Sunday Reboot: Gift bags, China flubs, and iPhones in space
In this week's "Sunday Reboot," Apple's gift bags and artifacts get a close look, China briefly gets Apple Intelligence ahead of schedule, and iPhones go to the Moon.The iPhone 17 Pro Max is in space. Sunday Reboot is a weekly column covering some of the lighter stories within the Apple reality distortion field from the past seven days. All to get the next week underway with a good first step.This week, Apple Ireland was fined by UK regulators for seemingly breaking sanctions on Russia, an AI porn startup sued Apple over its App Store rules, and the Apple Fitness+ chief prepares to retire amid claims he introduced a toxic mental health work environment. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Apple Brings Device-Level Age Verification to Two More Countries
11 days ago Apple launched device-level age restrictions in the U.K. There were some glitches, reports the blog 9to5Mac. For me, the experience was an entirely painless one, taking less than 30 seconds. All I had to do was tap a confirm and continue button, and Apple told me that the length of time I'd had an Apple account was used to confirm that I'm 18+. Others, however, experienced difficulties with the process timing out or failing to complete. We summarized some of the steps you can take to try to address this. Apple has since listed additional acceptable ways to verify your age. "You can confirm your age with a credit card, or by scanning a driver's license or one of the following PASS-accredited Proof of Age cards: CitizenCard, My ID Card, TOTUM ID card, or Young Scot National Entitlement Card." If you don't verify your age, then you'll be treated as a child or teenager, meaning that both the web content filter and communication safety features are switched on. Apple is continuing the roll-out in Singapore (population 6 million) and South Korea (population 52 million), the article points out, citing a new Apple support document. South Korea's law actually requires Apple to re-verify someone's age annually. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Vibe coding significantly boosted App Store review submissions in 2025
Submissions to the App Store have jumped by 84% year-over-year, with the growth of vibe coding believed to be behind the surge.Vibe coding has led to more apps being submitted to the App Store in 2025The continuing growth of AI services like ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude has helped fuel productivity in many fields, including coding. While developers have been assisted by automated tools before, AI has led to even novice coders to create bigger things beyond their capabilities.It now seems that the increased use of AI in development has resulted in more work for the App Store. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Save $150 on Apple's new M5 MacBook Air during Amazon's April sale
The lowest price ever is in effect now on Apple's M5 MacBook Air, with a weekend deal at Amazon slashing prices by $150 (and there are numerous 13-inch and 15-inch configurations to choose from).Grab the lowest price ever on Apple's new M5 MacBook Air.Apple's brand-new M5 MacBook Air, which was released in March 2026, is on sale at Amazon today, with multiple 13-inch and 15-inch configurations to choose from.Kicking off the sale is a $150 discount on the standard 13-inch MacBook Air with Apple's M5 chip. Pick up the M5/16GB/512GB configuration for $949.99, the lowest price to date on the Sky Blue and Starlight models. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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iCloud email goes down for some users in an Easter Sunday outage
Apple users are encountering issues accessing iCloud, in what is a rare Sunday outage for the company's email, cloud storage, and associated services.Apple service outage iconsUsers of iCloud, Apple's online services, are reporting issues in being able to access files. Sites including DownDetector and StatusGator show a sudden surge of reports from thousands of users, encountering problems since 10 A.M. Eastern.The reported issues, for the most part, raise iCloud as being the problem. The range of issues is wide, including claims of iCloud Mail being unavailable, Find My devices disappearing in the app, and an inability to access files stored on the service. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Apple’s most important products of all time [Cult of Mac podcast No. 14]
This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: We reflect on Apple's most important products during the company's first 50 years. (via Cult of Mac - Your source for the latest Apple news, rumors, analysis, reviews, how-tos and deals.)

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NASA shares Artemis II crew's iPhone shots from space
NASA has started to share images that the crew of Artemis II have taken of their trip to the Moon, including some taken on the iPhone 17 Pro Max.An Artemis II crew member's shot of Earth though a window - Image Credit: NASAMonths before the launch of Artemis II, NASA confirmed that the crew would be allowed iPhones to document the journey around the Moon. In galleries released by NASA, those first images are now back on Earth.The shots in the "Journey to the Moon" web gallery are a mix of images taken by imaging equipment brought along by the crew. While the newest standalone camera on the flight is a 2016 Nikon DSLR accompanied by some decade-old GoPro cameras, the crew were provided with a set of the iPhone 17 Pro Max for similar imaging duties. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Your book, published: This AI guides you from first word to final print
Struggling to finish your brilliant book idea? BookBud.ai writing software gives you tools you need to write the book you’ve always imagined. (via Cult of Mac - Your source for the latest Apple news, rumors, analysis, reviews, how-tos and deals.)

