Tech
MacBook Neo, AirPods Max 2, iPhone 17e, and everything else Apple announced this month
From a budget-friendly MacBook to a new iPhone, Apple announced a series of new products this month.
The tech giant started things off on March 2 with the new iPhone 17e and the M4 iPad Air. A day later, Apple announced the M5 MacBook Air, new MacBook Pro models, new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, and a new Studio Display and Studio Display XDR. On March 4, Apple announced a cheaper MacBook called the MacBook Neo that runs on a chip similar to the iPad and iPhone.
A week and a half later, Apple dropped a surprise announcement: the AirPods Max 2, the long-awaited successor to its premium headphones that launched in 2020.
If you didn’t have time to check out all the new products, we’ve compiled all the announcements for you right here.
iPhone 17e
Apple unveiled the latest version of its budget-friendly iPhone line, the iPhone 17e, which retails for $599 and will be available on March 11.
The smartphone comes with the A19 chip that’s found in the base iPhone 17. The base model comes with 256 GB of storage, which is twice the entry storage from the iPhone 16e.
One of the most notable changes from the previous budget iPhone is the addition of MagSafe and Qi2, which supports wireless charging up to 15 W. As for the camera, the iPhone 17e features the same 48-megapixel camera as the iPhone 16e.
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The iPhone 17e also features C1X, Apple’s latest-generation cellular modem, which is up to 2x faster than the C1 in iPhone 16e, according to Apple. The tech giant says C1X uses 30% less energy than the modem in an iPhone 16 Pro, which allows for better battery life.
The smartphone is available in black, white, and a new soft pink color.
iPad Air M4
Apple announced the new iPad Air, powered by the M4 chip, making it 30% faster than the M3 iPad Air and 2.3x faster than the M1 version. The new device still retails for the same price of $599 for the 11-inch model, and $799 for the 13-inch model. For educational customers, there’s a $50 discount.
The iPad Air is designed to be faster, thanks to an updated neural engine and more memory, making it better for AI uses.
The iPad Air also features an 8-core CPU and a 9-core GPU, making it a decent option for gaming or photo editing. It also comes with 12GB of unified memory, a 50% increase from the previous model, and the memory bandwidth is now up to 120GB/s. Apple says these upgrades enable users to run AI models faster than on previous generations.
The device comes in four colors: blue, purple, starlight, and space gray. Storage options are 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB.
MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max
Alongside the release of the new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, Apple unveiled updated MacBook Pro models featuring the latest chipsets. Apple said these new chips were specifically designed to make its laptops better at handling intensive AI tasks. The new Pro laptops can handle AI tasks up to 4x faster than their respective M4 predecessors.
The M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are up to 4x faster at LLM prompt processing than the M4 Pro and M4 Max, and up to 8x faster at AI image generation than the M1 Pro and M1 Max.
The MacBook Pro features up to 2x faster read/write performance than the last generation and will start at 1TB of storage for the MacBook Pro with M5 Pro, and 2TB for the MacBook Pro with M5 Max. The laptops have up to 24 hours of battery life, and with a 96 W or higher USB-C adapter, users can charge to 50% battery in 30 minutes. The laptops support Thunderbolt 5 and have a six-speaker sound system.
The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro chips start at $2,199 and $2,699, respectively, while the models with M5 Max chips start at $3,599 and $3,899, and are available in black or silver.
M5 MacBook Air
As with the new MacBook Pro models, Apple’s new MacBook Air was designed to be better at handling AI tasks.
The new MacBook Air comes with 18 hours of battery life, which is a six-hour improvement over the 2020 Intel-based Apple laptops, and features a 12 MP Center Stage camera for video calls, a three-mic array, and a sound system with Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos support. It also features two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a MagSafe charging port, and a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack.
The 13-inch MacBook Air starts at $1,099 and the 15-inch model starts at $1,299. They are available in sky blue, midnight, starlight, and silver. The Air now also starts with 512GB of storage, doubling the base capacity of the previous model.
MacBook Neo
Apple unveiled a low-cost, entry-level laptop called the MacBook Neo, its answer to Google’s Chromebook. Starting at $599, the MacBook Neo is designed for students and users whose tasks don’t require intensive workflows like video editing or 3D rendering.
The 13-inch laptop comes in four colors: silver, blush, citrus, and indigo. The base model comes with 256GB of storage, while the $699 model comes with 512GB of storage, plus Touch ID.
The laptop runs on the A18 Pro chip, which powers the iPhone 16 Pro models, rather than the more powerful, pricey M5 chip that the latest MacBook Air uses.
