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Apple's surprise gift
Some marquee features aren't exclusive to new hardware.
Leander Kahney
September 10, 2025
In partnership with
Cult of Mac’s managing editor Lewis Wallace in Slack this morning:
“I swear to God, I was this close to buying an Apple Watch Series 11 just to get the hypertension monitoring. And when we discovered it was coming to Ultra 2, I abandoned my cart.”
Apple is often accused of planned obsolescence — the dodgy business strategy of sabotaging older products to get customers to upgrade to new ones.
But two marquee features of Apple’s latest hardware are coming to older products, giving the lie to that nonsense — and Apple didn’t make much noise about either of them.
Live translation, which translates foreign languages on the fly, isn’t an exclusive feature of the new AirPods Pro 3. The super-handy (and frankly, borderline science fiction) real-time translation feature is also coming to older AirPods.
Likewise, hypertension alerts (also amazing) will be available on some older Apple Watches.
OFC, these features aren’t going to be available on all of Apple’s older products. But the fact that these big features are backward-compatible with some recent models is one of the reasons customers love Apple.
Apple’s also got a reputation for products that last and last — and that one’s well earned.
Also in today’s newsletter:
Here’s another nice, surprise freebie from Cupertino: Current iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 users continue to have free, potentially lifesaving Emergency SOS access for another year.
Thanks to Incogni for sponsoring this week’s newsletter. Incogni’s data-scrubbing service removes your personal info from the web (and the dark web, too). And that protects you from spam and scams. Get 55% off Incogni using code CULTOFMAC.
If you haven’t yet watched the Awe Dropping event video — skip it! We’ve got a much shorter version.
Apple did a great job with the batteries in the new iPhone 17 lineup (whose bodies are basically all battery) — including much faster charging via wire — except, disappointingly, for one particular model.
We took a dive into Apple’s new custom silicon to divine the benefits: The C1X modem promises to be much faster and more power-efficient, while the new N1 networking chip will make your iPhone 17 a better hotspot.
Want to really eat up all your storage? Final Cut Camera 2.0 brings ProRes RAW footage to the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max — the first mobile devices to support it.
There have been several machines over the years that “saved” Apple — the first iMac, the iPod, etc. — but the prototypical one might be the Fat Mac.
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
P.S. The new Bright photographic style isn’t just for the iPhone 17, either. It’s also coming to older iPhones.
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A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team
A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team
A message from Pacaso
How 433 Investors Unlocked 400X Return Potential
Institutional investors back startups to unlock outsized returns. Regular investors have to wait. But not anymore. Thanks to regulatory updates, some companies are doing things differently.
Take Revolut. In 2016, 433 regular people invested an average of $2,730. Today? They got a 400X buyout offer from the company, as Revolut’s valuation increased 89,900% in the same timeframe.
Founded by a former Zillow exec, Pacaso’s co-ownership tech reshapes the $1.3T vacation home market. They’ve earned $110M+ in gross profit to date, including 41% YoY growth in 2024 alone. They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.
The same institutional investors behind Uber, Venmo, and eBay backed Pacaso. And you can join them. But not for long. Pacaso’s investment opportunity ends September 18.
Paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.
Tweets of the day
Tim Cook: Yes sir, we’ll make the next iPhone color based on your shade #AppleEvent
— Sami Fathi (@SamiFathi_)
6:53 AM • Sep 10, 2025
even the iPhones are on ozempic now
— alli (@sonofalli)
5:58 PM • Sep 9, 2025
Wallpaper of the day
#iPhone17Pro Wallpaper
Load in 4k— Raj Arya (@RajjAryaa)
8:01 AM • Sep 10, 2025
One more thing ...
(Asked about his greatest creation: iPhone, iPad?) No. Apple — the company. Because anybody can create products, but Apple keeps creating great products.
Today’s poll
What was the biggest Awe Dropping surprise? |
Results from yesterday’s poll: What are you most impressed by at the Awe Dropping event?
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