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Today in Apple history: Boot Camp lets Mac users run Windows
On April 5, 2006, Apple released the Boot Camp public beta. The software let users with Intel-based Macs run Windows XP on their machines. (via Cult of Mac - Your source for the latest Apple news, rumors, analysis, reviews, how-tos and deals.)

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Update your iPhone today to avoid a nasty online hack
Stay safe from DarkSword iPhone threats. There's an easy way to secure your iPhone against this sophisticated online hack. (via Cult of Mac - Your source for the latest Apple news, rumors, analysis, reviews, how-tos and deals.)

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Hello! New M5 MacBook Air just hit best price ever at nearly $150 off via Amazon
Amazon is now offering the best prices ever on the M5 MacBook Air at up to $149 off on both the 13-inch and 15-inch models. While not all configurations and colorways are seeing the new all-time lows, several options are now at the lowest price we have tracked since release last month.  more…

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Crime blotter: A $2 million iPhone heist in Florida
A British political adviser's stolen iPhone leads to a scandal, pro athletes fall for an iCloud scam, and iCloud evidence is used against a man accused of stalking the FBI director's girlfriend, all in this week's Apple Crime Blotter.The Alderwood Apple Store in Washington. Image Credit: AppleWelcome to an occasional AppleInsider feature, looking at the world of Apple-related crime. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Cut your workload and save time with this all-in-one AI assistant on sale for $29.99
Macworld TL;DR: This deal on a ChatOn AI Assistant Premium Plan helps you save time on writing, research, and content creation with multiple AI models and tools in one app for $29.99. Busywork has a way of eating up your day. One minute you’re drafting something, the next you’re hunting for sources, rewriting copy, or trying to generate visuals — and suddenly hours are gone. ChatOn cuts through that by putting everything you need into one streamlined workflow. With this 1-year subscription to ChatOn AI Assistant Premium Plan for $29.99 (MSRP $39.99), you can tap into GPT, Gemini, Claude, and more without breaking your focus. Write, brainstorm, research, and refine ideas in one place instead of bouncing between tools. It’s not just about text, either. You can generate images, create videos from photos, summarize documents, and even pull in real-time web results with sources — all without leaving the app. The built-in library of 100+ smart prompts helps you move faster, whether you’re planning, organizing, or creating content from scratch. Instead of stretching simple tasks into long, scattered sessions, ChatOn keeps everything moving so you can get in, get it done, and move on. Get one year of access to ChatOn AI Assistant Premium Plan for $29.99 and start turning hours of work into minutes. ChatOn AI Assistant Premium PlanSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change.

