s greatest accomplishments and lowest moments through history. If you don’t have time for David Pogue’s 600-page epic, Apple: The First 50 Years, maybe you can spare eight minutes to relive the single biggest piece of Apple news every year. 

You can watch 50 years of Apple announcements compressed into a single video. Or, keep reading below for a quick rundown.

April 1 marks a milestone: Apple turns 50. Half a century after Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne signed the papers in a California garage, Apple has become one of the most valuable companies on Earth — and one of the most design-obsessed in history.

And lucky for gear fans, some of its brilliant products inspired other companies to make some great retro-futuristic Apple accessories.

Apple produced an amazing string of hit products over its 50 years, but to paraphrase Napoleon the pig: Some are more important than others.

Here are the most important products in Apple’s 50-year history. And no, this list is likely not what you were expecting. They’re not necessarily the biggest or the most well-known.

Apple’s global 50th anniversary celebration is building to what might be its most memorable moment yet — and if the clues are right, it involves a Beatle performing at Apple Park this week. Or somebody else from the British Invasion that Steve Jobs loved.

Update: The rumor proved true: Paul McCartney played Apple Park on Tuesday night.

March 30, 2006: A court case begins that once again pits Apple Computer against Apple Corps, The Beatles’ record label and holding company.

The lawsuit caps a long-running legal battle between the two wealthy companies. It’s the final fight in an epic legal battle over music, technology and money.

Apple’s history is often distilled into the “Jobs and Woz” garage origin story and the slick modern era of design legend Jony Ive and current CEO Tim Cook. But a group of critical, often overlooked contributors actually forged the company’s 50-year arc. Here are 16 unsung heroes from Apple’s first 50 years — some of the most important “geniuses” and original thinkers behind Apple’s success.

“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do,” Steve Jobs once said. “We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”

March 29, 2012: A settlement ends the “Antennagate” controversy, as Apple gives affected iPhone 4 owners the chance to claim a whopping $15 payout. The settlement covers customers whose phones dropped calls due to its cutting-edge design, but were unable to return their handsets (or didn’t want a free bumper case from Apple to mitigate against the problem).

While it’s arguable whether a $15 payout was worth filing all the paperwork necessary to claim the cash, the Antennagate story — and the resulting class-action lawsuit — generated big headlines at the time.

Apple’s latest M5 Pro and M5 Max chips will serve as the company’s flagship SoCs until the M5 Ultra lands on the Mac Studio in a few months.

Power-hungry Mac fans want to know: Compared to the M4 Pro and M4 Max, what improvements do the M5 Pro and its Max sibling bring? Our comparison shows exactly how these Apple processors stack up.

Looking back over Apple’s first 50 years, it’s clear what the company’s greatest talent is: turning rivals’ niche products into mainstream hits.

Apple proves adept at releasing new products in categories that looked like failures because customers simply lacked interest. But then Apple figured out what its competitors were doing wrong and released its own versions that quickly became iconic.

Here are five examples of Apple turning other companies’ fiascos into triumphs.

While most Thunderbolt docks focus on either an expansive port selection or providing great value for money, the Ugreen Maxidok 17-in-1 Thunderbolt 5 dock offers the best of both worlds — especially with launch discounts that slash 22% off the price.

Plus, it packs a hidden port that solves a common complaint among heavy-duty Mac users. After using it as the centerpiece of my work desk, here’s how it holds up.

All over the world, Apple enjoys spending its milestone 50th anniversary month in the company of the artists and fans who have made the last five decades extraordinary, the company said recently of its worldwide birthday parties.

The festivities began on March 13 when Grammy Award-winning artist Alicia Keys took to the iconic steps of Apple Grand Central in New York City. Celebrations also rolled in China and South Korea, then London and Sydney, Australia. We’ve added new photos, below. 

March 26, 2010: Apple pays up to settle a trademark dispute with Japanese multinational Fujitsu over the name “iPad” in the United States.

It comes two months after Apple CEO Steve Jobs first showed off the iPad, and around a week before the tablet will land in stores. As it happens, it’s not the first time Apple battled over the name for one of its new products.

The Mac Pro, which Cupertino quietly discontinued Thursday, always occupied a rarefied tier in the Apple universe — a machine for serious professionals, well-heeled enthusiasts and the kind of person who actually needs 96GB of RAM.

Whether it’s the iconic cylindrical “trash can” from 2013, the stainless-steel-handled cheesegraters of the early 2000s, or the current M2 Ultra tower that started at $7,000 and climbed past $12,000 with upgrades, the Mac Pro commands attention wherever it appears. Feast your eyes on the top nine Mac Pro setups from Cult of Mac‘s archives.