Xmas buying guide: Which AirPods for grandma?

November 30, 2022

AirPods are likely to be a hot gift choice this holiday season.

But Apple is currently selling four different versions: AirPods (2nd gen), AirPods (3rd gen), AirPods Pro (2nd gen) and AirPods Max.

Choosing between them isn't as straightforward as it seems.

Do you want to save money by going with the older, classic AirPods design?

Or spring the extra $60 for cool features like wireless charging and spatial audio?

Our buying guide will help you decide.

-- Leander Kahney, EIC.

Earbuds are a tough gift item because how they sound and how they fit is super-subjective. Everybody’s different. But our guide will help you decide among the four AirPods models on sale now.

This raises the possibility that normal operations will resume soon at the Foxconn facility in Zhengzhou, China. Lockdowns in the area have dramatically cut production of Apple handsets ... possibly by as much as 80%.

A man was robbed of 300 iPhones he’d just purchased at the famous Apple store on Fifth Avenue early Monday. He walked out of the store and was soon assaulted by a pair of criminals who drove off with a bag carrying $95,000 worth of handsets -- but it could have b worse!

You’ve got to love an Apple Watch band that looks like a million bucks but costs nothing near that. In fact, you can get Rilee & Lo’s stainless steel stretch-link bracelet and a matching stacking bracelet for well under $50 this week. Through Friday, all Rilee & Lo Apple Watch bands are 30% off in the Cult of Mac Store.

Very early benchmark scores for what is apparently the 2023 MacBook Pro show buyers will be able to configure it with much more RAM. And new details on the M2 Max processor were revealed, too.

WaterField Designs’ new Time Travel Case for Apple Watch provides an elegant way to take your smartwatch, its charging puck and up to three bands on the road. Made of full-grain leather, the folding rectangular case comes in four colors.

Plugable’s new USB-C dock is small enough to be mistaken for a hub but packs room for seven ports. That includes dual 4K HDMI ports that can be used even with Macs that ordinarily support only one external monitor.

What if a therapist told his clients what he really thinks they should do? That’s the premise for Shrinking, a comedy starring Jason Segel and Harrison Ford premiering in January on Apple TV+. The series was written by the co-creator of the mega-hit Ted Lasso.

Tweet o' the day

Display towers — when monitors are stacked on top of each other — aren’t super common in computer setups. But they’re not terribly rare, either. From time to time we’ve even seen three stacked horizontally in the middle with two posted vertically on the sides. But today’s featured triple-display MacBook Pro setup sports an unusual choice at its base.

One more thing ...

"My mother taught me to read before I went to school, so I was pretty bored in school, and I turned into a little terror. You should have seen us in third grade. We basically destroyed our teacher. We would let snakes loose in the classroom and explode bombs. Things changed in the fourth grade, though. One of the saints in my life is this woman named Imogene Hill, who was a fourth-grade teacher who taught this advanced class. She got hip to my whole situation in about a month and kindled a passion in me for learning things. I learned more that year than I think I learned in any year in school." -- Steve Jobs, Playboy interview, 1985.

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