Category: Apple Insider

Sebastiaan de With is the co-founder of Lux, maker of Halide, and formerly worked on the iCloud and Find My teams at Apple, but now he’s set to return to Apple and is joining the Design Team.

Apple is such a secretive company that its employees tend to go about their business as unknown entities. However, the company does hire figures from the Apple community from time to time, and when they’re prominent, like Serenity Caldwell, their sudden disappearance into Apple Park is immediately noticed.

On Wednesday evening, Sebastiaan de With, co-founder of Lux and maker of pro camera app Halide, shared that he is joining Apple. He previously worked for Apple on the iCloud/MobileMe team and also worked on Find My.

This time, he’s joining Apple’s Design Team, which is significant given the absolutely incredible work that has gone into his apps like Halide, Kino, and Spectre. One could hope that he’ll help revitalize the Apple Camera app.

Some big personal news: I’ve joined the Design Team at Apple.

So excited to work with the very best team in the world on my favorite products.

[image or embed]

— Sebastiaan de With (@sdw.bsky.social) Jan 28, 2026 at 4:41 PM

AppleInsider reached out to Ben Sandofsky, the other Lux co-founder, and asked about the future of Lux. He had just released a preview of Halide Mark III hours ago, and shared a statement with us, embedded below.

I’ve never been more optimistic about the future of Lux and Halide. Today we launched the public preview of Halide Mark III, and the reception is more positive than we possibly could have hoped.

As we mentioned in the announcement post today, we’ve been working with legendary team at The Iconfactory on Mark III. We’re also super excited to be collaborating with the renowned colorist Cullen Kelly on the new looks in Mark III.

Ten years ago I started Halide, and for ten years, I lead product, ran the business, and coded almost everything. Except for the paywall. I hate working on payment screens. But I built everything else, and design was always a collaborative experience.

So in short, Halide is going nowhere. This has been my full time job since 2019, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Clearly, Lux has zero plans of going anywhere, so fans don’t need to worry.

Whatever Apple’s plans for Sebastiaan de With, he will surely be an excellent addition to the Design Team. There may still be time for him to contribute some refinements to iOS 27, but his influence will likely slowly show up through the update cycle.

It’s lauded as one of the most effective ads ever made, it stunned viewers, but on January 22, during the Super Bowl, “1984” launched the Macintosh without even showing the product once. It almost didn’t make it to air.

This ad is so famous that you know how it goes. An athlete in full color, runs through a gray room full of gray people and she throws a sledgehammer to smash a gray screen.

All of that gray is down to George Orwell’s Big Brother — or as close as could be without paying royalties — and this spark of color represents the Macintosh.

“On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh,” said a text crawl at the end. “And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984’.”

Macintosh. Nobody outside of Apple or perhaps the technology press had heard of it — and even those who knew the name, probably didn’t rate its chances.

This was 1984, three years into the enormous, overwhelming success of the IBM PC. Apple’s famous Apple II computer was showing signs of running out of steam — although its developers wouldn’t appreciate you saying that. The world was choosing Commodore and MS-DOS because they were cheap.

Plus everything you think of with the Mac, from a mouse to a graphical screen not very dissimilar to what we have today, that actually was known. It had been released by Apple in the form of the Lisa the year before.

It had been released, but then just about ignored because of its $10,000 price tag. PCs were still expensive compared to what they cost today, but $10,000 in 1983 is around $32,500 in 2026, so, far more than twice the cost of the even most expensive current Mac Pro.

Reputation and baggage

Apple had its fans. They had reason to be fans, but you can only enthuse so much. If people were aware of the reasons to buy Apple, they were also aware of the cost of it, and those two facts were inextricably linked.

And again, only if you were just aware of Apple at that time. You were certainly aware of IBM. There is a case to be made that the point of the “1984” ad was to make people perceive Apple and IBM as the only two players.

It was a perception worth pursuing, but it cost Apple dearly.

According to the 2004 book, “Apple Confidential 2.0” by Owen W. Linzmayer, in 1984 it cost Apple $500 to make each Macintosh on the production line. To be more specific, it was $415 in parts, $5 in labor, and $80 in unspecified overheads.

This is Apple, so it was never going to sell the Mac for $501. Linzmayer claims that at that time, the typical Apple markup would have made it $1,995.

That sounds right to us. Our Managing Editor, Mike Wuerthele worked in an Apple dealership at the time. The margins for the dealers was about 35%, and there was no way that Apple was taking less for itself.

Instead, it sold for $2,495 — and every bit of that $500 more was because of advertising. Apple CEO John Sculley spent as much on advertising as it cost to make a Macintosh.

The “1984” ad was only the start of what, to be fair, was intended to be a 100-day mass-market saturation of advertising. And saying it was $500 per Mac is an estimate, but it’s the same estimate Sculley made when he authorized spending $15 million on the campaign.

He calculated that the $500 extra on the price would pay back the $15 million once Apple had sold 30,000 Macs. By April 1984, it had sold 50,000.

Of all the advertising Sculley bought with that $500 price increase, though, none was more expensive than the “1984” Super Bowl ad. Ultimately none was more effective too, but then none of the rest of it came so close to being cancelled before it was made.

Putting together “1984”

Not to spoil how this ad and the Mac are so inextricably linked, but ad agency Chiat/Day wrote “Why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984’” for the Apple II. It wasn’t used, and really it was only the start of what the ad would become, but it predated the Mac by six months.

