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.

Focus is a unique pomodoro timer app for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro that makes it easy to stay focused and develop productive working habits. If you have a procrastination problem, this could be an excellent tool for keeping you on pace.

It recently got a new update with a redesign, deeper customization, and additional data with new charts/graphs – making it even more useful.

Things have been quiet on the front lately. Too quiet. In fact, sales are down for the second year in a row, and just last quarter, Xiaomi overtook Apple to become the top wearable brand worldwide.

The good news is that the Apple Watch line is due for a refresh. Here’s what’s coming.

There have been a plethora of varying rumors for Apple’s next generation spatial computer. Is Apple prioritizing a cheaper model, or going all out with a second generation Pro model? We’ll summarize all of the Vision headset rumors here today.

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It’s long been stated that Apple has had the strongest commitment to supporting its older devices. The latest version of iOS supports devices as far back as 2018’s iPhone XS and XR, which are coming up on 7 years old. While that in itself is impressive, there’s a second level beneath the surface.

Rumors suggest that Apple will be implementing Google Gemini support within Apple Intelligence Siri sometime in the near future, alongside the already-existing ChatGPT integration. A recent backend update even revealed that Apple is already prepared for a Google Gemini integration to debut.

Last week at Google I/O, Google announced a number of interesting Gemini upgrades that might make Siri integration a bigger deal than we might think. Let’s discuss.

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The 2025 Parallels Cloud Survey recently went live, and buried in the data is a trend Apple should be paying attention to. According to the survey, 58% of enterprises are actively looking Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) options for their employees. Half of them plan to roll something out within the next six months. What’s driving this adoption? Companies want a secure, scalable way to give employees access to apps and data from anywhere. This is exactly the kind of enterprise shift that Apple could quietly build around.

Heads up if you or someone you know is still rocking an older iPhone: WhatsApp is officially dropping support for several legacy smartphones starting this Sunday, June 1st.

Logitech hasn’t officially launched the successor to the , a.k.a. my favorite mouse ever, but it might be close.

The company recently submitted documentation for Bluetooth certification in Brazil, just as an (accidental?) teaser appeared on its official Instagram.

With just days to go before WWDC, the consensus is that Apple will unveil a big, visionOS-inspired redesign across its operating systems. And while some might be dreading a repeat of the iOS 7 announcement from a decade ago, it’s been long enough that many readers might not remember (or may have never even seen) what that overhaul actually looked like.

So here’s a quick refresher on what happened, and why this year will likely (I mean, hopefully?) be different.

According to a recent investor note from GF Securities analyst Jeff Pu, Apple might have a pair of surprises in store for the iPhone 17 lineup this fall. Most notably, Pu has seemingly changed his prediction that the entire iPhone 17 lineup will use a version of the A19 chip. Instead, he now believes the base model iPhone 17 will use the same A18 chip that’s used in the iPhone 16.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned living in a house with pets and the pollen in the southern US, it’s that indoor air quality matters more than we think. Air purifiers help lessen the problem, but when you can automate them, even better. SwitchBot recently updated the , and it now supports Matter and works natively with HomeKit without needing an extra hub.

If you thought the “iPhones are getting solid-state, haptic buttons” rumors were dead, well… so did it. But according to Chinese leaker Instant Digital, Apple is back at it not just for future iPhones, but potentially for other products as well.

In 2019, Apple launched the U.S.-exclusive Research app. It was designed to let its users enroll in health studies that would help shape new health-related features for its devices, as well as contribute to medical investigations with impact far beyond Apple’s ecosystem.

Six years later, the app is still going strong. And if you live in the U.S. and would like to participate, here’s how to enroll.

Apple has for years been fighting antitrust battles all around the world, most of them concerning the App Store, and most of them coming down to a single issue: having monopoly control over the sale of iPhone apps.

Opinions on both sides of the debate are strongly held, and there’s little sign of that changing anytime soon – but it seems to me that there is one thing we could perhaps all agree on …

Apple’s newest original film, Bono: Stories of Surrender, is now streaming on Apple TV+. And if you happen to own a Vision Pro, there’s also an immersive version that puts you right on stage with the U2 frontman himself. Well, sort of.

Apple Notes is easily one of the most powerful apps pre-installed on the iPhone, and recently, Notes added a key shortcut that unlocks two hidden powers in the app: instant conversions and equations.

Coming out of a 50% plunge in March, new data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) shows that non-Chinese phone makers saw a small, but welcome rebound in April.

Almost two months after Donald Trump first announced his… creative tariffs plan, the stock market has more or less moved on. The biggest tech stocks have bounced back, helped by AI hype, strong earnings, and a growing sense that most of the plan won’t come to pass anyway. Apple, however, remains in the red.

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We’re officially just over a week away from WWDC 2025. While we expect big design enhancements and much-needed Apple Intelligence improvements to iOS, Apple has the opportunity to do something it’s quite good at: flexing its privacy prowess.

