This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: The first iPhone Duo reviews are a mixed bag — both the verdicts on Apple’s first foldable and the reviews themselves.

We go over the predictable pros and cons, toss out our own opinions, and highlight some of our favorite reviews.

Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:

• Speaking of great iPhone Duo reviews, Joanna Stern’s was brilliantly creative. She and a hardware expert deviced a device to fold the Duo automatically — more than 32,000 times!
• Surprisingly, some iPhone Duo ship dates are moving in a positive direction, despite continued concerns about availability when the phone launches.
• We’re less than a week away from seeing the first touchscreen MacBook. Let the last-minute speculation begin!
• And finally, Leander and Graham give me a reason to feel bad about not owning an Apple Vision Pro: They watched Remnants, a spooky VR movie from horror master Ti West that arrived just in time for Halloween.

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

October 21, 1991: Apple launches the Macintosh PowerBook 100 series. The lightweight Mac laptops will quickly become one of the most important tech gadgets of all time.

These devices will almost single-handedly turn notebook computers into mainstream technology. Apple’s subsequent success in this category — whether it’s current MacBooks or even the rise of mobile devices like the iPhone — owes a huge debt to the PowerBook 100 series.

The M5 MacBook Air is the best mobile computer for most people, and a deal drops the 13-inch model by $150. The sale is on the base model with 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD … if you pick one of the right colors. 

Thanks to this 12%-off deal, you can snag the 13-inch M5 MacBook Air for just $1,149 in midnight, blue or starlight. Or you can get the 15-incher for $1,399 if you choose the starlight option. That’s $100 off.

Screen savers fell out of fashion a long time ago, but Apple’s Aerials screen savers look so beautiful, they just might make you reconsider. In fact, with all the stunning visuals, these might just be the best Mac screen savers around.

The Aerials screen savers started on the Apple TV, showing gorgeous helicopter photography of the world’s greatest natural landscapes, underwater sights and cityscapes — even shots from space. Now, if you have a desktop display set up somewhere prominently in your house, you can get the same beautiful vistas on your computer with the Aerials screen savers for Mac.

Here’s where to find these beautiful Mac screen savers, plus some setup tips that will really help them shine.

Apple sent invitations on Monday for a special event set for October 28, making official a product showcase that has been rumored for weeks.

While the company’s invitation didn’t reveal what’s on the agenda, it’s not difficult to guess. We can look forward to a redesigned MacBook Pro with a touchscreen, new Macs powered by the latest Apple M6 processor, and an upgraded iPad mini.

October 19, 1992: Apple launches the Mac IIvx, the first Macintosh computer to ship with a metal case and, more importantly, an internal CD-ROM drive.

The last of the Macintosh II series, the Mac IIvx experiences one of the more notorious price adjustments in Apple history. Within five months of shipping, Apple slashes the computer’s launch price of $2,949 to $1,899. That’s one way to reward early adopters!

October 17, 1996: Apple launches its Performa 6360 Mac in North America, sold elsewhere as the Power Macintosh 6300/160.

An impressive multimedia Mac, the Performa 6360 comes bundled with a TV/video card. It also lets users make phone calls, listen to CDs, and watch television — all of which seemed amazingly futuristic at the time. As Macs went, it was pretty affordable, too.

This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: Apple’s new HomeView hub is a getting a lot of criticism, especially for its lack of a built-in app store. But the absence of an app store is a feature, not a bug.

The situation is reminiscent of the charging port on the bottom of the Apple Magic Mouse, which is famously misunderstood. The placement of the port was designed to force users to use it wirelessly, just like ditching the headphone jack on iPhone forced users to adopt wireless Bluetooth headphones.

Apple is pulling the same trick with HomeView: The absence of apps forces users to use Siri AI as the primary interface, instead of tapping away on the screen as though it were a mini iPad. It’s genius!

Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:

• HomePod mini gets a big update.
• Apple TV 4K gets a remote you can actually find down the back of the couch.
• Who exactly is the Apple Home Collection for?
• And Apple’s next event looks set for October 28 in LA.

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

This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: Apple’s about to make a big push into the smart home arena. We already knew about the impending launch of an intriguing new smart home hub, but the revelation that Apple is working with at least two other companies to produce new devices takes things to a whole new level.

The big question remains: How will Apple differentiate its smart home platform from everything else on the market? There’s plenty to discuss.

Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:

• Apple will unveil that smart home hub next Tuesday at a special “Apple Experience” for a small group of media and influencers. That likely means no traditional streaming keynote of Apple’s “Welcome Home” event.
• The rumor mill already gave us a pretty thorough idea of what to expect from Apple’s about-to-launch home hub. It sounds like a nice enough device, but software special sauce might make it super-compelling.
• While probably not coming next week, Apple’s also reportedly working on smart cameras you can put in your home. The catch is that they won’t record actual video. Instead, they’ll just gather data for Siri AI to use. Kind of a weird concept … we discuss the pros and cons.
• The first touchscreen MacBook Pro is also rumored to arrive this month. Maybe we should call this wacky month of product launches “Oktoberbest.”

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

October 10, 1993: Apple ships its Macintosh Color Classic II, the last of the 9-inch compact Macs.

Also known as the Performa 275, the Color Classic II will eventually become something of a collector’s item, since Apple released it only in Canada, Asia and Europe.

Apple’s October launch plans might extend beyond its rumored October 13 event, with the first touchscreen OLED MacBook Pro potentially debuting later in the month.

This could make its rumored October 13 smart home event just the start of a much bigger launch spree.