What also predated the Mac was Chiat/Day’s research into the attitude and usage (A&U) of consumers. According to the book “West of Eden” by Frank Rose, Chiat/Day learned that Apple was seen as a young company used by creatives, while IBM was bureaucratic and conservative.

They concluded that “IBM is what people think they ought to be, but Apple is what people feel they’d like to be.” To exploit this, the ad agency had prepared multiple ideas for advertising both the Macintosh and the Apple III.

We’ll talk about the Apple III soon enough. That was a disaster in itself.

Anyway, Clow and Jobs wanted something huge for the first announcement of the Mac. You know where this is going: yes, they wanted an ad called “King Kong Gates.”

It would have had these very large gates, and at the beginning, just a few people would be able to squeeze through. Then the new computer would burst through the gates, followed by thousands of people.

Reportedly it was that last part that killed the idea — there was no budget for that many people. And back then, no CGI to fake it.

Whereas there was a budget for what would ultimately become the 200 people in the “1984” ad. Some were already skinheads — a pejorative British term for shaved-head and possibly violent person — and others were paid $125 to shave off their hair.

Steve Jobs adored the idea for “1984.” John Sculley was more wary. The production was ultimately given the go-ahead, though, to be shot in London by Ridley Scott.

Writer Steve Hayden wrote the script, and then director Scott interfered. Scott wanted the face of Big Brother to have spoken dialogue and reportedly threatened to write the lines himself if Hayden didn’t.

Reconsidering “1984”

Once it was finished, Chiat/Day loved the ad, Steve Jobs loved the ad, and John Sculley… wasn’t so sure. At least, he wasn’t until October 23, 1983, which is when the first semi-public screening of the ad took place.

It was at Apple’s annual sales conference, and the reception was ecstatic. All that had to happen now was for Apple’s board of directors to approve it — and they didn’t.

“Most of them felt it was the worst commercial they had ever seen,” said Sculley. “Not a single outside board member liked it.”

It’s unclear quite what happened next as the board either didn’t ask for the ad to be dropped, or it didn’t have the power to. Sculley caved in anyway.

Alongside the $900,000 production cost, the expense of the ad was down to buying the air time and there was still a chance to save some money there. Apple had bought 90 seconds of advertising time at the Super Bowl — 60 seconds for the first, full-length showing, and then another 30-second version to be shown later on.

By then it was very late to sell off an ad, but Chiat/Day was asked to. It did sell off the 30-second slot, but it didn’t even try with the 60-second one, it wanted to make Apple run the ad.

Even then, Apple could still have blown it. Sculley wimped out of deciding whether to run “1984” to fill that slot they had committed $800,000 to. He told Apple’s marketing executives to make the decision — and if necessary to fill the slot with the comparatively safe “Manuals” instead.

“Manuals” worked on the idea that you need manuals to run an IBM PC, but barely a pamphlet for the Macintosh. But it was an ad, it had already been made, and most important of all, it was the right length.

Jobs lobbied hard, Steve Wozniak even offered to pay half the $800,000 if that was the problem. And the two marketing executives, William V. Campbell and E. Floyd Kvamme decided to run it.

The “Manuals” campaign eventually was resurrected for the iMac. Jeff Goldblum narrated it in the famous “there is no step three” ad for the iMac, 15 years later.

The cheapest, most expensive ad ever

So Apple ran its full 60-second version of “1984” during the Super Bowl that year. It did not run its 30-second cut then. Or ever.

Apple never had to buy airtime for its “1984” ad ever again. Because the reaction was so enormous, the response was newsworthy.

The “1984” ad was played in its entirety on news shows around the country. It was played often, it was examined and discussed, and Apple didn’t have to pay a cent more for this incredible exposure.

Advertising isn’t enough

Looked at as a production, as short film, then “1984” is immensely successful. As an advert, it won the 1984 Clio Award.

It later went on to win the Grand Prix at the 31st Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. And in a retrospective, Advertising Age would ultimately call it the 1980s “Commercial of the Decade.”

Yet even in the midst of all this success, Steve Jobs had no illusions about what even extraordinary advertising could do.

“Ad campaigns are necessary for competition; IBM’s ads are everywhere,” he told Playboy in 1985. “But good PR educates people; that’s all it is.”

“You can’t con people in this business,” he continued. “The products speak for themselves.”

An easy way to make your Mac more useful is to add more ports. Here’s a selection of steeply-discounted Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 5 docks to boost your Mac’s connectivity.

Users of the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air will be very familiar with the relatively small number of ports available on their devices. While it’s enough to use the notebooks while on the move, it’s not really enough to connect a lot of different devices up to your Mac.

It’s not just limited to the MacBook lines. Many desktop Mac users may find the included port selection isn’t quite expansive enough for their needs. It’s not just simply adding more connections, as sometimes the docks provide ports that the Mac itself doesn’t have, but consumers may need.

What follows is a selection of Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 5 docks you can attach to your Mac.

Razer Thunderbolt 5 Dock Chroma

The Razer Thunderbolt 5 Dock delivers up to 120Gbps burst bandwidth (80Gbps sustained bidirectional), supports triple 4K displays at up to 144Hz, and provides up to 140W of charging via USBC. There’s also support for an 8TB internal SSD, for expanded storage for your Mac.

