Deals: Apple Watch Series 9 models $100 off today, plus AirTags, AirPods, and more
While pre-orders are now live at major online retailers for Apple’s new M4 iPad Pro, iPad Air, and Apple Pencil Pro, the deals are still rolling elsewhere this afternoon. Firstly, we are tracking straight up $100 price drops on Midnight, Silver, and Starlight Apple Watch Series 9 models. Those offers also join AirTag bundles at under $20 per tracker as well as a solid discount for folks who still pledge allegiance to Apple’s AirPods 2nd Gen. Everything is waiting below in today’s 9to5Toys Lunch Break.  more…

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Cases, keyboards and screen protectors are ready for 2024 iPad Pro and iPad Air
A range of accessories are ready for the launch of the 2024 iPad Pro and iPad Air. That includes rivals to Apple Magic Keyboard. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)

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Apple Vision Pro to receive exclusive Marvel immersive app: ‘What If…? An Immersive Story’
Today the Walt Disney Company announced it would be launching its “first-ever interactive Disney+ Original story coming exclusively to Apple Vision Pro.” What If…? An Immersive Story is described as a new app for Vision Pro that will enable an interactive mix of immersion, video, storytelling, and more. The app will connect to the Disney+ series, Marvel’s What If…? more…

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A top microphone needs a great audio interface [Setups]
The YouTuber behind today's MacBook Pro setup relies on a Shure SM7DB microphone and a Focusrite audio interface for sound quality. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)

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Flagship iPad head-to-head — M4 iPad Pro vs M2 iPad Pro compared
After a year's gap, Apple has finally updated the iPad Pro, with a surprise M4 debut and OLED in the spotlight for 2024. Here's how the newest iPad Pro models compare against the previous generation.2024 iPad Pro with M4 [left], 2022 iPad Pro with M2 [right]The iPad was complete absent from 2023, with the only change being to add USB-C to the Apple Pencil. Instead, consumers had to purchase iPad Pro models that were introduced in October 2022.That one-year gap has given Apple time to make quite a few changes to its highest-tier tablet lineup. The result is its 2024 releases. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Apple Slammed By Users Over iPad Pro 'Crush' Ad
Less than 24 hours after Apple held a special event to unveil the new, record-thin (0.20 inch, the thinnest Apple device yet) iPad Pro with M4 chip inside, which the company says is optimized for AI, it is facing a loud and fast-spreading public backlash to one of its new marquee video advertisements promoting the device -- a spot called "Crush." VentureBeat: The video features a giant, industrial hydraulic press machine -- a device category famous for appearing in viral videos over the last decade-and-a-half -- literally pressing down upon and destroying dozens of other objects and creative instruments, from trumpets to cans of paint. The ad concludes with the press lifting to reveal these objects have somehow been transformed into a new iPad Pro. The metaphor and messaging is pretty obvious: the iPad Pro can subsume and replace all these older legacy instruments and technologies inside of it, and all in a more portable, sleek, and more powerful form factor than ever before. It's analogous to similar observations and advertisements other fans and creatives have made in the past about how PCs and smartphones replaced nearly all the individual gadgets -- stereo radios/boom boxes, journals, calculators, drawing pads, typewriters, video cameras -- of yore by offering many of their same core capabilities in a smaller, unified, more portable form factor. [...] People are revolted by the bluntness of Apple's metaphor, the destruction of beloved traditional instruments and objects which people hold in high esteem and affix intangible value to for their creative potential, and the overarching and perhaps unintentional messaging that Apple wants to literally flatten creativity and violently crush the creative tools of yesterday in favor of a multi-hundred dollar piece of luxury technology whose operating system and ecosystem of applications it tightly controls and restricts. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apple's new iPad Pro benchmarks demonstrate impressive tablet AI performance
If a single set of M4 benchmarks can be believed, the new higher-end configurations of the iPad Pro have a lead on the MacBook Pro with M3 processor for AI tasks — but not by much.Apple's new iPad Pro A new benchmark for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro with M4 and 10 cores has been posted to GeekBench overnight. In it, the assorted artificial intelligence workloads have perhaps been measured for the first time — but we're skeptical, considering that the benchmark appears to have been run on iOS 18.If accurate, the score of 9234 on the "Core ML Neural Engine Inference" for iPad Pro is decent. It is not the best from an Apple Product. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Apple TV+'s 'Ted Lasso' heads to Blu-ray on July 30
Fans of the Jason Sudeikis Apple TV+ show "Ted Lasso" can now preorder Blu-ray and DVD boxed sets for the comedy show from Amazon.Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso"Ted Lasso" was a phenomenon for Apple TV+, but you can't watch it without the Apple TV+ subscription. Following rumors that a Blu-ray box set was on the way for all three seasons, it's now surfaced on Amazon.Titled "Ted Lasso: The Complete Series," the product listing reveals that fans can actually buy either the Blu-ray or DVD boxed sets as a pre-order. The release date for the boxed sets is listed as 30 July, 2024 for both versions. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Today in Apple history: 1997’s ‘MacBook Air’ weighed 4.4 pounds
On May 8, 1997, Apple released the PowerBook 2400c laptop, a 4.4-pound "subnotebook" that presaged the rise of speedy, lightweight notebooks. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)

