Zac Hall

Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it will be great. Apple’s mixed reality headset is, by all accounts, especially difficult to produce, yet Apple believes it has something special. That’s the message from the latest report by The Information, which details just how elaborate and expensive manufacturing the headset has been. The rundown on the state of actually making the headset comes on the near eve of Apple finally unveiling what it’s been working on for years.

Withings has joined the growing club of iPhone apps that support iOS 16’s Live Activities feature. The feature puts a persistent status update on the Lock Screen of all iPhones running iOS 16. iPhone 14 Pro support goes further with the always-on display and Dynamic Island.

Ted Lasso super fans like me have been watching episodes of season three as soon as they land on Apple TV+. For the season finale (and possible series finale), the last episode will go live a little later than every other episode.

The fine folks at Rogue Amoeba released an all-new version of the excellent Audio Hijack app last year. Today the sound capturing software is gaining three new features, thanks in part to Machine Learning on the Mac.

Apple has released a new software update for Apple Watch that all users should download and install today. The update is available for Apple Watch Series 4 and later, Apple Watch SE, and Apple Watch Ultra.

Police in Ohio are crediting the Apple Watch with notifying them of a fatal car crash that occurred over the weekend. Sadly, the car crash left one person dead and another person in critical condition. The cause of the crash is still being investigated, but police in Columbus, Ohio, say they used a combination of technology to locate the incident.

The tech community is collectively on the edge of our seats as we zoom toward the expected unveiling of Apple’s mixed reality headset. With just days to go, display analyst Ross Young has shared what he believes will be the specs for the two displays found inside the headset.

After buying Primephonic in 2021, Apple premiered Apple Music Classical on iPhone at the end of March. Starting today, Android users with an Apple Music subscription can also tune in to the classics.

Before streaming video surfaces took over, channel surfing was one of the great joys of watching TV – even if you never found something to watch.

Similarly, there used to be lots of ways to surf the web, searching for some new discovery. Stumble Upon is a great example. Every click would land you somewhere new. You might even become a regular visitor of whatever site you end up finding.

Reddit and Twitter eventually became where links lived, but without the kind of random nature of “flipping through channels” on the internet. Web Roulette is a new app from the designers of Clear and Heads Up that restores the randomness.

Apple is showcasing three WWDC23 Swift Student Challenge winners who submitting original app playgrounds using Apple’s Swift developer language. The highlighted submissions include app playgrounds for strengthening eye muscles, sports and filmmaking, and learning about dinosaur fossils. Winners have also been showing off their swag that comes along with the invitation to attend WWDC in person and online.

I spent part of Friday night attending a concert in virtual reality. It wasn’t very good. By this time next week, however, Apple is expected to have already unveiled its mixed reality headset. I’m hoping part of the pitch includes Apple Music.

Ah, AirPower, Apple’s ambitious wireless charging mat unveiled in September 2017 and canceled in March 2019. Who could forget the unreleased product that never even got a price tag?

Multidevice Qi chargers and Apple’s MagSafe technology have long since made AirPower look basic and dated. Even Apple’s MagSafe Duo charger hasn’t caught up with fast charging capabilities on newer devices.

Still, there’s one AirPower promise that only Apple could fulfill to make the canceled wireless charging mat completely obsolete while improving another product.

Taking a break from Apple headset hype, let’s talk about the iPad mini. Apple brought the 7.9-inch Home button iPad mini into the modern era with the 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display version in September 2021.

Available in four colors, the A15 chip-equipped iPad mini hardly feels dated with performance on par with that of the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14. If anything, an updated iPad mini could satisfy a lot of fans wanting a more premium model that could be sold alongside the current iPad mini 6.

Apple Card holders can earn up to $125 in Daily Cash rewards thanks to a limited-time promotion. The campaign is focused on Apple Card holders who have taken advantage of the Apple Card Family feature.

There’s a new name to add to the list of recently departed corporate Apple employees. The executive in charge of managing Apple Pay partnerships with banks and credit unions in the Americas is leaving the company. The departing director has also overseen Apple’s year-old Tap to Pay feature.

Apple is widely expected to introduce its long rumored mixed reality headset as part of WWDC 2023. This comes as a surprise to few in part because Apple has been singing the praises of augmented reality since at least WWDC 2017. That’s when Apple began laying the groundwork for technology used in the headset through developer tools on the iPhone and iPad.

It may be news to many that Apple’s “My Photo Stream” feature was still alive and kicking, but the real news today is that Apple is pulling the plug on the free iCloud feature this summer.

Glancing at notifications has always been a big part of the Apple Watch, but there’s a new kind of notification that isn’t really on the Apple Watch. Live Activities, the new notification type designed for frequent updates, debuted on iOS 16 for all iPhone lock screens and iPhone 14 Pro’s Dynamic Island. Live Activity alerts are fantastic on the phone, but they amplify just how out of date data can be on the watch.

This week we heard about a new way Apple plans to let us use the iPhone 14 Pro always-on display in iOS 17. If you’ve ever wanted your iPhone to present more info panels in landscape, well, you’re in luck.

I hope there are more updates to customizing the standard Lock Screen as well. Specifically, there’s one thing about the Photo Shuffle version of the Lock Screen in iOS 16 that I hope changes in iOS 17.

Benjamin and Chance talk about the released WWDC schedule, and how they expect the conference will play out in light of a new platform launch. Apple headset price expectations continue to be set with a supposed bill of materials analysis topping $1600 in component costs. Final Cut and Logic launch on iPad, and there’s rumors of brand new ‘smart display’-esque features coming in iOS 17.

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