MacRumors

Amazon today has the USB-C AirPods Max on sale for $399.99 in Starlight, down from $549.00. This is a match of the best price we've ever seen on the AirPods Max, and we expect more colors to match this price soon.

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.

Amazon is currently providing a delivery estimate around November 30 for free shipping options. Prime members in certain cities should be able to see same-day delivery options.

You can find all the Apple Black Friday Deals currently available in our dedicated post. For everything else, we're keeping track of the season's best Apple-related deals in our Black Friday roundup, so be sure to check back throughout the month for an updated list of all the most notable discounts you'll find for Black Friday 2025.

---

Well-known brands including Twelve South, Satechi, and more have introduced big discounts on Amazon for Black Friday this week. Below we've shared all the best deals you can find from these companies, with deals on everything from MacBook stands to MagSafe-compatible chargers, Bluetooth trackers, and robot vacuums.

Twelve South

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

Twelve South's big Black Friday sale kicked off this week on Amazon, and you can find the year's best prices on BookArc MacBook stands, wireless charging stations, AirFly, and more. Our pick of the sale is the HiRise 3 Deluxe Wireless Charging Station, which can simultaneously charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods, for $59.99, down from $149.99.

MacBook Stands

• BookArc Flex MacBook Stand (Black) - $19.99, down from $39.99
• BookArc Flex MacBook Stand (White) - $19.99, down from $39.99
• BookArc Flex MacBook Stand (Chrome) - $19.99, down from $36.58
• Curve Nano MagSafe Stand - $28.99, down from $34.99

Chargers

• HiRise 2 Deluxe Wireless Charging Station - $39.99, down from $59.99
• PowerBug Qi2 Magnetic Wireless Charger - $39.99, down from $49.99
• HiRise 3 Deluxe Wireless Charging Station - $59.99, down from $149.99
• Butterfly 2-in-1 Compact Foldable Wireless Charger - $69.99, down from $99.99

Miscellaneous

• PowerCord 30W USB-C Cable - $19.99, down from $29.99
• AirFly SE - $25.99, down from $39.99
• PlugBug 4-Port Hub - $69.99, down from $119.99

Satechi

• FindAll Keychain with Find My - $20.99, down from $29.99
• FindAll Wallet Card with Find My - $23.99, down from $34.99
• FindAll Luggage Tag with Find My - $30.99, down from $44.99
• FindAll Glasses Case with Find My - $33.59, down from $49.99

Jackery

• Explorer 1000 V2 Portable Power Station - $349.00, down from $499.00
• Explorer 2000 Plus Solar Generator - $1,999.00, down from $4,399.00
• Explorer 2000 Plus Kit - $2,998.00, down from $6,499.00

Ecovacs

• Deebot N30 Omni Robot Vacuum and Mop - $349.99, down from $699.99
• Deebot T30S Pro Robot Vacuum - $399.99, down from $1,099.99
• Deebot T50 Pro Omni Robot Vacuum - $499.99, down from $699.99
• Deebot X9 Pro Omni Robot Vacuum - $699.99, down from $1,299.99

Anker

Highlights of Anker's Black Friday sale on Amazon include the 10,000 mAh Magnetic Power Bank for $29.99 ($19 off) and the popular 60,000mAh Power Station with Smart Digital Display and Retractable Light for $79.98, down from $149.99.

• Nano USB-C 30W Foldable Charger - $11.19, down from $19.99
• 10,000 mAh Magnetic Power Bank - $29.99, down from $49.99
• Soundcore V40i Open-Ear Headphones - $39.99, down from $79.99
• MagGo UFO 3-in-1 Charger - $57.49, down from $89.99
• 10,000 mAh MagGo Qi2 Power Bank - $54.99, down from $89.99
• 140W 4-Port USB-C Charger - $59.99, down from $99.99
• Power Station with Lantern - $79.98, down from $149.99

You can find all the Apple Black Friday Deals currently available in our dedicated post. For everything else, we're keeping track of the season's best Apple-related deals in our Black Friday roundup, so be sure to check back throughout the month for an updated list of all the most notable discounts you'll find for Black Friday 2025.

---

Amazon is hosting numerous steep Black Friday discounts this week, including big markdowns on popular Apple accessories like the Apple Pencil Pro, AirTag, and iPhone 17 cases.

Apple Pencil Pro

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

Starting with the Apple Pencil Pro, this accessory just hit $94.99 on Amazon, down from $129.00. This beats the previous sale price by about $5 and is a new all-time low price.

