With Apple’s latest MacBooks pushing performance further than ever, buyers are moving away from the old-school, pay-upfront model. And one company is quietly reshaping how Mac users get their next device.

For years, Apple fans had two options: pay thousands of dollars upfront or finance through a 12-month plan (often with limited availability). But now there’s a third option that’s gaining traction: Upgraded, a MacBook subscription service built to make getting a new MacBook as easy and affordable as humanly possible.

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.

ClosetLog provides you with all of the information you need to know about your wardrobe, and helps you make better decisions on what you should wear. It’s a useful little tool, and helps you balance what you’re wearing on a day-to-day basis.

MacBooks are great computers, but there’s a number of different varieties to think about. Between last gen hardware and all of the current models available now, it can feel like there’s a lot of options. Today, we’ll be breaking down which MacBook is right for you, depending on your budget and what you need it for.

Update, June 21: Apple has removed the video from YouTube. It’s not clear why.

Original article, published June 20, below.

Apple kicked off its annual Back to School promotion earlier this week, offering free AirPods and other accessories with the purchase of a new Mac or iPad.

Now, as Back to School season ramps up, Apple has shared a humorous new video telling college students “how to convince your parents to get you a Mac.”

For the longest time, I had believed that purchasing a new iPad at full price never made any sort of sense. Ultimately, you’re paying more than an equivalently spec’d MacBook, for less capability. It always felt like iPadOS was the key limiting factor for the iPad, not the hardware.

However, I’ve now owned an M4 iPad Pro for nearly a year, and I can confidently say it’s changed how I feel towards iPads. And that’s before factoring in all of the great new features in iPadOS 26.

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Managing Macs, iPads, and iPhones at scale continues to get easier as Apple continually addresses pain points year after year, but some parts of the job still feel more tedious than they should. For me, building configuration profiles is one of those tasks that I still sorta hate doing. It’s not overly complicated but can be time-consuming, especially when dealing with macOS app permissions and privacy settings. That’s where iMazing’s Profile Editor has been a Swiss Army knife tool for IT admins. With version 2, it became an even more useful tool for Apple IT admins.

A few weeks ago, Logitech announced an interesting new keyboard case for the iPad Air and iPad Pro – called the Logitech Flip Folio. It takes a different approach, and certainly targets a new market that hasn’t quite been thought about before.

If you live in the European Union and visit Apple’s website today, you’ll notice a new information snippet alongside iPhones and iPads: colorful energy labels grading each model’s efficiency, durability, and repairability.

This change isn’t voluntary, but rather Apple’s compliance with a new EU regulation that just went into effect.

As Apple scrambles to play catch-up in the generative AI race, a new report says the company has considered making its biggest acquisition ever.

According to leaker Majin Bu, Apple is experimenting with two new colors for this year’s iPhone 17 base models, but only one might make it to launch. And if the current internal scuttlebutt is anything to go by, there seems to be a frontrunner.

Apple’s tight grip on local wireless sharing is finally loosening, even if rather reactively. With iOS 26, developers are getting a new API that allows third-party apps to discover and connect nearby devices over Wi-Fi, without needing an internet connection. Here’s how it’ll work.

Apple is continuing to face fallout from its Apple Intelligence rollout. As spotted by Reuters, Apple shareholders have sued Apple in a proposed class action securities fraud case for allegedly “downplaying how long it needed to integrate advanced artificial intelligence into its Siri voice assistant.”

The lawsuit alleges that this misrepresentation negatively impacted iPhone sales and Apple’s stock price.

Following last month’s Brazilian certification and a quickly-pulled teaser image leak, Logitech’s next-gen mouse has now appeared in a filing with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), giving us the clearest look yet at what’s changing and what’s not.

Here’s what the MX Master 4 looks like.

Last night, I had forgotten to take my upstairs Nest off Eco mode, and I was shocked to see the difference in one of my son’s rooms based on my Nest Temperature Sensor. In my dream world, I’d have a variable system that could heat and cool rooms independently, but nevertheless, I didn’t buy bitcoin when it was $1, so I cannot afford that. With that being said, I do like having the knowledge of what’s happening in individual rooms and having that data in HomeKit. The new Aqara W100 Climate Sensor is a new way to do that with a built-in screen.

Apple is working on a major revision to AirPods Pro, which could be released as soon as this year. Plus, new AirPods Max are also in the pipeline. Here’s everything we know about when to expect Apple to release new AirPods…

The Lowfree Flow84 is the latest episode in my on-again, off-again love affair with mechanical keyboards. I describe it as the mechanical keyboard Apple would make for a mix of good and bad reasons, but we’ll get to that!

It’s one of a relatively new breed of low-profile mechanical keyboards, something that would have seemed a contradiction in terms just a few years earlier …

Almost exactly two years after abruptly pulling the plug on its Apple TV app, Vimeo is making a comeback on the platform with a brand-new experience built from the ground up. Here’s what’s new this time around.

Meta’s smart glasses experiment is moving into its next phase. After scoring a surprise hit with its Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses, the company is now teaming up with Oakley for a more rugged, sport-focused lineup and good tech upgrades. Here’s when to get them.

If you’ve been experimenting with custom GPTs inside ChatGPT, here’s a welcome upgrade: OpenAI now lets users pick from all available models when building or running a custom GPT, not just GPT-4o. Here’s how it works (and what’s missing).

Foxconn is taking another step in cementing its rolerole in Apple’s Indian manufacturing strategy. After years of focusing mainly on iPhone assembly, the Taiwanese contract manufacturing giant is now preparing to build iPhone casings locally for the first time. Here’s why that matters.

Earlier this week, Meta officially flipped the switch on in-app advertising for WhatsApp users worldwide, marking the first time ads have appeared inside the messaging platform. But if you’re in the European Union, there’s now an important update: the rollout won’t be happening for you… yet.