Michael Burkhardt

According to the latest edition of the Power On newsletter from Mark Gurman, Apple is reportedly considering making some changes to its App Store. The goal? To increase the potential revenue it brings in.

As soon as next month, Apple is expected to introduce its next MacBook Pro redesign. We’ll be seeing OLED, the first touchscreen on a Mac, a thinner chassis, Dynamic Island, and much more. This upgrade was rumored to be called MacBook Ultra, though it wasn’t necessarily clear where that’d leave the MacBook Pro brand. Now, it’s a lot more clear.

Last year, Apple completely reinvented multitasking on the iPad, with the introduction of windowing in iPadOS 26. At first, this meant the removal of the simpler version of multitasking, Split View and Slide Over. Those features did eventually return, but at a cost – they required you to use the clunky new windowing system. I was hoping iPadOS 27 would improve this, but it didn’t.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

Calendar events can often be missed, especially since they’re usually just a notification. If you’re in do not disturb or simply aren’t looking at your phone, you might not see it. With KeyAlarm, certain key calendar events can easily be turned into alarms, allowing you to always know about what’s most important.

Apple’s first foldable iPhone should be making its debut in just over a week. In the development process, Apple was reportedly mulling the idea of launching a new Apple Pencil to use alongside the iPhone Ultra – though it probably won’t make it to market.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple has a couple new features in the pipeline for Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 that’ll make it much more appealing for health-conscious users. The company is also testing two finishes for the rumored ceramic version.

Earlier this year, rumors were rampant about a revamped Health app coming to iOS 26.4. Then the project was delayed, and iOS 27 came and went, and the revamp still didn’t arrive.

With the new Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 debuting next month, it’s worth asking: will we see the features debut alongside new hardware?

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

If you lose track of things you’d like to reference later, Laytr might be a nice solution for you. All of us save things all over the place, whether that be browser bookmarks, built-in bookmarking features within apps, taking a screenshot to hopefully find later, or just leaving a tab open and hoping we find it again later. Laytr aims to be a nice all-in-one solution for keeping track of your digital bookmarks.

Apple Vision Pro is one of Apple’s most interesting hardware releases yet. It’s technically very impressive, yet it seems almost certain that this form factor won’t last – and is instead just a temporary platform to introduce visionOS to the world before we eventually get glasses.

I did buy one late last year, and while I haven’t been a major user of it, there is one use case that genuinely makes it enjoyable.

As soon as next year, Apple will be debuting its first pair of AI-powered smart glasses. They’ll integrate Visual Intelligence and bring Siri to the real world. Here’s what we’re expecting.

In recent years, Macs had been getting more and more affordable. Cheaper starting points, more memory and storage per dollar, and the introduction of MacBook Neo. For the first time, Apple had started to become one of the best values on the market.

Unfortunately, Apple just drastically increased its prices because of the ongoing memory shortage. Macs aren’t as appealing as they were a few weeks ago, that said, there’s still some decent deals out there – and if you’re in need of a new computer, I’d still say todays Macs are a good value against the rest of the computing market.

Recently, Mophie debuted four new power banks for the iPhone. They slide nicely into your pocket, come in two finishes, offer built-in cables, and pack 5000mAh or 10000mAh of capacity. They’re by no means the smallest battery banks on the market, though they hit a price point that makes them worthwhile.

After a two year hiatus, Apple is working on a new iMac with the M6 chipset and updated color options, per Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. It should release “before the end of the year.”

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is preparing significant changes at its retail stores in preparation for upcoming Home product launches. At the very least, Apple should debut a refreshed HomePod mini and Apple TV 4K this fall, though the changes would suggest a third, more significant product is also on its way.

Earlier this month, Google unveiled its new Pixel 11 lineup. The phones themselves were rather similar compared to the previous Pixel 10 lineup, though they offer a few delightful quality of life improvements. One of those is a new set of camera processing options – allowing you to have far more control over what your photo will look like.

On the cusp of the iPhone 18 Pro release, I’m hoping Apple offers something similar to this.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

On the Apple TV, gaming is a little bit of an afterthought for developers. Compared to iPhone, iPad, and even Mac – there aren’t a ton of options. Luckily, CloudGear exists as an all-in-one solution for bringing every major cloud gaming platform into one interface. It’s also available for iPhone and iPad.

After over a decade of not adopting touch displays on its Mac notebook lineup, Apple will finally be rolling out its first touchscreen MacBook as soon as October. This’ll come alongside the next MacBook Pro redesign, potentially dubbed MacBook Ultra.

Over the years, Apple has only added more and more customization to iOS. First, we got all of the lock screen personalization back with iOS 16. That was followed up with icon color tinting in iOS 18, clear icons in iOS 26, and a full-on Liquid Glass slider in iOS 27.

The iPhone has become more and more individualistic as time has gone on, and that’s a great thing. Since we can already tint our icons on our home screen – why not extend that to the rest of the operating system?

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

Writing a little bit of code shouldn’t be a hassle. Typically you have to set up a project and go through layers of menus before you can even start to write. Notepad.exe flips that script, and believes you should start with a blank file first, and figure out the project later – making it much easier to get your idea on paper.

Apple’s home products (primarily HomePod mini and Apple TV) have been the talk of the town for the past couple of years. The reasoning is quite simple: the current iterations are 4-6 years old.

Siri has been the holdup for new hardware releases, supposedly – but now that Siri AI is finally here, we should be seeing Apple finally start releasing some new Home products very soon. Here’s what’s in the pipeline.