Ryan Christoffel

AI is getting infused into everything these days, and Amazon’s Alexa is the latest service to receive an AI upgrade. According to a new report, Amazon plans for its AI-powered Alexa to come with a monthly price tag for the first time: a $5-10 monthly subscription.

Apple Silicon has ushered in a new era for Mac gaming, with more AAA titles coming to the platform than before. Mac gaming has a long way to go, but progress is being made.

Today, the Mac App Store is featuring some of its recent AAA titles as part of a big sale that’s well worth checking out. Titles on sale include DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR’S CUT, Resident Evil Village, the 2024 Apple Design Award winner Lies of P, and more.

Here’s the full list of games on sale.

Tools like 1Password or Apple’s upcoming Passwords app offer a convenient storage hub for all your important account info. But what happens if you somehow get locked out of your account?

1Password is debuting a new feature designed to stop that from ever happening: recovery codes.

One of Apple’s newest apps, Journal, arrived late last year in iOS 17.2 as an iPhone exclusive and with unique value to offer. The standout feature, personalized suggestions, made it easier to just start writing by bringing in other device activity, like places you’ve visited, photos you’ve taken, and podcasts you’ve enjoyed—all automatically.

The good news in iOS 18 is that Journal is getting a variety of nice upgrades that build on the app’s strong foundation. The bad news is that it’s still iPhone-only. No Journal for iPad or Mac, and if you dreamed of journaling in your Vision Pro from Bora Bora, you’re out of luck.

Here’s everything new coming to the Journal app for iPhone in iOS 18.

Following the release earlier this week of the first developer betas for iOS 17.6, macOS 14.6, iPadOS 17.6, and more, today Apple has released the first public betas of the same updates. They are available for download on your devices via the Software Updates screen under the Beta Updates section.

When using an iPad with an external keyboard attached, iPadOS places a floating keyboard row at the bottom of your screen. Apple calls this the Shortcuts bar.

The problem with the Shortcuts bar is that it often gets in the way of other important content on screen—especially when multitasking in multiple apps.

Here’s how you can hide the Shortcuts bar and improve your iPad experience.

Contrary to all of its competitors in the VR headset space, the Apple Vision Pro hasn’t had much of a gaming story. Slowly, though, additional spatial titles keep getting added to Apple Arcade, including two new ones Apple just announced.

iOS 18 provides far more customization tools than ever before. Among them, you can swap out the Lock Screen’s flashlight and camera buttons for any other controls of your choice.

But as nice as this new Lock Screen freedom may be, lots of users may face a dilemma: they want custom controls, but don’t want to sacrifice quick access to the Camera app.

Good news: you can still quickly open Camera, even after removing the Lock Screen button. Here’s how.

The year is reaching its halfway point, and Apple TV+ has released a variety of new series, movies, and returning shows. There are plenty of summer debuts hitting soon, but before we head into the second half of 2024, let’s take stock of what the service has produced so far.

What has been your favorite TV+ release of 2024 so far?

Apple has a brand new Passwords app coming in iOS 18. Once users upgrade this fall to the latest OS versions across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and even Vision Pro, they’ll find the new Passwords app installed.

But while Passwords will offer lots of the functionality found in third-party options like 1Password (at least for personal use), there are two specific 1Password features you won’t find in Apple’s Passwords app.

A standout feature of the Vision Pro is its immersive environments, where you can fully enjoy the device’s VR powers and find yourself in an entirely different place. One of Apple’s most demoed environments is Mount Hood, and now thanks to Basic Apple Guy, you can enjoy this peaceful location as a wallpaper on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac too.

Nobody likes a port transition. When Apple moved the iPhone and iPad to Lightning, and the Mac from USB-A to USB-C, it was painful. Most recently, the iPhone 15 line dropped Lightning for USB-C. Each transition makes your old peripherals more or less useless, unless you want to resort to endless adapters.

But port transitions are made much easier once every device supports the new connector.

Apple has gotten us most of the way toward the dream of an all-USB-C life. But there are still a handful of products lagging behind. Here are the products still in need of a USB-C update.

Not too long ago, Apple was on a mission to make all of its devices thinner and lighter. This ambition resulted in iPhones that bent, and MacBook Pros that removed pro ports and had a terrible keyboard.

In the past few years, Apple has shifted gears, prioritizing battery life, ports, and other important features over thinness. But the tides are set to turn again.

According to a new report, Apple’s thinning agenda is back and it’s coming for the iPhone, MacBook Pro, and Apple Watch soon. But the recent iPad Pro shows that Apple may just succeed this time around.

iOS 18 is a huge release for iPhone users, not only with a new Siri and Apple Intelligence but also big system app updates for Notes, Reminders, Photos, and more. One of the built-in apps getting upgraded is Apple Maps.

Here’s everything new coming to Maps in iOS 18 this fall.

Big news dropped today for Vision Pro fans: Apple has reportedly halted plans for a Vision Pro 2. But that’s not the full story.

Apple isn’t stopping development of the Vision Pro’s successor because it’s abandoning the Vision platform. Rather, it’s making a strategic call to create a Vision product that could actually become a true hit.

That’s why the Vision Pro 2 shutdown points to a brighter Apple Vision future.

This is the start of a new era for Siri.

Those aren’t my words, they’re Apple’s.

But what does that mean? How is Siri getting better?

Here are all the ways iOS 18 will supercharge Siri using Apple Intelligence.

Threads launched last summer as Instagram’s take on a Twitter-style app. But in classic Instagram fashion, Threads is currently iPhone-only and doesn’t offer native iPad or Mac clients. The web version works well as a progressive web app, but chances of a native multi-platform option have been bleak.

Until today, when Threads launched its third-party developer API and made it possible for third-party apps to publish content to the service.

The biggest star of WWDC this year was undoubtedly Apple Intelligence. Apple spent nearly half its presentation explaining the philosophy behind its own spin on AI, the features it would make possible, and the bright future ahead thanks to AI’s capabilities.

The Apple Intelligence story centered around three key products: the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Which has many wondering: what about Vision Pro? Apple Watch? HomePod?

I’m not too concerned about the Vision Pro and Apple Watch’s exclusions, as I suspect Apple has AI stories in the works there. But what about HomePod? Will the HomePod gain support for the new Siri? Might there be a new model in development?

Last week Apple released the first beta for iOS 18, but it’s not done with iOS 17 just yet.

Today the first developer beta for iOS 17.6 was released, and it is available now for download. Also debuting are new betas for Apple’s other platforms: macOS 14.6, watchOS 10.6, iPadOS 17.6, and more.

iOS 18 is one of the biggest software updates ever for the iPhone. Apple Intelligence is the headliner, but there are also powerful new customization tools and big changes to the apps you rely on every day, like Photos, Messages, and Notes.

A key productivity tool being improved this year is the Reminders app, which includes a variety of great new features coming in iOS 18 this fall.

Adobe is the latest target of the US Department of Justice’s recent wave of high-profile lawsuits. The company’s subscription cancellation practices are the specific target of the DOJ, which the government says is tantamount to ‘trapping’ users in subscriptions and has resulted in a formal lawsuit.