Michael Burkhardt

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 someone who invests, things can easily become messy, and you can end up with a wide variety of brokerage accounts for varying purposes. Profit makes tracking everything a whole lot easier, bringing everything together in one cohesive and beautifully designed interface for iOS and macOS. It doesn’t require account syncing, and runs entirely privately.

A few years ago, Apple used to have a much simpler iPad keyboard lineup. It just offered a Smart Keyboard for each of their iPad models, and they all essentially served as the same product. Nowadays, after the introduction of trackpad support in iPadOS and the Magic Keyboard, everything is unnecessarily convoluted – with each iPad model having a slightly different Magic Keyboard and varying features.

While the keyboard lineup is a mess, that’s not what I take issue with right now – it’s the fact that we’ve lost the Smart Keyboard Folio, which in hindsight was an incredible offering.

Last October, Apple announced the M4 MacBook Pro. On the surface, it looks like yet another MacBook Pro spec bump. However, there are a number of key features that make it worth upgrading to, even if you already have an older 14″ MacBook Pro.

Apple has three standalone Mac desktops – the Mac mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro. Mac Pro isn’t exactly worth talking about, so we’ll focus on the former two.

While these computers are typically priced quite far apart ($599 vs $1999), the Mac Studio is a bit older – and Amazon has an incredible deal on the one generation old M2 Max model. We’ll be comparing the two, and showing you which computer is the best bang for your buck at this price point.

Apple has long offered a refurbished store on its website, where it sells recent generation products at a pretty sizable discount. Unlike other refurbished offerings, Apple guarantees a replaced outer shell, battery, and glass – ensuring no wear and tear. You also get a 1 year Apple warranty and the ability to add AppleCare if you’d like.

That sounds great, but is it actually worth it? Well, it depends. We’ll be delving into Apple refurbished listings, and comparing it to other offerings on the market.

School is about to start back up for a lot of people, and with how integral technology is to the classroom, having a good computer is always important. If you’re looking to pick up a new Apple device for school or college, I’ll be going over the best picks right here.

AirPods Max have had a bit of a disappointing history. After much anticipation, they finally released at the tail end of 2020. Some fans were disappointed with the high price tag and rather heavy aluminum and steel design, and have been looking forward to a revamp ever since.

Despite being refreshed last year, it was merely just a USB-C port swap and new colors. The headphones still lack in features compared to Apple’s newer AirPods Pro 2, and that likely won’t be changing.

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.

Most people want to eat healthier, but knowing where to start can always be a challenge. Grano aims to bridge that gap, by allowing you to easily scan barcodes of foods you’re buying, and creating a unique scoring system based on your dietary goals – allowing you to find the foods you need, before you even purchase them.

Last month, we heard some news from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo about Apple entering a new segment of the laptop market. The company is reportedly working on a new MacBook at a lower starting price point than the MacBook Air, and it’ll apparently pack the A18 Pro chip found in iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.

While a cheaper MacBook is certainly a welcome add, the question truly stands: will Apple do it properly, or will it serve as another decoy model?

The iPad Air hasn’t been a particularly interesting product for a number of years. Apple redesigned it in 2020 with the fourth generation model, and since then – it’s just been spec bumps and small feature upgrades. However, I think the next refresh could be a great opportunity to introduce a large feature upgrade: Face ID.

Apple has typically updated the MacBook Pro on a nearly annual basis, generally around October. This year, though, rumors suggest that Apple will be deviating from that pattern – and it’s increasingly likely that the next MacBook Pro model will launch early next year. That raises the question: should you wait for it?

Let’s say there was some catastrophic event all of a sudden, and for whatever reason I needed to replace all of my Apple products at once. What would I end up buying? We’ll explore this scenario, and this’ll hopefully serve as useful advice for anyone just looking to expand their Apple ecosystem.

Every fall, almost like clockwork – Apple runs through its course of annual product refreshes. New iPhones, new Apple Watches, new iPads, and new Macs are almost a guarantee over the course of September and October.

This year, though – there are a few uncommon product refreshes that we should be seeing over the next couple of months, for products that often go years without an update.

Next month, Apple should be refreshing its entire Apple Watch lineup. It also recently reintroduced the Blood Oxygen feature that was previously missing from the Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Ultra 2 – so if you were someone who depended on that feature, there’s no longer a need to hold out. That begs the question, what’s around the corner for Apple Watch?

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.

Notify is a simple app for monitoring websites for changes. It’s completely free, private, and local – running fully on your iPhone. The app is a bit niche, but it does its job really well.

Rumors have long pointed at a new MacBook Pro with an OLED display launching towards the end of 2026 – alongside a general MacBook Pro overhaul. While that isn’t completely off the table, there’s an increasingly likely possibility of it launching in early 2027 instead.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is aiming to ship its brand new App Intents feature, allowing Siri to take actions for you, next Spring – alongside its long-promised Siri overhaul. These features were initially on track to launch during the iOS 18 release cycle, though Apple faced engineering delays. Now, they should launch by ~iOS 26.4, according to current reporting.

We’re possibly going to see yet another version of AirPods Pro next month, alongside the launch of the iPhone 17 lineup. Despite the current set of AirPods Pro coming up on nearly three years old, I don’t think that those in the market to buy new AirPods should necessarily waste their time waiting for a potentially upcoming model.

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.

Last year, I checked out an indie app called Time2Pack – an all-in-one trip planner. Now, the developers have a new app called OnlyFlights – a simple yet robust flight tracker for iPhone users.

With macOS Tahoe, Apple will be adding a bunch of new screen saver options, which you can also set as wallpapers. There are a couple new variants of the previously introduced Tahoe screen saver in beta 5, as well as around a dozen other options introduced in a previous beta that flew under the radar.