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With the Major League Soccer ending in October, Apple has dropped the price of the season pass one last time to reflect the remaining time. For the rest of 2024, MLS Season Pass is now $9.99, its lowest price ever.

And for Apple TV+ members, you can now subscribe to MLS Season Pass completely for free. The only catch is to remember to cancel before the next season starts and the subscription returns to its normal pricing.

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.

Study Snacks is a beautifully designed and playful app that helps you learn more vocabulary words, making it a great tool for studying. It supports iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro.

Apple has made a lot of promises for iOS 18, yet a good chunk of them aren’t available in the current betas of both iOS 18.0 and iOS 18.1. Since most of the promised features are coming “later this year”, we should expect them in iOS 18.2 – assuming theres no delays.

One reason I might consider upgrading to the new fourth-generation Google Nest Learning Thermostat is its built-in Matter support. In practice, however, the Matter integration appears to be pretty lackluster. My favorite HomeKit bridge, the Starling Home Hub, has just released a new firmware update that deepens the new Nest’s integration with Matter.

According to feedback that a developer received from Apple, Live Activities won’t be able to update as often as they were able to in iOS 17 and prior. While this won’t affect most apps, it’s still a change worth talking about.

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As an Apple admin, it’s that time of year again: with Apple’s beta programs now open for macOS Sequoia, iOS and iPadOS 18, watchOS 11, and visionOS 2, it’s crucial to start your testing. This isn’t just lip service—it’s essential to ensure that your current infrastructure and applications will function smoothly with the new operating systems. Testing can seem brutal when there are countless other priorities, but here are some key tips to help you prepare effectively before the official releases.

Following a dispute between Elon Musk and the Brazilian Supreme Court, the social network X has been officially banned from Brazil as of this Friday evening. As a result, the court is now demanding that Apple remove X from the Brazilian App Store – something that is yet to happen.

Update: As the story unfolds, the Brazilian court has now softened the ban on X and no longer requires Apple and Google to remove the app from their respective stores. However, access to the social network is still blocked in the country. You can read the original story below.

When you’re going to watch a video on your iPhone, what’s the app you turn to? My guess is, in most cases, it’s YouTube. How about on your Apple TV? Probably Netflix. But in iOS 18 and tvOS 18, Apple has added a key subtitles feature to its own TV app that I hope inspires YouTube and Netflix to copy it ASAP.

Over the last several days, Facebook users have revolted after the app’s iPhone icon seemingly adopted a new black and blue design. As it turns out, however, this is just a bug, and Facebook is already rolling out a fix.

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.

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Apple TV+ is kicking off its fall lineup next week with the start of September. It’s a month that’s lighter on new releases, but still with a couple of heavy hitters. Fan favorite Slow Horses is back for season four, and George Clooney and Brad Pitt team up (reluctantly) in the new movie Wolfs. TV+ will also debut a pair of foreign language series. August releases will roll into the new month too, like continued episodes of the excellent Bad Monkey from Ted Lasso’s co-creator, and season two of Pachinko.

Here’s a look at what’s coming to Apple TV+ in September.

If you’re in the market for a new iPad, you’re probably wondering when the best time to buy is. That all depends on which model you’re interested in. New iPads are expected to arrive as soon as September, while some models will be waiting a long while for another update. Here’s when to expect updates to the full iPad lineup.

When Apple unveils the iPhone 16 Pro on September 9, a gold-colored titanium finish is expected to join the lineup. However, there hasn’t been a clear consensus on what shade of gold we’ll see.

Rumors have ranged from third-place bronze to Microsoft Zune brown. Now a new piece of reliable data shows us a different gold tone. See for yourself below.

Amazon is moving closer to its expected launch of a premium, $5-10/month new Alexa assistant. But according to a new report from Reuters, plans to use Amazon’s own in-house AI have failed, leading the company to turn to Anthropic’s Claude instead.

Whether you use Sonos or not, there’s a good chance you’ve heard about the broken Sonos app and its endless redesign troubles. In response to user frustration about the new app’s shortcomings, Sonos has launched a public roadmap for its future. A new Trello board tracks fixes in the app and outlines what’s coming next.

Best known for their network attached solutions (like my beloved DS920+), Synology have recently launched a new product in their lineup, called the Synology BeeStation.

The BeeStation aims to simplify the idea of a home NAS, offering a local network backup option as an alternative to cloud solutions like iCloud and Dropbox. Here’s how it works. 

As the world debates what is right and what is wrong about generative AI, the California State Assembly and Senate have just passed the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act bill (SB 1047), which is one of the first significant regulations for AIs in the United States.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is one of the most popular generative AI tools in the world, and it has been gaining a lot of attention since it was launched in 2022. Now OpenAI has revealed that ChatGPT has passed the 200 million weekly active users mark, and Apple is expected to help that number grow even further with iOS 18.

Apple recently relaunched the Beats Pill wireless speaker with a lot of improvements compared to the original model, and the company has been using the iconic Beats Pill Dudes characters to promote the speaker. Unfortunately, the Dude-shaped holders have remained in the past, but Japanese artist Verdy is launching his own toy bear that can hold the new Beats Pill.

More Apple Immersive Video content will launch to Vision Pro users over the coming weeks. Perhaps most exciting for many users, Apple is debuting a new 4 Minutes Inside Super Bowl LVIII short film next Friday. This will take fans back to Allegiant Stadium for the matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.

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 Ulysses: The ultimate writing app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Learn more and get started today for free. 

Apple has a lot in store for September’s iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16. Next fall, however, will bring bigger changes thanks to a new iPhone 17 Air joining the lineup. The 17 Air’s main draw will be a radical, ultra-thin new design. But how thin can it really be? Here’s what to expect based on hints from current products.

Spotify and Apple’s complicated relationship is facing another challenge. In the latest dispute, Spotify claims Apple has broken its Spotify Connect feature in one key way: volume button control.