The excellent accessory makers at WaterField out of San Francisco are back with a plush and padded travel case for Apple Vision Pro. Vision Pro Shield Case is half the size and a fraction of the cost of Apple’s travel case. It also features an exterior zipped pocket unlike other Vision Pro bags we’ve seen so far.

Chance has had his Apple Vision Pro for about one week, and we all have a lot of thoughts about Apple’s brand new platform. A truly new Apple product doesn’t come along very often, and this is a particularly special one. We go deep on the Vision Pro hardware, comfort, what it’s like using Vision Pro for media and productivity, Personas, FaceTime, real-world battery life, and so much more.

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Tesla now supports the iPhone’s Ultra Wideband chip for improved Phone Key performance, at least on some cars. Apple started including the Ultra Wideband chip with the iPhone 11, allowing for better nearby interaction between an iPhone and other devices equipped with UWB technology.

The first Apple Vision Pro reviews arrived last week on January 30 ahead of the February 2 product launch. A week and change later, tech journalists have had even more time to spend with Apple Vision Pro. My new favorite review is from Raymond Wong at Inverse. He spares no words when evaluating Apple Vision Pro, including as a spatial computer.

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Sponsored by We Got Your Mac: This episode is brought to you by ‘We Got Your Mac’ — your guide to Mac adoption at scale. Tune in for expert insights from SHI, Apple and around the business world. Visit WeGotYourMac.com or wherever you get your podcasts. 

With Vision Pro, Apple is clearly marching toward a future where sleek smart glasses can augment our views with useful information and applications. Perhaps we should think about Apple Vision Pro as the desktop, and Apple glasses will be the desktop’s miniaturization into the laptop.

Anyway, we don’t have to wait and see what Apple is cooking up to get our first taste of what smart glasses may offer. Meta/Ray-Ban and Amazon have been in the business for a few years, and more bespoke AI products are popping up on the regular. The latest is this open-source pair of AI glasses from Brilliant Labs.

Apple has released a new iPhone software update for all users. iOS 17.3.1 is now available ahead of iOS 17.4’s release in March. Other releases out today include watchOS 10.3.1 and macOS 14.3.1.

Update: Within an hour of publishing, Apple removed the previously reviewed and approved app in question from the App Store.

Is it LastPass or LassPass? LastPass wants you to know that it’s definitely LastPass, and LassPass is completely sus. The imposter “password manager” is undeniably masquerading as the real thing, and it’s live in the App Store as of this writing.

Thursday’s best deals are here and offering the best price yet on Apple’s new M3 iMac with 24-inch 4.5K Retina display. It drops down to $1,199, and comes joined by new all-time lows Apple Watch SE 2 from $189. There’s also an on-going Belkin Valentine’s Day promotion on Apple accessories, too. Hit the jump for all that and more in the latest 9to5Toys Lunch Break.

When the Apple Watch launched in 2015, Apple gifted artists like Beyonce and Katy Perry with real gold versions as a marketing campaign. No celebrity endorsement competes with this (seemingly organic and slightly NSFW) take from Mr. Buy U a Drank himself, T-Pain, however.

A test of using Lightroom on Vision Pro found that the controls were easy and intuitive, but it did require a somewhat slower pace than working on a Mac.

Also, being based on the iPad app, the Vision Pro version of Lightroom doesn’t support all the features of the Mac app – and has one rather odd omission …

Proton launched its secure password manager last year to the public and now it’s available for enterprise. The company calls Proton Pass For Business “a Swiss vault for your team’s passwords.” It’s open source just like the consumer version of Proton Pass and offers end-to-end encryption, easy import from any other software, anti-phishing protection, admin tools, and more.

A new report says that Apple bought “up to” 32 AI startups in 2023, more artificial intelligence acquisitions than any other tech giant.

Apple is also said to have bought companies at an earlier stage in their development …

Recommendations to fast charge iPhone usually include picking up the 20W power adapter from Apple or similar. But what about using a higher-powered USB-C charger from your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air? Follow along for which iPhones and iPads you can fast charge with Apple’s MacBook chargers or third-party options.

Apple is one of more than 200 companies and other organisations to join the US AI Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC), at the request of the White House.

Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidis are among the other companies to join the consortium in response to an executive order by President Biden to ensure that artificial intelligence is “safe, secure, and trustworthy” …

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit claiming that Apple CEO Tim Cook was overpaid by tens of millions of dollars.

A lawsuit brought by a pension fund invested in AAPL claimed miscalculations meant that the company paid far more than the compensation committee intended …

As part of the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) antitrust legislation, Apple will have to open up iOS to alternative app stores – and the company has released iOS 17.4 with support for what it calls App Marketplaces. But unsurprisingly, Apple wants people to know that the App Store is still the best place to download iPhone apps, and that’s exactly what it’s been telling its users.

Bluesky is a microblogging platform launched last year and backed by co-founder and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. For over a year, Bluesky was labeled as a beta, and for that reason, the platform was accessible by invitation only. Now Bluesky is finally letting anyone join the social network – but it may be too late.

Disney has announced that it’s secured the streaming rights to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert film. After first debuting in theaters and eventually on video-on-demand, Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) is coming exclusively to Disney+ on March 15.

Apple has been in the process of discontinuing iTunes for almost five years. It’s a process that is still ongoing with Windows PCs today. Starting today, Apple Music and Apple TV apps on Windows are no longer in a preview state. iTunes, however, still has a role on the platform. Separately, Apple has redesigned the iCloud for Windows app experience.

Leitmotif, the team behind Kaleidoscope and Versions for Mac, is out with a brand new photo management tool. Photoscope just launched on both iPhone and Apple Vision Pro (possibly a first for that combo with a new app). The pitch is that it can help you clean up your massive photo library and rediscover your best shots. And to start, t’s completely free with no in-app purchases or subscriptions.