Today is 10/10. In addition to being a date that is fun to say, it is also World Mental Health Day, according to the World Health Organization. Apple is celebrating by letting you earn a badge award for the Fitness app: the World Mental Health Day Challenge. You can earn this award by using any app that adds mindfulness or meditation minutes to Apple’s Health app—such as the Mindfulness app on the Apple Watch—for ten minutes. Get it? It’s 10 minutes on 10/10. So why not take some deep breaths, and earn yourself a fun award today. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- If you are thinking about getting an iPhone 17 Pro and want more help deciding if it is right for you, or if you have already purchased one and want to learn more about what you have, Dan Moren of Six Colors wrote a helpful review. And in case you missed it, here is my review. I love this device.
- If it is the iPhone Air that has your attention, not the iPhone 17 Pro, Jason Snell of Six Colors wrote this helpful review.
- And here is the take on the iPhone Air by Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels.
- As much as I love using an Apple Watch Series 10, I know that there are a few nice features that you can only get with the Apple Watch Ultra. William Gallagher of AppleInsider explains how a SCUBA driver says that the siren feature of the Ultra saved his life, even though he was still underwater.
- Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac discusses two new health features in watchOS 26: hypertension notifications and sleep score.
- Tim Hardwick of MacRumors reports that with iOS 26, you can now see your full call history with a contact. When I tried this, it worked perfectly for some folks, but didn’t seem to be working yet for other contacts.
- There is a sale on Amazon for a product from Anker that I haven’t tried yet, but it looks really useful, especially for travel. It is the Anker Prime 6-in-1 USB C Charging Station, normally $109.99, on sale for $79.99. It is a long extension cord, and at the end, there is a device with two AC outlets, two USB-C ports, and two USB-A ports, and the whole thing is very slim, so it seems perfect for travel. You can plug this thing into an outlet near the floor and then place the device on a desk to provide easy access to all of the power options that you need.
- Speaking of Anker, it is one of the few companies from which I typically purchase Lithium-ion batteries because I’ve always had a sense that batteries from lesser-known companies are unreliable. As John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes, based on a report from Lumafield discussed by Andrew Liszewski of The Verge, those cheaper batteries really can be dangerous.
- iPadOS 26.1 is now in beta, and folks are reporting some interesting new features. For example, Jason Snell of Six Colors notes that Apple is bringing back Slide Over, which was the one feature of the pre-iPadOS 26 multitasking system that I know a lot of people missed.
- Steve Troughton-Smith notes on Mastodon that it looks like iPadOS 26.1 may support putting your iPad in “clamshell mode” so that you can use it with an external monitor while the screen on the iPad itself is turned off. I know that only some people would find this useful, but for them, it would be really nice to have. I would love to see a related feature: mirror my iPad screen to an Apple Vision Pro but turn off the screen on the iPad itself; that way, I would get more privacy while working on confidential matters because someone passing by could not see my iPad’s screen (and of course, they wouldn’t see what I am seeing in the Vision Pro).
- Speaking of the Vision Pro, Jason Snell of Six Colors reports that in 2026, you will be able to live-stream some Lakers games in Apple Immersive format to the Vision Pro, essentially giving you courtside seats. Watching live sporting events from impossibly good seats seems like a fantastic feature. When we get to the point where there is a lot of this content, I could see it convincing people to purchase an Apple Vision Pro or future versions of that platform.
- I noted last week that Apple removed the ICEBlock app from the App Store because of pressure from the Trump administration. John Gruber of Daring Fireball offers an interesting analysis of Apple’s decision.
- I loved the shows Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, and Rhea Seehorn was especially good in Better Call Saul. Thus, I’m excited about the new show Pluribus, which starts in a few weeks on Apple TV+. The show stars Seehorn and was created by Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Apple released a trailer this week.
- And finally, in 2019, Apple released a video to tell the story of a scrappy team of four office workers trying to sell their great idea. It starred Ambrose Burzak, Edward Mawere, Mia Schauffler, and Stephen Thomas Young. They were called The Underdogs, and the video showed off how the iPad and other Apple products can be used to get work done. Sequels came out in 2020 (the team used Apple technology to work from home during the pandemic), 2022 (the team returned to the office after the pandemic), 2023 (the team tracked down a stolen Mac), and 2024 (the team traveled to Thailand). This week, Apple released the sixth video featuring the Underdogs, and it is cute. The video is called The Underdogs: BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), and it was obviously inspired by the BSOD issue in 2024 that affected banks, airlines, and other companies around the world.