9to5Mac

When Netflix introduced its ad-supported tier in late 2022, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. Other mainstream streaming services had been widely adopting the strategy, much to viewers’ protests.

Now, Netflix has shared some data that indicates that while many might object to an ad-supported tier, they’re watching it anyway.

Apple Card launched nearly six years ago, and in some ways it still feels odd that the iPhone maker offers its own credit card. But here are three Apple Card features that help make it my no-brainer favorite to this day.

According to new data from Appfigures (via Bloomberg,) mobile game spending hit new highs in 2024, even though downloads and new game releases saw a steep decline.

The guys talk about upcoming projects, including the best widgets for iPad, reviews of the Sonnet Echo 13 Thunderbolt 5 SSD Dock, MacCuff mini, CalDigit Element 5 Hub and TS5 Plus. They also discuss their top 3 must-have iPad accessories.

9to5Mac Overtime is a weekly video-first podcast exploring fun and interesting observations in the Apple ecosystem, featuring 9to5Mac’s Fernando Silva & Jeff Benjamin. Subscribe to Overtime via Apple Podcasts and our YouTube channel for more.

Starting today, Apple Maps users in the U.S. will be able to search for and view restaurants and hotels with MICHELIN Guide distinctions, including MICHELIN Stars, Green Stars, Bib Gourmand restaurants, and Key-rated hotels.

Apple is also bringing curated content and rankings from The Infatuation and Golf Digest to Maps “soon,” with more sources planned for the future.

iOS 18 brought a major change to Apple’s Calendar app: you can now see all your reminders alongside calendar events. But there’s one change that would make the feature even better.

Today, Brazilian antitrust regulator CADE voted unanimously to maintain a provisional measure issued last week requiring Apple to loosen restrictions on how iOS developers offer services and handle payments in their apps.

The measure stems from an investigation launched in 2022 following a complaint by Latin American e-commerce giant Mercado Libre.

Vision Pro introduced a variety of powerful new Apple technologies, including eye tracking for navigating the OS. Now per a new report, the forthcoming visionOS 3 update will expand eye tracking support to let you scroll apps using only your eyes.

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

Sponsored by Backblaze: Never lose a file again. Use code “9to5daily” at checkout for 10% off.

Apple TV+ is full of a growing slate of hit TV shows, but its movies were struggling for a while. Fortunately, the latest Apple film strategy seems to be working and there’s a strong lineup of new titles ahead.

You can’t make this stuff up. Max, the streaming service that’s had a rich and confusing history of rebrands, is now making yet another change. Max is being renamed back to ‘HBO Max’ once again.

iOS 19 will be unveiled at WWDC in just a few weeks. But as we wait, leaks about the release keep coming. The latest details revealed this week should prompt a lot of instant upgrades when iOS 19 launches this fall.

There’s a bit of a tech fad at present which might perhaps be better described as an anti-tech fad, epitomized by products like the Light Phone III and Minimal Phone.

The idea is that a less-capable, less-compelling smartphone will let us do the essentials without getting addicted to our device. But while I love the concept and aesthetics, most of those who’ve tried them quickly found they spent hundreds of dollars on something that’s more frustrating than calming …

In early 2023, Spotify launched DJ, an interesting feature that leveraged a text-to-speech LLM to deliver… traditional radio, pretty much.

Now, Spotify has announced that, much like traditional radio, DJ can also take requests.

Since Apple announced the first Thunderbolt 5-enabled Macs last year, it hasn’t taken long for peripheral-makers to usher in new Thunderbolt 5 compatible devices. Of course, Sonnet is often at the forefront of bringing such new hardware to market, and its Sonnet Echo 13 Thunderbolt 5 SSD Dock is the first TB5 dock with an integrated NVMe SSD. How does it perform, and should you consider it? Watch our hands-on video walkthrough for the details, and be sure to sub to 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Mac hardware reviews.

An Apple Maps update rolling out from today will let you explore the F1 Monaco Grand Prix circuit in 3D, thanks to a combination of a Detailed City Update and features specific to the Monaco Grand Prix. Currently the rollout appears to be progressing at a rather leisurely pace.

The update is landing just in time for this weekend’s race, and coincides with the premiere of F1 The Movie on Apple TV+ …

Apple has long been working on embedding Face ID into the display, with recent report suggesting that this will finally happen in the iPhone 18 Pro.

That idea today got a big boost in credibility, with a new development making the end of the Dynamic Island seem almost a done deal …

Bloomberg last month suggested that Apple is working on a 20th anniversary iPhone, which might represent the culmination of the company’s long-held ambition to create “a single slab of glass.”

Few details have been reported as yet, but a new supply-chain report claims that it will be totally bezel-free, using display tech being developed by Samsung and LG …

Last week, Israeli firm NSO Group, best known for its Pegasus spyware targeting iPhones and Android devices, was ordered to pay Meta more than $167M for targeting WhatsApp users.

Now, TechCrunch has published an interesting report based on the 1,000+ page transcript of the trial.

Today, TikTok announced AI Alive, an AI filter that will allow users to animate static photos through prompts. ByteDance says that this new image-to-video feature undergoes multiple checks to avoid misuse, and its output will be labeled as AI-generated.

Here’s how to use it.

Since the DMA took effect in Europe, Apple has been forced to loosen its grip by allowing third-party access to its platforms, devices, and operating systems.

One key example is the iPhone’s NFC chip, which was once locked to Apple Pay but is now required to support third-party payment providers. It took longer than one would have guessed, but now PayPal is taking advantage of this wider access.