9to5Toys

Yesterday morning, Hector Martin resigned from his position as project lead of Asahi Linux. This was a community effort that kicked off shortly after the Mac transition to Apple Silicon begun, in early 2021. After a ton of effort, the team finally released an alpha build of Asahi Linux for M1 and M2 Macs in early 2022. The project was going well.

However, because of burnout and an uphill battle with the Linux community, including Linus Torvalds himself, Hector Martin decided to resign. The project should ideally continue on without him.

After the reported cancellation of Apple’s Mac-tethered AR glasses, Apple is still working towards making a pair of standalone AR glasses. It just might take a little bit longer to get right, reports Mark Gurman from Bloomberg.

Apple’s next generation iPhone SE may debut as early as next week. The device is rumored to provide the design language of the iPhone 14, with USB-C, an A18 chip with Apple Intelligence, and more. You’ve likely heard all of those headlining features already, but there are some other substantial rumors that may have gone under the radar for you, which we’ll be recapping today.

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.

Bento|Craft is a great tool for easily making Apple-style bento box graphics in a matter of seconds. It provides dozens of templates and mockups, allows you to customize layouts, and export very quickly. It’s a high quality and simple-to-use design tool.

Apple last updated its cheapest iPad in October 2022, introducing the largest refresh to the base model iPad since it returned in 2017. This marked the 10th generation of the iPad, and even though it’s been 2.5 years since then, the 11th generation model won’t bring anything substantial, for one big reason.

We’ve been off to a light start in 2025 in terms of Apple products, with the main announcement this year being the new Black Unity Sport Loop. However, we’re approaching the spring time, and Apple has five relatively major products in the pipeline.

According to a tweet from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple will stop offering the option to purchase a 2-3 year plan of AppleCare+ in physical Apple Stores and on device. This change will be taking place next week.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple will be launching a new events and invites service as part of iCloud. This new service will differ from calendar, and will launch as early as “this coming week.”

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.

Wheels aims to be your all-in-one digital skate journal, allowing you (presuming you’re a skater) to track all things skating. It helps track your rides, your skateboards, and offers a clean interface to manage it all.

Ever since early 2021, Apple has been releasing new Black Unity bands for the Apple Watch. 2025 marks the fifth year of this tradition, giving a number of options to pick from. Among the five bands, Apple has released two sport bands, two sport loops, and one braided solo loop. All of them remain available for purchase on the Apple Store today.

Despite the fact that you can still use the service, TikTok is still very much so banned in the United States. President Trump promised to not fine TikTok and its service providers for continuing to run the services, but that’s just a promise. He also signed an executive order officially suspending the ban, but there’s great odds that that executive order doesn’t actually hold up legally.

For one reason or another, Apple (and Google) have both decided that they don’t want to take the risk. If a court later decides that Trumps promises don’t hold up legally, Apple could be on the hook for up to $850 billion in fines. It just isn’t worth it for them.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is planning on releasing iOS 18.4 in April. Apple hasn’t started the beta cycle for iOS 18.4 quite yet, but there are a handful of things we can likely expect with iOS 18.4 so far.

Apple last updated the Apple TV in October 2022, introducing a new, smaller design, USB-C on the Siri remote, and a bump from the A12 chip to the A15 chip. The product is now over two years old, and rumors are starting to pop up about the next model.

Apple has neglected their cheapest iPad for the past couple years, leaving it with the over four year old A14 chipset. They did lower the price earlier last year, from $449 to $349, but we should finally see a real refresh this spring. Here’s what we’re expecting with the iPad 11, the first refresh to Apple’s cheapest iPad in 2.5 years.

Apple introduced iCloud back in June 2011, and since then, the free tier of iCloud has remained at 5GB. However, I’m not here to talk about that today. While 5GB of free iCloud is definitely too little for our needs nearly a decade and a half later, I think Apple has a bigger issue to address with iCloud: its paid tiers.

At CES 2025, Belkin began shipping its new SoundForm Isolate headphones. They’re the first wireless headphones with active noise cancellation that Belkin has developed, and they come in at just $60 – making them incredibly affordable over-ear headphones.

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.

Inscreen taps into Apple’s Screen Time API, and aims to help users be more mindful about the time they’re spending on their devices. Rather than forcefully blocking app access, Inscreen takes a different approach, and keeps you aware of how much time you’re spending on each app.