IKEA has been combining speakers with lamps for some time now, and its latest lineup includes new versions of these as well as round speakers with eye-catching graphics.

The company says its latest models with graphics created by local designer Teklan will add form, color, and character to a room …

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The Black Friday deals for Apple’s entire lineup of iPads have arrived. Whether you’re looking for the ultimate Netflix machine or something with an obscene amount of power, we’ve got you covered. We’re tracking low prices on the base iPad, iPad Air, adorable iPad mini, and powerful iPad Pro.

These are the best Black Friday prices on iPads that you’ll find.

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Update: The Anker Nano is 30% off right now on Amazon for Black Friday. Review below.

The iPhone Air has surprisingly good battery life for users with light-to-medium daily usage habits. But if you are going to be away from a charger for a long time, especially going travelling like on a plane, you’ll probably want to carry some extra juice with you.

Apple has made its custom MagSafe Battery for iPhone Air, that fits precisely beneath the camera plateau on the back of the phone. But another big competitor in this space is Anker, with the Anker Nano Power Bank in a similar size promising 5,000 mAH capacity at half the price of Apple’s offering. But how much extra battery life should you actually expect to get from these power banks, and which is best?

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Both mobile and desktop versions of the Pocket Casts app have introduced a new playlist feature designed to help you organize your favorite podcasts.

You can manually create your own playlists by hand, while a Smart Playlists option can apply your own rules to do the job automatically …

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The iPhone Fold has entered the next stage of production after what is said to be a “breakthrough” in eliminating the crease normally seen in folding phones when they are laid flat.

Although the display is being made by Samsung, several elements are said to have been designed by Apple and will be unique to the device …

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Spotify will raise subscription prices for users in the United States in the first quarter of next year, according to the Financial Times, citing sources familiar with the matter.


The report links pressure from major record labels on both Spotify and Apple Music to raise subscription prices. They argue prices have lagged inflation, while subscriptions remain cheap compared to video services such as Netflix.

Wall Street analysts say the price increase is critical to Spotify's stock, as the company pushes to show profitability. JPMorgan analysts have projected a $1-a-month price rise would boost Spotify's annual revenue by $500 million.

Spotify recently raised prices in multiple countries across South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region. The company has not raised prices in the U.S. since July 2024.

A Spotify subscription costs $11.99 a month in the U.S., compared with $9.99 when it launched in the country 14 years ago. Spotify currently costs $1-a-month more than Apple Music for individual plans.
This article, "Spotify to Raise US Subscription Prices Early Next Year" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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A competition regulator has accused Apple of misleading users about the level of privacy offered by the App Tracking Transparency feature. That accusation, while made in good faith, is based on a misunderstanding.

The iPhone maker has responded by saying that it may be forced to withdraw the privacy protection from EU users …

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Huawei's just-announced Mate 80 lineup is attracting attention in China today thanks to a display spec that easily sees off the competition in the premium smartphone segment.


The company claims the OLED panels in its latest phones can reach up to 8,000 nits of peak brightness – a figure that, if independently verified, would make the Mate 80 series the brightest smartphones on the market.

Huawei says all four models – the Mate 80, Mate 80 Pro, Mate 80 Pro Max, and Mate 80 RS – achieve unmatched peak output, but the Pro Max uses a dual-layer OLED design to push 8,000 nits brightness, with superior efficiency and better thermal handling.

The claim positions Huawei well ahead of Apple's latest iPhone 17 models, which top out at 3,000 nits peak outdoor brightness and 1,600 nits HDR peak.

On paper, there's a yawning gap between the figures, but how they're measured is the key. Huawei hasn't said what testing conditions underlie its 8,000-nit claim, and peak brightness metrics often apply only to small portions of the display for very brief moments.

By contrast, Apple says its iPhone 17 models achieve a "typical" max brightness of 1,000 nits, while the other specifications describe sustained outdoor or HDR behaviour. That makes direct comparisons difficult until reviewers can test the Mate 80 displays in controlled conditions.

There are also practical questions surrounding Huawei's figures. Real-world visibility isn't just about peak output – it depends on factors such as viewing angle, reflectivity, contrast, and colour accuracy.

If Huawei's numbers hold up under testing, the Mate 80 series could signal another leap in smartphone display performance. For now, the claims highlight how aggressively some manufacturers are pushing OLED panel brightness as a key differentiator.

Other notable specs in the Mate 80 series include high-end camera systems with variable-aperture main sensors and multiple telephoto lenses, RAM options reaching 20GB on the top models, and large batteries up to 6,000 mAh paired with fast wired and wireless charging.


