December 13, 2016: After months of anticipation and delay, Apple finally launches the first-generation AirPods. The tiny wireless earbuds arrive in Apple’s online store just in time for holiday shoppers looking for stocking stuffers.

Like so many Apple products, they aren’t the first wireless earbuds to arrive on the scene. However, AirPods’ rapid success will fuel a wireless listening revolution.

Apple TV+ scored a record 29 nominations in the upcoming 3rd Annual Children’s & Family Emmy Awards, showcasing a growing influence in family entertainment, the streamer said Friday. The nominations span 10 different programs, highlighting the streamers diverse content portfolio for youngsters.

Today’s featured M4 Pro Mac mini user drives a pair of 4K external displays with the tiny new powerhouse desktop. And they keep an array of budget peripherals, including data and power hubs and solid input devices. And in addition, for physical backup, they like portable storage solutions in addition to cloud backup — in this case, fairly affordable hard drives from Samsung and La Cie (and the Samsung is deeply discounted right now — see below).

Designer Basic Apple Guy started the last month of 2024 by releasing yet another fresh and interesting set of wallpapers for your Apple devices. They’re the “vibrant and minimal cubist-inspired” Liminal Spaces series, released December 2. They might be the best new wallpapers I’ve seen this month.

And they’re certainly an interesting alternative to holiday themes. For me, the light, colors and shapes composed in the wallpapers brought to mind not only cubist art, but abstract expressionist Richard Diebenkorn’s landscape paintings.

So, you’ve been dreaming of owning an iPad Pro but weren’t quite ready to drop more than a grand on one? Good news: Your tech dreams just became a lot more affordable. This grade-A refurbished iPad Pro (12.9-inch, 4th Gen, 2020) is available for just $699.99 — $400 off the original price.

Apple will reportedly stop selling the iPhone SE (3rd gen) and iPhone 14 in the EU by the end of this year. It will do this to comply with the EU’s directive, which mandates all smartphones to use USB-C for charging.

Apple only switched to USB-C on its smartphone lineup with the iPhone 15’s launch in 2023.

WhatsApp is rolling out some much-needed video and voice calling improvements to improve the experience. These include new video effects, improved video call quality, and more.

Thanks to WhatsApp’s popularity, it is used to make over 2 billion calls daily. So, these improvements should benefit a wide section of users.

Apple will switch to its in-house “Proxima” WI-Fi and Bluetooth chip on its devices starting next year. The chip will debut on the Apple TV and HomePod mini next year.

By 2026, Apple will bring its in-house Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module to the iPad and Mac.

Apple CEO Tim Cook welcomed King Charles III of Great Britain to Apple’s U.K. headquarters Thursday in the iconic Battersea Power Station, Apple said. And it showed off a raft of photographs from the occasion, below.

“We were honored to welcome His Majesty King Charles to Apple Battersea — our home in the U.K. — and we’re proud to support The King’s Trust in its vital work educating and empowering young people,” said Cook. “We look forward to our continued growth here, building on more than 40 years of history in the United Kingdom.”

Puerto Rico now supports Apple’s digital ID system so driver’s licenses from the U.S. territory can be stored in the Wallet app on iPhone.

2024 is a banner year for the system, with five states or territories being added, doubling the previous total.

In a strategic move that could reshape the mixed-reality landscape, Google and Samsung announced a partnership Thursday to develop a new mixed-reality headset running on the Android XR operating system, according to a new report. Clearly, the Google and Samsung Android XR headset directly challenges Apple’s Vision Pro and Meta’s headsets in the premium market.

The collaboration aims to create a more accessible and diverse ecosystem for extended reality (XR) devices, potentially offering buyers, including Apple users, alternative options in the growing mixed-reality space. More competition could impact both features and pricing, of course.

December 12, 1980: Apple goes public, floating 4.6 million shares on the stock market at $22 per share. The Apple IPO becomes the biggest tech public offering of its day. And more than 40 out of 1,000 Apple employees become instant millionaires.

As Apple’s biggest shareholder, 25-year-old Steve Jobs ends the day with a net worth of $217 million. However, the big payday triggers internal tensions as it highlights Cupertino’s class divide.