There’s also Thunderbolt Share, a KVM-like feature for controlling multiple Windows PCs from one setup, though this doesn’t work with Macs. You do, however, get customizable RGB underglow.

The Razer Thunderbolt 5 Dock Chroma is available from Amazon, priced at $300, 25% off the list price.

Ugreen Revodock Max 208 Thunderbolt 4 Dock

The Ugreen Revodock Max 208 has a fairly slimmed-down approach for a dock. It’s an 8-in-1 dock, with three Thunderbolt 4 ports excluding the host port, three USB-A 3.2 ports, and Gigabit Ethernet.

It still manages to put out 85W of power delivery, thanks to its use of a 140W GaN charger. There’s also support for dual 4K screens or a single 8K display.

Usually $249.99, you can get it on Amazon for $161.48, 35% off the list price.

iVanky Fusion Dock Max 1 Thunderbolt 4 Dock

The iVanky Fusion Dock Max 1 Thunderbolt 4 Dock is a stylish approach to a Thunderbolt dock, but also one that’s quite powerful in its own right. In our iVanky FusionDock Max 1 review, we found that the “floating” appearance was interesting, but also helped with increasing surface area for cooling.

The port collection includes two Thunderbolt 4 connections to the host, which is unusual, as is the use of two Thunderbolt controller chips. This means it has a total of 20 ports overall, including dual HDMI 2.0 outputs, 2.5Gb Ethernet, and 96 watts of charging.

Normally $439.99, it’s available on Amazon for $299.99.

iVanky Fusion Dock Max 2 Thunderbolt 5 Dock

If you want a Thunderbolt 5 version of the previous deal, the iVanky FusionDock Max 2 should fit the bill. It also maximizes the 120Gbps of bandwidth from Thunderbolt 5 by providing a massive 23 connections for you to use.

This includes support for triple extended displays, including dual 6K 60Hz screens and one 4K 60Hz display. The port list includes three downstream Thunderbolt 5 ports, two upstream Thunderbolt 5 ports, 10 USB ports, a 312MBps SD/TF 4.0 memory card slot, 2.5Gbps Ethernet, optical audio, two headphone jacks, and a HDMI connection.

The iVanky Fusion Dock Max 2 Thunderbolt 5 Dock is available from Amazon, priced at $399.97, 20% off the list price.

iVanky FusionDock Pro 3 Thunderbolt 5 Dock

If you want something to stand out on top of your desk in a different orientation, consider the iVanky FusionDock Pro 3, a vertically-standing docking station. It’s an Intel-certified dock, capable of up to 120Gbps, and has 140W charging and 60W power delivery capabilities.

It is an 11-in-1 dock, with four USB-A ports, three Thunderbolt 5 downstream ports, one upstream port, 2.5G Ethernet, an SD 4.0 card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It can handle dual 6K 60Hz displays on a Mac, though it can go up to dual 8K screens if you have a Thunderbolt 5 Windows device.

The iVanky FusionDock Pro 3 Thunderbolt 5 Dock is available from Amazon, priced at $299.99, 23% down from the list price.

OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock

The OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock eliminates one of the pain points of travelling with a Thunderbolt 4 dock by embedding the power supply into the dock enclosure itself. It’s one of our favorite docks, scoring 4 out of 5 in our review.

It has three Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-A 3.2 ports, one USB 2.0, 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI 2.1 with full HDR support, an SD card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It also provides 90W of power delivery through the Thunderbolt host port.

The OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock is available from Amazon, priced at $179.99, 28% off the list price.

Ugreen Revodok Max 2131 Thunderbolt 5 Dock

An Intel-certified dock, the Rgreen Revodok Max 2131 is a 13-in-1 Thunderbolt 5 dock that has four Thunderbolt 5 ports for blistering transfer speeds. It also has support for dual 6K 60Hz screens or one 8K display.

The port selection extends to include four more USB-A ports, one USB-C, an SD/TF card slot, and a 2.5Gbit Ethernet port. There’s also a 180W GaN adapter, up to 140W for charging a MacBook, and dual-layer aluminum cooling.

The Ugreen Revodok Max 2131 Thunderbolt 5 Dock is available from Amazon, priced at $299.99, 25% down from the list price of $399.99.

Apple Music has released the official trailer for Bad Bunny’s halftime show, ahead of Super Bowl LX.

“On February 8, the world will dance,” the caption says. The video, which is just over a minute long, shows Bad Bunny dancing with a diverse range of partners.

Bad Bunny was first announced as the 2026 Super Bowl halftime artist in September 2025. He also was named Apple Music’s Artist of the Year in 2022.

As it has done for Super Bowl halftime stars in the past, Apple Music has created a Road to Halftime page for Bad Bunny. Fans can listen to Bad Bunny’s biggest hits, check out a curated “Bad Bunny Essentials” playlist, and more.

Super Bowl LX is set to take place on February 8. This year will mark the fourth year Apple Music has served as the sponsor.

Apple Music’s first halftime show, part of Super Bowl LVII, headlined Rihanna. The following year saw a performance by Usher, while 2025’s halftime show featured Kendrick Lamar.

Google Gemini is now asking users to let it train on their personal email and photos, and offering up bizarre reasons why this is meant to be good. It is not, and the timing of the news is suspicious.