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Today in Apple history: 1997’s ‘MacBook Air’ weighed 4.4 pounds
On May 8, 1997, Apple released the PowerBook 2400c laptop, a 4.4-pound "subnotebook" that presaged the rise of speedy, lightweight notebooks. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)

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Enjoy a $150 Discount on a Higher Storage 2024 MacBook Air
Today’s deal builds up on yesterday’s and introduces a higher storage model. The 15-inch MacBook Air with M3 chip, 16GB RAM, and 512GB storage is down to just $1,549.99 from its original price of $1,700 on Amazon. Keep in mind that the price change only reflects at checkout. If there’s ever a complete laptop that’s […] The post appeared first on iLounge.

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OLED iPad Pro models do not have always-on display
Apple’s newest iPad Pro models support a low refresh rate but no always-on display feature, as per Apple’s tech specifications. The iPad Pro has always had the ProMotion feature starting in 2017 and refreshed rates ranged from 24Hz to 120Hz, but that has changed since the 2024 models launched. Low power LTPO technology lets the […] The post appeared first on iLounge.

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2024 iPad lineup boasts 10-hour battery life
The new iPad Pro and iPad Air variants boast up to ten hours of battery life, according to Apple. Apple touts the new iPad models as having up to ten hours of battery life, the same as it was for the previous models. The iPad Pro houses an M4 chip using 3nm technology, with six […] The post appeared first on iLounge.

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New iPad smart folio cases launched
Apple has launched new smart folio cases for the just-announced iPad Pro and iPad Air lineup. New accessories are available for those who are getting either the iPad Pro or iPad Air. The Smart Folio for 11-inch iPad Pro models come in White, Black, and Denim, while the 13-inch variant has the same color options. […] The post appeared first on iLounge.

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New iPad Pro demand likely to be low for two reasons – TrendForce
You might expect the introduction of the first OLED screens and uber-thin form factor to result in strong iPad Pro demand, but a new forecast from market intelligence company TrendForce suggests it may actually be lower than last year. The company predicts that total shipments of the latest iPad Pro models “will only reach between 4.5 to 5 million units in 2024” – which would be down on 2023. It gives two reasons for this pessimistic picture … more…

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Apple Pencil Pro comes in five different artistic boxes
Collectors are going to have to spend $645 to get the Apple Pencil Pro in each of its five different packaging designs — but they'd better buy in store rather than online.Apple Pencil Pro boxes on display in an Apple StoreApple may be cutting down on plastics in packaging, and getting rid of stickers, but it's not going back to the 1990s when it shipped everything in minimally-printed brown cardboard. Instead, Apple has added full-color artwork to the white Apple Pencil Pro boxes, each one spelling out the word "Pro."Thought this was pretty fun Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Apple ‘Crush!’ ad touting new iPad Pro draws ire
Creatives are calling a new Apple video for iPad Pro wantonly destructive, wasteful, insensitive, egotistical and more. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)

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Apple co-founder Woz’s space data startup, Privateer, acquires Orbital Insight
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's space data startup, Privateer, has acquired the analytics firm Orbital Insight. Privateer's CEO told… The post appeared first on MacDailyNews.

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More ads coming to Prime Video, including interactive shopping ads during pauses
2024 is shaping up to be the year of ads for Amazon Prime Video. In January the streaming service, which has long been ad-free, debuted an ad-based tier and instantly moved nearly all its users into that tier. Since then, the only way for Prime subscribers to avoid ads has been to pay an extra $3 per month. Pretty soon, that $3 option may be more compelling as Prime Video is planning to increase the number of ways users will see ads and make shopping a key component of those ads. more…

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Repurpose videos, podcasts and more with this AI tool
Unifire analyzes text, videos and audio, then generates new content using the same ideas. Get the content-repurposing AI too for just $149.99. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)

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