A new Apple Manufacturing Academy has been announced by the company, launching in Detroit on August 19. The iPhone maker says it will offer free training in “smart manufacturing” for small and medium businesses from across the country.

The initiative is working in partnership with Michigan State University, and will include Apple engineers among the trainers …

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Back-to-school time always brings some of the best deals on laptops, and this year is no exception. Amazon is offering insane deals on both the entry-level and the baseline M4 MacBook Pro ($1299). While my gut reaction is in awe at how much power and value you get from the at $799, after I stopped to think about it, the M4 MacBook Pro at $1299 could actually be the best bang for buck computer out on the market, but is it worth the $500 price difference?

That is what I wanted to break down in this post. Both are exceptional values, but what exactly are you getting from the MacBook Pro that justifies the extra $500? Let’s get into it.

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Today we're tracking a collection of discounts on Apple's M4 MacBook Pro at Amazon, including as much as $437 off select models of the computer. Most of these deals represent new all-time low prices on each model, and Best Buy is matching them in many cases.

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

Deals include both 14-inch and 16-inch models, and the most notable deals this time around are on the former group. You can get the entry-level 16GB RAM/512GB 14-inch MacBook Pro for $1,299.00, down from $1,599.00. This represents a new record low price on the model, and both M4 1TB models are also seeing new best-ever prices at $300 off during this sale.



For the 16-inch models, you'll find the steepest deals on these computers on Amazon this week. The biggest discount is on the high-end M4 Max 48GB RAM/1TB 16-inch MacBook Pro, available for $3,561.34, down from $3,999.00. Don't forget that if you prefer to shop at Best Buy, you can find many of these MacBook Pro discounts at the retailer this week.

14-inch MacBook Pro

• M4 10-Core/16GB RAM/512GB - $1,299.00 ($300 off)


• M4 10-Core/16GB RAM/1TB - $1,499.00 ($300 off)


• M4 10-Core/24GB RAM/1TB - $1,699.00 ($300 off)


• M4 Pro 12-Core/24GB RAM/512GB - $1,785.07 ($214 off)


• M4 Pro 14-Core/24GB RAM/1TB - $2,138.89 ($261 off)


• M4 Max 14-Core/36GB RAM/1TB - $2,848.04 ($351 off)

16-inch MacBook Pro

• M4 Pro 14-Core/24GB RAM/512GB - $2,234.51 ($265 off)


• M4 Pro 14-Core/48GB RAM/512GB - $2,588.33 ($311 off)


• M4 Max 14-Core/36GB RAM/1TB - $3,119.00 ($380 off)


• M4 Max 16-Core/48GB RAM/1TB - $3,561.34 ($437 off)

Keep up with all of this week's best discounts on Apple products and related accessories in our dedicated Apple Deals roundup.

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This article, "Apple's M4 MacBook Pro Gets New All-Time Low Prices on Amazon" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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With worldwide government regulations increasingly cracking down on what content is available, and various streaming services increasingly locking content behind geographic paywalls, more and more people are turning to VPNs.

Setting up a VPN used to be complicated, but in the last decade, the process has become incredibly streamlined. Here’s how to set up and use a VPN on your iPhone.

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Apple is teaming up with Michigan State University to host an Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit, Michigan, on August 19-20.


Apple engineers and Michigan State University experts will consult with small- and medium-sized businesses on how they can implement AI and other technologies to enhance manufacturing, according to Apple's announcement today.

The sessions will focus on machine learning, automation, and more.

"Apple works with suppliers in all 50 states because we know advanced manufacturing is vital to American innovation and leadership," said Apple's COO Sabih Khan. "With this new programming, we're thrilled to help even more businesses implement smart manufacturing so they can unlock amazing opportunities for their companies and our country."

Apple says this two-day initiative is part of the company's pledge to spend more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years.

Businesses can sign up for the courses on Michigan State University's website.
This article, "Apple Hosting Two-Day Manufacturing Academy in Detroit Next Month" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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One of the most popular uses for the Cash App is collecting payments from groups of friends, whether that’s an immediate need like paying a restaurant bill or a future one, like collecting money for a shared gift.

The company has today announced a new feature which lets you ask friends to contribute to a money pool even if they don’t use the app …

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With its new partnership, Germany-based Bragi will let third-party headphone and other audio product makers integrate a GPT-based assistant, accessible via a button press or wake word. Here are the details.

