Apple has activated its in-store pickup tool for AirPods on its website, enabling customers to enter a zip or postal code and check for availability of the all-new wireless earphones at Apple Stores in their local areas.
The tool is not yet available in Belgium, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Turkey, or the United Arab Emirates, countries where Apple also operates retail stores, but it will presumably be expanded soon.
AirPods became available for purchase at Apple Stores yesterday, and some lucky customers were able to secure one of the limited number of pairs available. Apple said stores will continue to receive "regular shipments" of AirPods, so customers may have success finding a pair before the early February dates quoted.
AirPods became available for purchase on Apple's website last week, but orders placed today are estimated to ship in 6 weeks, or around late January. The first wave of customers who ordered AirPods online began receiving their shipments yesterday in the United States and around the world.
Apple Authorized Resellers and carriers also began receiving a limited number of AirPods this week, as seen over the past few days when Best Buy and Verizon have periodically offered AirPods for estimated delivery as early as this week.
Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones.
Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3.
Notification Summary Changes
Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries
Apple Intelligence...
Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes.
While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner.
Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages.
Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far.
Apple Intelligence for Siri
Siri ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today.
A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device.
The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes.
The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
Friday January 24, 2025 9:09 am PST by Juli Clover
The upcoming iPhone 17 models that Apple plans to release this year will not feature a smaller Dynamic Island, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today.
On social media, he said that he is expecting the size of the Dynamic Island to remain "largely unchanged" across the iPhone 17 lineup. His statement is contrary to prior rumors that we've heard about planned changes for the iPhone 17 models.
...
Saturday January 25, 2025 5:07 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple's retail stores will be rolling out "merchandise/floor marketing updates" next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Gurman did not explicitly say if the store updates are related to any upcoming product announcements, but he did mention that next week is around the time that Apple rolls out its annual Black Unity watch band for the Apple Watch.
In each of the past four years, ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 2:48 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
It's also time for Apple's first product announcement of the year.
Last year, Apple said it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and the wireless earbuds are expected to launch very soon.
Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code
In his Power On newsletter last weekend, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the...
Have the courage to get rid of the jack, yet have no courage to ramp up the production to match the demand. Over 4 months AFTER the launch of the phone before the Air Pods are available for pick up in store if anyone missed the first boat. That is a little excessive, isn't it?
NYCers, here's the deal: there is no point to "calling around to check inventory." Been there, done that. You'll get a different story every time, depending on whom you talk to.
Shipments are arriving at somewhat random times. The key here is to get there (by intuition, because I can't find a science for this) within FIVE MINUTES after a shipment shows up. I walked into the Grand Central Store today mid-afternoon, and was very lucky because the shipment had JUST arrived 5 mins earlier. "Go over to that table," they said. "Do you have Apple Pay?" they said. "Do you want one or two [pairs]?" they said.
You MUST have Apple Pay. You can ONLY buy two pairs (no more). The table I was referred to had a single box of (I think) only 20 pairs in it. It took less than 90 seconds to buy them. It took less than 5 seconds to pair them.
I was thinking of doing this. When placing an order like this, are you immediately charged or is it when the item is ready for pickup?
In the past all they have done is a pre-auth on my card at the time of the order that falls off after a couple of days. Final charge is made at pickup.
But yes, I saw two Chicago stores had stock just a few minutes ago ... and now nothing.
Gotta be fast on that "Buy" button! :)
I was fast and got one, yes. Just received email that it's ready. Now I'm just curious if I had bought it for Feb 8 pickup whether or not I'd have gotten an email that it was ready today.
