Michael Burkhardt

According to the latest edition of the Power On newsletter, Apple had reportedly been considering a feature for Apple Upgrade that would’ve made setting up your iPhone nearly seamless: where Apple would’ve already copied your data over. This feature never ended up seeing the light of day, though.

We’ve had iOS 27 in our hands for about two months now. Of course, it’s a beta – and the public release won’t be hitting for another 4-6 weeks. That said, despite the fact that I’ve been running a beta on my phone for the past two months, I can’t say I’ve really thought much about it. It just… works.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

If you’re an aspiring musician, Pocket Jam might be something you find useful. It helps you turn your favorite songs into a practice tool, letting you slow down, change the pitch, loop, and dissect tracks as you learn them.

According to reports from Bloomberg, Apple will be skipping its M6 Pro, M6 Max, and M6 Ultra chips to accelerate development of the M7 chip. That means the only chip to be released from the M6 family will be the base M6. Here’s why.

Next month, Apple will be unveiling its first foldable iPhone – rumored to be called iPhone Ultra. It’s going to feature a 5.5-inch outer display and 7.6-inch inner display. Late last month, Samsung introduced the new Galaxy Z Fold 8 – and it comes with those same screen sizes.

Whether or not you believe Samsung only made this phone to preempt the iPhone Ultra is a different story – but one way or another, seeing the Galaxy Z Fold 8 gives us a great early idea of what iPhone Ultra will feel like in the real world.

Apple has been working on camera-equipped AirPods for quite some time, with Visual Intelligence at the forefront of the product. This product had initially been rumored for this year, then ended up getting pushed back to sometime next year.

However, there’s now a new chance that we end up seeing our first version of camera-equipped AirPods later this year anyways. Here’s why.

The AI datacenter buildout around the US has wreaked havoc across the entire consumer electronics industry. All of this newly found high volume purchasing of high end HBM2 DRAM has shifted entire supply chains, making it incredibly difficult to come across consumer grade memory and storage.

SSDs and DDR5 RAM have shot up in price since the start of the year, and Apple finally had to adjust its pricing in late June – with everything becoming $100-400+ more across the board. Despite those price hikes, the company is still struggling to keep MacBook Air in stock.

According to the latest Power On newsletter from Mark Gurman, Apple is working towards turning its upcoming non-AR smart glasses into another platform for health and fitness – though these features likely won’t debut with the first generation model in the coming year.

This week, Apple launched Apple Upgrade, its new leasing program for most Apple products. It replaces the iPhone Upgrade Program entirely, and for the most part, it’s an incredible deal.

The deal is so good that largely, there isn’t a great reason to use Apple Card Monthly Installments (ACMI) anymore. You still get 3% cash back using Apple Upgrade, similar to ACMI – and the leasing terms are a lot more generous than ACMI. You also don’t have to lease forever. At the end, you can purchase the device by paying the difference between the leasing cost and the MSRP.

So, it’s left me wondering – will Apple Card Monthly Installments go away?

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

If you’re an aviation geek, Overflight is a fun new app for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV that shows you exactly what planes are flying above you, where they’re headed to, and everything else you’d like to know.

Next year, the iPhone will be turning 20 – and Apple is heavily rumored to be working on a radical new design to celebrate. Many have expected this to come in the form of iPhone 19 Pro (more likely to be called iPhone 20 to align with the anniversary), but I think there’s one solid reason that it may not be delivered in that form.

Later this fall, Apple will be updating the Mac Studio for the first time since early 2025. That may be just over a year ago, but it’s significant for one main reason: the highest end Mac Studio is still M3 based, as Apple never made an Ultra version of the M4 chipset. Here’s what to expect with the next generation Mac Studio, as well as in the future.

In recent years, Macs had been getting more and more affordable. Cheaper starting points, more memory and storage per dollar, and the introduction of MacBook Neo. For the first time, Apple had started to become one of the best values on the market.

Unfortunately, Apple just drastically increased its prices because of the ongoing memory shortage. Macs aren’t as appealing as they were a few weeks ago, that said, there’s still some decent deals out there – and if you’re in need of a new computer, I’d still say todays Macs are a good value against the rest of the computing market.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

NeoCam is a fun, new camera app for iPhone and iPad that brings a Game Boy camera style look to all of your photos. It works in real time, can be adjusted on the fly, and more.

We’re about two months away from Apple’s annual iPhone debut in September. This year, though, will be a bit different. Instead of the entire iPhone lineup debuting at once, only the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and all-new foldable iPhone will launch this September. Here’s why.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

If you’ve ever found yourself striking up a conversation while out and about, you may end up wanting to quickly share your contact information with another person. While Apple does offer NameDrop, it lacks granularity, and isn’t always the most reliable. Passable brings contact sharing into neat looking Apple Wallet passes, and it offers tons of granularity.

The next iPhone lineup is around the corner – and it’s going to be a different one. The base model iPhone 18 won’t be making an appearance quite yet, as that model has been shifted to a spring release schedule. This September will squarely be on the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and the all new foldable iPhone.

Of course, there’s one major elephant in the room: price hikes. It’s inevitable that the iPhone 18 Pro lineup will cost more, which begs the question – is buying an iPhone 17 Pro at today’s prices a good idea?

According to the latest Power On newsletter from Mark Gurman, Apple is preparing to include up to 1.5TB of RAM in the upcoming M7 Ultra chip. This’ll mean Apple Silicon will finally match the highest RAM configuration available on the highest end 2019 Intel Mac Pro.

Every year, Apple has a ‘Back to School’ promo for students – offering some kind of special incentive if they buy a Mac or iPad during the promotional window. Typically, this has come in the form of free accessories (like AirPods), or a $100-150 Apple gift card. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the offer should be returning later this week.

Last year, Apple completely reinvented multitasking on the iPad, with the introduction of windowing in iPadOS 26. At first, this meant the removal of the simpler version of multitasking, Split View and Slide Over. Those features did eventually return, but at a cost – they required you to use the clunky new windowing system. I was hoping iPadOS 27 would improve this, but it didn’t.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

Many apps make it easy to track your Pokémon card collection. Route 25 takes that a step further by bringing a social experience into the mix, so you can talk to other collectors about your cards, pulls, and so on.