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India has overtaken China as the leading manufacturer of smartphones shipped to the United States, a change largely driven by Apple, according to Canalys.


New data from Canalys shows that iPhone shipments to the United States fell 11% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2025, as the company accelerated a major supply chain shift to India amid persistent trade tensions with China; Apple shipped 13.3 million iPhones to the U.S. between April and June, down from 14.9 million units in the same period last year.

The decline follows a strong first quarter in which Apple saw a 25% year-over-year shipment increase, partly attributed to early consumer purchases ahead of anticipated tariffs. Canalys attributes the second-quarter decline to a combination of frontloaded demand, rising economic pressure on consumers, and increased competition in the low- and mid-range segments of the market.

Despite the drop in shipments, Apple remained the leading smartphone vendor in the U.S. in the second quarter of 2025, holding a 49% market share. This still represents a 7% decline from the 56% share recorded in the second quarter of 2024. Meanwhile, Samsung obtained 38% year-over-year growth, reaching 8.3 million units shipped and expanding its market share from 23% to 31%.

The share of U.S. smartphone shipments assembled in China dropped from 61% in the second quarter of 2024 to 25% in the second quarter of 2025. India now accounts for 44% of U.S. smartphone imports, up from just 13% a year ago. This marks the first time India has overtaken China as the leading manufacturing hub for smartphones shipped to the United States.

India became the leading manufacturing hub for smartphones sold in the U.S. for the very first time in Q2 2025, largely driven by Apple's accelerated supply chain shift to India amid an uncertain trade landscape between the U.S. and China. Apple has scaled up its production capacity in India over the last several years as a part of its 'China Plus One' strategy and has opted to dedicate most of its export capacity in India to supply the U.S. market so far in 2025.

Apple began assembling iPhone 16 Pro models in India during the quarter, marking a significant expansion of the company's operations in the country. Nevertheless, the company continues to rely on manufacturing facilities in China to meet the full scale of U.S. demand for Pro models.

The shift is part of Apple's broader effort to mitigate risk from U.S.-China trade tensions and reduce dependence on a single country for production. Apple also continued to frontload inventories in the second quarter to prepare for potential tariffs later in 2025.

Apple built up its inventories rapidly toward the end of Q1 and sought to maintain this level in Q2. Yet, the market only grew 1% despite vendors frontloading inventory, indicating tepid demand in an increasingly pressured economic environment and a widening gap between sell-in and sell-through.

The 1% overall market growth in U.S. smartphone shipments in the second quarter suggests that consumer appetite for new smartphones remains subdued. Apple is expected to report earnings on July 31.
This article, "iPhone Helps India Overtake China as the Leading Manufacturer for U.S. Smartphones" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Spotify has posted its latest earnings report, stating that both paid and free users were up more than 10% year-on-year, but the company returned to making a loss …

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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, Sergio Sousa and Alcyr Araujo join the show to discuss the challenges small businesses face with access control and management for apps and services, and why they launched AccessMule.

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Two major security vulnerabilities in the Tea app – which claims to make dating safer for women – have exposed the private chats and personal data of at least tens of thousands of users.

The app, designed to allow women to share “red flags” for men they had dated, claimed four million active users after it hit the top slot in the App Store last week …

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In a first in the country, Apple has confirmed that it will close its Parkland Mall store in Dalian City, Northeast China, on August 9. Here are the details.

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Yesterday we learned about three new potential iPhone 17 Pro camera features. Today a test unit was possibly spotted in the wild — potentially showing us the first glimpse at one of those rumored features.

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9to5Mac is brought to you by Incogni: Protect your personal info from prying eyes. With Incogni, you can scrub your deeply sensitive information from data brokers across the web, including people search sites. Incogni limits your phone number, address, email, SSN, and more from circulating. Fight back against unwanted data brokers with a 30-day money back guarantee.

Apple has a reputation for prioritizing the privacy of its customers, and that commitment begins right at the chip design level.

Here’s a look at the eight layers of Apple security protecting the personal data stored on both your Apple devices and in iCloud …

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While the iPhone 17 Pro is not expected to launch until September, a prototype of the device has potentially been spotted in the wild. However, the mysterious device could be just about anything, so this might simply be a false alarm.


