Opinion pieces & commentary

A report yesterday suggested that we may be seeing a succession of Apple Ultra products, including the upcoming folding iPhone and an M6-powered MacBook. So far, of course, we’ve only seen the branding used for an Apple Watch.

It may potentially be pointing to a new tier of Apple products across almost the company’s entire range of devices, and to me that would make sense for both the company and its customers …

While it had long been expected that John Ternus would succeed Tim Cook as Apple’s CEO, a key detail in the transition process shows that the company can still keep things under wraps when it counts. Here’s why.

To put it simply: Apple Silicon is impressively optimized for running local AI models. And the data is clear: people care about this. Mac Studios are widely sold out, and Mac minis are impossible to find. There’s a variety of reasons for this – like OpenClaw and other computer-use agents. But there’s also a group of people buying up high-end Macs with swaths of unified memory, which are incredible for running local LLMs.

While I’m sure Apple appreciates the additional hardware sales, I think they could push this even further – by entering a segment they’ve thus far ignored.

When AirPods Pro 3 initially debuted, I was a little bit hesitant about upgrading. I felt that AirPods Pro 2 were still excellent. On top of that, one of the key features of AirPods Pro 3, Live Translation, was also coming to AirPods Pro 2. However, now that I’ve actually given them a shot – I can genuinely say I was wrong about my pessimism.

The spacesuits worn by the Artemis II crew during their moon mission have a feature completely new to space missions – an iPhone. Each has a pocket containing an iPhone 17 Pro Max.

The iPhone had to pass a whole bank of safety tests in order to be approved for the mission – but that preparation was totally worthwhile …

Last month, Apple acquired a popular Final Cut Pro plugin maker: MotionVFX. It isn’t clear what this acquisition will turn into, but based on the fact that it quickly followed the launch of Apple Creator Studio, it’s highly plausible that Apple will integrate its templates, effects, and other offerings as a perk of Apple Creator Studio.

While that on its own is interesting, I think the implication behind it is far more worth talking about.

I reluctantly accepted last year that the end of the line for the Mac Pro was an inevitability. It had already effectively been replaced by the Mac Studio, and a macOS 26 feature was another nail in its coffin.

Yesterday was a day that had been coming since the first Apple Silicon Mac. I do think it’s the right call, but confess to still being a little sad to see it happen …

Apple unveiled the MacBook Neo earlier this month, and in my opinion – it completely breaks the MacBook lineup as we knew it. If you’re someone who previously bought a MacBook Air, and you don’t need 16GB of RAM for heavier multitasking – why wouldn’t you buy the MacBook Neo now?

In my eyes, the MacBook Neo is just as good of a general purpose laptop as the MacBook Air was, and besides more RAM, a much faster processor (though still a thermally limited one), and a larger display, it doesn’t feel like MacBook Air has much going for it – at least for now. Here’s how I’d improve it.

Meta claimed for years that it was technically challenging to implement end-to-end encryption across Facebook Messenger and Instagram DMs, but back in 2023 said that it had resolved those issues.

Unfortunately, the company has now made a U-turn on Instagram direct messages, and that’s bad news for all of us …

As someone who bought my first Mac in 2019 as a young student without much money of my own, the MacBook Neo is incredibly inspiring. When the M4 Mac mini came out towards the end of 2024, I had already felt quite strongly about its potential for inspiring young creatives – and the MacBook Neo takes that much further.

I know, we’ve been waiting forever for the new Siri and it still isn’t here yet. Many are adopting the cynical view that it won’t be worth the wait, and that AI is mostly hype anyway.

I’ve long felt that my own view of AI is somewhat at odds with the very polarized views mostly expressed on the internet. That it’s a villain or a hero. That it’s a mental toddler or a professor. I don’t see it as either, but a recent experience with Claude suggested to me that it is now close to reaching a tipping point …

Ever since the announcement of the $599 MacBook Neo over a week ago, I’ve been wondering: does this destroy the value proposition of other non-Pro laptops in Apple’s lineup? It’s a rather interesting question, because even at its incredibly affordable price point, MacBook Neo still manages to feel quite premium.

After actually trying out the laptop after its launch on Wednesday, I find myself even more perplexed on how this thing fits in Apple’s lineup – but not in a bad way.

Following months of playing whack-a-mole with bugs stemming from changes Apple made to the menu bar’s underlying structure in macOS Tahoe, the developers behind Bartender seem to have, at last, gotten things under control.

This week, Apple unveiled a plethora of new Macs with M5 chips – and it revealed an interesting new trend. More base storage, but at slightly higher prices. This impacted the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

At the moment, M4 versions of the Mac mini, Mac Studio, and iMac still remain with their old pricing lineup – but that’s likely to change with the M5 lineup.

Apple finally unveiled the long-awaited entry-level MacBook, the MacBook Neo – and it was certainly worth the wait. The shiny new machine hit the most optimistic of price estimates, with a starting price of just $599.

There’s little doubt that the Neo will cannibalize some sales of the MacBook Air. Although it certainly involves compromises, it will be the right choice for many. However, my suspicion is that it will actually end up cannibalizing even more iPad sales …

I’ve just argued that the MacBook Neo offers phenomenal value for money and is the machine I expect to recommend to a great many people.

However, it of course won’t be suitable for everyone. I think a quick glance at the specs would rapidly rule it out for videographers, but there is one compromise that means it’s not a good choice for photographers either …

If there was one product that cemented the myth of the “Apple tax” – the supposedly excessive price premium paid for the logo – it was the MacBook Air. People would point to Apple’s cheapest laptop costing $1,000 and loudly proclaim that you could buy a Windows machine or Chromebook from around $300.

The comparison was of course spurious. The cheap laptops being used to make the argument were ugly plastic things with exceedingly poor specs compared to the MacBook Air. Still, it was undeniable that a four-figure starting price did prove a barrier to a lot of people – but all that has changed with the MacBook Neo …

As expected, Apple has today announced the new iPhone 17e with some worthwhile upgrades over its predecessor.

The new model gets full support for MagSafe wireless charging and storage has been doubled to 256GB for the same price. There is, however, one very surprising thing about the upgrade …

We’re gearing up for the official announcement of the low-cost MacBook this week, and Apple reportedly believes it will offer “incredible value.”

The company thinks it will bring two types of new user into the Mac world. That’s important not just for sales of the MacBook itself, but what it means for the Mac lineup as a whole – even for those of us who have no plans to buy the machine …

Samsung loves to launch new features before Apple, and it has partly done so with the new AI capabilities in the Galaxy S26. The latest version of Galaxy AI seeks to perform many of the same functions as Apple Intelligence.

As our sister site 9to5Google notes, however, the experience seems set to prove very underwhelming …