Cult of Mac

Apple Music named Billie Eilish Artist of the Year for 2024 on Thursday. That makes her the first artist to receive the honor twice. The 22-year-old singer-songwriter previously won the inaugural award in 2019.

“Since day one, Apple Music has supported my music and artistry, and I am both honored and humbled to receive this recognition as Artist of the Year this many years into my career,” Eilish said.

Keychron is pretty much synonymous with mechanical keyboards, having flooded the market with solid and affordable models for years. And when it comes to Black Friday mechanical keyboard deals, the maker is discounting keebs from its Keychron and Lemokey lines on Amazon, with 15% to 25% off deals on more than 100 keyboards. Below you’ll find a sampling of cool options.

And you can nab even better deals on Keychron mechanical keyboards at Amazon bargain site Woot! — up to 63% off — and more will be added Thanksgiving week, the company said.

What’s the plan for the weekend? If you want to bring music practically anywhere, stick a JBL Clip 5 portable Bluetooth speaker to your bag. These rugged Bluetooth speakers, which feature a cool carabiner clip that lets you attach them to almost anything, are on sale now for just $59.99 (regularly $79).

Image Playground is the free app coming to your iPhone that will let you generate unlimited AI images for free. You can generate images based on your friends, from a text prompt or totally from scratch, in a wide variety of themes and styles.

It’s part of Apple Intelligence, the growing set of AI features that work on the latest iPhones, Macs and iPads. Image Playground is one of the most hotly anticipated features — here’s how to use it.

A group of Philadelphia friends pose as DEA agents in a small-time grift only to find themselves risking life and limb as they accidentally uncover the biggest narcotics operation on the East Coast, Apple TV+ revealed Wednesday in a “first look” at a new crime drama. The upcoming series is Dope Thief, and the streamer included plenty of photos from the show to give you a taste, as they say.

The eight-episode season debuts with the first two episodes March 25 on Apple TV+. A new episode follows each Friday through April 25.

You’re at a party and your friend takes a great picture. You ask them to AirDrop you a copy and the two iPhones won’t connect. So frustrating … what the %^#* is wrong? Why can’t you share iPhone photos the way you used to? You probably just need to tweak a setting to turn on AirDrop’s capability to work with any iPhone.

You see, Apple changed the way AirDrop works in iOS 16. If you haven’t updated your AirDrop settings, it might not work the way you want. Here’s how to set the easy wireless file-transfer system so you can get that picture from your friend.

Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Air with M3 chip is on sale for its lowest price just days before Black Friday. The world’s slimmest laptop packs plenty of power, and a lower price tag makes it an even better buy.

If you take advantage of the Amazon deal, you can get the 15-inch MacBook Air with M3 chip, 16GB storage, and 256GB storage for $1,044—a whopping $255 cheaper than its MSRP.

Apple’s music recognition service Shazam surpassed 100 billion song recognitions since it launched in 2002. A person would need to use it on their iPhone, iPad or Mac to identify a song every second for 3,168 years to reach that number.

“This monumental milestone not only reflects how much people enjoy using Shazam, but also their appetite for new music,” said Oliver Schusser, VP of Apple Music and Beats. “Music discovery is at the core of everything we do, and we keep innovating to make sure music lovers around the world can tap the Shazam button no matter where they hear music playing!”

November 20, 2007: In a milestone for iTunes movie distribution, Purple Violets becomes the first feature film to launch exclusively on Apple’s platform.

A romantic comedy directed by Edward Burns, Purple Violets stars Selma Blair, Debra Messing and Patrick Wilson. With limited offers from Hollywood’s traditional players, the filmmakers pin their hopes on iTunes distribution as an alternative way to get their movie in front of viewers.

Recently, the phrase “Mac mini gaming” took on a whole new meaning. That’s because Apple released the M4 and M4 Pro Mac mini desktop computers in a much smaller form factor and with unprecedented performance. Today’s MacBook Air and MacBook Pro user is over the moon about what his new M4 Pro Mac mini can do with World of Warcraft and other games.

Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks and other members of legendary British/American rock band Fleetwood Mac tell their story in their own words for the first time in an upcoming “definitive documentary,” Apple said Tuesday.

Five-time Academy Award nominee and Irving G. Thalberg winner Frank Marshall directs the Apple Original Film.

“I am fascinated by how this incredible story of enormous musical achievement came about,” said Marshall. “Fleetwood Mac somehow managed to merge their often chaotic and almost operatic personal lives into their own tale in real-time, which then became legend. This will be a film about the music and the people who created it.”

If you’re tired of spending your mornings hunting down lost keys, try tracking them with an Ethos Smart Tracker. This AirTag alternative comes with a keychain and works with Apple’s Find My app. And you can get two of them for only $34.99 (regularly $69).

In a surprise move, the M4 Mac mini includes a removable, swappable SSD. Apple really should give customers the option to buy high-capacity versions of these as storage upgrades for the tiny desktop. It would be a win for both the Mac-maker and its customers.

