Zac Hall is a Senior Editor, covering Apple, AI, and the modern technology landscape.
He joined 9to5Mac in April 2013, originally as a writer and copy editor.
He later served as Lead Editor from May 2016 through December 2020, before shifting focus to creating the Space Explored website.
In 2015, Zac began co-hosting 9to5Mac Happy Hour, establishing the format of the site’s premier podcast, which he hosted for eight years.
In 2018, he created 9to5Mac Daily, providing audio recaps of Apple and technology news each weekday. He also created and hosted multiple seasons of the 9to5Mac Watch Time podcast, a health and fitness-focused interview series.
Zac currently focuses on writing for 9to5Mac. He is based in the lovely Gulf Coast town of Ocean Springs, MS, where he lives with his brilliant kids and Nova, his adventurous Cavachon rescue pup.
Contact: zac@9to5mac.com
Apple released iOS 17.2 developer beta 2 on Thursday, enabling iPhone 15 Pro hardware to capture spatial videos for the first time. The public beta version just dropped as well, and so have some early press reviews of personal spatial videos on Vision Pro.
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Update: A day later, public beta versions are now available. See all the new features, including spatial video capture from iPhone 15 Pro for viewing on Vision Pro, here.
iOS 17.2 developer beta 2 is now available. The first beta release introduced Apple’s Journal app, new features to Messages, Translate as an Action button feature, and more. We expect future betas to include refinements to the Journal app. We’ll update with any changes we discover.
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Doing some holiday shopping for yourself or someone else? Some of your Apple gear might be worth more in trade-in credit starting today. Apple has boosted the trade-in value of some iPads, Apple Watches, and several Android phones.
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iPhone photography will be on full display in Paris this weekend. A new iPhone photography exhibition that features five photographs is being held at the Salon Corderie on Friday and Saturday.
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With World Diabetes Day next week, we continue to learn interesting ways Apple Watch has helped users with diabetes. Las Vegas resident Josh Furman, who credits his Apple Watch Ultra with saving his life, is the latest to share their experience.
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Apple Watch is equipped with a heart rate monitor and the ability to detect Afib, and sometimes those can lead to lifesaving discoveries. Ahead of World Diabetes Day on November 14, Judith Luebke of Oklahoma, who credits the Apple Watch with saving her life, has shared her story of how the watch helped lead to her diabetes diagnosis two years ago.
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As part of a wave of software updates today, Apple has shipped a new version of the HomePod software. All HomePod hardware can update to version 17.1.1 to resolve an issue with failed Siri requests.
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Apple has released macOS 14.1.1 for compatible Macs. The update to macOS Sonoma appears to address the upgrade error some new M3 MacBook Pro owners have experienced.
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Apple has released watchOS 10.1.1 for Apple Watch. The software update addresses a battery drain and overheating bug that users have reported experiencing.
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Apple has released iOS 17.1.1 for iPhone. The software update includes fixes for wireless charging and the recently discovered snow glitch. The update follows the iOS 17.1 update from October 25 which introduced new AirDrop and Apple Music features. Apple is also working on iOS 17.2 and the new Journal app for iPhone.
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macOS Sonoma is all about widgets. Whether it’s iPhone widgets on the Mac or Mac widgets on the desktop, macOS 14 lets you control and interact with widgets in new ways. Widgets truly are interactive for the first time, too. Like on iPhone and iPad, the Mac now lets you actually do tasks with widgets without launching the full app.
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What’s “one perk of fame,” according to Barbra Streisand? Phoning up the CEO of Apple when Siri doesn’t pronounce your name correctly.
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Apple finally brought Logic Pro to the iPad in May 2023. Six months later, Apple is back with the first major feature update for the tablet version of its audio engineering app. Apple has also brought new features to Logic Pro for Mac for the first time in a year.
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For the second time this year, Apple has a new round of MacBook Pros to evaluate with the upgraded M3 lineup. This time around, Apple is releasing the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max at the same time. Apple is also bringing the 14-inch MacBook Pro price down with the M3 version, although only M3 Pro and M3 Max versions have 16-inch options and the new space black color.
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“For All Mankind” returns for a fourth season on Apple TV+ next Friday. As a teaser, a new round of pseudo-news clips connecting seasons three and four awaits fans of the alt-history sci-fi show.
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Still freeloading on 4K Max content for the low, low price of $16/month? Yeah, Warner Bros. Discovery needs you to pay up. Starting next month, Max will no longer serve up 4K HDR content to legacy HBO Max subscribers who haven’t switched to the more expensive plan.
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Apple is set to open its 56th retail location in Greater China on Saturday with the addition of Apple MixC Wenzhou. The newest Apple Store includes some new design elements.
These include a “reimagined” Genius Bar counter for tech support and a dedicated space away from the main shopping area for experiencing the Apple Watch.
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Apple has its fiscal year 2023 Q4 earnings results. The company reports $89.50 billion in revenue during the three-month period.
Analysts expected revenue around $84.18 billion. The company reported revenue of $90.15 billion for the same quarter a year ago.
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Audio Hijack 4 for Mac just keeps getting better. Today’s version 4.3 release drops in a whole new Transcribe block to turn speech into text. It’s powered by OpenAI’s Whisper tech and is fully included in Audio Hijack – no recurring fees or limitations.
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If you find yourself searching for Apple’s Magnifier tool in Markup on iOS 17, you’re not alone. The tool for adding emphasis to – or showing more detail from – a specific part of an image is mysteriously missing.
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iOS 17.1 has been available for more than a week. Now Apple is blocking downgrades to iOS 17.0.3 as well as unpatched versions of iOS 16 and iOS 15.
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In a first for Apple, the company is partnering with an in-person gym to provide members with access to Apple Fitness+. Starting in December, Anytime Fitness members will gain access to the digital workout service for no additional charge.
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If you’ve bought a midnight-colored MacBook Air, the smudge factor is already baked in. If the fingerprint-magnet color sticks around, though, I wonder if Apple could apply the same anodization seal technique to midnight that it’s using with space black.
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You can now order the USB-C Apple Pencil for $79, and the first deliveries start as soon as November 3.
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