Leander Kahney

While getting blitzed by an avalanche of mind-numbing specs during Apple’s “It’s Glowtime” event, I kept marveling at how good San Francisco looked. The beautiful City by the Bay provided the backdrop to Monday’s event, with many of the presenters standing in front of gorgeous San Francisco landmarks.

San Francisco is my hometown (I’ve lived here nearly 30 years now), and it’s been getting beat up by stories about urban decay in recent years. But it’s still one of the world’s most beautiful cities, and it looked great during Apple’s live stream. Here’s a quick rundown of all the eye-popping SF locations.

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 now comes in a new black titanium finish — apparently the only change to the popular sports-focused smartwatch at the “It’s Glowtime” event. Dubbed “satin black,” the new finish joins the existing Ultra 2 with a natural titanium finish.

In addition, Apple showed a fancy Milanese Loop watch band to complement the satin black watch, plus a new Hermès model.

Former Apple design chief Jony Ive designed a modular jacket for Italian luxury brand Moncler. Naturally, it comes with built-in magnets. Ive reinvented the button with a new, super-clever magnetic clasp for the jacket/poncho collection.

“There wasn’t some arrogant ambition around disruption [of buttons],” Ive said, in typical Ive-speak. “It was a very gentle, humble exploration.”

An innovative case that turns your Apple Watch into a pseudo iPod is now available to order for $79.99. The tinyPod is a clever case that houses your Apple Watch, turning it into a music player you carry in your pocket rather than strapped to your wrist.

Plus, since it’s an Apple Watch rather than an actual iPod, it comes with some features that Apple’s groundbreaking MP3 player never did.

The Apple Watch can detect a leading cause of heart attacks — an unadvertised capability that could have big implications for health monitoring — according to a Dutch doctor.

After using the Apple Watch’s electrocardiogram feature, Dr. Ruud Koster, a cardiologist from Amsterdam, accidentally discovered that he had a potentially fatal heart blockage that caused myocardial ischemia. The doctor wrote a paper about his experience and now recommends that the Apple Watch be studied for its ability to alert wearers about potentially deadly heart blockages.

Judging by the reaction to Tim Cook’s post on X about Apple Intelligence, the internet is not ready for Siri integrated with ChatGPT. After Monday’s WWDC24 keynote, the Apple CEO posted a link to X about the new AI capabilities coming to Apple devices.

Immediately, dozens of critics — including Elon Musk — piled on. They slammed Apple for working with ChatGPT, which the vast majority of the commenters don’t trust.

“You’ve just ensured that no member of my family will EVER buy another Apple product,” wrote one. “Enjoy your spyfest!”

However, the hailstorm of surprisingly vitriolic and emotional comments seems based on a basic misunderstanding of how Apple Intelligence will work. As privacy-focused as ever, Apple put tons of work into making sure Apple Intelligence will keep your data secure, even from the prying eyes of AI companies it works with.

Here’s why it looks like Apple is doing AI right.

You’ll soon be able to answer or reject phone calls with a nod or shake of your head, Apple said Monday.

AirPods Pro will gain the ability to answer calls or reject them by silently nodding or shaking your head, Apple said during Monday’s WWDC keynote.

You will soon be able to send and receive texts via satellite, Apple said Monday.

In addition, the Messages app will also support message scheduling, plus reacting to texts with any emoji.

“Now you can use the satellite capabilities on iPhone 14 and later to connect to satellites hundreds of miles above the Earth to text your friends and family when you’re off the grid,” said Apple exec Ronak Shah during Monday’s WWDC24 keynote.

A note to Cult of Mac readers: We’re changing the way external links open on the site. Instead of opening in the same tab, external links will now open in a new tab.

In the last few years, opening external links in new tabs has become a widespread practice in digital publishing. Many of the web’s most influential sites, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Reddit and Quora, open external links in a new tab.

We’re making the change to keep up.

With Apple’s release of new iPads, an updated Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro and the brand-new Apple Pencil Pro, many people are looking to upgrade all three. (Because of course all your old iPad accessories won’t work with the new tablets.) However, apart from going the DIY route on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, it can be difficult to find a trade-in site where you can sell an old Apple Pencil or Magic Keyboard.