So on the one hand, Google Gemini is now coming to Apple Intelligence, and it’s coming with all of Apple’s rigid privacy protections. But on the other, in the same week that was announced, Google is suddenly trying to get Gemini users to entirely ignore privacy.

Specifically, Google wants Gemini users in the US to join a beta program and authorize the service to scrape Gmail, Google Photos, and YouTube. Google calls this Personal Intelligence, and the company’s Josh Woodward offers real-world examples of how great this is.

The examples are not great. For instance, Woodward says he was buying tires for his car, and didn’t know the size. You know, despite it being on the tire, the previous receipt, in the car user manual, and maybe on a placard inside the door.

“These days any chatbot can find these tire specs, but Gemini went further,” he wrote in a blog post. Of course, you’d expect Google writers to be excited about Google products, on the Google blog.

Reportedly, Gemini pointed out that you may need different tires depending on whether you’re making longer trips in all weather conditions. It referenced “our family road trips to Oklahoma found in Google Photos” when it informed the Google employee how to do this.

You do not need to train AI to know someone once drove to Oklahoma, in order to know there are different types of tires. Not even if that might tip you off that advertisers in the region that you could be coming back.

As Craig Federighi said back in 2018, “If you want to get pictures of mountains, you don’t need to get it out of people’s personal photo libraries.”

In this case, an AI that doesn’t automatically return the information that the right tires depend on your situation, is not a safe AI.

Woodward digs in, though, with another reason why Gemini’s Personal Intelligence is simply essential in routine transactions like buying tires. Apparently he needed his license plate number and couldn’t remember it, so was happy for Gemini to pull it out of a photo.

You remember your childhood phone numbers, so you can remember your license plate. Or take a picture of it in your private Apple Photos library. It’ll come in handy the next time you’re in a big parking lot.

Or let Maps do it for you, and not tell anybody else or another big tech company where your car is parked.

Anyway, Google is not the first to try getting you to turn over personal information that is more useful to advertisers than it is to you. But it’s not nice doing this in the same week as reports of its deal with Apple have emphasized the genuine privacy benefits of it.

When Google Gemini is available via Apple Intelligence, it will provide all of the AI capabilities it can — and it will not get to use and keep and sell your personal data.

We’ve been very, very clear about this.

“In the end, as we here at AppleInsider have stated many times before, on this page, in the forums, on the podcast, and everywhere we cast a shadow, Apple’s long game in artificial intelligence will result in a more private, secure, environmentally friendly, and ethical system. Even as the AI bubble pops, Apple’s competitors can’t hope to match that ecosystem, not even Google.

Right now, you have to be invited to Google’s new Personal Intelligence beta test. Even if you are deep into using Google’s services, ignore the invitation and wait until Gemini can be accessed privately through Apple Intelligence.

That way, Google doesn’t get to target advertising to you.

With one camera, it’s more important than ever to know every tip and trick to help you get the best photos and videos on iPhone Air. Let’s take a look at everything you need to know to master the Camera app.

On the iPhone Air, there is a single 48MP rear-facing camera. It’s similar to the primary camera on the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Flipping the phone over reveals an additional front-facing camera. This Center Stage camera packs 18MP and features a distinctive square sensor.

This hardware, combined with Apple’s newly redesigned Camera app, can yield some amazing shots. Let’s dig in, and as a bonus, we’ll also give you our recommended settings, too.

Opening the Camera app

It may seem rudimentary, but there are at least a half-dozen ways of opening the Camera app. Knowing them all can help create a more personalized experience and make launching the app faster.

Starting from the Lock Screen, you can swipe to the left to launch the Camera app. This is one of the oldest methods of opening the app.

Personally, we’ve found ourselves inadvertently triggering the Camera app with this gesture. Luckily, with iOS 26.1, Apple added a new option to disable this by visiting Settings > Camera > Lock Screen Swipe to Open Camera.

Another option is to tap the default shortcut in the lower-right corner of the Lock Screen. If you don’t use it, you can disable it or replace it with any other shortcut by customizing the Lock Screen.

Then we have the Action Button, located on the top-left side of the iPhone Air. In Settings, you can set this button to several different tasks, including opening the Camera or a third-party camera app.

Speaking of physical buttons, the lower-right edge of the iPhone Air has the Camera Control, which first debuted with the iPhone 16 line. It can be pressed at any time to jump into the Camera app.

Using this button can be customized further, such as requiring the screen to be active first or needing a double press to launch the app. If you prefer using a third-party camera app, you can program it to launch instead.

Finally, you can just tap the app icon. If you long-press the icon, you get bonus options like launching into the selfie camera or portrait mode.

Taking a photo

It may seem obvious, but there are several options when it comes to triggering a photo. You’ve got a lot more options than just tapping the shutter button.

One of the new ways is, once more, the Camera Control. So you can press the button once on iPhone Air to launch the app, then a second time to take a photo.

We think it is absolutely the quickest way to take a photo, as you can already have the app open by the time your phone is raised, then your finger is already placed to take the photo when you’re ready.

This isn’t the only physical control, though. Both volume up and volume down will work to take photos, too.

Press either button once to take a photo. Holding the volume down button starts recording video, while holding volume up captures burst photos.

If you go into settings, you can change this. You can opt to have both buttons record video if you don’t use burst photos often.

Apple offers a neat feature in the Camera app called QuickTake. By pressing and holding the on-screen shutter button, you will start to record a video.

