Parker Ortolani

I’ve used an iPhone for 12 years, but Android devices have always intrigued me. Every once in awhile, one comes along that really peaks my interest. The Pixel 6 is one of those phones. I’ve been waiting for Google to finally step up to the plate and make “the whole widget.” They’ve finally done it this year and as far as I can tell, they’ve done a great job.

Apple’s three new HomePod mini colors are now available to order on Apple.com and the Apple Store app. The colors were introduced a few weeks ago at Apple’s “Unleashed” special event and include: yellow, orange, and a dark blue. They’re a big departure from the neutral white and space grey colors that Apple has offered for HomePods for 4 years. The new colors are priced at the same $99.

Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City is now offering same-day engraving of AirPods. The service is complemented by a beautiful new avenue display that showcases all of the different designs that you can get engraved on your AirPods. Each of the emoji and text in the display is engraved into the wall.

It could be any day now. The notch is inescapable. It’s making its way to any and every device is can. The new MacBook Pro didn’t need a notch, it’s there primarily for aesthetics. Last night, Bloomberg published images of Meta’s upcoming smartwatch that happens to have a notch with a camera. It is entirely possible that Apple is considering putting a notch and a camera on the Apple Watch eventually.

When Nintendo announced that their next collaboration with Niantic Labs was going to be Pikmin-branded, I was surprised. The Pikmin brand isn’t well-known outside of deeply passionate circles of Nintendo fans. But I think that’s about to change with Pikmin Bloom, the latest Nintendo mobile game that hit the App Store today in the United States.

When Apple introduced AirPods Pro in late 2019, they instantly made the regular AirPods “uncool.” The stems were shorter, the sound was better, there were actual buttons, and the case had a landscape design that was undeniably new. But AirPods Pro have always had a fundamental flaw for me. They just don’t fit my ears. None of the included interchangeable tips have ever worked for me. I know this is unusual since people tend to say that AirPods Pro fit their ears better than standard AirPods, but the original AirPods design was infinitely more comfortable for me. The third-generation AirPods take the best of both and combine them into one pair of nearly perfect wireless earbuds.

Apple has redesigned the human interface guidelines page on their developer website, making it easier to find the right templates and fonts you want to work with. In addition to the new site, Apple has also added all-new templates and libraries for iOS 15 and iPadOS 15.

Apple released iOS 15.1 and iPadOS 15.1 today with support for the new SharePlay feature that allows users to interact with content together over FaceTime. Apple offers their own apps for SharePlay like TV and Fitness, but there are a plethora of third-party apps with SharePlay support available to download right now.

The Twitter account @AppleDemoYT has revealed a hidden file in an Apple Watch retail store demo unit. The file in question is an “Apple Watch Pro” logo that never saw the light of day. The demo unit that this file was discovered on was the original design that had a built-in iPad mini for walking a customer through watchOS.

I’ve been using Apple’s “pro” iPads since the first one was introduced. It was an obvious play for someone like me who used the iPad in a professional context before it was cool to do so. Apple’s also given the iPad Pro cool new features exclusively over the past six years, leaving the regular iPad in the dust. But recently, Apple has started to show a willingness to share its best new features with the iPad, iPad Air, and iPad mini. Over the past several days I’ve been rocking Apple’s new 9th generation iPad and I’m stunned to say, it’s fantastic and it’s the first one that has everything I need.

Cabel Sasser from Panic has shared an exclusive look at an extremely early iPod prototype that I’d reckon you’ve never seen before. The rare prototype is yellow and fairly large compared to the shipping version of the original iPod, despite it being from late in the product’s development cycle. Cabel says that this iPod prototype is dated September 3, 2001.

The iPod is a funny product. It fundamentally changed Apple and yet it has been slowly and unceremoniously murdered by its successors, the iPhone and the iPad. iPod has a long and storied history, from how it came to be to the sheer number of models that the company worked on for two decades. The original iPod was the very first handheld consumer electronic that Apple made post Steve Jobs’ return to the company and it kickstarted a revolution in virtually every major industry around the world. But the iPod also means something special to me. The first Apple product that was brand new and really mine was an iPod shuffle given to me for my 7th birthday.

As soon as Apple unveiled the new iMac earlier this year, it hit me that the company needed to give the same design treatment to its mobile counterpart, the MacBook Air. Soon after, the rumors started flowing in, and now that Apple has officially revealed its newest notebook designs with the MacBook Pro, it’s time to look ahead to how the MacBook Air could be redesigned.

We had known that Apple was working on an all-new MacBook Pro based on Apple Silicon for quite a long time. I hadn’t been particularly interested in the rumored machine because of the tremendously good M1 Macs that the company has been spinning out for about a year now. The new iMac is an incredible machine that’s matched by a gorgeous design. Even the first M1 machines introduced last November are still very good and very fast computers. So I had no intention of buying a MacBook Pro today.

Apple has just announced updated HomePod minis in three new color options: yellow, blue, and orange. They are priced at the same $99 and will be available next month. Apple will continue to offer the existing white and space gray color options as well.

Apple is hosting a major Mac event on Monday morning where they are widely expected to unveil a completely redesigned MacBook Pro. Power users have been waiting for Apple to revamp the MacBook Pro since they introduced the 2016 model with the much disliked Touch Bar and notoriously bad butterfly keyboard. But this coming week also marks a special anniversary for Apple notebooks. As pointed out by Steven Sinofsky, this Thursday is the 30th anniversary of the introduction of the original PowerBook.

There are lots of wild rumors floating around the internet ahead of Apple’s big Mac-focused on Monday. New leaks have appeared that say the MacBook Pro is going to get a notch and an edge to edge display. There’s also much debate about the color options Apple is going to offer. We wanted to see what the new MacBook Pro might look like with all of the rumors combined.