Apple’s latest little smart speaker is now available to buy in person. The HomePod mini 2 reached store shelves on Friday, giving customers their first chance to pick it up since the announcement a few weeks ago.

The new model builds on the success of the original HomePod mini, which became a popular option for people who wanted Apple’s smart-speaker experience without paying for the full-size HomePod. The sequel brings a new generation of hardware while retaining the compact design that made the original so appealing.

Finding good AI tools isn’t the problem. Even the free version of ChatGPT can do a lot. The real frustration is that if you want good results for generating copy, creating images, transcribing text and doing a myriad of other AI tasks, you often need a whole pile of subscriptions, and those costs add up. The alternative is to get an all-in-one tool that brings top AI models together in one interface. Enter 1minAI.

The major benefits of 1minAI are organizational and financial. It gives you access to ChatGPT, Gemini Pro, Llama, Mistral AI and more. So you get all your AI tools in one place, and you don’t need to pay for a subscription to each one separately. For a limited time, you can get a lifetime sub to 1minAI for just $24.97.

Remember streaming TV and films with Popcorn Time? Maybe not. A forgotten Popcorn Time updater could potentially let attackers hijack up to an estimated 350,000 Macs. As it turns out, the updater kept running in the background even after people stopped using the entertainment app.

The flaw allowed anyone who controlled an expired update domain to run code on affected Macs without root access. Researchers disabled the updater on many machines since then, but the app itself remains risky. Uninstall it if you haven’t already. 

The Obsbot Tiny 3 is a small webcam with a sensor as large as the one in the iPhone 17 Pro’s main camera. And, frankly, it delivers a ridiculous leap in image quality over standard webcams.

I spend a lot of time in online meetings — a couple of hours every other day. While I never paid much attention to image quality, I knew that my Creative 4K webcam was not really up to the task. So I tried the Obsbot Tiny 3. It’s great, but at $349, it costs a lot more than a regular webcam. Is it really worth it?

Ask Apple CEO John Ternus, and he’ll tell you his company didn’t just introduce the first touchscreen MacBook Pro. No, they made a MacBook with a beautiful tandem OLED display that also has touch support. The distinction matters.

Still, there were good reasons to add limited touch support to the notebook, as company executives explained in a new interview. Also, if you strongly object to the inclusion of a touchscreen in a MacBook, you’re simply not the target market. Apple execs spelled out who was asking for the feature.

The new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display is the first with a Dynamic Island. The interactive, pill-shaped module is borrowed from the iPhone, but where’s the iPhone’s Face ID? Apple left it out — and some Mac fans are mad.

On the iPhone, the Dynamic Island wraps around the TrueDepth camera that powers Face ID. But not on this pricey MacBook Pro — Touch ID still handles login authentication. Instead of the laptop unlocking magically when users look at it, they will need to give it the finger instead.

October 29, 2012: Scott Forstall, Apple’s senior vice president of iOS software, is fired from the company after the disastrous Apple Maps launch. After Forstall’s ouster, Apple divvies up the roles he previously handled among other high-level execs.

Design chief Jony Ive assumes leadership of the Human Interface team. Craig Federighi becomes head of iOS software. Eddy Cue takes control of Maps and Siri. And Bob Mansfield “unretires” to lead a new technology group.

The OLED MacBook Pro is finally here. But the OLED touchscreen is not the main highlight of the new machine despite all the hullabaloo around it.

Apple’s newest MacBook Pro packs several other key upgrades, many of which make it a better everyday machine. These improvements come with a higher starting price, though. So, what exactly does the new touchscreen MacBook Pro bring over the regular MacBook Pro?

Apple just added a long-overdue feature to the HomePod: You can finally set it to be the default speaker for your Mac.

Previously, you could send audio from a Mac to the smart speaker over AirPlay, but the connection was temporary. No longer — the HomePod can be the computer’s default speaker with a persistent connection.

Here’s how to set it up.

AI checker Clearafi lets you vet answers across multiple AI models so you can weed out bogus facts as well as total AI hallucinations. It’s a great, time-saving backstop for making sure your AI results don’t prove embarrassing or worse.

It doesn’t cost a mint, even though it could save you from career-ending mistakes. Right now, you can grab a lifetime subscription to Clearafi’s Tier 1 service for just $49.99 (regularly $299).

You can now configure the Mac Studio with up to 512 GB of memory from Apple. But it will cost you, with the final price reaching a whopping $22,299. And that’s before you bump the storage to 16TB, which pushes the price to almost $30,000.

The jump from 256GB to 512GB of memory alone adds a whopping $11,500 to the price.

The latest MacBook Pro comes with an incredible screen that’s bright, easy to see outdoors, and just happens to work as a touchscreen.

Apple’s promo video for the new laptop shows people typing, tapping and swiping in some very outdoorsy settings, like deep in the woods and high atop a mountain. It’s a great way to hammer home the point: The new MacBook Pro’s screen will deliver studio-quality results virtually anywhere.