When you lift your finger, the video recording stops. If you want to keep recording, you can drag your finger to the right to lock it.

Similarly, if you tap the button and instantly pull to the left, it will start capturing burst photos again. Once you let go, burst photos will stop.

Controlling the zoom

When taking a photo or video, sometimes you will swipe to zoom in or out. The most common way we see people do this is by pinching in and out on the display.

This works, but it isn’t ideal. It moves the phone, which can be especially problematic for video. Fortunately, there is an alternative.

You can tap the 1x or 2x designators right above the shutter. This will quickly jump to those intervals.

If you need to go more granular, you can tap either of those numbers and slide your finger left or right. This opens up a flywheel to adjust the zoom level on a much finer level.

When you’re done, you can release your finger to let the wheel recede, or you can pull it down to dismiss it.

Camera app controls

There are many controls within the Camera app that can help boost your image quality and proficiency. Here’s what to know about those controls, how to access them, and what they do.

The most basic is switching modes. Just swipe left or right in the interface to move between the different photo and video modes available.

You can also tap on the next visible one to the left or right of the current mode at the bottom. Photo modes are to the right, video modes are located to the left.

While in photo or video mode, you can tap the screen, which will set the exposure and focus to where you touched. If you tap and hold, it will lock it.

When locked, if you slide your finger on the screen up or down, you can manually adjust the exposure. Sometimes the photo may be too dark, and you can just slide up to quickly lighten it instead of going into the dedicated exposure compensation control.

In the app, the top-left corner will show your shared library status if you use one. If you don’t use the shared library feature, it won’t show anything.

The top-right side is home to the flash and the menu button. When you tap the six circles, it opens up the settings drawer at the bottom of the app interface.

Some controls can be displayed in two locations, such as the Night Mode or the flash, but when they are in the settings drawer, they have more options available. Like the flash can only be toggled to auto or off when at the top, but also has a forced “on” option in the settings drawer.

Live Photos can be toggled to auto, on, or off. There is the self-timer, with 3, 5, or 10-second options, too.

You have an exposure slider, allowing you to adjust the exposure both up and down for your shot. Photographic Styles can be set here, which differ from filters as they are applied at the time of capture, and adjust different parts of the photo based on the shot.

Aspect ratios can be configured here, with 4:3, 16:9, or square 1:1 options. Lastly, there is Night Mode, with various intervals that dynamically change based on the brightness in the scene and your phone’s stability.

Camera Control

We’ve already touched on the Camera Control for both opening the Camera app and taking photos, but this button does much more. It’s a touch-sensitive surface that can adjust many facets of a photo or video.

Half-press the button to open up the controls. Double half-press to open up the settings switcher.

You can choose between several different options, including the zoom level, which camera you’re using, the style, exposure, and more. When selected, you can slide your finger along the button to adjust.

While some may find these controls fiddly, there is no denying that the Camera Control is by far the fastest way to open and take a photo. If you don’t want the added controls, you can disable them in Settings and still use the button for launching and capturing.

As a bonus, you can tie the Camera Control to third-party apps. That way, you could launch Halide or the just-launched Moment Pro Camera 2.

Other photo modes

Briefly, we want to at least touch on the other photo modes. You access them by swiping to the right, and you largely have the same settings as the regular photo mode.

The other modes are:

• Portrait
• Panorama

Portrait shots apply a faux blur to the background, mimicking that of a wide aperture lens. On iPhone Air, it does this using software, rather than with stereoscopic lenses.

It’s mildly confusing, but portrait shots don’t have to be taken in the Portrait Mode. When a subject (person or animal) is detected, an italicized f appears in the lower-left corner of the regular photo mode.

When you tap this, it will also capture a portrait shot at the same time it captures a Live Photo. Afterward, you can opt to turn Live Photos on or off, and you can turn the portrait effect on or off.

When editing a portrait shot, you can also change the Portrait Lighting effect and the amount of blur. If you take the shot in the standard photo mode, you cannot adjust these at the time of capture.

If you switch to the dedicated Portrait Mode, though, you can adjust the aperture and lighting on the spot. The dedicated Portrait Mode will also work on other objects, like food, drinks, and more.

Panorama photos get captured by moving the camera left-to-right or right-to-left, where the phone will record a series of photos and stitch them together. You can change the direction by tapping the arrow on the screen.

When you are moving the camera, it will guide you to let you know how to keep the camera level. Our best tip here is instead of moving with your arms, lock your arms and upper body, and rotate from the hips instead for a smoother pan.

Selfie Camera

One of the big upgrades for the 2025 iPhone lineup was the front-facing camera. The new Center Stage camera has a large 18MP square sensor.

You can switch to this camera by using the app icon shortcut, the Camera Control, or tapping the reverse arrow on the lower-right corner of the app interface.

By default, the Center Stage camera will automatically zoom in or out to keep you in frame. You can also adjust the zoom in or out by tapping the expanding arrows at the bottom.

Next to that is the option to adjust the orientation. Thanks to the square sensor, you can tap this button to take a landscape photo while the phone is still vertical.

The front-facing camera also captures portrait shots, both in standard mode and in Portrait Mode. Tapping the Center Stage button at the top — the person icon in a frame — lets you toggle auto-rotate and auto-zoom on or off.