X account @Skyfops today shared two somewhat blurry photos of the mysterious device. The post was later shared by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

"I just spotted a test development iPhone in the wild," the post said.


Everything that we have wrote below is purely speculation.

In one of the photos, a person wearing reflective sunglasses can be seen holding what appears to be an iPhone inside of a thick black protective case, which might be intended to disguise the design of the iPhone 17 Pro in public. They are also holding what appears to be an iPhone 16 Pro with a sticker on the back of it, which could be hiding a data matrix code that allows Apple to track internal iPhones used by employees for development purposes.

What might make the disguised device an iPhone 17 Pro? Well, rumors indicate that the back of the device will have a rectangular camera bump, with the LED flash, rear microphone, and LiDAR Scanner expected to be vertically aligned on the right side of the bump. And in the photo, the back of the device seems to have circular openings in the top-right corner for what could be the LED flash and LiDAR Scanner. Your guess is as good as ours, though.

Gurman seems to think the photos might be the real deal. "This looks legit," he said. Or maybe he's just being sarcastic. Who knows.

Adding to the intrigue, @Skyfops said "the guy on the right was security and trying to go in front of the iPhone to hide it." Allegedly!

The user is located in Los Angeles, according to the account's bio.

Even if this really was an iPhone 17 Pro prototype in the wild, these photos do not really show anything that is not already rumored. But who doesn't love an old-school 2010-era rumor in mid-summer, as we count down the days to Apple's announcement?
This article, "iPhone 17 Pro Spotted in the Wild?" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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iOS 26 adds a new opt-in filtering system to the Messages app that tucks away messages from “Unknown Senders” into a separate tab.

Punchbowl News (via Daring Fireball and Political Wire) reports that Republicans in Washington, D.C. are already freaking out about the fundraising implications of this new feature, warning that it “could cost them $25 million in fundraising revenue.”

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Today, Anker announced three new products for its Anker Nano lineup of charging gear. It announced a new power bank, a new 7-in-1 charging station, and a new MagSafe/Qi2 battery – the last of which is certainly impressive. I’ve had the products for a couple days now, and I’ll be providing some quick impressions.

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EssilorLuxottica, Meta’s partner in the smart glasses market and owner of brands such as Ray-Ban and Oakley, just reported stronger-than-expected quarterly revenue, driven in part by rising demand for the Ray-Ban Meta. Here’s the breakdown.

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Here’s one to take with a grain of salt: earlier today, user Fox Puppy on X published a couple of photos that supposedly show someone filming an iPhone 17 Pro on the street, using an iPhone 16 Pro that, for some reason, has its Apple logo covered.

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iOS 26 is the next major iPhone update, packing big updates for Apple Wallet, CarPlay, Apple Music, and a variety of new features for the Messages app too. Here’s what’s coming to your iPhone later this year.

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After a short beta period, Jack Dorsey’s new Bluetooth messaging app has officially launched on the App Store. Here’s how it works.

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‘Pluribus’ is the newly-revealed, cryptic new series from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. Here’s everything we know about Pluribus so far, including Apple TV+ release date, cast, plot summary, and more.

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Just hours after we published a long list of Apple Stores that are opening or closing this year, Apple has announced one more.


Apple Shadyside in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania will be on the move next month, with the store set to relocate from 5508 Walnut Street to 5436 Walnut Street. The new store is in a two-floor unit that was previously occupied by clothing brand Gap. Apple has completed extensive renovations to the unit, which has an all-new facade.

The new store will be holding its grand opening on Saturday, August 9 at 10 a.m. local time, according to Apple's website. It is located just west of Bellefonte Street, just steps away from Apple's existing store on Walnut Street.

The new store is significantly larger than the original Apple Shadyside, which will be closing as part of the shuffle. It will have an updated design, which typically includes an Apple Pickup station for in-store pickup of online orders, and often a Genius Bar with varied table and seat heights for improved accessibility. Apple's newer stores also use more engineered wood, whereas classic stores made extensive use of stainless steel.

Apple Shadyside first opened in September 2004, so the company has already been doing business on Walnut Street for more than 20 years.

Thanks, Jordan Leven!
This article, "Apple Store in Pittsburgh Moving Next Month" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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In an interesting report out today, Canalys says that while the US smartphone market barely moved in total shipments during Q2 2025, Samsung and India saw huge growth, while Apple saw a rare double-digit dip. Here are the details.

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