It’s back! Apple’s first touchscreen MacBook Pro also brings back an iconic design feature of the past: the glowing Apple logo.

The new OLED touchscreen might grab the headlines, but the light on the lid will take longtime Mac users straight back to their first MacBook.

The MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display just announced by Apple will be remembered for many years… for good or ill. Users will undoubtedly love the beautiful OLED display and the lighter weight, but only time will tell whether its touchscreen will catch on — there’s a great deal of pre-launch resistance to a touch-enabled Mac.

The device is thinner and lighter, and includes a Dynamic Island in place of the screen notch and even a glowing Apple logo. But the eye-watering price is also likely to draw criticism. 

Apple is very upbeat about the device, of course.

“The new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display is a monumental step forward for the Mac,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s chief hardware officer, in a statement. “PROLED XDR is the world’s best laptop display. It pairs state-of-the-art tandem OLED technology with advanced algorithms in our display engine to deliver the kind of visual fidelity pros have been dreaming of. And with the magic of Touch coming to MacBook Pro, combined with the game-changing performance of M5 Pro and M5 Max, we’ve created a whole new way for pros to interact with their content, taking their workflows to a completely new level. The new MacBook Pro is the result of the deep integration between Apple silicon, hardware, and software, and there’s simply nothing else like it.”

The HomePod operating system occasionally needs updating, because the device is a lot more than a simple speaker — it’s a computer. Here’s how to make sure your Apple smart speaker has the software version released this week. And you’ll definitely want the new HomePod Software version 27.2 — it comes stuffed with new features. 

That list includes a new Sound Glow visual experience when playing music, home theater surround sound support, and the option to make a HomePod the audio output for everything on a Mac with a persistent AirPlay connection.

If you depend on automatic updates, it’s likely your smart speaker hasn’t yet installed the update. Here’s how to do so manually.

October 28, 2012: More than a year after Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ death, the luxury yacht he commissioned launches from a shipyard in North Holland. It’s the world’s first look at Venus, the distinctive-looking yacht that was one of Jobs’ big personal projects during his final years.

As Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson, “I have to keep going on it. If I don’t, it’s an admission that I’m about to die.”

Sadly, Jobs never lived to see the finished vessel.

Apple’s wallet-friendly MacBook is said to be getting a sequel in the next few months. The MacBook Neo 2 release date is reportedly set for the first half of 2027, and is expected as early as spring.

That would put the successor a year after the original arrived in March. It’s drawing attention because the sophomore version will almost certainly address one of Neo’s biggest compromises: 8GB of RAM.

Sony LinkBuds Open earbuds feature an open-ring design that doesn’t cut you off from the outside world. It’s great for people who hate the way AirPods cut them off from ambient noise from the real world.

With this deal, you can snag a pair of new, open-box Sony LinkBuds Open for just $89.99 (regularly $229.99).

You can now connect ChatGPT to your iCloud Mail and calendar to read and send emails, create calendar events and more.

This should make managing your emails and schedule easier, especially if you heavily rely on ChatGPT for tasks. It also means you can handle more of these tasks without switching between apps.

Twelve South introduced AirFly View on Tuesday, a new version of its popular wireless audio adapter that adds a built-in screen to make connecting AirPods easier.

With it, travelers can use their AirPods (or other Bluetooth headphones) with airplane entertainment systems that still rely on traditional headphone jacks.

iOS 27.2 now stamps AI-generated iPhone images with an invisible watermark called SynthID.

Every Image Playground creation carries the mark, as do some AI-edited photos. This should prove really helpful for spotting fakes — but only if you know how to check.

Apple released watchOS 27.2 on Monday, making Siri AI faster and more capable. The upgrades mirror the new Siri capabilities added in iOS 27.2.

The first major update to watchOS 27, it also brings changes to the Apple Music app and extends Siri AI beyond U.S. English.

October 27, 1999: Dell Computer overtakes Apple in the educational market, stealing Cupertino’s crown as the top company selling computers to U.S. schools. Dell’s cheap Windows PCs make sense for schools looking to buy computers without breaking the bank.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, still struggling to rebuild Apple after its near-collapse in the mid-1990s, faces heavy criticism for ignoring one of the company’s strongest markets.

Not a fan of monthly fees for software like Microsoft 365? This deal lands you a lifetime license to Microsoft Office for Mac or PC at a big discount. You can choose from two versions: the Home version comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The upgraded Home & Business bundle includes all that and adds Outlook.

Both are on sale for a limited time, so you can choose whichever works best for you. Grab Microsoft Office Home 2024 for $114.97 (a 23% discount off the regular price of $149.99) or Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024 for $219.99 (a 12% discount off the $249.99 list price).

The Jsaux VoidJoy SkyLark S1 Pro game controller packs an impressive assortment of features into a portable and lightweight design.

A highlight is extreme flexibility. It connects to Mac, iPad and iPhone, as well as a Nintendo Switch 2, Android or PC. And connections can use Bluetooth, 2.4GHz wireless or USB.

I put the very affordable gamepad to the test and came away generally pleased. Here’s what I like and what I don’t.