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This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: The hoopla surrounding Apple’s 50th birthday makes us reflect on the company’s most important products of all time. Contrary to what you might think, most did not become hits right out of the gate.

Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:

• And then there are the personally most important Apple products. We reveal our first, transformative encounters with Apple computers.
• Griffin offers his first impressions of AirPods Max 2. Long story short, the headphones sound awesome, the hardware is interesting and yet perplexing, and the Smart Case is still a disaster.
• Apple killed the Mac Pro on the same day we published a roundup of the best Mac Pro setups. We hope the two events weren’t related.

Listen to this week’s episode of the Cult of Mac podcast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video version, embedded below.

Your iPhone is at serious risk of getting hacked if you haven’t updated it recently. Apple and security researchers warn that a sophisticated hacking tool known as DarkSword can compromise iPhones through malicious websites.

The fix is easy and available for every iOS device since 2015. Plus, it doesn’t require you to install iOS 26 or put Liquid Glass on your handset.

Go do it now!

Getting your hands on a Mac mini or Mac Studio might be harder than expected. Delivery times for even the basic configurations now stretch to four weeks, with high-end models showing lead times of up to five months.

Apple either appears to be struggling to meet demand or gearing up for an imminent M5 refresh.

Apple updated its free Sports app for iPhone Wednesday to support the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup. That gives soccer fans a seamless way to track the biggest sporting event on the planet right from their Lock Screen. With the tournament just over two months away, now is the perfect time to get set up.

Apple just finished its first 50 years, making this an ideal opportunity to look ahead to what we can expect from the next five decades.

Having watched the company progress from the Apple II to the iPhone, I’m as qualified as anyone to peer into the future of computing. Here’s what we can look forward to.

Dredge has been described as “a cosmic horror-fueled fishing game,” so don’t expect a knockoff of Bass Masters when playing it on Apple Arcade. If that doesn’t pique your interest, it got named iPad Game of the Year.

And rather than the usual $25 charge for the app, Apple Arcade subscribers can play for $6.99 per month, plus enjoy hundreds more titles.

Apple released an iOS 18 update on Wednesday to patch a major security vulnerability for iPhones that haven’t yet upgraded to iOS 26. The new version, iOS 18.7.7, is presumably intended to protect a range of iPhone models from the serious DarkSword hack.  

This comes amid a recent push from Apple to address newly discovered vulnerabilities across older iOS releases. It has released multiple updates over the past few weeks.

Visitors to Apple.com Wednesday saw something unlike anything the company has displayed in recent memory: a full-screen takeover on its homepage featuring the iconic six-stripe rainbow Apple logo, the words “50 Years of Thinking Different,” and a quiet, elegant animation befitting a company that has always let its design do the talking.

Apple started exactly fifty years ago, and most of the Cult of Mac staff have been Mac users almost since the beginning. We have 170+ years of experience!

Today’s milestone has us looking back on how we got started using Apple computers, from the original Macintosh to the first PowerBook to the early Mac mini.

Apple turned 50 on Wednesday, but the real party happened the night before. On Tuesday evening, Sir Paul McCartney took the rainbow stage at the heart of Apple Park and delivered a career-spanning performance for thousands of Apple employees.

It closed out weeks of global anniversary celebrations with one of the most storied voices in rock history — and a sky full of fireworks.

Weeks after launch, Apple has quietly reduced Studio Display XDR’s price by $400. The monitor now starts from $2,899, down from $3,299.

The reduced price only applies to the Studio Display XDR with the VESA mount adapter.

As Apple turns 50, it’s worth looking back on the company’s greatest accomplishments and lowest moments through history. If you don’t have time for David Pogue’s 600-page epic, Apple: The First 50 Years, maybe you can spare eight minutes to relive the single biggest piece of Apple news every year. 

You can watch 50 years of Apple announcements compressed into a single video. Or, keep reading below for a quick rundown.

Apple is working to upgrade Siri so the voice assistant can handle multiple requests at once, according to an unconfirmed report from Bloomberg. The feature would let users combine several commands into a single query instead of issuing them one at a time.

It’s apparently part of a much larger project to inject some real intelligence into Siri. Artificial intelligence.