The MacBook Neo comes with a 1080p FaceTime HD camera and dual microphones, along with speakers on each side that support Spatial Audio. The battery can last up to 16 hours on a single charge, delivered through one of its two USB-C ports.
The MacBook Neo features a five-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine, which supports similar levels of gameplay and on-device AI tasks as a recent iPhone.
The laptop is also the most repairable MacBook in “about fourteen years,” according to a teardown by how-to website iFixit.
AirPods Max 2
Apple’s new over-the-ear headphones, the AirPods Max 2, cost $549, and feature active noise cancellation, Apple’s audio-specific H2 chip, support for live translation, better sound quality, and more. The headphones are available in midnight, starlight, orange, purple, and blue.
Apple says the new headphones’ active noise cancellation (ANC) is up to 1.5x more effective than their predecessor. And the Adaptive Audio feature lets the headphones automatically adjust the levels of ANC and Transparency based on the user’s surroundings to optimize the listening experience.
The company says Transparency mode is now more natural, thanks to a new digital signal-processing algorithm optimized for the H2 chip and the AirPods Max microphone array, so users can stay aware of their surroundings and the people around them.
The headphones also support Camera Remote, a feature that lets you trigger the iPhone or iPad’s camera shutter from a distance, along with a Loud Sound Reduction feature that helps protect users from loud environmental noise while preserving the sound signature of what they’re listening to.
Studio Display and Studio Display XDR
Apple unveiled a new $1,599 Studio Display and a $3,299 Studio Display XDR. The 27-inch displays come with upgraded cameras and enhanced connectivity. Both feature a 12 MP Center Stage camera, which Apple says delivers improved image quality, and support Desk View, a feature that simultaneously shows your face and an overhead view of your desk.
The displays come with Thunderbolt 5 ports, so they can be connected to accessories and be used to daisy-chain up to four displays (a Thunderbolt 5 Pro cable comes included).
The Studio Display’s 5K Retina display has over 14 million pixels, 600 nits of brightness, and supports the P3 wide-gamut color standard that covers a broader range of the visible color spectrum than standards like sRGB.
The Studio Display XDR features a 5K Retina XDR display (5120 x 2880 resolution) that has a mini-LED backlight and more than 2,000 local dimming zones. It can go up to 1,000 nits of SDR brightness and 2000 nits of peak HDR brightness, and has a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. It also supports the Adobe RGB color standard.
M5 Pro and M5 Max chips
The new chips are engineered around Apple’s new Fusion Architecture, an advanced design that includes a powerful CPU, scalable GPU, Media Engine, unified memory controller, Neural Engine, and Thunderbolt 5 capabilities.
Both chips feature an 18-core CPU, marking an upgrade from the 14-core configuration in the M4 Pro and the 16-core in the M4 Max.
The CPU now features six “super cores,” which is Apple’s term for its highest-performance cores, alongside 12 all-new performance cores. Collectively, the CPU boosts performance by up to 30% for pro workloads.
M5 Pro supports up to 64GB of unified memory, up from 48GB on M4 Pro, with bandwidth of 307GB/s. M5 Max continues to support up to 128GB of unified memory, with bandwidth increased to 614GB/s.
New accessories
Apple has introduced new spring colors for iPhone cases, Apple Watch bands, and the Crossbody Strap. Apple’s silicone case for the standard iPhone 17 now comes in three new colors: Bright Guava, Vanilla, and Electric Lavender. Bright Guava and Vanilla are also available for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max.
The Apple Watch Sport Band is now available in Bright Guava, Clementine, and Soft Pink, while the Sport Loop adds Bright Guava, Blue Mist, and Cantaloupe to its color lineup.
The Crossbody Strap is now available in Bright Guava and Soft Pink.
Tech
Gecko Robotics lands the largest U.S. Navy robotics deal yet
The U.S. Navy has inked its largest robotics deal yet as the military branch looks to use robots to keep up with its fleet maintenance.
Gecko Robotics, a Pittsburgh-based company that makes robots and sensors for inspecting large industrial assets, has signed a five-year IDIQ (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity) deal with the U.S. Navy and U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), the company announced on Tuesday. The deal starts with an initial $54 million award and has a $71 million ceiling.
The Navy will use Gecko’s robots and sensors to monitor the status and health of the U.S. Navy’s assets and fleets of ships, starting with 18 ships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
Gecko founder and CEO Jake Loosararian told TechCrunch that the company’s robots will crawl into every nook and cranny of the ships to create a detailed digital replica — sometimes called a “digital twin” — of each vessel. The company’s software will help the organization monitor the assets and recommend maintenance, trying to get ahead of problems before they arise and reduce maintenance times and cost.