United Airlines built support for AirTag’s new Share Item Location into its app. This lets flyers easily show the airline the real-time location of the tracker tag hidden in their lost luggage.

The optional tracking feature debuted in iOS 18.2 on Wednesday.

With iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia, Apple turned iCloud Keychain into a full-blown password manager with a dedicated Passwords app. While it’s a useful addition, I am not ready to give up on 1Password and switch to the Apple Passwords app yet.

The latter suffers from several limitations that prevent it from becoming a versatile password manager.

Apple is gradually rolling out many of the big iOS 18 features showcased at WWDC24. iOS 18.1 marked the debut of Apple Intelligence, and with iOS 18.2, the company brought more AI features. This slow rollout is supposedly leading to many internal delays in iOS 19 features.

Expect to wait until 2026 for some new iOS 19 additions.

A report suggests Apple shelved plans to build the M4 Extreme Apple silicon chip. The company gave up on the SoC to divert resources to build an AI server chip.

The report points to Apple working with Broadcom to develop this AI chip.

Monument Valley 3 launched Tuesday, the latest edition in one of the best puzzle game franchises ever. The challenges offer the same M. C. Escher-esque defiance of visual perspective as their predecessors, but there’s a new twist: a sailboat.

ustwo’s latest creation is available for iPhone and iPad (plus) Android, but it’s a Netflix Games exclusive. A subscription to the streaming service is required to play.

Microsoft started rolling out an upgrade Wednesday to its Phone Link software and the Link to Windows app that promises seamless file transfers from iPhone to PC and vice versa.

The goal seems to be imitating the functionality of AirDrop, Apple’s simple system for wirelessly moving files between iPhones, Macs, iPads, etc.

Targus and Macally unveiled iPad folio cases with built-in keyboards and trackpads. Although the designs vary, all can turn an Apple tablet into a slim notebook computer.

Apple makes its own iPad keyboard case, but these new third-party options cost considerably less.

In an advancement for mobile music production, Apple showed off the Voice Memos app’s new Layered Recordings feature Wednesday, releasing a new holiday single recorded with it. Exclusively available on the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, Layered Recordings comes via the newly released iOS 18.2 update.

Apple Original Films unveiled plans Tuesday to air a groundbreaking documentary chronicling one of America’s lesser-known but pivotal civil rights actions. Deaf President Now! will tell the story of transformative 1988 protests at Gallaudet University. Students successfully demanded the appointment of the school’s first Deaf president. It proved to be a pivotal moment in Deaf advocacy and helped pave the way for the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2 and macOS Sequoia 15.2 release date is here. They bring in the second wave of Apple Intelligence features, including Genmoji, the Image Playground, optional ChatGPT integration and more.

watchOS 11.2, tvOS 18.2 and visionOS 2.2 also went out, though these don’t include any AI features.

Apple subsidiary Beats surprised everyone when it sprang new cases for the iPhone 16 series handsets, its first-ever iPhone cases. And now, surprisingly, you can get bold new Beats iPhone 16 case colors — sunrise pink and twilight blue. If you’re looking for more iPhone options, you might find this documentary on Bono: Stories of Surrender an interesting read. That’s in addition to the four original colors, which weren’t too boring in the first place (Beats is known for colors in its products, Apple … not so much).

December 11, 2013: A Chinese labor rights group calls on Apple to investigate the deaths of several workers at a Shanghai factory run by iPhone manufacturer Pegatron.

Most controversially, one of the dead workers is just 15 years old. The underage worker reportedly succumbed to pneumonia after working extremely long hours on the iPhone 5c production line.

A university student calling themselves a “broke Harvard undergrad” while showing off a computer setup loaded with older and newer Apple hardware is bound to take some ribbing from social media on various levels. But today’s data-science number-crunching setup makes impressive and thrifty use of newer and older gear, including a 2023 M3 MacBook Pro, a 2013 “trash can” Mac Pro and a 2018 Intel MacBook Pro, plus a 2021 iPad Pro and a PlayStation 5 console.