The option would be welcome addition even if the SSDs only came from Apple at fairly high prices.

Apple released iOS 18.1.1, iPadOS 18.1.1, macOS Sequoia 15.1.1 and visionOS 2.1.1 on Tuesday. The updates deal with serious security threats that bad actors apparently already exploited on older Macs.

Apple recommends the updates for all users.

Sick of apps constantly asking you to rate them? There is a way you can block App Store rating requests completely on iPhone, iPad and Mac so that the pesky popups no longer appear. We’ll show you how.

Comedy actor Seth Rogen shoulders a lot with new Apple TV+ comedy series The Studio, as he writes, directs, executive produces and stars in it as an embattled Hollywood studio head, according to a new teaser trailer the streamer dropped Tuesday. Will Rogen’s series fare better than the show’s fictional “Continental Studios?” Well, as you can see in the trailer, he has a star-studded cast to work with, including himself, Catherine O’Hara, Kathryn Hahn and guest star Bryan Cranston.

The 10-episode, half-hour comedy series premieres on Apple TV+ March 26, 2025. Watch the promising teaser trailer below.

The U.S. Department of Justice is reportedly hoping to require Google to sell Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser — it’s even preferred by a majority of Mac users.

And this is just one of the possible consequences of a federal judge ruling this autumn that Google is a monopolist.

November 19, 2013: Apple gets final approval from the Cupertino City Council to proceed with building a massive second campus to house the iPhone-maker’s growing army of workers in California. Regarding the new Apple headquarters, Cupertino Mayor Orrin Mahoney issues a simple message: “Go for it.”

However, the massive structure — with an innovative circular design that will earn it the nickname “the spaceship” — remains years away from opening, despite Apple’s ambitious schedule.

Apple’s new M4 iMac is available with a hefty $149 discount within weeks of its launch. The model with a beefier M4 processor — with a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU — drops to just $1,349 on Amazon in this early Black Friday deal. You can save even more if you opt for the nano-texture glass upgrade available on this midrange model.

Other models receive similar discounts. Just be sure to check the coupon box.

After testing Creative Aurvana Ace 2 earbuds, I’ve found them to be a fascinating glimpse into the future of portable audio technology — albeit with some growing pains at this early stage. The $149.99 buds — often discounted — represent one of the first consumer implementations of xMEMS solid-state driver technology. But the impressive audio quality doesn’t make these earbuds as great as they could be because of other shortcomings.

Aurvana Ace 2 came out about a year ago, but this marks my first time experiencing xMEMS Labs micro speakers I’ve written about several times, so I was happy to try them out.

Stay charged on the go with the Naztech SpeedMax65, a high-powered car charger designed to keep you connected and ready wherever you are. This compact charger features 65W USB-C Power Delivery and Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 Technology. More than just a laptop car charger, it can fast-charge two devices simultaneously.

Whether it’s for your daily commute, a road trip or holiday travel, the SpeedMax65 keeps your most power-hungry gear juiced up for the journey for just $27.99 (regularly $39.99).

Getting a bit bored with the podcasts you subscribe to? One of the best ways to discover new ones is by finding out what other people are listening to. Apple made that easy on Tuesday by tabulating the most popular podcasts of 2024.

There are charts localized for listeners in nearly 100 countries and regions.

In what could be a breakthrough for wearables and other electronics, xMEMS Labs unveiled Sycamore on Tuesday. It’s the world’s first full-range near-field MEMS micro speaker. Measuring just over one millimeter thick, the innovation promises to make some noise with compact gear you don’t put in your ears. Those would be items like open-fit earbuds, such as AirPods and sport earphones, smartwatches like Apple Watch, AR glasses and headsets like Vision Pro, and other consumer electronics.

Like other xMEMS micro speakers that bring solid-state sound to earbuds and headphones, the new technology uses a novel “sound from ultrasound” platform. It generates full-frequency audio from ultrasonic waves within a chip-sized form factor.

“With Sycamore, mobile electronics can now achieve thinner, more stylish form factors while maintaining big, rich sound,” said Mike Housholder, xMEMS VP of marketing and business development. “With better performance at both the low and high ends, Sycamore delivers powerful, full-range audio for smartwatches, smart glasses, and any other small, mobile form factor that engineers dream up.”

The rumored iPhone 17 Air might measure just 6mm thick, making it the slimmest iPhone ever. The device reportedly will use an A19 chip fabricated on TSMC’s newer 3nm node.

The new process node should allow for higher transistor density, leading to better performance and efficiency.

In what seems like a coup for Apple TV+, Academy Award winner Javier Bardem will take on one of cinema’s most iconic villain roles in a new series adaptation of Cape Fear, according to new reports. He’ll play Max Cady, of course. That’s the character made infamous in earlier film versions by Robert Mitchum in 1962 and Robert De Niro in 1991. (And who could forget Sideshow Bob’s version of Cady from The Simpsons‘ “Cape Feare” spoof episode in 1993.)

The announcement comes as Bardem makes waves with his television debut in Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.