Formats and resolutions

For photos, we recommend shooting in standard HEIF. You can switch to standard JPG, but it’s largely unnecessary.

Whenever you share a photo to a non-iPhone or Mac, it will automatically convert it to JPG for you to retain compatibility. HEIF works great and takes up less space than JPGs.

If you are worried about space, you can also change the resolution to 12MP. By default, it is 24MP, which is what we recommend keeping it on.

For those who change these with any frequency, you can opt to have them show in the Camera app interface so you can adjust them on the fly.

Video modes

Video is also a primary function of the Camera app. Apple offers regular video mode, Action Mode, slo-mo, and time-lapse.

We shoot our video in 4K resolution at 24 frames per second. It’s the default setting Apple applies, with HDR on.

While slow-mode and timelapse have dedicated tabs in the app, Action Mode does not. It is enabled in standard video mode by tapping the running icon at the top.

Resolution in Action Mode drops to 2.8K, but it is great for fast-moving shots. We’ve found it works great while playing and filming kids or pets.

Slo-mo captures high-frame-rate video clips. The options are 120 frames per second at 4K or 240 frames per second at 1080P.

Time-lapse is largely self-contained. You just start taking a time-lapse video, and it automatically adjusts the frequency of the frames based on the duration of the clip.

Finally, Apple has added a new Dual Capture mode. This mode captures video using the rear-facing camera and overlays footage from the front-facing Center Stage camera at the same time.

While in this mode, both cameras get stabilized, which looks surprisingly smooth in use. You can also change where the overlaid video is located, picking between the four corners.

Get shooting

This covers nearly everything you need to know about Apple’s stock Camera app. It’s shockingly capable, even for a stock app.

Continue to play around to get your settings dialed in, and you can take amazing photos and videos on the single-camera iPhone Air.

A group of US Senators aren’t impressed by Elon Musk taking the smallest of corrective actions in moving Grok’s ability to make child porn behind a paywall, and want X removed from the App Store.

The ability for Grok to take an image of a person and generate a version of them undressed is abhorrent. But it’s also the tip of the iceberg, as the feature has also been used to show women being abused and even killed.

After initially ignoring criticism and calling nonconsensual Grok-generated images “way funnier,” Elon Musk has now removed the feature from public use. Rather than ending the issue, though, Musk is attempting to profit from it by making it be a premium feature.

US Senators Ron Wyden, Edward J. Markey, and Ben Ray Lujan figure that if you can’t stop Musk at the source, you can cut off his water supply. They have jointly written to both Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai, asking the X be removed from their respective app stores.

“We write to ask that you enforce your app stores’ terms of service,” they write in the full letter. They note that Grok has been used to modify images “to depict women being sexually abused, humiliated, hurt, and even killed.”

The senators also say that researchers have found a Grok archive [of] nearly 100 images of potential child sexual abuse materials generated since August.

They argue that this all means that it is clear X and Grok are in violation of the app stores’ policies. In the case of Apple, they’re referring to the section in the App Store Review Guidelines regarding objectionable content.

Those do specifically say apps shouldn’t allow offensive “or just plain creepy” content.

Consequently, the senators argue that there is no escaping the fact that the Grok has breached the terms of the App Store. So turning a blind eye to this, “would make a mockery of your moderation practices.”

The senators take a dig at both Apple and Google for how they were willing to quickly remove the harmless ICEBlock app when pressured by the US government. They say they hope Apple and Google will respond with similar speed now.

They’re asking Apple to remove the X and Grok apps, at least temporarily. And they want a written response from the companies within two weeks.

Neither Apple nor Google have yet responded publicly.

US Senators

This is not the first time that any of these three senators have pursued technology issues, either through bills or letters. In 2021, for instance, Senator Ben Ray Lujan, campaigned to make social media liable for spreading health misinformation.

Going further back, Senator Edward J Markey was one of two senators who wrote to Steve Jobs about Apple privacy in 2010.

But it’s perhaps Senator Wyden who is best known for writing open letters — and possibly the most effective. In 2023, he wrote a seemingly nonsensical open letter to the Department of Justice, making the apparently absurd claim that governments were spying on iPhone owners by use of push notifications.

Apple was expected to deny this, but instead effectively said thank you. It is true, but Apple had been forbidden to reveal the fact until Wyden brought it out into the open.

AI App Store dangers

Separately, in December 2025, US attorneys general warned Apple and others that “delusional outputs” from AI apps may be violating the law.

The AirVersa AP2 Air Purifier is the first model to support both Thread and Apple Home support and comes in a compact form factor that will fit easily into your life.

I really heavily rely on air purifiers in my life. They’re a bit hard to test outside of watching air quality monitors over time, but with more than a half-dozen animals in my home, they’re a necessity.

Pet dander, odors, and other allergens are rampant, and I have an air purifier in almost every room to keep the air clean and smelling good. The AirVesa AP2 Air Purifier appealed to me as it boasted both Thread and Apple Home support.

AirVersa AP2 Air Purifier review: Design

The design of the AP2 purifier is unremarkable. It’s boring and utilitarian with a light grey body, a darker grey top, and a round display on the top.

Air is pulled in via the left and right sides, through a pair of HEPA filters, and expelled out the top. The duo of filters catch 99.97% to 99.99% of particulates in the air, down to .1 micrometer.

