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Retailers including Amazon and Apple's refurbished store are running discounts across several Apple and Beats products, including AirPods Pro 3 at over 20% off, Apple Watch Ultra 4 models near $100 off, M5 MacBook Air up to $200 off, and the M5 Max Mac Studio at a $200 discount. Beats 360 headphones and a Beats USB-C cable are also at their lowest prices tracked so far.
Apple published a white paper defending the $400 price increase for the MacBook Pro's new PROLED XDR Display, framing the touchscreen as a secondary feature rather than the main upgrade. The company says the display uses tandem OLED technology similar to its $2,899-$3,599 Studio Display XDR monitor, offering 1000 nits sustained brightness, 2000 nits peak HDR, and a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio, along with support for its new Apple CMF 2026 color standard.
Nagoshi Studio, founded by Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi, was officially dissolved on October 31 following a shareholders meeting, according to a notice in Japan's official gazette Kanpo. The closure comes less than a year after the studio unveiled its debut game, Gang of Dragon, and after backer NetEase reportedly withdrew funding, per Bloomberg, leaving the project more than $44 million short of completion.
Seeed Studio, in partnership with TRMNL, is selling a $48 DIY e-paper display kit that users can program to show whatever information they choose, such as calendars, weather, or news. The device requires no subscription and updates content automatically without needing user interaction. TRMNL, founded by Ryan Kulp in 2023, previously launched its first e-paper device through crowdfunding in 2024.
Canva has released Affinity for iPad, a free app bringing the company's vector graphics, photo editing, illustration, and page layout tools to Apple's tablet with support for Apple Pencil Pro gestures like tilt, squeeze and hover. The app includes a new Sketch Studio for turning freehand drawings into vector shapes and integrates Canva's AI Studio, with features such as Generative Expand, motion blur, noise reduction, and resolution scaling.
Amazon has disabled Alexa voice commands like "Alexa, play from line in" and "Alexa, set AUX input" on several older Echo models, including the second-gen Echo Plus, third-gen Echo, original Echo Studio and fourth-gen Echo. Amazon confirmed the change and said it notified a small number of affected customers, but did not explain why the feature was removed. Users can still physically plug in AUX cables and toggle the input via the Alexa app.
Clipart Studio is a new free app that lets users browse and collect clipped-out images, evoking the old-school practice of cutting pictures from magazines. It combines an archive-like library of imagery with a Pinterest-style interface for saving and organizing favorites.
A solo developer is building LYNX SHARE, a free, cross-platform digital audio workstation written in C++20 and JUCE 8 that mimics FL Studio's Channel Rack, Piano Roll, Playlist and Mixer workflow. Originally called LYNX, the project was renamed in version 0.1.20 to avoid confusion with the Lynx text browser, with old GitHub links redirecting to the new repository and user settings preserved. The project includes 24 native plugins inspired by popular third-party tools from FabFilter, Valhalla DSP, Antares and Waves, with more planned.
Apple's newly launched MacBook Pro line, which includes the first touchscreen Mac with a PROLED XDR display, starts at $1,999 for a 14-inch M6 model with 16GB memory and a 1TB SSD. At the top end, a 16-inch model with an M5 Max chip, 128GB memory and a 16TB SSD option costs $14,549.
Amazon has introduced a new version of its Echo Studio smart speaker that includes a built-in camera, enabling Alexa to visually perceive its surroundings. This marks a shift from Amazon's previous audio-only Echo Studio design toward a device with visual sensing capability.
Amazon unveiled five new smart home products, including two new device categories: the $200 Echo Time alarm clock/hub and the $230 Alexa Photo Frame. It also introduced an upgraded $100 Echo Dot, a $250 Echo Studio with a built-in Home Camera, and a redesigned $500 Echo Show 16 available for preorder with December shipping. Amazon additionally announced Alexa Home Map, a feature that generates 3D interactive maps of a home's interior and exterior.
Designer Basic Apple Guy has released a recreation of the default wallpaper seen on Apple's new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display, built from assets taken from Apple's 3D product model. The wallpaper has been upscaled and resized for both the Mac Studio Display and 16-inch MacBook Pro, and is available as a free download via his blog until Apple releases an official version.