The Mate 80 Pro Max starts at CNY 7,999 (about $1,127) in China, while the top-tier Mate 80 RS Master Edition comes in at CNY 11,999 (about $1,683). The prices place the highest-end models firmly in flagship territory, even before considering storage upgrades.
This article, "Huawei Mate 80 Series Debuts With Claim of 8,000-Nit Peak Brightness" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple @ Work is exclusively brought to you by Mosyle, the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that integrates in a single professional-grade platform all the solutions necessary to seamlessly and automatically deploy, manage & protect Apple devices at work. Over 45,000 organizations trust Mosyle to make millions of Apple devices work-ready with no effort and at an affordable cost. Request your EXTENDED TRIAL today and understand why Mosyle is everything you need to work with Apple.

In this episode of Apple @ Work, Alcyr Araujo and Eduardo Vitor join the show to talk about about web browsers with agentic AI capabilities will change how IT works and operates.

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Poland's antitrust regulator is investigating whether Apple is restricting competition in the mobile ads market through its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework, reports Reuters.


Introduced in April 2021 with the release of iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5, Apple's ATT framework requires that all apps on ‌iPhone‌ and ‌iPad‌ ask for the user's consent before tracking their activity across other apps. Apps that wish to track a user based on their device's unique advertising identifier can only do so if the user allows it when prompted.

Apple said the feature was designed to protect users and not to advantage the company. It has been unsurprisingly unpopular with advertisers and data brokers.

Poland's anti-monopoly office, UOKiK, suspects that Apple's ATT framework could be favoring the company's own ads service by limiting the ability of third-party apps to collect user data for personalized ads.

"We suspect that the ATT policy may have misled users about the level of privacy protection while simultaneously increasing Apple’s competitive advantage over independent publishers," UOKiK President Tomasz Chrostny was quoted as saying in a statement. "Such practices may constitute an abuse of dominant position."

If the regulator finds its suspicions to be warranted, Apple could face a fine of up to 10% of its annual turnover in Poland.

In an emailed statement to Reuters, Apple said:

"It is no surprise that the data tracking industry continues to oppose our efforts to give users back control over their data, and now intense pressure could force us to withdraw this feature, to the detriment of European consumers."

"We will work with the Polish competition authority to ensure Apple can continue to offer users this valuable privacy tool."

Regulators in Germany, Italy, and Romania have opened similar probes to examine whether the privacy feature violates competition rules by impeding access to essential data for advertising while reinforcing Apple's own position in the digital ad market.

In March, Apple was fined €150 million ($162 million) by France's Competition Authority over the framework's implementation.
This article, "Apple Faces Polish Antitrust Probe Over App Tracking Transparency" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Encrypted messaging platform Signal now offers secure backups on iPhone, letting users save and restore messages if they lose access to their device.


There are free and paid versions of Signal's secure backups. The free version lets users store up to 100MB of text messages, including photos, videos, and files from the last 45 days.

The paid version costs $1.99 per month and can back up all text messages, along with up to 100GB of media which can be older than 45 days.

The end-to-end encrypted backups can be accessed using a 64-character recovery key generated by the user's device, but keeping the key safe is crucial – if it's lost, Signal can't help users recover their backups.

Enabling secure backups in the Signal app is straightforward: Open the Settings menu and select Backups, then tap Setup ➝ Enable Backups. After a recovery key is generated, users can choose a free or paid plan.

Secure backups first came to Android in September. Signal says it plans to bring secure backups to its desktop app, and its longer term goal is to allow users to transfer message history between Android, iPhone, and desktop apps.
This article, "Signal Private Messenger Rolls Out Secure Backups for iPhone" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Amazon has dropped the price of the AirPods 4 to $69.00 for Black Friday, from $129.00. This is now a new all-time low price on the earbuds, beating the previous low price on Amazon by about $10.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

This is the AirPods 4 model without Active Noise Cancellation, but if you're looking for the device with ANC you can find it on Amazon for $99.99, down from $179.00, another record low price.



You can find all the Apple Black Friday Deals currently available in our dedicated post. For everything else, we're keeping track of the season's best Apple-related deals in our Black Friday roundup, so be sure to check back throughout the month for an updated list of all the most notable discounts you'll find for Black Friday 2025.

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This article, "AirPods 4 Drop to New Low Price of $69 for Black Friday" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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There may be a different way to look at what could happen to Apple’s top leadership over the next few years.

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Apple's foldable iPhone could be priced at $2,399, according to an estimate shared by analyst Arthur Liao at Fubon Research. There have been a range of price estimates, from as low as $1,800 to as high as $2,500, and the latest estimate falls on the higher side.


Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo previously said he expects the ‌iPhone‌ Fold to cost between $2,000 and $2,500, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman expects it to be somewhere around $2,000.

The foldable ‌iPhone‌ will be expensive because of the premium components that Apple plans to use. The display panel and hinge will push pricing toward the upper end of market expectations, Fubon Research suggests.

Demand for the device will depend on the price that Apple sets, but Fubon believes that Apple could sell around 5.4 million units in 2026. Global smartphone demand could fall during the year, and foldables will be the "only spotlight" in the 2026 smartphone market.

