Welcome to our iPad Holiday Gift Guide! There’s currently a lot of excitement around the world of iPad, and rightfully so.

On the software side, Apple injected new life into prior models by adding side-by-side apps and picture-in-picture video with iOS 9. In hardware, the smaller 7.9″ iPad mini family got major speed and notable display quality improvements with the iPad mini 4, while brand new 9.7″ iPad Air 2’s are being sold at prices lower than minis, and a completely new class of iPad debuted in the just-launched 12.9″ iPad Pro.

There are essential accessories in all price ranges for every iPad regardless of which size you’re addressing, and we’ve tested a lot of products over the years. Read on and please share our iPad Holiday Gift Guide so you and your loved ones can buy the best iPad accessories for the holidays.

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Chipworks has provided our first look inside the A9X chip that powers the iPad Pro, thanks to a die shot obtained by Motley Fool.

One of the fascinating things about the incredibly small processes used for today’s chips is that even a die shot doesn’t provide a definitive answer to what is found inside one. There’s still a certain amount of interpretation involved, though both Chipworks and Motley Fool‘s chip specialist Ashraf Eassa agree on what we are looking at in the full image (below) … 
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2015 isn’t over yet but the rumor mill is now churning for Apple’s 2016 product pipeline. According to a somewhat-sketchy report from Economic Daily News, the MacBook Air will be getting a major upgrade in mid 2016. The new design will be thinner and lighter with substantial internet component changes, as per the report. In terms of rough timeframe, the product could be announced at WWDC 2016, around June. The MacBook Air has not seen a significant hardware change since 2010, so a major update is certainly due.

The fate of the MacBook Air has been in question for some time, with the early 2015 Retina MacBook seemingly taking center stage in Apple’s thin and light laptop range, albeit priced slightly higher than the respective Air. Perhaps most interestingly in the Economic Daily News story is that Apple is considering a ’13 inch and 15 inch MacBook Air’ bringing the Air into the 15 inch screen size form factor for the first time.

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Citing a reliable source, a report from Japanese blog Macotakara claims that Apple plans to remove the 3.5mm headphone port from the upcoming iPhone 7, helping to achieve a “more than 1mm” reduction in thickness compared to the iPhone 6s. While the screen shape and radius will remain similar, the device will once again become Apple’s thinnest iPhone ever, albeit with a new restriction: headphones will only be able to connect over Lightning or Bluetooth…
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As mentioned on an earlier Happy Hour podcast, I have a giant collection of iPad styluses, having tested dozens of them since the first iPad debuted in 2010. Earlier this week, my colleague Zac Hall reviewed the best (and most expensive) iPad stylus, Apple’s brand-new $99 Apple Pencil, which is hard to find in stores, and only works with the 12.9″ iPad Pro.

Since the Apple Pencil is two to six times as expensive as some other options, I wanted to spotlight its key strengths and weaknesses relative to rivals, all of which are more broadly compatible and readily available to purchase. During testing, I discovered that the Apple Pencil actually benefits from a surprising little Apple software cheat to make an ultra-fine first impression…

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Black Friday is upon us and there is a long list of great deals on accessories, software and more for all of your Apple devices. Below we’ve collected some of the best we’ve seen, and check back often throughout the weekend as we update with more finds. Below you’ll find some significant discounts on popular iPhone, iPad, and Mac accessories, as well as some deals on rarely discounted software:
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The idea of a smart home is a long running meme in technological circles. Apple has made the biggest stride recently with HomeKit and there is now a significant ecosystem of lights, switches, and other accessories to buy for your home. That being said, smart home accessories are still novelties and quite pricey: they aren’t must-have purchases. However, this makes them great gifts for the holiday season — uncommon presents that are fun to play with and have some long-lasting usefulness. We’ve rounded up our favorite HomeKit accessories below …

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Apple Watch benefits from deeper blacks and greater energy efficiency thanks to OLED technology

Apple is expected to begin shifting iPhones from LCD displays to improved OLED screens starting in 2018, according to Nikkei Asian Review. Currently the display technology is only used by Apple to produce Apple Watch displays while iPhones and iPads use older LCD technology. OLED benefits from greater contrast levels and much deeper blacks as the display only illuminates to present color. This offers energy efficiency that leads to improved battery life compared lighting up the entire display each time.
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Two weeks into using the iPad Pro, I’m even more convinced of something I believed during week one: the 12.9″ iPad is good on its own, but if an accessory adds enough bulk to make it feel like a poor man’s laptop, it starts to stink. I suspect that’s why Apple let another company release the first iPad Pro keyboard case; once you’ve tried something as big as Logitech’s Create, you’ll start searching for a “smarter” solution.

From where I stand, Urban Armor Gear’s new Composite Case for iPad Pro ($80) is a much better alternative to both Logitech’s and Apple’s solutions — so well thought-out and polished that it’s bound to inspire copycats. It begins by offering a ruggedized case and two highly distinctive features — a three-angle metal kickstand, and an integrated Apple Pencil holder — that would in and of themselves fully justify the price tag. But UAG went further, including optional Apple Smart Keyboard compatibility, and offering MIL-STD-810G anti-drop protection. While there will eventually be slimmer and simpler iPad Pro cases, Composite Case currently offers every feature an iPad Pro owner could want…

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Just one day before Thanksgiving in the US and a month before Christmas, Apple has shared its annual holiday ad on YouTube.

