Benjamin Mayo

Apple today shared the official trailer for the highly-anticipated second season of its hit drama series ‘Severance’, ahead of its premiere on January 17 on Apple TV+.

Based on the short snippets of scenes we are privy to, it appears the second season will pick up right after the climatic events of the season one finale. If you can’t remember what happened in season one, given that it aired over 1000 days ago, now is the time to catch up …

After making its debut in cinemas around the world in July, the original film Fly Me to the Moon is now streaming on Apple TV+.

Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum star in this comedic drama, which is set against the backdrop of the 1960s space race. As the outlook of the Apollo 11 mission falters, marketing exec Kelly Jones (Johansson) prepares to stage a fake moon landing, just in case.

Following a launch last month of Apple TV+ on Amazon Prime Video in the United States, the channel is now rolling out to additional regions.

Apple TV+ is now available to subscribe and watch within Prime Video in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. The pricing is the same as if the user subscribed through Apple directly.

The Apple Music year-in-review montage for 2024 is now available. View yours now at replay.music.apple.com for Apple Music subscribers. New for this year, in the Apple Music app on iOS 18.1 or later, users can also tap through to watch their Replay without leaving the Music app.

While Apple Music Replay continuously tracks the music you are listening to all year round with monthly playlists, at the end of the year it also debuts a yearly recap.

The popular Apple sci-fi drama Severance is getting an official companion podcast, alongside the release of season two. The podcast will be hosted by the show’s director Ben Stiller, and star Adam Scott (Mark). It will include appearances from other cast members like Britt Lower (Helly), Zach Cherry, as well as the show’s creator Dan Erickson.

The podcast will debut on January 7th, with daily episodes covering each episode of Severance season one. The podcast will continue in weekly instalments alongside the premiere of every new episode of season two of the show. As a reminder, Severance season two commences January 17, with new episodes each Friday.

The AirPods 4 earbuds are designed to work best with iPhone and other Apple devices, including automatic pairing and set-up. But under-the-hood, they are Bluetooth-compatible headphones and can pair to your Android phone, tablet or other device. Here’s how.

AirPods 4 are here, and they are awesome. As a pair of on-ear wireless earbuds, they are really hard to fault. I have used AirPods 2 for the past five years — skipping the third-generation model due to fit concerns — and AirPods 4 are what I have been waiting for.

The new AirPods are available in two models: $129, or $179 with Active Noise Cancellation. I have the ANC buds and I’m thrilled with them, but I predict even the base model is going to drive a lot of sales this holiday season.

The Apple original film Fly Me to the Moon veritably bombed at the box office, when it hit cinemas in July of this year, grossing a mere $42 million worldwide. In fact, the poor takings for the film is seen to be one of the factors that led Apple to retreat from its previous theatrical strategy.

Either way, after spending an unusually long time in an exclusive video-on-demand (buy or rent) window, Apple has finally announced when Fly Me to the Moon will be available to stream on Apple TV+: the movie streams worldwide on December 6.

Shazam, the song recognition service that Apple acquired in 2018, today announced a major milestone: its users have now identified more than 100 billion songs.

The most identified song is Dance Monkey, by Tones and I, which has been recognized by Shazam more than 45 million times.

Apple Card has expanded its Daily Cash scheme to include two new partners. Apple Card customers can now get 3% Daily Cash back when they book prepaid car rentals or holidays stays with Booking.com, or charge their vehicle at qualifying ChargePoint stations.

Purchases of home electric ChargePoint chargers will also qualify for the boosted 3% cashback rate. Additionally, Booking.com will give 2% in travel credits for eligible hotel stays and rental cars (more details here).

One of the biggest hits on Apple TV+ returns for season two today: the sci-fi series Silo, based on the book series by Hugh Howey.

Rebecca Ferguson stars as Juliette, an engineer who seeks to break out of the underground silo in which everyone is living. Following the explosive season one finale, season two picks up with an expansion of the world as Juliette explores the outside.