AirTag

Amazon has Apple's AirTag 4-Pack for $64.98, down from $99.00. This is a match of the all-time low price on the accessory.

If you're shopping for just one AirTag, Amazon has the AirTag 1-Pack for $17.97, which is another all-time low price.

iPhone 17 Cases

Amazon this week has big discounts across Apple's Clear, Silicone, and TechWoven Cases for the iPhone 17 and iPhone Air lineup. Items on sale include Clear, Silicone, and TechWoven Cases for the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air.

iPhone Air

• Clear Case - $25.00, down from $49.00

iPhone 17

• Clear Case - $27.98, down from $49.00
• Silicone Case - $25.00, down from $49.00

iPhone 17 Pro

• Clear Case - $25.00, down from $49.00
• Silicone Case - $25.00, down from $49.00
• TechWoven Case - $44.00, down from $59.00

iPhone 17 Pro Max

• Clear Case - $25.00, down from $49.00
• Silicone Case - $25.00, down from $49.00
• TechWoven Case - $44.00, down from $59.00

You can find all the Apple Black Friday Deals currently available in our dedicated post. For everything else, we're keeping track of the season's best Apple-related deals in our Black Friday roundup, so be sure to check back throughout the month for an updated list of all the most notable discounts you'll find for Black Friday 2025.

---

Apple recently teamed up with Japanese fashion brand ISSEY MIYAKE to create the iPhone Pocket, a limited-edition knitted accessory designed to carry an iPhone. However, it is now completely sold out in all countries where it was released.

iPhone Pocket became available to order on Apple's online store starting Friday, November 14, in the United States, France, China, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. It quickly sold out in the United States, but some colors and size options were still available in South Korea and a few other countries until the past few days.

The accessory was offered in short and long sizes, in a variety of colors:

• Short: Lemon, Mandarin, Purple, Pink, Peacock, Sapphire, Cinnamon, and Black
• Long: Sapphire, Cinnamon, and Black

In the U.S., pricing ranged from $149.95 to $229.95.

iPhone Pocket is designed to be versatile. It can fully enclose an iPhone, but you can stretch it to peek at your screen and/or fit additional items. The accessory can be held in your hand, tied onto a bag, or worn directly on you.

Here is how Apple describes the iPhone Pocket:

Crafted in Japan, iPhone Pocket features a singular 3D-knitted construction that is the result of research and development carried out at ISSEY MIYAKE. The design drew inspiration from the concept of "a piece of cloth" and reinterpreted the everyday utility of the brand's iconic pleated clothing. The development and design of iPhone Pocket unfolded in close collaboration with the Apple Design Studio, which provided insight into design and production throughout.

Given it is a limited-edition accessory, it is unclear if there will ever be additional inventory of the iPhone Pocket now that it is fully sold out worldwide.

Apple's first foldable iPhone is expected to launch alongside the iPhone 18 Pro models in fall 2026, and it's shaping up to include three standout features that could set it apart from the competition.

The book-style foldable will reportedly feature an industry-first 24-megapixel under-display camera built into the inner display, according to a recent JP Morgan equity research report. That would be a major leap over existing Android foldables, which typically use lower-resolution under-screen cameras of 4 or 8 megapixels. If the leak is accurate, the quality bump suggests Apple has achieved a breakthrough in light transmittance and image clarity that has eluded other manufacturers.

As for the display itself, all the indications suggest Apple has solved "the crease problem" that has plagued most foldable smartphones. Apple is said to have worked intensively on the hinge and display to minimize creasing, and the latest report from Chinese site UDN claims the foldable iPhone will be the first crease-free foldable on the market.

On the battery front, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has said the device will use high-density battery cells, and Korean sources indicate Apple is testing capacities in the 5,400–5,800 mAh range, while Chinese leaker Instant Digital has today claimed the final capacity will "definitely" exceed 5,000 mAh. That means it could be the largest battery ever fitted to an iPhone, surpassing even the iPhone 17 Pro Max's 5,088 mAh cell.

For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 packs a 4,400 mAh battery, while the Google Pixel Fold achieves 4,821 mAh. The Honor Magic V5 manages 5,820 mAh using silicon-carbon technology, but the vivo X Fold 5 boasts 6,000 mAh, which is currently the largest in its class.

