Looking for a free way to add a little cheer to your Mac for the holidays? Snowy is a free Mac App Store app that includes Christmas lights, a fun snow effect, and a festive, Aqua-inspired wallpaper.

It’s officially time to start checking gifts off your list before it’s too late. For my 2025 tech gift guide, I’m recommending technology products that I’ve actually used all year. Each of these products has been especially useful this year, and they’ll make great gifts for the Apple users in your life.

There are loads of intelligent lock solutions out there, many of them with HomeKit integration, but not all of them sport Apple’s super-convenient Home Key setup. Just about all of the best models are on sale for Black Friday weekend right now, from the ultra-elegant Level Lock+ (Matter) Smart Lock through to Schlage Encode Plus, the Aqara Smart Lock U100, and Yale’s Assure Lock 2, if you’re going to unlock some smart lock deals with Apple Home Key, now’s the time to do it.

Update November 30, 2025: 9to5Mac readers can exclusively save 50% on CardPointers for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Plus, you’ll receive a $100 Savings Card as a sign up bonus.

CardPointers is a powerful app for iPhone that helps you maximize your credit card points and rewards. The app has recently been updated to take full advantage of iOS 26, including a new Liquid Glass design, integration with new Apple Intelligence Foundation Models, and much more.

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.

There’s lots of weather apps out there, but Dumb Weather goes against the grain. Rather than overwhelming you with information, it focuses on the bare essentials and the key insights that you truly need to have a good overview of your day ahead.

Scoring a sweet Black Friday deal on a set of AirPods, the M4 MacBook Air you have had your eye on, an iPad, or even Apple’s new M5 MacBook Pro at $250 off is a relatively easy process – follow 9to5Toys. An iPhone though is a bit of a different beast, especially when it comes to unlocked units. There are some seriously great iPhone deals out there, and perhaps the best source of all is Amazon’s Renewed Premium listings – there are hundreds in savings available here with solid 1-year warranties on the best condition units, but there are few things to watch out for so you don’t get burned. 

One of my favorite iPhone features is StandBy, which turns your iPhone into a smart display when it’s in landscape orientation and charging. The best to take full advantage of StandBy is with an upright wireless charger.

Head below for a closer look at some of my favorite MagSafe stands for iPhone, perfect for StandBy. Even better, most of these are on massive deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping.

You can also keep up with all my favorite Apple gear at Best Buy.

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SupportApp has been one of my favorite free tools to recommend for IT teams who manage fleets of macOS devices. It gives IT teams easy access to the kind of system information that usually takes multiple steps to collect. With the new version 3.0, SupportApp undergoes a major redesign for macOS 26 (Liquid Glass), features improved accessibility, and introduces a new Configurator Mode that enables IT to build and test configurations directly within the app.

New court filings show that Elon Musk is seeking information from a mystery South Korean entity, as Apple and OpenAI receive a deadline extension. Here are the details.

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

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! 

Recently, Anker announced a new collaboration with Black Myth, and they’re slowly rolling out a number of limited-edition themed products around that. First of which is their 14-in-1 DL7400 desktop dock, which I’ll be going hands on with.

For Black Friday, you can save up to 30% on Anker’s DL7400 desktop dock – bringing it down to just $209.99 for the standard version and $271.99 for the flashier limited edition collab.

Last year, Apple opened up its MagSafe standard to the Wireless Power Consortium, allowing third party companies to officially utilize MagSafe – at up to 15W. Earlier this year, the standard expanded with Qi2.2, making 25W MagSafe charging available to third party manufacturers.

Many manufacturers have come to market with fantastic 25W Qi2.2 chargers, and this ESR model is one of them. For Black Friday, you can get this ESR 3-in-1 for just $89.99, making it one of the more affordable Qi2.2 options on the market.

Apple Vision Pro is nearly two years old, and through software and hardware upgrades, Apple recently brought major improvements to two core aspects of the product.

Aqara, a leading company in the smart home sector, has just unveiled its top deals for Black Friday this season. With these deals, you can save big on smart locks, doorbell cameras, and other essential smart home gear – all at a steep discount for the holiday season. These products are excellent for Apple fans who utilize HomeKit and Siri, though they also work with the Google Home and Amazon Alexa ecosystems.

Apple is once again stepping up to help victims of a tragic event, this time in Hong Kong. Here are the details.

(RED) confirmed today that Apple will donate $5 for every qualifying purchase made via Apple Pay through December 7. Here’s how you can contribute.

The start of a new year is fast approaching, and with it several rumored new MacBooks launching in early 2026. Here’s what’s coming.

Thanksgiving is incredibly late this year, so Christmas shopping is already in full swing. HomeKit accessories make great gifts for any Apple fan. They are usually low-cost and add real value to any smart home setup. For this week’s HomeKit Weekly, I have updated my HomeKit gift guide for 2025 to help you find the perfect addition for your favorite Apple smart home fan.

Benjamin and Chance give their opinion on the 2025 Apple holiday ad ‘A Critter Carol’, and talk about some of the Apple tech deals they’ve found this Black Friday. Also, there’s more clarity on the Apple Watch WiFi sync changes coming to the EU next month, and Google pulls off an impressive stunt to make AirDrop work on Android. Finally, Benjamin installed macOS Tahoe for the first time and has some thoughts to share.

And in Happy Hour Plus, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman delivers the first details about what to expect from iOS 27. Subscribe at 9to5mac.com/join. 

• 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!
• Sponsored by NordStellar: Protect your business today at nordstellar.com/happyhourand use code blackfriday20 to save 20%.
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This Black Friday, transform your home cleaning routine with Roborock’s best-selling vacuums at unbeatable prices. Whether you’re looking for cutting-edge robotic technology or powerful cordless convenience, Roborock has you covered with savings up to 50% across their entire lineup.

From pet-friendly models with zero-tangling technology to flagship vacuums featuring industry-first innovations, there’s a perfect solution for every home and budget, starting at just $199.99. Don’t miss these exclusive limited-time offers for 9to5Mac readers on the smart cleaning tools that will make your life easier all year long.

The iPhone Air was arguably the biggest innovation in iPhone design since the iPhone X. The iPhone Fold we’re expecting to see launch next year will be an even bigger shift.

All the signs point to the iPhone Fold being the best foldable smartphone launched to date, but there is one big problem with it – and it’s almost the obvious one …

Apple first launched HomeKit over a decade ago, but the smart home dream has remained a bit of a mess since then. Here’s why I’m hopeful that Apple Home will become what I always wanted this coming year.

This is it folks…Black Friday 2025 is here and so are the best prices of the year on just all of Apple’s latest and greatest. We have already collected an AirPods 4 with ANC, AirPods Pro 3, and AirPods Max, alongside a whole bunch more, but some brand new deals went live this morning. Firstly, Apple Watch Ultra 3. On the Mac side of things, the brand new M5 MacBook Pro has now dropped to new lows at $250 off and we have a wild $300 price drop on select M4 MacBook Air configs. But there’s tons more below. 

A new study by Apple researchers presents a method that lets an AI model learn one aspect of the structure of brain electrical activity without any annotated data. Here’s how.