Alongside a host of ongoing deals across the M3 iPad Air and M4 MacBook Air lineup, this morning saw the 15-inch 24GB M4 MacBook Air drop in price again with up to $235 in savings. From there we move over to the M4 Pro MacBook Pro lineup where you’ll find the most affordable model at $285 off and higher-end configurations seeing giant $460+ price drops alongside a new Amazon all-time low on Apple’s latest black USB-C Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and Numeric Keypad, ongoing deals on Mac mini, and as much as $220 off the Sonos Ace ANC headphones. All of that and more awaits below. 

Apple has shared its third-ever App Store Transparency Report today. The report includes granular information on things like app removals and appeals, App Store user traffic, government takedown requests, and more.

Hollywood’s summer blockbuster season is in full swing, and one big new movie premiering next month—28 Years Later—will be especially unique: it was shot entirely on iPhone, including with a rig that held 20 iPhones at once.

Apple Glasses, per the latest reporting, are full steam ahead with a targeted launch in 2026. Until now, I haven’t been that excited about the new product, since its rumored features overlap heavily with AirPods and Apple Watch. But there’s one big advantage that’s changing my mind, and it’s something Apple’s other wearables can’t match.

Last fall 9to5Mac exclusively reported that Apple had a new, dedicated ‘Games’ app in the works for iPhone and more. Then this week, Bloomberg corroborated that report and outlined the timing: the new ‘Games’ app is coming this year in iOS 26 and more. Here are three features to expect.

The is unquestionably a strong product. It rakes in around 10% of Apple’s overall revenue and has more than twice the market share of Samsung, its closest competitor.

However, the market it helped create has shifted dramatically these last few years, and Apple hasn’t kept up.

Apple is set to expand its retail footprint in India by opening its third store at Bengaluru’s Phoenix Mall of Asia, as reported by Business Standard. The move underscores the company’s commitment to the Indian market, at a time when this growing partnership is provoking tension with President Trump.

With WWDC just around the corner, upcoming macOS features are likely to rekindle interest in Apple’s Mac lineup. Whether you’re shopping for your first Mac or upgrading an aging one, here’s the latest on what’s coming next.

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With the launch of iOS 14, Apple introduced a bold new privacy feature: App Tracking Transparency. This new feature would require third party apps to ask for user permission to track across apps before they’d gain access to your advertising ID (IDFA).

Apple begun enforcing this in April 2021 with the launch of iOS 14.5, which is when non-complying apps would no longer be able to submit updates to the App Store.

Update: The FBI’s original directive mistakenly included two models, the E100 and E300. The agency has since revised the list to exclude them, and we’ve updated this post accordingly.

If you were spooked by yesterday’s news that thousands of ASUS wireless routers have been compromised by a botnet, and are thinking about buying a new router, here are some models to not add to your cart per a recent FBI advisory.

I love Mark Gurman’s scoop that Apple plans to introduce iOS 26, not iOS 19, alongside version 26 of macOS, visionOS, watchOS, and tvOS. It’s a different flavor of the same solution I thought about a few months ago but thought might be too much of a reach to share.

This week brought a surprising report saying Apple plans to rebrand all its software platforms with year-based naming. So, iOS 26 will launch this fall (think car models) rather than iOS 19. Could iPhone hardware be the next subject of change? Apple’s leaked roadmap may offer a clue.

The Apple Research team has published a pretty interesting study that investigated whether AI models can estimate heart rate from stethoscope recordings, even though they weren’t specifically trained with that purpose in mind. The short answer is: yes. And this is great news. Here’s why.

Over the years, buying an has become an increasingly confusing task. With multiple models and overlapping features and accessories, there’s no longer a clear-cut way to recommend one iPad for one type of user. Still, Apple does have a general idea of how it sees the iPad lineup and who each model is meant for.

Following the announcement at I/O 2025 last week, Google is more widely rolling out Gemini Live camera and screen sharing to the iPhone and iPad app.

File this one under “tiny, but significant”: if you default your iPhone camera to 3:4, Instagram will finally let you post exactly what you shot.

This is Rumor Replay, a weekly column at 9to5Mac offering a quick rundown of the most recent Apple product rumors, with analysis and commentary. Today: surprise Apple Glasses launch timing, iOS 26, HomePad’s arrival, and more. Here are this week’s Apple rumors.

In the streaming age, reducing churn is a huge priority for every streamer. Disney has largely done this by pushing subscribers to bundles, but now it has another tactic launching: Disney+ Perks.

Apple has big changes planned for the iPhone 17 lineup, headlined by the addition of the all-new iPhone 17 Air. Meanwhile, a new report today corroborates a change we can expect for the cheapest iPhone 17 model: a slightly larger screen.

Severance season 3 is actively in the works, but that’s apparently not the only new development brewing. In a new interview, Ben Stiller revealed that two spinoff ideas are being explored by Severance’s creative team.

After years of anticipation, CarPlay Ultra officially launched earlier this month. Many automakers have committed to working with Apple to support CarPlay Ultra in their vehicles. But what about those who haven’t? Here’s a list of major brands that are choosing not to support CarPlay Ultra.