Multiple sources agree the foldable iPhone will include a 7.8-inch main display when unfolded, a 5.5-inch cover display, and Touch ID rather than Face ID. The device will feature four cameras in total: one front hole-punch camera, the aforementioned under-screen inner camera, and a dual-lens 48-megapixel rear system.

Multiple reports have suggested the foldable iPhone will be priced between $2,000 and $2,500 in the United States, which could make it the most expensive iPhone ever. Apple will allegedly call the device the "iPhone Fold," which is the name the media has already adopted when describing the product.

Amazon today has dropped the price of the new M5 MacBook Pro to $1,399.99, down from $1,599.00. This is the 10-Core model with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD in Space Black, and it's a new all-time low price on the M5 MacBook Pro.

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

You'll find $199-$200 discounts across every new M5 MacBook Pro on Amazon this week, including both 1TB models of the computer. The 16GB/1TB M5 MacBook Pro has hit $1,599.99 ($199 off) and the 24GB/1TB M5 MacBook Pro has hit $1,799.00 ($200 off). All of these represent new best-ever prices on each laptop.

This version of the MacBook Pro just launched last month and it comes with the newest M5 chip, which offers up to 15% faster CPU performance and up to 45% faster graphics when compared to the M4 chip. For the 512GB model, Amazon provides a November 30 estimated arrival date for free shipping without Prime.

You can find all the Apple Black Friday Deals currently available in our dedicated post. For everything else, we're keeping track of all of the season's best Apple-related deals in our Black Friday roundup, so be sure to check back throughout the month for an updated list of all the most notable discounts you'll find for Black Friday 2025.

---

As part of its Black Friday deals, Walmart is currently selling the five-year-old MacBook Air with the M1 chip for just $549 in the United States.

Walmart began selling the MacBook Air with the M1 chip for $699 in March 2024. The price later dropped to $649, then to $599, and now to $549.

Apple first released the MacBook Air with the M1 chip in November 2020, as one of the first Macs with an Apple silicon chip, instead of an Intel processor. The configuration being sold for $549 includes 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM, with Silver and Space Gray color options available. Gold is currently sold out.

These are new MacBook Air units — not refurbished or open box.

Apple discontinued the MacBook Air with the M1 chip last year, after it launched models with the M3 chip, and it has since updated the MacBook Air with the M4 chip. Prior to being discontinued, the model with the M1 chip was being sold for a starting price of $999 brand new, but Amazon sometimes offered it on sale for $899 or less.

While the MacBook Air with the M1 chip is five years old, it is still a capable machine for many average day-to-day tasks. However, it has an older design, and it is the oldest MacBook Air model compatible with the current macOS 26 (aka macOS Tahoe) operating system, so there is a chance that it will not support macOS 27 next year.

Singapore has ordered Apple to block or filter messages on iMessage that impersonate government agencies, requiring the company to implement new anti-spoofing protections by December as part of efforts to curb rising online scams, the Straits Times reports.

Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said that it had issued an Implementation Directive to Apple under the Online Criminal Harms Act, instructing the company to prevent iMessage accounts and group chats from using names that mimic Singapore government agencies or the "gov.sg" sender ID. The directive also applies to Google Messages, with both companies required to comply by November 30.

MHA said the order was necessary because iMessage does not currently support the safeguards built into Singapore's registered SMS sender ID system. Since July 2024, legitimate messages sent by Singapore government agencies through traditional SMS channels have used the "gov.sg" sender ID to help the public verify authenticity.

Messages sent via iMessage, however, do not pass through the same ID registry and therefore allow scammers to present themselves using identical or near-identical identifiers. The ministry cited more than 120 police reports in which scammers impersonated registered sender IDs.

As part of the directive, Apple must now ensure that profile names of unknown iMessage senders are either not displayed or are shown less prominently than the phone numbers associated with the account. Authorities said this requirement is intended to give users a clearer view of the identity information least susceptible to manipulation. Messages or group chats that appear to spoof government identifiers must either be blocked entirely or filtered so that recipients do not see them.

Apple's compliance will require changes to iMessage's display logic and name-handling behavior in Singapore, creating an exception to the platform's long-standing reliance on unverified user-defined sender names in one-to-one and group messaging threads. iMessage does not currently use a sender ID registry or external name verification scheme, and the new rules mark one of the first instances of a government requiring compulsory filtering for specific categories of display names within Apple's messaging ecosystem.