Even Apple’s own trade-in program won’t buy back these iPad accessories. However, there are several other options for selling a used Apple Pencil or Magic Keyboard — and we’re here to help!

Update: Function 101’s Button Remote for Apple TV has been upgraded with Bluetooth, allowing the multibutton remote control to work without direct line of sight to your Apple TV. This proves essential if you mount the streaming box behind your TV or hide it away in a cabinet. Otherwise, the remote looks and works the same, and is an excellent replacement remote for your Apple TV.

If, like me, you hate the fiddly Apple TV Siri Remote, Function 101’s Button Remote for Apple TV is a good replacement remote.

It’s a traditional infrared remote control — and now with added Bluetooth — with 18 simple buttons, hence the name. Thanks to its familiar design, it’s perhaps the easiest way to use your Apple TV.

It works with most TVs and home theater components out of the box, works with regular batteries, and isn’t as easy to misplace as Apple’s remote. There’s a lot to like, and it’s on sale for 25% off exclusively for Cult of Mac readers over the Memorial Day weekend. Use code CULTOFMAC25 (code applies to sitewide to all Function 101 products).

Apple introduced a new third-generation “pro” Apple Pencil at its “Let Loose” iPad event Tuesday alongside new iPad Pro and iPad Air models. The first Apple Pencil Pro brings a new “squeeze” gesture, an internal gyroscope, haptic feedback and Find My support, making it the most capable iPad stylus yet.

Available to order today for $129 — the same price as the second-generation Apple Pencil — the Apple Pencil Pro gains features normally found on styluses for dedicated drawing tablets, like a new “squeeze” gesture and a “Barrel Roll” gyroscope for precise tool controls.

“The new features in Apple Pencil Pro are simply revolutionary,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, in the introductory “Let Loose” video. “And we’re also excited that Apple Pencil Pro works with the new iPad Air as well, giving air users yet another pro feature to push their creativity.”

I love the idea of Humane’s Ai Pin: It’s an omnipresent smart assistant that you can assign tasks to, and it will perform them for you — like booking the best flight on a certain day, or asking what’s good to eat at a restaurant you just stumbled across. That’s the vision for the $700 magnetic lapel pin released Thursday. But the first Humane Ai Pin reviews paint a disturbing picture.

Many of the third-party testers sound sympathetic to Humane’s vision for the device. In fact, most of the early reviews bend over backward to try to accommodate the Ai Pin’s drawbacks, emphasizing that this is version 1.0 of the product.

But while the vision is beguiling, the implementation makes Humane’s Ai Pin almost unusable. It’s not just slow or unreliable. It flat-out doesn’t work most of the time. The Verge‘s review sums it up well: “Should you buy this thing? That one’s easy. Nope. Nuh-uh. No way.” Ouch.

The Department of Justice’s monumental Apple antitrust case appears weak.

Still, the civil lawsuit, filed Thursday, represents the biggest legal challenge to Apple’s power in the company’s 47-year history. If successful, the lawsuit could force Apple to fundamentally change the way it makes products and conducts business. A similar action against Microsoft in the 1990s significantly curtailed that company’s reach and power.

But the DOJ’s lawsuit against Apple appears to be based on old and outdated information, and Apple has already — or is about to — address most of the major concerns.

AirPods can work surprisingly well as hearing aids. Thanks to Transparency mode, AirPods Pro will boost the sound of your environment around you. They can give you freaky Spiderman super-hearing if you boost input volume to the max. And Conversation Boost on the latest AirPods Pro 2 can intelligently raise the volume of people talking to you (while lowering the volume of your music or podcasts).

My prescription hearing aids were out of action recently due to a battery problem, so for a few weeks, I used my AirPods Pro as hearing aids.

For the most part, they’ve been pretty good. They work best when set up properly, which is a bit of a chore, but here’s how to do it.

Two years after the Russian invasion, one of Ukraine’s preeminent Mac software companies isn’t just surviving. In fact, MacPaw is doing pretty well — shiny new bomb shelters notwithstanding.

The company behind CleanMyMac X and Setapp has launched new products — including some designed to take the fight to Russia. MacPaw also opened a satellite office in Boston and donated millions to humanitarian efforts, all while most of the company’s employees have remained behind in the war-torn country.