To swap the filters, you must turn the purifier over and twist the lock. The bottom pulls free, revealing pull tabs on the filters to be replaced.

The display sits inside an LED ring that lights up based on air quality. If the air quality is excellent, it will be green, but it shifts closer to red the worse it is.

In my time with the AP2, the large colorful LED ring is more annoying than useful. It’s far too attention-grabbing, and I wish it was easier to disable the light altogether.

The display is also very information-dense. There are various buttons, status indicators, network status, fan speeds, and more.

While I understand the benefits of having all this information easily visible, it isn’t the most attractive. Once more, it feels utilitarian.

AirVersa AP2 Air Purifier review: Performance

Even if I wasn’t impressed with the design, I’m much more positive when it comes to the performance. Despite its small size, I found it to be quite effective for small to medium rooms.

Sleekpoint, the company behind AirVersa, says that this is designed for rooms up to around 1,000 square feet. That seems large, but I’d happily recommend this for places like bedrooms, offices, and other reasonably sized rooms.

When buying, you have the option of choosing the HEPA filter or HEPA Pro filter, with the latter filtering more out of the air. Each has a pre-filter, a HEPA filter, and an active carbon layer.

The filter life, which as I mentioned is shown right on the top of the device, is rated for 3000 hours. If you ran it for 24 hours a day, that would be a bit under half a year.

A new set of replacement filters is less than $30, which is very affordable as far as replacement air filters go. It may be the most affordable one that I’ve reviewed.

In my home, I tried the purifier in a couple of different scenarios. One was the kitchen, where it was able to aid in keeping smoke at bay while cooking chicken on the stove.

While in the basement, it was useful while painting and quickly eliminated much of the odor. I was impressed with how much airflow it could move in such a small size.

AirVersa AP2 Air Purifier review: Connectivity & Apple Home

The AP2 purifier works exclusively with Apple Home. You can view and control it in the Apple Home app as well as in the Sleekpoint app.

If the Sleekpoint name seems confusing, that’s because it is. Even though this is branded as AirVersa, the company is actually Sleekpoint Innovations.

Sleekpoint has multiple sub-brands, like Holomarq for security devices. Even though the Sleekpoint name is never mentioned in the branding, that’s the name of the manufacturer app.

It’s confusing, and your average consumer is not likely to remember it when trying to search the app on their device. Luckily, the Home app is more than enough.

Within the Home app, you can change modes (auto, manual, or off), view the air quality, and adjust the fan speed. Unfortunately, you can’t view the filter life in the Home app.

Thanks to Apple Home support, you can schedule it to go on and off or change speeds when you choose, you can have it stop when you leave the home, or control it with your voice.

It can be part of scenes, like a goodnight scene, which is useful for adjusting the speed when you go to bed. If you have additional air quality sensors, they can also be used to trigger the fan to ramp up.

Sleekpoint is known for its use of Thread, which is the case here. When using a Thread border router like a HomePod, HomePod mini, or an Apple TV, it was very quick to respond.

Thread is a new wireless protocol that creates a self-healing mesh network throughout your home. In my time using the air purifier, it was always responsive, available, and quick.

AirVersa AP2 Air Purifier review: Should you buy it?

There is no shortage of air purifiers on the market. From a high-level, they’re all very similar in that they pull air through some sort of filter to remove debris, allergens, and contaminants.

While I don’t get excited about the design, I think the performance and connectivity make up for it. Apple Home and Thread are both rock solid and make this an easy addition to any home for an Apple Home user.

I appreciate that the filters are affordable and include carbon for neutralizing odors. I also like that it is compact enough that it can fit beside a bed or under a desk without taking up too much space.

As long as you prefer function over form, I think the AirVersa P2 air purifier is worth picking up. Besides, anything that looks fancier is likely to cost more anyways.

AirVersa AP2 Air Purifier review: Pros

• Rock-solid Thread connectivity
• Apple Home support
• Efficient and powerful
• Affordable replacement filters
• Night mode
• Visual air quality monitor
• On-device touch controls

AirVersa AP2 Air Purifier review: Cons

• Boring design
• Apple Home doesn’t support night mode yet
• Confusing manufacturer app name

AirVersa AP2 Air Purifier rating: 3.5 out of 5

Find the AirVersa AP2 Air Purifier on Amazon for $110.

The latest spatial display glasses from Xreal can convert all in-display content to 3D, and with the Neo DisplayPort and battery hub, it can stream games from the Nintendo Switch 2. Here’s what Xreal is showing off at CES 2026.

Apple may have embraced the concept of spatial computing with Apple Vision Pro, but Xreal has been pushing a simpler concept with its glasses. Instead of a full operating system of windows and apps, Xreal spatial glasses display a single floating window in front of the user to show a connected device’s output.

The Xreal 1S is the company’s latest iteration, introduced at CES 2026, and it brings upgraded specs and a new Real 3D view mode. There’s also the Xreal Neo, a MagSafe hub that contains a 10,000 mAh power bank and DisplayPort connectivity.

Users who pair the Xreal 1S with the Neo can keep a charge on their iPhone, Mac, or other connected device, while still connecting to the glasses. The Neo hub can also connect directly to a Nintendo Switch or Nintendo Switch 2 without a hub for on-the-go gaming.

It’s a big upgrade for Xreal’s glasses. While they’re not a full augmented reality headset, they’re offering a unique use case with a private, yet giant, portable, wearable display.