The MHA said Apple and Google have indicated that they will comply with the directive. If they fail to implement the mandated controls, the companies could face penalties.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Spotify will raise subscription prices for users in the United States in the first quarter of next year, according to the Financial Times, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The report links pressure from major record labels on both Spotify and Apple Music to raise subscription prices. They argue prices have lagged inflation, while subscriptions remain cheap compared to video services such as Netflix.

Wall Street analysts say the price increase is critical to Spotify's stock, as the company pushes to show profitability. JPMorgan analysts have projected a $1-a-month price rise would boost Spotify's annual revenue by $500 million.

Spotify recently raised prices in multiple countries across South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region. The company has not raised prices in the U.S. since July 2024.

A Spotify subscription costs $11.99 a month in the U.S., compared with $9.99 when it launched in the country 14 years ago. Spotify currently costs $1-a-month more than Apple Music for individual plans.

Huawei's just-announced Mate 80 lineup is attracting attention in China today thanks to a display spec that easily sees off the competition in the premium smartphone segment.

The company claims the OLED panels in its latest phones can reach up to 8,000 nits of peak brightness – a figure that, if independently verified, would make the Mate 80 series the brightest smartphones on the market.

Huawei says all four models – the Mate 80, Mate 80 Pro, Mate 80 Pro Max, and Mate 80 RS – achieve unmatched peak output, but the Pro Max uses a dual-layer OLED design to push 8,000 nits brightness, with superior efficiency and better thermal handling.

The claim positions Huawei well ahead of Apple's latest iPhone 17 models, which top out at 3,000 nits peak outdoor brightness and 1,600 nits HDR peak.

On paper, there's a yawning gap between the figures, but how they're measured is the key. Huawei hasn't said what testing conditions underlie its 8,000-nit claim, and peak brightness metrics often apply only to small portions of the display for very brief moments.

By contrast, Apple says its iPhone 17 models achieve a "typical" max brightness of 1,000 nits, while the other specifications describe sustained outdoor or HDR behaviour. That makes direct comparisons difficult until reviewers can test the Mate 80 displays in controlled conditions.

There are also practical questions surrounding Huawei's figures. Real-world visibility isn't just about peak output – it depends on factors such as viewing angle, reflectivity, contrast, and colour accuracy.

If Huawei's numbers hold up under testing, the Mate 80 series could signal another leap in smartphone display performance. For now, the claims highlight how aggressively some manufacturers are pushing OLED panel brightness as a key differentiator.

Other notable specs in the Mate 80 series include high-end camera systems with variable-aperture main sensors and multiple telephoto lenses, RAM options reaching 20GB on the top models, and large batteries up to 6,000 mAh paired with fast wired and wireless charging.

The Mate 80 Pro Max starts at CNY 7,999 (about $1,127) in China, while the top-tier Mate 80 RS Master Edition comes in at CNY 11,999 (about $1,683). The prices place the highest-end models firmly in flagship territory, even before considering storage upgrades.

Poland's antitrust regulator is investigating whether Apple is restricting competition in the mobile ads market through its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework, reports Reuters.

Introduced in April 2021 with the release of iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5, Apple's ATT framework requires that all apps on ‌iPhone‌ and ‌iPad‌ ask for the user's consent before tracking their activity across other apps. Apps that wish to track a user based on their device's unique advertising identifier can only do so if the user allows it when prompted.

Apple said the feature was designed to protect users and not to advantage the company. It has been unsurprisingly unpopular with advertisers and data brokers.

Poland's anti-monopoly office, UOKiK, suspects that Apple's ATT framework could be favoring the company's own ads service by limiting the ability of third-party apps to collect user data for personalized ads.

"We suspect that the ATT policy may have misled users about the level of privacy protection while simultaneously increasing Apple’s competitive advantage over independent publishers," UOKiK President Tomasz Chrostny was quoted as saying in a statement. "Such practices may constitute an abuse of dominant position."

If the regulator finds its suspicions to be warranted, Apple could face a fine of up to 10% of its annual turnover in Poland.

In an emailed statement to Reuters, Apple said:

"It is no surprise that the data tracking industry continues to oppose our efforts to give users back control over their data, and now intense pressure could force us to withdraw this feature, to the detriment of European consumers."

"We will work with the Polish competition authority to ensure Apple can continue to offer users this valuable privacy tool."

Regulators in Germany, Italy, and Romania have opened similar probes to examine whether the privacy feature violates competition rules by impeding access to essential data for advertising while reinforcing Apple's own position in the digital ad market.