Two new Sonos speakers — one portable, one not — aim squarely at easy home setup for listeners who want room-filling audio without headaches. Both the portable Sonos Play ($299) and mic-free home speaker Era 100 SL ($189), which went on sale Tuesday, work with Apple AirPlay 2. 

“Much of consumer tech promises innovation, yet too often delivers isolation — new devices replacing old ones instead of building on what already works,” said Sonos CEO Tom Conrad. “We believe a great sound experience shouldn’t reset every time you add something new. It should get better.”

Macs in enterprise settings typically last for five years, besting the three-year lifespan for Windows PCs, according to a company that makes software to help businesses manage their computers.

But the really shocking revelation from the report is that more than half of Windows PCs used in big business get replaced within a year.

macOS Tahoe 26.4 brings several new features to Macs. But it also breaks one critical functionality: Time Machine backups. 

The bug appears to affect backups over network drives and NAS (network-attached storage), causing them to fail with a credential error.

Following the public release of iOS 26.4 a week ago, Apple released iOS 26.5 developer beta 1 on Monday.

Unlike its immediate predecessor, the first iOS 26.5 beta arrives with few new features. Most of the changes focus on users in the European Union.

Apple’s first desktop Mac with an OLED screen is in early development, according to a report coming out of the company’s supply chain in Asia. That would give the all-in-one desktop a truly beautiful display.  

At this point, OLED screens typically go into Apple’s premium models. It’s not clear if that’ll hold true for the iMac, however.

Apple’s global 50th anniversary celebration is building to what might be its most memorable moment yet — and if the clues are right, it involves a Beatle performing at Apple Park this week. Or somebody else from the British Invasion that Steve Jobs loved.

Update: The rumor proved true: Paul McCartney played Apple Park on Tuesday night.

The Brydge Max 11.0 is a premium iPad keyboard case with the potential to dethrone Apple’s own. The two products have much in common, including a cantilever design, but the Brydge version stands out with much wider viewing angles and a gorgeous aluminum exterior.

It fits recent 11-inch iPad Pro models. A version for earlier 11-inch iPads is also available, and one for 13-inch iPads comes out soon.

UPDATE: Brydge Max 11.0 was announced in February and is now shipping.

Apple’s history is often distilled into the “Jobs and Woz” garage origin story and the slick modern era of design legend Jony Ive and current CEO Tim Cook. But a group of critical, often overlooked contributors actually forged the company’s 50-year arc. Here are 16 unsung heroes from Apple’s first 50 years — some of the most important “geniuses” and original thinkers behind Apple’s success.

“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do,” Steve Jobs once said. “We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”

This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: New details emerge about a major upgrade that would transform Siri from a laughingstock to a legitimate AI assistant.

Unfortunately, these plans sound mighty familiar. Still, we’re guardedly optimistic that Apple can pull it off this time.

Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:

• Now we know when WWDC26 will happen — and it’s time to get excited. This is when we should get our first glimpse of the new, AI-powered Siri.
• Some of us are clearly not excited about Apple adding advertisements to the Maps app in the near future.
• And finally, Griffin runs us through all the exciting new features in iOS 26.4.

Listen to this week’s episode of the Cult of Mac podcast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video version, embedded below.

Looking back over Apple’s first 50 years, it’s clear what the company’s greatest talent is: turning rivals’ niche products into mainstream hits.

Apple proves adept at releasing new products in categories that looked like failures because customers simply lacked interest. But then Apple figured out what its competitors were doing wrong and released its own versions that quickly became iconic.

Here are five examples of Apple turning other companies’ fiascos into triumphs.

The $599 MacBook Neo arrived with a hard limit: 8GB of RAM. Some of you probably don’t understand the hoopla… more RAM can simply be added, right? Nope. The design of Apple’s processor makes it fast and efficient, at the cost of RAM upgrades.

Here’s what’s going on.

Accessories brand ESR just unveiled a comprehensive range of cases, keyboard covers, screen protectors and styluses designed specifically for Apple’s M4 iPad Air. And all new ESR M4 iPad Air accessories get a 33% off discount for launch. As a proud owner of a new M4 iPad Air, I’m tempted.