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.
Sofa is an easy-to-use app that helps keep you organized when you don’t have something to do. Everyone has some level of downtime, but often don’t plan things out. Social media doomscrolling is often an option, but Sofa helps you plan out other leisure activities. In its new update, it also added a built-in podcast player.
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According to Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter, the iPhone 17 Pro design might not necessarily be a gigantic year over year leap. Early iPhone 17 Pro rumors suggested the possibility of a more drastic design change, whereas now it’ll be far more similar to last years design, apparently.
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According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple will no longer be launching its rumored smart home hub this year. This is due to all of the delays with Apple Intelligence Siri, and Apple reportedly is considering delaying the launch until sometime in 2026 until some of the engineering challenges are figured out.
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According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is preparing a ‘major shake-up’ for the 20th anniversary of the iPhone next year. One of the changes includes introducing a foldable iPhone for the first time, but the company is reportedly planning a ‘bold new Pro model.’
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Last week, the Trump administration announced an extreme tariff plan on essentially every other nation in the world. This would make imports far more costly, and as a result, Apple’s stock fell nearly 10% on the news. Given the fact that everything about Apple’s supply chain relies on strategic overseas manufacturing, this is awful news for the company.
However, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman lays out some ideas on how Apple could mitigate these tariffs.
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There has been a lot of speculation about how high Apple might raise iPhone prices in response to Trump’s tariffs. A new report from The Wall Street Journal, however, offers the most realistic look yet at what it currently costs Apple to make the iPhone 16 Pro and how that could change thanks to Trump’s tariffs.
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The UK won’t be able to keep its fight with Apple over end-to-end encryption secret after all. As reported by the BBC, tribunal judges on Monday rejected the government’s request to keep details of the battle private, saying: “It would have been a truly extraordinary step to conduct a hearing entirely in secret without any public revelation of the fact that a hearing was taking place.”
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Longtime Apple design head Jony Ive has largely avoided creating new tech devices since starting his own firm, LoveFrom. But early details on Ive’s new “personalized AI device” have revealed the designer could be treading familiar territory in his partnership with OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
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Last month, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he had been accidentally included in a government group chat where confidential war plans were shared. US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was the one who added Goldberg, but he blamed the number getting “sucked in” by his phone. Now, a new report at The Guardian explains how an iOS feature played a key role in the whole mess.
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We are ready to kick-off the week in Apple deals starting with a couple offers that hit over the weekend on M4 iPad Pro Magic Keyboards and the return of $100 price drops on upgraded M4 Mac mini configs, including both 16GB and 24GB models. Next up we have the black titanium Apple Watch Ultra 2 that is now as much as $170 off, with Best Buy open-box listings including full warranties starting from $629, alongside $100 off brand-new Apple Watch Series 10 models, new lows on select M3 iPad Air configs, and the first chance to save on the new Powerbeats Pro 2. All of that and more awaits below in today’s 9to5Toys Lunch Break.
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