In March, Apple was fined €150 million ($162 million) by France's Competition Authority over the framework's implementation.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Encrypted messaging platform Signal now offers secure backups on iPhone, letting users save and restore messages if they lose access to their device.

There are free and paid versions of Signal's secure backups. The free version lets users store up to 100MB of text messages, including photos, videos, and files from the last 45 days.

The paid version costs $1.99 per month and can back up all text messages, along with up to 100GB of media which can be older than 45 days.

The end-to-end encrypted backups can be accessed using a 64-character recovery key generated by the user's device, but keeping the key safe is crucial – if it's lost, Signal can't help users recover their backups.

Enabling secure backups in the Signal app is straightforward: Open the Settings menu and select Backups, then tap Setup ➝ Enable Backups. After a recovery key is generated, users can choose a free or paid plan.

Secure backups first came to Android in September. Signal says it plans to bring secure backups to its desktop app, and its longer term goal is to allow users to transfer message history between Android, iPhone, and desktop apps.

Amazon has dropped the price of the AirPods 4 to $69.00 for Black Friday, from $129.00. This is now a new all-time low price on the earbuds, beating the previous low price on Amazon by about $10.

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

This is the AirPods 4 model without Active Noise Cancellation, but if you're looking for the device with ANC you can find it on Amazon for $99.99, down from $179.00, another record low price.

You can find all the Apple Black Friday Deals currently available in our dedicated post. For everything else, we're keeping track of the season's best Apple-related deals in our Black Friday roundup, so be sure to check back throughout the month for an updated list of all the most notable discounts you'll find for Black Friday 2025.

---

Apple's foldable iPhone could be priced at $2,399, according to an estimate shared by analyst Arthur Liao at Fubon Research. There have been a range of price estimates, from as low as $1,800 to as high as $2,500, and the latest estimate falls on the higher side.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo previously said he expects the ‌iPhone‌ Fold to cost between $2,000 and $2,500, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman expects it to be somewhere around $2,000.

The foldable ‌iPhone‌ will be expensive because of the premium components that Apple plans to use. The display panel and hinge will push pricing toward the upper end of market expectations, Fubon Research suggests.

Demand for the device will depend on the price that Apple sets, but Fubon believes that Apple could sell around 5.4 million units in 2026. Global smartphone demand could fall during the year, and foldables will be the "only spotlight" in the 2026 smartphone market.

The report says that Apple is also working on camera upgrades for 2026, with the first variable aperture lens planned for the iPhone 18 Pro models. It doesn't sound like the ‌iPhone‌ Fold will get the variable aperture lens that Apple is developing, but rumors indicate it will have a dual-lens rear camera setup with Wide and Ultra Wide lenses along with two front cameras.

Anthropic today announced the launch of Claude Opus 4.5, which it says is the "best model in the world for coding, agents, and computer use." It's improved over prior models for everyday tasks like deep research, and it is a "step forward in what AI systems can do."

According to feedback Anthropic received from early testers, Claude Opus 4.5 can complete tasks that were impossible for Sonnet 4.5, and that it is able to handle ambiguity and reason about tradeoffs without hand-holding. The Opus 4.5 model offers better vision, reasoning, mathematics skills, and coding than prior versions of Claude.

Along with the Opus update, Anthropic is updating its apps, the Claude Developer Platform, and Claude Code. There are tools for longer-running agents, and options to use Claude in Excel, Chrome, and on the desktop.

In the Claude apps, users will no longer run into limits during a long conversation. Claude is able to automatically summarize earlier context, which means the conversation can keep going endlessly. Claude for Chrome is available to all Max users, and Claude for Excel beta access is now available to all Max, Team, and Enterprise users.

Claude Code is now available in the desktop app, and with Opus 4.5, it is able to build more precise plans and execute them more thoroughly. Claude is able to ask clarifying questions upfront and then build a user-editable plan before executing.

Claude Opus 4.5 is available today across Anthropic's apps and its API. Opus-specific caps have been removed for Claude and Claude Code users with access to Opus 4.5, and for Max and Team Premium members, overall usage limits have increased.

OpenAI today added a new shopping research feature to ChatGPT, which is meant to help you find the right products for everything from simple household products to gifts.

You can tell ChatGPT what you're looking for, and shopping research will build a guide to help you make decisions on what to purchase. OpenAI says that it will ask smart clarifying questions, research deeply across the internet, review quality sources, and use context from prior conversations to build a personalized buyer's guide that's up-to-date.