UK consumer rights group Which? is leading a lawsuit against Apple, targeting Apple’s dominance over cloud services on iPhone and iPad. Essentially, it argues that Apple forces iOS device users to buy iCloud storage as it does not allow other cloud services to integrate deeply with the system for data backup. Apple said it “rejects any suggestion that … iCloud practices are anticompetitive”.

The class action is looking for damages of about £70 per individual, although this figure could change dramatically once the case goes to trial, or a settlement is reached. The case could also be thrown out entirely. Details of the suit can be found at cloudclaim.co.uk.

The new M4 Pro Mac mini and new M4 Pro and M4 Max MacBook Pro feature Thunderbolt 5 ports for the first time. Thunderbolt 5 offers bi-directional transfer speeds up to 80Gb/s, or 2x faster than Thunderbolt 4. It can also drive high-resolution displays using a 120Gb/s bandwidth mode.

However, the universe of Thunderbolt 5 accessories is still nascent. OWC announced its first Thunderbolt 5 dock today, priced at $189.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported today that Apple will enter the smart home camera market in 2026, with the company seemingly set to compete against third-party HomeKit cameras like the Eve Indoor Cam for the first time.

The IP camera is targeted to hit annual shipments in the tens of millions, indicating Apple hopes this will become a major accessory in its product lineup. Kuo says the appeal of Apple’s camera will be rich integration with Siri and Apple Intelligence features.

Some iPhone users are reporting a scary bug with the Notes app on iPhone. After agreeing to new iCloud terms and conditions as prompted by the system, the Notes app appears to disconnect from iCloud and instead presents users with a screen of zero notes, as if all the user’s notes have been deleted.

This happened to me on my phone running iOS 18.2. Based on the number of reports on social media from aggrieved users worried that all their notes are now gone forever, this is a relatively widespread bug that impacts iPhones running any iOS 18 version. Fortunately, there is a fix …

The EU commission announced today that it is now formally assessing whether iPadOS, the underlying software for Apple’s iPad tablets, is in compliance with the Digital Markets Act.

The DMA requires that iPadOS must allow the choice of a default web browser, allow alternative app stores, and support accessory ecosystems “like headphones and smart pens”, in the European region.

If you have an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16 model, you can access Apple Intelligence when updating to iOS 18.1. This includes a new look for Siri, with a beautiful edge-lit animation.

However, the new animation does not mean that Siri’s intelligence or capabilities have meaningfully improved. Here’s exactly what’s new .. and what you have to keep waiting for.

Satellite services provider GlobalStar today disclosed an expansion of its deal with Apple. Apple will commit an additional $1.1 billion for upfront infrastructure prepayments, to increase the capacity of satellite services. Additionally, Apple will take 20% ownership of GlobalStar, in an equity deal worth about $400 million.

The news has sent GlobalStar stock soaring, and it hints towards Apple’s growing plans for iPhone satellite features. With iOS 18, for instance, iPhone users are now able to send text messages to friends and family over satellite, when outside of cellular or WiFi range.

The new Mac mini with M4 Pro will be Apple’s fastest desktop Mac, ever, eclipsing the M2 Ultra performance of Mac Studio and Mac Pro. The base M4 Mac mini will be blazing fast too, but for single core and multi-core, the M4 Pro is the new desktop king (We expect the high-end M4 Max MacBook Pro to handily beat it, of course).

As shown by Geekbench scores appearing overnight, the Mac mini with M4 Pro is reporting single-scores in the 3,700 range and multi-core scores around 22,000. This means the Mac mini will beat the previous multi-core champ, M2 Ultra, on raw CPU performance.

YouTuber Brian Tong brings us a nice video of Apple’s Los Angeles hands-on showroom event on Wednesday, which let creators get their first hands on with the new M4-powered Mac product lineup.

You can see size comparisons with the new Mac mini next to the old Mac mini, and even the Apple TV. The new iMac colors (and nano-texture screen coating) were also on display. Apple also had demos setup showing Final Cut Pro running on the new M4 Pro and M4 Max MacBook Pros …

In the final instalment of this week’s announcements, Apple has posted a 17-minute event video unveiling the new M4 MacBook Pro lineup.

The MacBook Pro lineup spans an entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4, as well as higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch models powered by M4 Pro and M4 Max …