Skip to content

Midweek news bites – CES, Privacy, Apple TV+, AirPower, Promos

Plenty of Apple, iPhone, and iPad news gets released each week – but we know you’re busy, so we’ve got your back. Here, we’ve picked out some of the most notable things you should know from the past few days and summarized them for easy digestion. You’re welcome.

So please dig into this week’s Apple news bites, freshly sourced from all around the web. As ever, click through to read the full stories if you want to know more!

Apple’s ‘Back to Uni’ promo now live

If you or someone you know lives somewhere that missed out on the region-specific Back to School promo back in September, you’ll be pleased to know Apple is now running a similar Back to Uni promo. It’s now live in Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Brazil – meaning students in those countries can snag free Beats headphones when buying a Mac or iPad.

Apple makes rare appearance at CES to talk privacy

It’s been a very long time since Apple last attended CES (Consumer Electronics Show), generally preferring to make product announcements on home soil. But this year the company broke a 28-year streak by sending its Director of Global Privacy to chat at a panel on, you guessed it, the importance of privacy. She made the argument that in the world of tech giants, Apple alone can be trusted to properly look after your personal information.

New Apple TV+ shows on the horizon

Apple TV+ has had a mixed reception since launch, but one thing is for certain: it’s still lacking in quantity. Well, that’s set for a step in the right direction soon – Apple just debuted a two-minute trailer for Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet, a comedy about videogame developers from the creators of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. You can watch the trailer here. If that’s not your cup of tea, rest assured it’s likely Apple will be dropping some new content on January 19 at the TV Critics press tour.

Third-party making AirPower charging mat clone

Remember the story of AirPower, one of Apple’s rare total fails? First announced in 2017 alongside iPhone X, it spent nearly two years “doomed to failure” in R&D before being officially canceled in 2019. At its core, the product is a great idea – a wireless charging mat that can charge iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods at the same time, with no sweet spots. Accessory maker Zagg has been showing off a similar product at CES this week, meaning it’s either cracked the technical difficulties Apple couldn’t – or, more likely, made some compromises Apple wasn’t willing to in order to get this thing made.