It is built to perform particularly well in detail-heavy categories like electronics, beauty, home and garden, kitchen and appliances, and sports and outdoor. The research feature includes comparisons, constraints, tradeoffs, and more for product selections.

ChatGPT will suggest shopping research automatically when you ask it a shopping-related question, but you can also select "shopping research" from the "+" menu. When a research session has begun, ChatGPT will open a visual interface where you can share feedback to guide the research, providing feedback on what you're interested in.

You'll need to click through to a retailer's site to make a purchase, but eventually, ChatGPT will be able to make automatic purchases through ChatGPT when shopping from merchants that are part of Instant Checkout.

Shopping research is rolling out for logged-in ChatGPT users on Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans, and to simplify holiday shopping, OpenAI is making "nearly unlimited usage" available.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and io Products creator Jony Ive forged a friendship that led to OpenAI's acquisition of io, and subsequently, an AI-based hardware product that both Altman and Ive believe is a reimagination of what it means to use a computer.

The duo recently did an interview with Emerson Collective founder Laurene Powell Jobs, providing insight into what they're working on. There's now an established hardware prototype, and while Altman and Ive didn't explain what it is in plain language, the interview has hints of its design and functionality.

Here are several ways that Altman and Ive described their AI hardware device:

• It breaks the constraints of the "same kind of computer that we've been using for a long time."
• Research started with a question about what it means that the device "is going to be able to know everything you've ever thought about, read, said?"
• It will be a "sort of active participant" that's proactive in "a not annoying way."
• Current devices and apps are like "walking through Times Square in New York" with flashing lights, crowds of people, noises, etc. It "doesn't make our lives peaceful and calm" or let us "focus on other stuff," which is what Ive and Altman wanted to address.
• If you have an AI that you trust to do things for you and filter things out with "incredible contextual awareness of your whole life," then you can go for a vibe that's not walking through Times Square.
• Ive and Altman's device aims to bring some of the spirit of "sitting in the most beautiful cabin by a lake and in the mountains and just sort of enjoying the peace and calm."
• Ive said he prefers solutions that "teeter on appearing almost naive in their simplicity and their feel."
• He also likes "incredibly intelligent, sophisticated products that you want to touch" and use "almost carelessly."
• Ive told Altman that the design is right when you "want to lick it or take a bite out of it," and with the current prototype, Altman got that feeling.
• "The degree to which Jony chipped away at every little thing that this doesn't need to do or that doesn't need to be there is remarkable."
• "There's something about when a design gets like so simple and beautiful. And playful, for lack of a better word." There aren't a lot of products with "humor" in "this area" and there is a desire "not to take ourselves quite so seriously even though these are serious times."
• Altman said that early on, Jony said "we are going to make people smile. We're going to make people feel joy. Whatever the product does, it has to do that." Altman said it's "lovely" to "have some whimsy back."
• The prototypes are "jaw-droppingly good" and "exciting."

Rumors have described the device that io is working on as an AI phone without a screen, a "third core device" after a MacBook and an iPhone that's unobtrusive and able to sit in a pocket or on a desk, an iPod Shuffle-sized device that's neck worn, and a pocket-sized gadget that's screen-free but contextually aware of your life with microphones and cameras. It is not any kind of wearable like glasses, a watch, or earbuds.

Ive and Altman expect to have a device ready to hit the market in less than two years from now. The full interview with Altman and Ive is worth watching to see the commentary in context.

Apple is making cuts and has laid off dozens of people in sales roles, reports Bloomberg. Apple is aiming to simplify the way that it sells products to businesses, schools, and governments.

Affected employees received notice over the past couple of weeks, and positions eliminated include account managers for large businesses, schools, and government agencies, plus staff at Apple's briefing centers for major customers. Employees were reportedly surprised by the layoffs, but they are able to apply for other positions within Apple.

Apple told Bloomberg that it is making changes in its sales team to better connect with customers.

To connect with even more customers, we are making some changes in our sales team that affect a small number of roles. We are continuing to hire and those employees can apply for new roles.

While Apple says it is restructuring some of the sales team, affected employees apparently believe that Apple wants to move more sales to third-party retailers. Pushing sales through retailers allows Apple to save money by cutting salary costs.

Apple is giving employees over a month to find a new role. Those who haven't gotten another position in the company by January 20 will receive a severance package.