From our family to yours, Andra Day and Stevie Wonder perform his 1967 holiday classic, “Someday At Christmas.

The video spans about a minute and a half, featuring legendary artist Stevie Wonder (a known Apple fan) performing with Andra Day, with various Apple products including MacBooks running GarageBand and Apple Watches in view. At the start of the video, Wonder, who has been blind since shortly after birth, uses OS X’s built-in VoiceOver accessibility features to mix a song in the audio editing software that comes with each Mac. The holiday ad wraps with a “Love, Apple” sign off. Check it out below:
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Not too long after the first rumors surfaced, Apple has given its usual non-confirmation that it has acquired Faceshift, the company behind the technology Star Wars used to animate the faces of CGI characters. It’s not an obvious fit for Apple, so what could be the thinking behind the purchase?

Like Apple’s patents, it is sometimes easy, I think, to read too much into some of the company’s acquisitions. Sure, it doesn’t go around acquiring companies randomly, but it may not always be after the complete package. It may well be that there is some small element of the company’s technology that Apple wants, or it may be an acquihire – where it’s the engineers rather than the specific tech the company wants.

But in this particular case, there is reason to suspect that Apple does have an interest in the broad brush-strokes of what Faceshift does … 
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Feature Request is a new regular 9to5Mac series where authors offer their opinion on how to improve popular hardware or software products.

Before Apple even announced the oft-rumored iPad Pro, it unveiled a new version of iPad software, iOS 9, that included several new features that seemed perfect for a device with a larger screen. Sure enough, those features foreshadowed the launch of the larger, 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Zac did an excellent job last week of highlighting some of these enhancement that are great on the larger-screened device.

As Zac noted, iOS 9 includes a handful of really nice optimizations for iPad Pro. These include things such as Picture in Picture support for video and FaceTime calls, Split View and Slide Over multitasking, an enhanced keyboard, and more. While these features truly shine and highlight how much potential the iPad Pro has for professional use, I still feel like there’s a lot more Apple can do to take advantage of the larger 12.9-inch Retina display…

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Even though the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus support 4K video recording, the 4K format is still gathering steam. TVs with 4K Ultra HD only became affordable in the past year (with major holiday discounts), but the lack of 4K content — and devices to even play 4K videos — have been sticking points. Apple’s just-released fourth-generation Apple TV doesn’t support 4K, and the only Apple devices that can play back 4K videos at full resolution without a separate 4K monitor are the 21″ Retina 4K iMac and 27″ Retina 5K iMac.

Even though they can’t actually display 4K videos, either through their own screens or accessories, Apple has enabled certain iOS devices to edit in 4K using the latest version of iMovie. So armed with an iPhone 6s Plus and two accessories, I decided to see whether the brand new iPad Pro was actually up to the task of editing and sharing 4K videos. The results were surprising, so if you’re wondering how 4K video editing actually works with Apple’s “Pro” tablet, read on…

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[UPDATE: Apple Pencil now supports the 9.7-inch iPad Pro as well.]

Aside from its larger 12.9-inch display and faster A9X processor, the iPad Pro stands out from all other iPads to date thanks primarily to a new accessory: the Apple Pencil. For now, the Apple Pencil can only be used with the iPad Pro, and offers quantifiable differences in both good and bad ways compared with third-party styluses that have previously been sold for iPads.

While Pencil is not required to use the iPad Pro, it’s especially interesting because it’s Apple’s first official solution for handwriting, drawing, and precision input on iPads beyond finger touches and gestures. By contrast, Apple’s Smart Keyboard for iPad Pro is the company’s second or third typing solution for iPads; the company offered an official solution for physical keyboard input on iPads way back when the original iPad launched in 2010 with the short-lived Keyboard Dock, and has sold Wireless/Magic Keyboards as well. What does Apple’s first digital stylus bring to the iPad? Read on…

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Intrepid iOS developer/hacker Hamza Sood is back, this time with a cool hack to bring 3D Touch to the iPad Pro. By hooking relevant parts of the iOS system code via a jailbreak, detailed here on GitHub, iOS turns pressure data from Apple Pencil into pressure data for 3D Touch interactions. This is neat for two reasons: iPad Pro does not normally support 3D Touch (a feature currently exclusive to iPhone 6s) and its an unorthdox use for the Apple Pencil sensors, which is generally focused on drawing and sketching. You can see the video of the hack in action after the break …

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Parallels has one of the most impressive bundles we’ve seen launching today. For the normal price of Parallels ($79.99/$50 upgrade), you get 6 more really good Mac apps as well as 1 year of Parallels Access for iOS devices. If you’ve been on the fence about grabbing Parallels (or a few of the other apps for that matter), this is a great offer. Ends Dec 1 so don’t fmess around.

If $80 is too rich for your bones, Check out these other 50 apps bundles starting at $15 over 90% off).  
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We’ve seen the Apple Pencil being well received by high-profile artists even before launch, but I’ve so far seen little on what pen guys think of it. The Pen Addict filled in the gap with a review in which Myke Hurley said that it provided the digital handwriting experience he’d been waiting for.

Sure, I like to doodle and scribble as much as the next person, but all I wanted to know was if the Apple Pencil would give me the digital handwriting experience I had wanted for so long. TL;DR: It does … 

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