The report says that Apple is also working on camera upgrades for 2026, with the first variable aperture lens planned for the iPhone 18 Pro models. It doesn't sound like the ‌iPhone‌ Fold will get the variable aperture lens that Apple is developing, but rumors indicate it will have a dual-lens rear camera setup with Wide and Ultra Wide lenses along with two front cameras.
This article, "Foldable iPhone Could Cost $2,400" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Spotify is already planning its next price increase, according to a new report.

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Anthropic today announced the launch of Claude Opus 4.5, which it says is the "best model in the world for coding, agents, and computer use." It's improved over prior models for everyday tasks like deep research, and it is a "step forward in what AI systems can do."


According to feedback Anthropic received from early testers, Claude Opus 4.5 can complete tasks that were impossible for Sonnet 4.5, and that it is able to handle ambiguity and reason about tradeoffs without hand-holding. The Opus 4.5 model offers better vision, reasoning, mathematics skills, and coding than prior versions of Claude.

Along with the Opus update, Anthropic is updating its apps, the Claude Developer Platform, and Claude Code. There are tools for longer-running agents, and options to use Claude in Excel, Chrome, and on the desktop.

In the Claude apps, users will no longer run into limits during a long conversation. Claude is able to automatically summarize earlier context, which means the conversation can keep going endlessly. Claude for Chrome is available to all Max users, and Claude for Excel beta access is now available to all Max, Team, and Enterprise users.

Claude Code is now available in the desktop app, and with Opus 4.5, it is able to build more precise plans and execute them more thoroughly. Claude is able to ask clarifying questions upfront and then build a user-editable plan before executing.

Claude Opus 4.5 is available today across Anthropic's apps and its API. Opus-specific caps have been removed for Claude and Claude Code users with access to Opus 4.5, and for Max and Team Premium members, overall usage limits have increased.
This article, "Anthropic Launches Claude Opus 4.5 With Improved Coding and Agent Capabilities" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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While there is no shortage of vintage, rare, or otherwise classic products for sale on eBay, some are more vintage, rare, or otherwise classic than others. Here are seven gift ideas that may not be the cheapest, but will surely make an Apple fan’s Christmas.

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If you’re a Mac user looking for a solid external display that pairs nicely with your MacBook’s crisp retina display, you’ll know that finding one can be a challenge. Apple offers its Studio Display with a 27″ 5K retina display, but that costs $1599 just for the cheapest version with a basic stand. If you want a more versatile stand, the Studio Display will cost you $1999.

Luckily, a number of 27″ 5K monitors have been launching lately, many of which have been at more affordable price points than Apple’s Studio Display, while offering an incredibly comparable experience. One of them is the ViewSonic VP2788-5K, which I’ll be reviewing here today.

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Apple Invites launched earlier this year as a brand new app for organizing events, and in iOS 26.2 there’s a new systemwide feature coming that makes using the Invites app more convenient.

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OpenAI today added a new shopping research feature to ChatGPT, which is meant to help you find the right products for everything from simple household products to gifts.


You can tell ChatGPT what you're looking for, and shopping research will build a guide to help you make decisions on what to purchase. OpenAI says that it will ask smart clarifying questions, research deeply across the internet, review quality sources, and use context from prior conversations to build a personalized buyer's guide that's up-to-date.

It is built to perform particularly well in detail-heavy categories like electronics, beauty, home and garden, kitchen and appliances, and sports and outdoor. The research feature includes comparisons, constraints, tradeoffs, and more for product selections.

ChatGPT will suggest shopping research automatically when you ask it a shopping-related question, but you can also select "shopping research" from the "+" menu. When a research session has begun, ChatGPT will open a visual interface where you can share feedback to guide the research, providing feedback on what you're interested in.

You'll need to click through to a retailer's site to make a purchase, but eventually, ChatGPT will be able to make automatic purchases through ChatGPT when shopping from merchants that are part of Instant Checkout.

Shopping research is rolling out for logged-in ChatGPT users on Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans, and to simplify holiday shopping, OpenAI is making "nearly unlimited usage" available.
This article, "ChatGPT Adds AI Shopping Research Feature for Holiday Gift Finding" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple’s Wallet app got a strong lineup of new features in iOS 26, including one hidden addition you might have missed: a highly requested new setting to disable promotional notifications.

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I’ve tested a lot of docks over the years, from small compact on-the-go hubs that I use alongside my iPad to the full desktop-class docks that claim to be able to handle everything you throw at them. But the iVANKY FusionDock Max 2 is the first one that actually delivers on that promise. This dock has been purpose-built for Apple Silicon, bringing true Thunderbolt 5 performance with triple display support and 23 professional-grade ports, all wrapped in a sleek and unique design.

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Apple’s decision to go with a single rear camera has been one of the iPhone Air’s most divisive choices. Here’s how it performed in DXOMARK’s tests.

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Sponsored by Roborock: Save up to 50% on Roborock’s flagship vacuums during their Black Friday event — but hurry, these deals won’t last long! 

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