Xreal 1S spatial glasses

If you’re new to Xreal or coming from the Xreal One Pro, the Xreal 1S has plenty to offer for an improved spatial display setup. It runs at an increased 1200p resolution, up from 1080p, and can output at 120Hz with a 52-degree field of view.

They also have a brighter display at 700 nits, up from 600 nits. Pin your virtual display and increase its size up to 500 inches with the touch of a button.

When wearing Xreal glasses, you can have the floating display follow your gaze, thus keeping it sized within the frame, or pinned to a surface, which allows it to be much bigger than the field of view. When using the larger display settings with a laptop, it can enhance multitasking capabilities.

The Real 3D mode is powered by the X1 processor, which means the feature is also coming to the Xreal One Pro. Enable this feature, and everything viewed on the virtual display is converted live to 3D, even 2D movies or video games.

Get the Xreal 1S for $449 or the Neo hub for $99 starting today.

Based on the ever-churning rumor mill, it sounds like 2026 is going to be a banner year for tech fans. That said, I still found a bunch of great gear in 2025 to tide me over from Apple Home devices to chargers.

2025 didn’t end up being “Year of the Smart Home” as I initially hoped it would be. Apple punted its next-generation version of Siri till 2026, along with its much-discussed phantom smart display.

Accessory makers weren’t held back though, with a ton of new smart home devices launching. Despite a growing list of favorites, I managed to try to winnow things down to a few mass-appeal items that I think stood above the rest.

Aqara G5 Pro

A few years ago, I didn’t have a single Aqara item in my home. I had tried a few, but I wasn’t a fan of requiring a hub to do everything.

Jump forward to 2025 and I can’t think of a smart home company pushing boundaries more than Aqara is. I’ve purchased probably a dozen G100 cameras for family members and its FP2 presence sensor is incredible with little competition.

The one that I wanted to highlight though is the Aqara G5 Pro camera that comes in both USB-C and POE-powered versions. This Apple Home-enabled camera supports HomeKit Secure Video, Aqara’s cloud platform, or even a local NAS for video recording.

It has a durable design that works both indoors and outdoors, even with the USB-C version, to withstand the elements. It has a built-in spotlight that can be independently controlled with excellent night vision and 2K video capture.

With an onboard Thread radio, it can act as a Thread router, extending your Thread mesh network to the outdoors. This is great for remote sensors, like the ones I have on my mailbox to let me know when it is opened and closed.

Best of all though, it’s fast. Shockingly so compared to every other Apple Home camera I have tested. When you access the camera, it goes live almost instantly and never goes offline.

That is with the Wi-Fi version, and I have to assume the hardwired POE version is even faster. Simply put, this is the best camera for Apple Home users right now.

If you’d like to try one, they have them on Amazon for $119 right now. The G100 are much simpler, but I can also attest that they are equally as fast and reliable if you don’t need all the bells and whistles.

25W Qi2.2 standard

My second favorite launch of 2025 wasn’t necessarily a single product, but rather a new spec. Qi2.2 was made official, which is the wireless charging spec based on Apple’s MagSafe.

The Qi2.2 version ups the supported wireless speed to 25W, from only 15W. It supports magnetic wireless charging all the way back to iPhone 12, but on the latest devices — like iPhone 17 — it supports the maximum 25W.

I appreciate these faster speeds, which go hand-in-hand with the new larger batteries, as I use my phone for work frequently. I want to set it down, get some fast juice, and keep moving.

Qi2.2 gives you the convenience of MagSafe with nearly the speed of a cable. Since Apple adopted it, we’ve seen several chargers launch from all the major players like Nomad, Belkin, Anker, Aukey, and more.

Of those out, I have three favorites. They are the Anker Prime Wireless Charger, the Belkin UltraCharge Pro 3-in-1, and the Kuxiu X40 Turbo.

The UltraCharge Pro from Belkin was the very first to hit the market and has a nice compact design with a soft-touch finish to the body. I like the chrome look, and it has active cooling to keep the temperatures down.

Anker’s solution is impressive as it not only has fantastic speeds but several other nice touches. The power supply is a tiny 65W GaN charger, it has an NFC tag to run automations, and Bluetooth support to customize the display or charging performance.

Kuxiu is solid because the X40 Turbo folds down into a tiny little puck that is great to take with you. It is the most compact by far and even comes with its own travel case.

All three are currently listed on Amazon. The Anker Prime Wireless Charger is $160, the Belkin Ultra Charge Pro is $129, and the Kuxiu X40 Turbo is $79.

Anker 165W laptop battery pack

Rounding out my list is another power product, the Anker laptop battery pack. It has a massive airline-friendly 25,000mAh capacity, three 100W USB-C ports, and a total of 165W of power output across all four outputs.

It even has both a retractable cable built-in and a second cable to act as a lanyard. There’s a useful display that shows all current input and output speeds, battery health, and temperature.

This originally launched at CES 2025, and I have been using it almost constantly ever since for travel. It’s the perfect size to slip into the side pocket of a backpack while also packing enough juice to charge even my 16-inch MacBook Pro.

I love the retractable cable too because I don’t need to always have a Type-C cable handy. If I do want to plug in something like a MagSafe puck or legacy USB-A device, the two female ports are there if I need them.

You can buy it on Amazon for $87 at the moment.