This digest compiles the latest from Apple Insider.
Today’s Apple Insider Roundup
The best Apple Home devices that launched in 2025 — tested
Apple users had a banner year when it came to new smart home devices. Of all the ones I tested, here are my favorite Apple Home-compatible ones that launched in 2025.
Heading into the year, I had high hopes. I’d expected to see Apple’s smart home display launch, alongside new Apple TV and HomePod hardware.
That didn’t pan out, but it wasn’t a total bust. We got multiple new versions of Matter — including 1.5 with camera support, robot vacuums joined Apple Home, and there was a huge number of new and unique devices that made their way to market.
There may be something big coming to Apple Fitness+ in 2026
Without naming features or dates, a teaser shared Tuesday shifted attention back to Apple Fitness+ ahead of the new year.
The company shared the teaser on the Apple Fitness+ Instagram account on December 30, without naming features or a launch window. Fitness+ stays bundled with Apple One and closely tied to Apple Watch hardware.
The teaser appears as a short Instagram Reel featuring Fitness+ trainers reading a mock newspaper titled Apple Fitness+ Times. Headlines repeatedly claim “something big is coming” and point to January as a moment to watch.
How and why the famous '1984' ad was really first shown in 1983
It’s the iconic Apple ad, the Ridley Scott-directed Macintosh spot that famously was shown first and once during the 1984 Super Bowl — except that’s not quite true.
You know it well — and if you don’t, Epic Games has been parodying it. The “1984” ad is the one that shows an athlete throwing her sledgehammer to break a screen playing a “Big Brother” kind of speech.
It’s just that the ad was not shown first on January 22, 194, during the Super Bowl XVIII, and it was not only aired once. It’s true that following the Super Bowl, Apple did not air the full version again — and didn’t need to, since countless news programs aired it for them.
How we worked in 2025: William's desk and wide monitor
William’s desk surface hasn’t changed in years, but almost everything on it has recently. From a new Mac Studio to a totally unnecessary third Stream Deck, here’s how he works.
About 05:00 most weekday mornings, I will come into my extremely dark office, turn on the Mac Studio — and then blind myself with an Elgato Key Light. I’ve got two of these, one for front and one for back lighting in videos.
But at that time of the morning, I can use one to give me a gentle start to the day — once I turn it down from whatever brightness I had it the day before. And I now turn it down using a knob on my third Elgato Stream Deck, which is ridiculously and extremely handy.
Today only: Get Apple's M4 Pro Mac mini for $1,229 with bonus coupon
A year-end sale on Apple’s Mac mini line discounts the standard M4 Pro spec to $1,229, thanks to a bonus in-cart coupon.
The M4 Pro Mac mini with 24GB of RAM and 512GB of storage retails for $1,399, but shoppers can save $170 today only at B&H Photo thanks to a $120 instant rebate stacked with a $50 in-cart coupon.
Buy M4 Pro Mac mini for $1,229
End of today’s Apple Insider roundup.