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Apple's First 50 Years Celebrated – Including How Steve Jobs Finally Accepted an 'Open' App Store
Apple's 50th anniversary got celebrated in weird and wild ways. CEO Tim Cook posted a special 30-second video rewinding backwards through the years of Apple's products until it reaches the Apple I. Podcaster Lex Fridman noticed if you play the sound in reverse, "It's the Think Different ad music, pitched up." TechRadar played seven 50-year-old Apple I games on an emulator, including Star Trek, Blackjack, Lunar Lander, and of course, Conway's Game of Life. And Macworld ranked Apple's 50 most influential people. (Their top five?) 5. Tony Fadell (iPhone co-creator/"father of the iPod") 4. Sir Jony Ive 3. Steve Wozniak 2. Tim Cook 1. Steve Jobs One of the most thoughtful celebraters was David Pogue, who's spent 42 years of writing about Apple (starting as a MacWorld columnist and the author of Mac for Dummies, one of the first "...For Dummies" books ever published in the early 1990s.) Now 63 years old, Pogue spent the last two years working on a 608-page hardcover book titled Apple: The First 50 Years. But on his Substack Pogue contemplated his own history with the company — including several interactions with Steve Jobs. Pogue remembers how Jobs "hated open systems. He wanted to make self-contained, beautiful machines. He didn't want them polluted by modifications." The tech blog Daring Fireball notes that Pogue actually interviewed Scott Forstall (who'd led the iPhone's software development team) for his new book, "and got this story, about just how far Steve Jobs thought Apple could go to expand the iPhone's software library while not opening it to third-party developers." "I want you to make a list of every app any customer would ever want to use," he told Forstall. "And then the two of us will prioritize that list. And then I'm going to write you a blank check, and you are going to build the largest development team in the history of the world, to build as many apps as you can as quickly as possible." Forstall, dubious, began composing a list. But on the side, he instructed his engineers to build the security foundations of an app store into the iPhone's software-"against Steve's knowledge and wishes," Forstall says. [...] Two weeks after the iPhone's release, someone figured out how to "jailbreak" the iPhone: to hack it so that they could install custom apps. Jobs burst into Forstall's office. "You have to shut this down!" But Forstall didn't see the harm of developers spending their efforts making the iPhone better. "If they add something malicious, we'll ship an update tomorrow to protect against that. But if all they're doing is adding apps that are useful, there's no reason to break that." Jobs, troubled, reluctantly agreed. Week by week, more cool apps arrived, available only to jailbroken phones. One day in October, Jobs read an article about some of the coolest ones. "You know what?" he said. "We should build an app store." Forstall, delighted, revealed his secret plan. He had followed in the footsteps of Burrell Smith (the Mac's memory-expansion circuit) and Bob Belleville (the Sony floppy-drive deal): He'd disobeyed Jobs and wound up saving the project. In fact, the book "includes new interviews with 150 key people who made the journey, including Steve Wozniak, John Sculley, Jony Ive, and many current designers, engineers, and executives" (according to its description on Amazon). Pogue's book even revisits the story of Steve Jobs proving an iPod prototype could be smaller by tossing it into an aquarium, shouting "If there's air bubbles in there, there's still room. Make it smaller!" But Pogue's book "added that there's a caveat to this compelling bit of Apple lore," reports NPR. "It never actually happened. It's just one more Apple myth." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Here’s why M5 MacBook Pro is worth buying now, even with an impending redesign
The current 14-inch MacBook Pro design is nearing five years old. It’s also not at all a secret that Apple is working on a redesign for its MacBook Pro lineup. Despite those facts though, there’s still one compelling argument to be made about buying one today – even with bigger changes right around the horizon. more…

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Exhibition at Apple Park lets employees get close to Apple's history
As part of the 50th anniversary celebrations, Apple employees can check out a private exhibition of products and key moments from the company's history, all in Apple Park.The exhibition in Apple Park - Image Credit: @AlSultan_Meriam/XAfter weeks of public celebration in the run-up to the 50th anniversary, the festivities are now all internal for Apple now. In the latest event, it has been revealed that employees are now being able to look back at the products and hardware that helped build the company.Images shared by Meriam Al Sultan on X show a large room containing images and products in display cases. Described as a 50th anniversary exhibition, the shots are apparently in "Section 2" of Apple Park, but there are other exhibits on show in other HQ areas. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Indie App Spotlight: ‘VariAlarm’ brings proper schedules to your alarm clock
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. Juggling loads of alarms in the Clock app can be annoying. VariAlarm aims to fix this, by dynamically adjusting your alarms based on your schedule, rather than having fixed times. more…

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Hands-on: HyperDrive Next enclosure for Mac offers 80Gbps speeds for SSDs, more
Internal Mac storage upgrades are expensive, often causing users to resort to external media when possible. That also has its own problems of sometimes compromising on speed or reliability. HyperDrive Next aims to bridge that gap, by bringing incredible performance to external drives for your Mac. more…

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AMD or Nvidia eGPUs can work on Apple Silicon Macs, but not for graphic acceleration
Apple has signed a driver for AMD or Nvidia eGPUs connected to Apple Silicon but there are some big caveats, and it won't improve your graphics. Here's what they're for.An earlier time when you could use eGPUs with MacsWhen Apple announced the use of eGPUs with AMD Radeon cards in 2016, we were pretty excited. Full support shipped in early 2017 and for a few short years, Thunderbolt provided an excellent graphics-accelerating one-cable dock to our MacBook Pros.But even then, Apple has stubbornly prevented modern Nvidia GPUs from working with Macs. And, with the change to Apple Silicon, Apple effectively killed off any real use of an externally usable Nvidia GPU with its Mac lineup. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Apple debuts 50th anniversary exhibit at Apple Park with iconic products and photography
This story is part of 9to5Mac’s series celebrating Apple’s 50th anniversary. Apple often likes to say that it isn’t a nostalgic company, but they’ve gone all out to celebrate their 50th birthday. The company recently opened an exhibition on campus displaying some of their most iconic products from over the years alongside photographs of memorable moments. There’s even a large screen that plays iconic ads and keynote moments like the 1984 commercial and the opening of the Steve Jobs theater. Thanks to Meriam Al Sultan on X, we all can get a look at the exhibit. more…

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