“Living and working amidst the unjust full-scale Russian invasion poses numerous challenges for our team,” said Nina Bohush, a senior MacPaw PR specialist based in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city. “Just imagine a morning that starts with loud explosions outside the window because of another Russian attack … Of course, going through these unprecedented circumstances impacts people’s mental health and productivity.”

So far, all the demos of Humane’s supposedly iPhone-killing Ai Pin have been underwhelming.

Humane pitched the small, screenless device — which ships next month — as a successor to smartphones. However, it is garnering almost no buzz at all, no thanks to its lackluster marketing. The Ai Pin’s first introductory video looked especially bad. It proved so head-scratchingly awful, it made you wonder if the company wants the device to bomb, like some kind of high-tech The Producers investor/insurance scam.

But a new video just emerged that actually makes the device look cool. It’s the demo Humane should have made.

The latest iPhone 16 Pro camera rumor comes with an image that shows a radically redesigned lens module. It looks like a fidget spinner, or an 18th-century tricorn hat seen from above, and would represent a striking departure from Apple’s current design language.

If the iPhone 16 Pro actually looks like this, it would instantly put to bed perennial complaints that the new iPhone looks just like the old one.

You’d think readers of a website called Cult of Mac would be into Apple products. But a straw poll of Cult of Mac Today readers found a whopping 76% of respondents plan to return their Vision Pro to Apple.

The eye-popping number comes as droves of Vision Pro early adopters say they plan to take advantage of Apple’s generous return policy. Discomfort, the headset’s high price and the lack of a clear use case for the isolating device top the list of reasons cited by disaffected Vision Pro owners.

Many early adopters seem set on returning their Apple Vision Pro headsets. As the 14-day return window approaches for people who bought the device on launch day, an avalanche of posts on X and other social media channels point to a wave of Vision Pro returns.

Apparently, it’s not just Mark Zuckerberg who thinks Apple’s expensive headset isn’t worth the money. There appears to be a mass exodus of early adopters who ponied up the cash for Apple’s pricey headset. They cite three main reasons for returning Vision Pro. But is the situation really as bad as it seems?

Apple Vision Pro is the most amazing technology I’ve experienced in my life. Thanks to the headset’s intuitive interface, it’s as close to mind reading as you can get.

It’s given me magical, highly emotive experiences I haven’t felt with any other technology. Immersive 360-degree videos make you feel like you are actually there — it’s a cliche, but it’s true.

I’m absolutely, unabashedly delighted with Vision Pro. But would I recommend you get one?

Hell no!

Apple’s new Vision Pro headset is but a day old, but already it’s been spotted in public in several amusing situations.

Here’s what folks have been up to with their new Vision Pros in the wild.

Steve Jobs designed the Apple unboxing experience as a careful process of introducing the customer to an unfamiliar product. And the Vision Pro unboxing is no different.

You don’t just rip the product from its box like a kid at Christmas! You carefully unpack it, examining each component as you go. The idea is to gradually show the customer the parts of the product and give them an idea of how they work together. An Apple unboxing is a very carefully thought-out process and ritual.

And, as you’d expect, the Vision Pro unboxing proceeds just as Apple intended. The new spatial computing headset is sleek, premium and very luxurious. This is no Fisher-Price View-Master.

And as for Vision Pro first impressions after using the headset for a few hours? I was originally skeptical of AR headsets after using a Meta Quest 3 and not liking it much at all. But I’m now a zealous convert. I may never take this thing off!

SAN FRANCISCO — I demoed the Vision Pro at the Apple Store here on Chestnut Street. It’s the most impressive tech product I’ve ever seen. It makes the iPhone seem like a primitive stone tablet. It’s amazingly intuitive, works literally like magic, and is incredibly emotional. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

You don’t have to buy a Vision Pro, but you absolutely must go to a store and get a free demo. We put together a video (below) that will show you what to expect from your Vision Pro demo.

If you’re gonna spend $3,500 on a face-hugging computer, you’ll want to get your money’s worth of mind-blowing experiences. For that, you’ll need the best Vision Pro apps available on day one.

Here are some of the coolest apps, concepts and use cases we’ve seen so far: