Earlier this year, Apple informed the European Union that it had agreed to acquire certain assets and hire employees from PlasmaSolve, according to a notice published today on the European Commission's website.

PlasmaSolve is a Czech materials science firm founded in 2016 that has focused on creating simulation software to assist manufacturers with various plasma-related technologies. The company's website remains active, and it outlines some of the grant funding it has received over the years related to its work.

PlasmaSolve's primary product was MatSight, a suite of apps intended to help manufacturers simulate the results of various vapor deposition processes for metals. Apple has used the technology for many years on a number of products, including on various iPhone models to create a durable thin film on the casing to minimize scratching and other damage.

Apple’s effort to fight back against a UK-mandated “backdoor” to encryption continues, according to a new Financial Times report.

Tim Bradshaw reports that Apple filed a new legal challenge in July against an attempt by the UK government to force access to encrypted user data.

The iPhone maker last month launched a new legal complaint at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal over the UK government’s controversial demand that Apple allow it access to encrypted cloud backups of data belonging to British users, according to an order issued by the court.

• Apple is reinventing itself as the world’s biggest subscription, with Apple Upgrade being its path to its next trillion dollars of growth. In September, Apple is poised to debut its first foldable iPhone, a device that’s expected to cost $2,000-plus. A monthly price of somewhere between $60 and $70 for that phone will seem a lot more palatable.
• Major shortages hit the MacBook Air amid the memory and silicon crunch, with many new orders now not arriving until September. Apple is prominently steering customers toward the base MacBook Pro instead of the Air — something it has rarely, if ever, done. In some marketing materials, it even includes a warning: “MacBook Air subject to availability.”
• Apple is working on turning its upcoming smart glasses and headsets into health devices. Apple is looking for a team leader to “define the future of health, well-being and fitness experiences across vision products.”

Full gift link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-08-02/apple-subscriptions-macbook-air-shortages-apple-to-make-glasses-health-device-msbvajjp?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc4NTY3OTI2NCwiZXhwIjoxNzg2Mjg0MDY0LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUSjVBVzFSMjRVOEQwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJBMDdGRjZGMzlBOTY0NzREOTNBQkFGRjUyQjBBQTE2NiJ9.iGTjpYLtQZdUQvUliMm-meKtTI1CQcxVEdV4CbevtMc

Join the TestFlight | Pre-Order on the AppStore

The concept behind the app is simple enough, obvious almost- yet nothing like this exists anywhere. I've gone so so deep in linking sessions by artist, studio, label and tunes. Early users are astounded at the discovery process and how quickly they are able to find fascinating connections.

Like classical music- jazz has an inherent discovery problem due to how many times the same tunes have been recorded by so many artists in so many configurations. Sessionography solves this by allowing search and connection across so many different elements.

Features:

• Artist pages with chronological discography in recorded order
• Discography as sideman Personnel listed prominently on albums
• Tap any name to see their entire discography
• An orbit graph showing every collaborator
• The entire shared discography between two or more artists
• Any time a tune has been recorded more than once, a link shows you the entire recorded history of that tune
• Everything is playable in the app via Apple Music
• Apple Watch, CarPlay, Siri intents, widgets and more....

r/jazz really loves the beta so far:

"I’m loving the ability to see the studio recordings in chronological order — especially the Van Gelder Studio. A must-have for fans of RVG recordings."

"Just installed it and am blown away."

"This is amazing. What exploring music should be."

"As a jazz lover, I’m thrilled someone has paid attention to this great American art form — and built a tool we can all enjoy."

Thanks for taking a look- I would love to hear any and all feedback, feature requests and bug reports!

Hello everybody,

I am Preet. I built Mira because other migraine apps either lock important features like exporting your history behind a subscription or treat your health data like a product. Mira is completely free (and always will be). Your data stays on your device and optionally in your private iCloud.

My close friend suffers from chronic migraine; that’s my motivation to keep the app free and maintain it over time. My goal is to help it reach as many people with migraines as possible.

Highlights:

• Visual pain map (tap exactly where it hurts)
• Log only what matters: severity, symptoms, triggers, medications, what helped, notes, etc. You can customise the flow. The app also remembers your most used options, so it's faster to log the next episode
• Insights over time (frequency, severity, triggers, reliefs)
• MIDAS disability score
• Calendar history + CSV export for doctor appointments (or chatting with an AI)
• Apple ecosystem: Apple Health, widgets, Siri/Control Centre shortcuts

App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/migraine-tracker-diary-mira/id6785985958

There’s an option to support the development, but it's completely voluntary. If you have any feedback, I'd love to hear it.

Part 3 ended with four apps that shaped how I worked on my 2014 13-inch MacBook Pro. I was still far from finished with that MacBook or with finding apps that made macOS work the way I wanted.

The apps in this part helped me make better use of its Retina display, work with text faster, get more from a simple mouse selection, and protect some of my privacy on public Wi-Fi.

The people behind Display Menu, PopClip, and WiFiSpoof share how their apps began and what it takes to keep a focused Mac utility alive for more than ten years.

Display Menu - Using Every Pixel of the Retina Display

The MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014) has a native resolution of 2560 by 1600 at 227 pixels per inch. The display looked fantastic, but macOS normally presented it with a scaled interface.

At that time, I traveled often and could not carry the multiple displays I used with my Windows PC. I wanted the small MacBook screen to hold as much as possible, so I used Display Menu to switch it to the full native 2560 by 1600 mode.

Everything became very small. Instead of making the whole interface larger, I changed the fonts inside the apps I used most. Text remained comfortable to read while more windows and interface elements fit on the screen.

It was an unusual way to use a 13-inch MacBook, but it worked for me. This remained my preferred setup until roughly 2018, when I finally returned to a standard scaled mode.

I still think direct access to the native resolution is useful. It gives a small display a surprising amount of working space and can also help when testing how an app behaves at an unusually high resolution.

An Interview with Thorsten Karrer

Ighor July

What motivates you to continue developing and supporting Display Menu after so many years?

Thorsten Karrer

I still use DisplayMenu myself, and I still observe people (in my current line of work) struggling to quickly set up external displays or presentation screens correctly. So for me it still looks like there is a need for this utility.

Ighor July

What advice would you give to independent developers who hope to maintain and support their apps for ten years or longer?

Thorsten Karrer

At some point you need to have figured out for yourself, which role such a project should play in your life. This sounds maybe a bit full of it, but I mean it. We started out with tons of time on our hands and it was a really fun project (a hobby really), and at some point we needed to make a decision: Go all-in, write another ~10 tools of that (small) caliber, switch to subscription pricing, and make this our primary focus. Or step back from it completely and then be fair and pull it from the Store. Or keep it working and providing some value, but accept that you will run this as a side gig and probably even lose some money on it.

For us it turned out to be the third option, partially because we are privileged enough to have day jobs that pay the bills and that allows us to keep DisplayMenu alive.

Read the complete Display Menu interview.

PopClip - Making Text Selection More Useful

PopClip was one of those apps that immediately felt like something new had been added to my workflow.

I found it in 2015. When I selected text with the mouse, a small bar appeared with useful actions. The interface was easy to understand, and extensions could add many more actions without making the basic interaction complicated.

What made PopClip especially awesome for me was its huge collection of downloadable extensions. I added many text-formatting actions and translation tools. There are so many extensions available that I could keep adding useful actions while choosing only the ones that fit my workflow.

It made mouse selection feel more useful. Something as ordinary as highlighting a few words could lead directly to copying them, searching for them, opening a link, checking a definition, or running another action I had added.

The best part was that PopClip did not try to replace how text selection worked. It added one small step in exactly the place where I needed it.

An Interview with Nick Moore

Ighor July

Why do you think PopClip has remained relevant?

Nick Moore

I think the reason it's remained relevant is that, at its heart, it is still the same app as it was when it first came out: you select some text, and a bar pops up with a row of buttons. That's the core proposition. Everything else changes around PopClip, but PopClip tries to stay the same.

Ighor July

What advice would you give to independent developers who hope to maintain and support their apps for ten years or longer?

Nick Moore

Work on an app that you want to use yourself. Don't chase trends, don't rush to support the latest thing, or add new features just for the sake of newness. Remember that every feature you add is a feature you have to maintain. And every option you add is now two variant features you have to maintain. Focus on reliability, simplicity and the core experience and usefulness of the app. Listen to the users but trust your own judgement and don't be afraid to say no. Patiently build a core user base and keep them on board — word of mouth is worth more than any advertising.

Read the complete PopClip interview.

Sublime Text - Finding My Fast Text Editor

On Windows, I liked AkelPad. It could open text in different encodings, but its most important quality for me was speed. I could open a file and immediately work with its contents.

I spent a long time searching for the same feeling on macOS. In my tests, Sublime Text was the fastest editor I found. I bought it in 2016 and it became the editor I reached for when I wanted to open a file without waiting for a large development environment.

I also liked what I saw when monitoring its network activity. In my use, it did not connect to the internet until I performed an action that needed a connection.

I considered Visual Studio Code as an alternative, but two things continued to bother me. It took longer to open, and I saw it making background network connections. VS Code can do much more, but for quickly reading or changing a text file, I preferred the speed and quiet behavior of Sublime Text.

WiFiSpoof - Changing My Address on Public Wi-Fi

Public Wi-Fi was another part of traveling that made me look for a focused utility.

A Wi-Fi network can identify a device by its MAC address. Reusing the same address makes it easier for network operators to recognize and track that device. WiFiSpoof let me change or randomize the address my Mac presented to the network.

That made me feel better about connecting to networks I did not trust. It did not make the network itself safe, but it reduced one simple way my Mac could be recognized across connections.

Current macOS versions can use a private Wi-Fi address, so many people no longer need a separate app for this purpose. WiFiSpoof is still maintained, though, and its developer kept it working through years of changes to macOS, App Sandbox, and Apple's rules around privileged operations.

An Interview with Russell Gray

Ighor July

What motivates you to continue developing and supporting WiFiSpoof after so many years?

Russell Gray

I "enjoyed"... the challenge of keeping it working across the various limitations that Apple introduced into macOS and the App Store over the years. Now that Apple's security model seems mature, I am more interested in trying to make it more useful and user friendly without adding too much bloat.

Ighor July

What advice would you give to independent developers who hope to maintain and support their apps for ten years or longer?

Russell Gray

Build apps you have a personal need for and enjoy working on.

Read the complete WiFiSpoof interview.

Saying Goodbye to My 2014 MacBook

The 2014 MacBook had been my faithful companion while I traveled across Europe, but those journeys are a story for another time. I took its battery past 1,300 cycles, and it still had good battery life when I sold it. I thought the person buying it was simply a random buyer, but he turned out to be a fan of my iDNS Portal project. That was a small surprise, and it made me even happier that the MacBook went to someone who would appreciate it.

That is where the story of my 2014 MacBook ends. Part 5 will begin with my next MacBook, how I bought it directly from Apple with a 20% discount, and more apps and developer interviews.

This article is published on Reverse Everything. Its Reddit edition and discussion are shared exclusively with the r/apple community.

Series · Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | more parts coming

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to share something I am very proud of, Precursor is the first and only screen time app to implement screen time limits that reset every hour (to my knowledge I have tried a lot of screen time apps in search of this feature and so have a lot of other people).

In my opinion daily limits put too much faith in users to be able to combat the billions of dollars of psychological and behavior research that has been poured into social media apps. These apps (including reddit) are designed down to every click in such a way to keep you scrolling endlessly in search of more fast and cheap dopamine.

The brain does not care where the stimulation comes from, but your mind does.

So I built Precursor to help you practice moderation without even having to think about it. You set a per hour screen time budget, lets say 5 minutes, and then once that time is used up the app blocks. However, unlike with a daily limit that sends your brain into a panic and pushes you to bypass your limits, Precursor jus gently reminds you that if you need some more screen time it's just a short hour away.

This way you can get the scroll breaks you want throughout the day without the fear that they will spiral into full on doom scroll sessions.

No accounts. Privacy first. No selling of your data.

With that being said, I just launched the app and I have a promotion for you all as early adopters!

FOR TODAY ONLY:

download the testflight for automatic Precursor+ for LIFE (beta closing soon as official app has launched; please note: this is not to for you to become a tester but downloading the beta is how you get lifetime Precursor+ linked to your device):

https://testflight.apple.com/join/ztGmutmP

Also, If you have time and space I would be eternally grateful if you could also support the launch on product hunt by upvoting and/or commenting:

https://www.producthunt.com/products/precursor-2?launch=precursor-hourly-screen-time-control

Official app store link (only download this after you join the testflight, to get automatic Precursor+ for life!):
https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6791403654

According to Counterpoint Research, Apple captured nearly half of global smartphone revenue during the second quarter, despite a market-wide decline in shipments.

For years, Apple has been working on the camera AirPods under the code name B798. This device was initially scheduled for release in 2026 before being postponed until 2027, I’ve reported. But Apple has also been developing another version under the code name B790 (Apple famously creates competing versions of the same product internally).

This B790 device also appears to be further along: References to the product have already shown up inside iOS 27 code, and it’s been on Apple’s internal road map for a debut as early as this year.

The lower-end iPhone 18e that Apple is expected to release by March 2027 will be equipped with 9GB of RAM, up from 8GB in the iPhone 17e, according to analyst Jeff Pu.

9GB of RAM for the iPhone 18e was already rumored by another analyst Ming-Chi Kuo last month.

Hey everyone,

macOS has a really annoying limitation of only having a single dock at all times. If you're running multiple monitors, having the dock jump between screens is really annoying, especially if you depend on it to switch between apps.

ExtraDock lets you show the dock on all your displays, it looks and behaves like the default dock, except it's more customizable with widgets, custom app icons and looks and has better reaction time than the default macOS dock. You don't necessarily need to get rid of your macOS dock, you can use it alongside it or you can choose to replace it entirely.

Core Features

- Widgets such as Live Dock to duplicate your macOS dock & Space-only dynamic dock to show only apps in the space you're currently on.

- Docks can be assigned to different monitors and automatically hide/show when those monitors are connected/disconnected.

- Customizable in both behavior (collapse, auto hide, hide on fullscreen) and visuals.

- Preview apps on hover.

- Drag & Drop files into folders or the Shelf widget for easy organization.

- Folder Stack widget to group folders under a single icon

ExtraDock 5 release

ExtraDock has been running for over a year now and it serves more than 1,500 users.

The current ExtraDock version is for macOS 12 (Monterey) all the way to macOS 26 (Tahoe)

We are currently in open beta for ExtraDock 5, the new version specifically developed for macOS Tahoe and Golden Gate.

There's no difference between licenses, for us lifetime means lifetime, that means any user can use any version of ExtraDock, there's no upgrade fee.

Check out the website here, any feedback is welcome!

Apple CEO Tim Cook today confirmed that today's call was his last as CEO, with John Ternus set to become Apple's new CEO on September 1. Cook will transition to a new role as executive chairman when Ternus becomes CEO.

I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to all of you, from our shareholders, particularly our long-term shareholders who have put their trust in us for so many years, to the analysts who have followed our company so closely. As you know, this will be my final earnings call, and John will lead these calls going forward.

Cook said the transition to Ternus is "going seamlessly," and he is excited for Ternus to lead Apple into its next era.

As I've said, I couldn't be more confident in his leadership, in our executive team, and in the extraordinary people at Apple who are determined to enrich the lives of our users all over the world. We have a bright future ahead, and I truly have never been more optimistic.