Death, taxes and running out of storage on your Mac — few things in life are as certain. If you’re experiencing the latter, before you go around deleting files, you should take stock of what’s filling up your computer. There are three easy ways to clear disk space on your Mac.

The Mac’s System Settings offers a built-in storage manager that lets you see which categories of files are filling up your drive. It makes clearing out useless junk fast and easy.

A pair of third-party apps can help out, too. Hyperspace removes duplicate data across your Mac’s hard drive, cleaning up your file system without deleting anything. And CleanMyMac can find the system files, junk and other cruft that can build up over time in places you don’t even think to check. 

Whatever the reason you need more storage, read on to learn how to tidy up your Mac.

Plenty of new Macs are rumored to be waiting in the wings. Mostly, it’s about bringing the speedy new M6 processor to more models, but we can also look forward to the most radically redesigned MacBook in many years. And a better budget notebook, too.

Anyone on the market for a new Mac take note: Here’s every macOS notebook and desktop currently rumored to arrive by mid-2027.

September 27, 1979: Years before the first Macintosh will ship, Steve Jobs and Jef Raskin clash for the first time over the direction of the R&D project to produce Apple’s revolutionary computer.

Raskin, the founder of the Macintosh project, envisioned an affordable machine that could put graphical computing within reach of ordinary people. Apple co-founder Jobs had a very different idea: Forget the price tag and build the best computer possible.

Guess who won?

After upgrading your Mac to macOS 27 Golden Gate, you might easily overlook some of the new software’s useful additions, like recording your screen with audio, Liquid Glass customization and more.

While the new Mac software looks mostly the same as macOS 26 Tahoe, it adds plenty of new features and improvements that make it a worthy upgrade. Here are eight things you should do immediately after installing macOS Golden Gate.

September 20, 1989: Apple releases the Macintosh Portable, the first battery-powered Mac you could take on the road.

At a time when Tim Burton’s Batman movie is flying high in theaters, and Madonna is shocking audiences at the MTV Video Music Awards, this ahead-of-its-time product lays the groundwork for Apple’s looming laptop revolution.

Apple wasted no time moving beyond iOS 27 and macOS 27. Just two days after releasing its major new operating systems, the company began beta testing iOS 27.2 and macOS 27.2 with developers.

No, you didn’t somehow miss beta testing iOS 27.1 and macOS 27.1. Apple made the unusual move of not putting these through public beta testing, and for good reason.

You want to get faster at typing? Sure, you can hold down the Backspace key or mash it really fast. But there’s a better and more precise way to backspace and delete text on the Mac, using the Option (⌥) and Command (⌘) keys. These Mac typing shortcuts can make editing text lightning-fast and seamless.

Here’s how you can become a keyboard wizard.

September 10, 1984: Apple ships the Macintosh 512K, the first upgrade to the first-gen Macintosh 128K.

Coming less than eight months after the original Macintosh, the 512K Mac makes no sweeping changes to the computer’s form factor. Instead, the big upgrade is quadrupling the RAM. This leads Apple fans to refer to the computer as the “Fat Mac.”

Apple just made it easier to be a Mac developer: This week, the company told Mac App Store developers that they can build applications for Apple silicon only — they can drop Intel Mac support in their software. The change applies to all macOS apps that require macOS 13 or later.

If you’re still running an Intel Mac, that’s the clearest signal from Apple that your machine is in the final stretch. Developers can now flip a single build setting and stop updating Intel-compatible versions. This means fewer updates reaching Intel hardware from now on.

Perplexity Hybrid Compute is now live on Mac. The feature splits a single AI task between the cloud and the local model, so all your sensitive files stay on the machine.

“In the newest release of the Perplexity for Mac app, users can now add a compact local model post-trained for Perplexity Computer and choose to run tasks on device on their Mac,” said Perplexity in a press release Tuesday.

Cloud models handle the research and heavy reasoning, while a compact, local AI model on your Mac handles any step that touches private data.

August 31, 2004: Apple launches the iMac G5, a distinctive, white plastic computer that looks a little like the world’s biggest iPod.

Housed in a 2-inch-thick enclosure reminiscent of Apple’s Cinema Displays, the new all-in-one machine bridges the gap between the pleasing plasticity of the iconic original iMac and the minimalist form factor of the ultra-slim aluminum Macs that will follow.

“Just like the iPod redefined portable digital music players, the new iMac G5 redefines what users expect from a consumer desktop,” says Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, in a press release. “With the entire system, including a gorgeous 17- or 20-inch display, just two inches thin, a lot of people will be wondering ‘where did the computer go?’”

With the latest Mac mini, Apple launched its first 2nm chip: the M6. It stands out for several reasons, including enhanced single-core performance and dual Neural Engines for better AI performance.

But that does not automatically make it better than the M5 Pro, which trumps the M6 in some key areas.

Both are available in the new Mac mini, so it’s up to buyers to choose which is the better option for them. To help with the decision, here’s how the two stack up.

Apple pitches its new M5 Ultra Mac Studio as a way to end your AI subscription bill for good. But the math tells a different story.

“Mac Studio lets users run massive models entirely on device with complete privacy — without counting tokens or worrying about rising cloud costs,” Apple said in a press release announcing the computer’s surprise launch Tuesday.

While Apple’s marketing frames the Mac Studio as a way to run AI coding models locally instead of paying for an AI subscription every month, a pricing breakdown shows the payback stretching into years, not months.

August 25, 1995: Apple releases the PowerBook 5300, the Mac laptop that will save the world from alien invaders in the 1996 blockbuster movie Independence Day.

The computer will make many more big-screen appearances, too. See some of the laptop’s most high-profile Hollywood cameos below.