Throughout the ongoing wildfires, California officials have relied on emergency alerts to communicate with citizens. This system is an important way for officials to communicate with citizens instantly across iPhone and Android devices.

On Thursday evening, however, a wildfire evacuation alert went out to everyone in Los Angeles – even though it was only meant for a subset of residents.

Apple’s popular “Back to School” campaign is officially returning for customers in Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea, offering free accessories for students and educators purchasing new Apple products in these countries.

Many streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, and even Apple TV+ already provide support for the HDR10+ standard. Soon, Disney+ will also join this list of platforms offering content in this high dynamic range format.

After Tim Cook announced that Apple is donating to help those affected by the Los Angeles wildfires, the company has just confirmed that Apple Card users living in the impacted regions will also get some relief. These people can temporarily postpone their Apple Card payments without interest.

AirTag 2 is launching this year, about four years after AirTag first debuted. There are some nice upgrades coming to AirTag 2, but what I really want is for the company to expand the lineup: it’s time for an AirTag Max.

This is Rumor Replay, a weekly column at 9to5Mac offering a quick rundown of the most recent Apple product rumors, with analysis and commentary. Today: new iPads are on the way, plus a curious iOS Invites app, and more. Here are this week’s Apple rumors.

Apple’s best-selling Mac, the MacBook Air, is getting upgraded soon—possibly as the first Apple product launch of 2025. Here are four new features coming to the M4 MacBook Air when it arrives.

Benjamin and Chance talk about the current ongoing controversies with Apple Intelligence notification summaries and the reaction to the settlement of the Siri privacy lawsuit, and how Apple is managing the negative PR. LG announces a new 6K display, but does it actually exist? And Benjamin is thrilled to hear that Apple News+ Puzzles may finally be coming to the UK.

And in Happy Hour Plus, we appreciate the seamless integration of iPhone, AirPods and Watch in the current cold winter months. Subscribe at 9to5mac.com/join.

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In a promotional push to boost interest for the upcoming second season, Apple has added all of Severance season one to the Roku Channel, for users to watch for free. The Roku Channel boasts more than 90 million users, making it one of the largest destinations of free streaming video content.

This marks the first time TV+ content has been made available on a free third-party streaming platform. The move shows just how committed Apple is to trying to expand engagement and viewership of its original content.

Ever wish you could rearrange or delete apps from CarPlay? It turns out you can, although it works differently than rearranging your iPhone Home screen.

The trick is in the Settings app on iPhone. Just don’t try to do this while driving. You don’t even need to be connected to CarPlay for it to work.

Tim Cook says that he uses his Vision Pro every day. And in multiple interviews this past year, he’s mentioned a specific habit with the product that’s a big part of his use: lying down. After following his lead, I can now report that this method can (almost) fix the Vision Pro’s biggest problem.

At CES 2025, UGREEN announced a vast array of new products, including new Thunderbolt 5 docking stations, and a new 6-port 500W desktop charging hub. All of these products will be available in the coming months.

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

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Apple occasionally updates the App Store’s layout to make it easier to navigate, or emphasize one content section or another. But new changes recently rolled out that are especially prominent, and make new app discovery easier than ever on iPhone and more.

What do ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini all have in common? Dedicated apps on iPhone. Meanwhile, Grok has been shoehorned into the social media app before now. Starting today, the standalone Grok AI app is available on the iPhone and iPad for US users for the first time. More regions will be added as the rollout scales.

This spring, Apple is planning to launch a major iPhone SE 4 upgrade, and that new model will introduce a glaring problem for the iPhone lineup. Apple will likely sell two iPhones—15 and 14—at higher prices than the new SE, despite them being worse products in almost every way.

From 4GB storage to 1024GB, the iPhone has had an incredible run that isn’t slowing down, and it all started on this day in 2007. Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone to the world for the first time 18 years ago today.

Apple also opened pre-orders for the original Apple TV after Jobs revealed what was originally called iTV in September 2006. See both keynotes and press releases below:

Apple CEO Tim Cook has described the Los Angeles wildfires as “heartbreaking,” and said that the company will be making a donation to assist the recovery effort.

Multiple fires across parts of LA have so far led to at least five deaths, and forced more than 130,000 people to abandon their homes, and it’s feared there is more to come …

I’m a great fan of robot cleaners, and they’ve grown more capable over the years. They started with vacuuming, then added mopping, then auto-emptying.

But this year’s CES announcements go further, and I can’t help feeling like companies are now just adding capabilities purely to have something to talk about …

At CES 2025, Satechi has unveiled the SM3 Slim Mechanical Backlit Bluetooth Keyboard, a sleek, low-profile mechanical keyboard built with Mac users in mind. It’s Satechi’s first full-size mechanical keyboard, and it’s designed to balance style, functionality, and comfort — perfect for those who want the mechanical typing experience without the bulk.

It says a lot about Apple’s design that the MacBook Air is seen as the ultimate standard targeted by PC laptop brands. Just matching the aesthetics and performance of the machine is seen as a tough goal, but ASUS may have gone one better with its new Zenbook A14.

The new machine not only succeeds in emulating the look of the MacBook Air, but exceeds its specs in no fewer than five different ways – including being even lighter …