Michael is 9to5Mac’s Associate Editor, leading all of our Apple news coverage on Saturday and Sunday, and contributing to reporting from Monday to Wednesday. He got started in the world of Apple news during the pandemic, and it became a growing hobby. He’s also an indie iOS developer in his free time, and started the weekly Indie App Spotlight series, which has covered dozens of indie apps since it launched.
In the latest Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman from Bloomberg reported that the 2nd generation of Apple Vision Pro is expected to hit the market between fall of 2025 and spring of 2026. This mostly aligns with previous reports, although slightly less optimistic.
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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.
Currency is a completely free currency conversion app for iPhone and Mac, with no ads, a clean design, and offline functionality. It has support for over 160 currencies, making it an easy to use tool for any international travel.
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Earlier this week, we reported that the storage in the new Mac mini is actually modular, meaning that it isn’t soldered to the logic board of the Mac, and ultimately would be user accessible. However, that didn’t necessarily mean it’d be easy for users to upgrade the storage on their own – though that didn’t stop one individual.
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Initially spotted by Brad Lynch on X, Apple has recently listed a new Belkin Head Strap for Apple Vision Pro, one that looks very similar (though not quite identical) to the strap that they unveiled back at WWDC23. It works in addition to the Solo Knit band.
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On Friday, Pixelmator, the company behind many popular photo-editing apps for Apple platforms, announced that Apple will be acquiring them. While some people are rightfully skeptical of the deal, I’m optimistic that it might solve one of my biggest grips with the iPad.
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According to Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, Apple is ‘seriously considering’ developing a cheaper Apple Vision device that offloads all of the computing power to your iPhone, essentially developing a headset with primarily displays and battery.
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According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple will be releasing a ‘total redesign’ for MacBook Pro in 2026. Apple has traditionally taken a four year design cycle with MacBook Pro, but it’s looking like the M5 refresh will just be another chip upgrade – and we’ll have to wait another year to see a complete overhaul.
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According to Mark Gurman’s latest Power On newsletter, Apple will be releasing iOS 18.2 a little bit earlier than usual, on the week of December 2nd. He also outlines some more details on the release timeline for future Apple Intelligence features.
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According to supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple has delayed its plans to release a more affordable Apple Vision headset in 2025. It’ll take a couple extra years now.
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Apple unveiled its new MacBook Pro models this week, with M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chipsets. The new M4 Pro chip in the Mac mini already showed some very promising results, making it the fastest Mac ever. However, M4 Max takes it to an all new level, and performs among the highest end PC chips on the market.
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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.
Time2Pack is an all-in one app for your travel needs for iPhone and iPad, offering a robust packing list feature, guides to help you pack, flight tracking, and more. It’s an ultimate travel companion, alleviating a lot of the stress that can come with preparing for a trip.
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Berkshire Hathaway has continued to trim its holdings in Apple for the third consecutive quarter, with Warren Buffett selling about a quarter of his firm’s stake in Apple. As of late September, Berkshire now holds around $69.9 billion of Apple stock, down from around $84.2 billion at the end of last quarter.
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Apple just finished releasing the initial M4 Mac lineup, with M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max going into the iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro. Those are likely the last announcements for the year, but there’s still a lot in the pipeline for next spring. Here’s everything we’re expecting.
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Apple today has launched a new service program for iPhone 14 Plus models, where a ‘very small percentage’ of devices may show no rear camera preview. This is the first iPhone service program in a couple years, with the last one being in 2021 where some iPhone 12 models experienced an earpiece speaker problem.
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Earlier this week, the Indonesian government has banned the sale and use of iPhone 16 models in the country, alongside other Apple products released this fall, including the Apple Watch Series 10. The ban occurred because Apple failed to meet some of its investment commitments in the country (via The Economic Times).
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Apple skipped updating their cheapest iPad this year (and last year as well), leaving it with the over four year old A14 chipset. They did lower the price earlier this year, from $449 to $349, but we should finally see a real refresh next spring. Here’s what to expect.
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Meta released a brand new mixed reality headset about two week ago, the Meta Quest 3S. It’s their cheapest mixed reality headset by far, starting at a price of $299, compared to the $499 starting price of Meta Quest 3. Don’t get confused though, the S in 3S does not mean it’s better, even though you may think that.
It’s a great value for mixed reality – but something Apple would never make.
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Apple is going to be holding an “exciting week of announcements” starting tomorrow, confirmed by Apple marketing exec Greg Joswiak. Although the announcements will focus on the first M4 Macs, rumors for several other Apple products are circulating. Today, we aim to clarify what you shouldn’t expect this week.
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iFixit shared their teardown for the new iPad mini yesterday, highlighting the fact that Apple did not rotate the display driver in order to fix the “jelly scrolling” problem – which many expected them to do. Instead, the fix lies somewhere else.
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Apple transitioned the Mac lineup to Apple Silicon starting in 2020, and they completed the transition in 2023. Since the transition started, Apple quickly started dropping support for Intel Macs on newer versions of macOS. That raises the question: how much longer will Intel Macs receive software support?
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Apple released iOS 18.2 developer beta 1 earlier this week, with ChatGPT support, Image Playground, Image Wand, and Genmoji. However, the latter image generation features required a waitlist, one that many found themselves stuck on. A small number of users gained access quickly, but the vast majority have been waiting, unable to access the new features.
However, a decent wave of users have reported gaining access today.
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Apple is going to be launching the M4 Mac lineup this week in a series of press releases, which Apple marketing exec Greg Joswiak refers to as an “exciting week of announcements.” The new MacBook Pro will reportedly be in customers hands starting November 1st.
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Apple released its new iPad mini model earlier this week, marking the first update in over three years. It was quite a small refresh, mainly focusing on A17 Pro with Apple Intelligence and Apple Pencil Pro – but there are some smaller changes under the hood you might’ve not heard about.
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In this weekend’s Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman from Bloomberg outlined some additional details for Apple’s upcoming smart home products, and it seems likely that there’ll be a throwback to one of Apple’s beloved computers – the iMac G4.
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