“Once you create that digital representation using the robotic systems of the health and the condition of these assets, and even the digitization of the environment itself, then you can accelerate how quickly you can make decisions and repair,” Loosararian said. “You want to be able to build this living, breathing model that ensures that you’re reducing days into the future that these assets have to spend [out of service].”
This deal is meant to help the Navy reach its goal of having 80% ship readiness by 2027. Today, about 40% of the Navy’s fleet is unavailable at any given time due to the long maintenance cycles on these vessels.
“It’s like $13 billion to $20 billion a year in maintenance,” Loosararian said. “At a time when you need every asset you can get, that’s pretty critical. And these assets aren’t getting any younger either.”
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Gecko has been working with the U.S. Navy for four years. After a port engineer stationed in Japan reached out to learn more about the company, Gecko conducted an evaluation and a drew up a preventative maintenance plan. The Navy was impressed, and the relationship grew from there, leading up to Tuesday’s deal.
“We’re helping to ensure that our critical assets live as long as they can and never are down,” Loosararian said. “I want to live in a world where we don’t have ships going through maintenance cycles, because we just know what’s broken and what to fix while they’re actually deployed. That’s my vision of the future, whether it’s a military asset or it’s a power plant.”
Tech
Amazon adds 1-hour and 3-hour delivery options in the US
Amazon is launching one-hour and three-hour delivery options across many cities in the U.S. as the e-commerce giant looks to compete with instant delivery companies like Instacart, DoorDash, and Uber Eats.
The e-commerce giant is making more than 90,000 items available via this new delivery system. If an item can be delivered to a user within one or three hours, they’ll see a label saying so next to that item on the Amazon app. There’s also a filter for these new delivery options in the app and on the site.
Amazon Prime subscribers will be charged $9.99 for one-hour deliveries and $4.99 for three-hour deliveries. If you don’t have a Prime subscription, you’ll pay $19.99 for one-hour deliveries and $14.99 for three-hour deliveries.
Amazon said it is making the one-hour delivery option available in hundreds of cities in the U.S., including parts of major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., as well as Des Moines, Boise, and American Fork. The three-hour option is available in over 2,000 U.S. cities and towns.
The company is also launching a dedicated storefront to house items eligible for these new delivery options.
“Our customers are busier than ever and are looking for new ways to save time while keeping their households running. We saw an opportunity to use our unique operational expertise and delivery network to help make customers’ lives a little easier while unlocking even more value for Prime members,” Udit Madan, senior vice president of Worldwide Operations at Amazon, said in a statement.
The company said it is using its existing, same-day fulfillment sites for the new delivery options.
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This isn’t the first time Amazon has tried its hand at instant deliveries. The company previously launched one-hour deliveries under the “Prime Now” service in 2014, but it was discontinued in 2021. And then in December 2025, it piloted a 30-minute delivery option in Seattle and Philadelphia.
The company has been trying to get into the quick-commerce game worldwide. In India, the company in 2024 launched Amazon Now, a 10-minute delivery service for groceries and other items, and last year expanded it to several cities. Amazon launched the service in the United Arab Emirates last October, promising deliveries within 15 minutes.
Tech
Gamma adds AI image generation tools in bid to take on Canva and Adobe
Gamma, a platform that lets you use AI to create presentations and websites, is launching a new image-generation product for making marketing assets as it seeks to better compete with the likes of Canva and Adobe.
The company says its new product, called Gamma Imagine, will let users employ text prompts to create brand-specific assets like interactive charts and visualizations, marketing collateral, social graphics, and infographics. Gamma currently provides more than 100 templates, which you can use alongside its AI tools to build the kind of assets that you need.
To power its data-driven asset generation features, the company is integrating with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Make, Zapier, Atlassian, n8n, and Superhuman Go.
“As we started working with a lot of our early users, we realized that in the presentations they want to create, there was a variety of graphical design use cases that they all also had,” Grant Lee, Gamma’s CEO and co-founder, told TechCrunch. “So we worked alongside them to develop basically a new set of tools that allows them to go far beyond just the traditional presentation format,” he said.
Lee believes Gamma sits well between tools for professionals like Adobe or Figma, and legacy tools like Microsoft PowerPoint.
“We think we can serve the very long tail of knowledge workers and business professionals whose demand for their job is to communicate visually, but they just don’t have the tools. They need to pull in a design resource to be able to help with this stuff, and we want to make an-AI native approach that serves their needs in the sort of middle that we feel is really underserved,” he said.
Last November, Gamma raised $68 million in a Series B round led by a16z, at a $2.1 billion valuation. At that time, the company said it had ARR of $100 million, and 70 million users. The company told TechCrunch that it is approaching 100 million users now.
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