A project has cloned the Apple II Plus, but instead of using emulation, it goes the harder route by rebuilding Apple’s classic computer in hardware.

If someone wants to get the experience of using Apple’s vintage products, they often turn to a software emulator. However, as one project proves, it’s possible to get the same effect by focusing on the hardware side.

Posted on Sunday by Simon Boak, the SB Mini II is referred to as a “Homebrew Apple II Clone.” It is a rebuild of the Apple II Plus from a hardware standpoint, but using modern components.

Boak saw that most of the basic logic chips are still available to consumers, including the 6502 CPU. That, combined with circuit diagrams in the original manual and a library of books on the topic, helped Boak come up with a gameplan and a shopping list of parts.

A modern(ized) marvel

The clone does use modernized alternatives compared to the original design, mostly due to advancements in technology.

A key one is the replacement of the dynamic RAM (DRAM) used in the original Apple II. While the original kept to DRAM to save on cost, Static RAM or SRAM is also cheap enough for the project.

As a result, one and a half 32K SRAM chips are used to get the required 48k the Apple II Plus needs. The change also means there was no need to use circuitry to refresh the DRAM, which allowed the memory to function.

Boak remarks that a lot of the original circuit generated a composite video signal. Instead, using an Apple II VGA card, he was able to get a sharper video output, as well as removing the video generation logic from the circuitry.

In effect, it is a “headless” clone if it is used without the VGA card.

This also helped simplify the clock and timing signals as well. In this project, Boak uses a 4.096 MHz crystal oscillator, divided down to 1.024MHz, which is close to the 1.023MHZ of the original machine.

A Raspberry Pi Pico, which in itself is more powerful than the Apple II Plus, is used as a way to connect a USB keyboard to the Apple II. The Pico does generate the same parallel data signals as the original keyboard, as well as eliminating the need to use voltage level shifters.

Smart case

The project was finished off by being placed in a specially created case, which was 3D printed in parts before being glued and painted together. Those part files have since been released via GitHub.

It’s based on the design of the Apple ProFile hard drive. However, there are extra vents and a rear panel added so that connections could be accessed.

Just as the original was designed for easy access to the internals, the enclosure’s lid clips shut, so it can be opened without tools.

To go with the clone, Boak has also designed a matching Studio II LCD monitor.

This is far from Boak’s first attempt at making clones of Apple products. In June 2024, he created an Apple 1 clone with a printer, which used an SD card for storage.

The Apple II Plus recreation is certainly impressive, since it’s a hardware recreation instead of just using an emulator. But sometimes, even those efforts can be just as astounding.

In 2024, a Hackintosh project aimed to recreate the original Macintosh Plus, using modern components internally. However, the effort used 3D printing to produce a highly-accurate full-scale recreation of Apple’s hardware.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid space telescope has captured the largest and most detailed visible-light image ever obtained of the Milky Way’s galactic bulge, the central region of our galaxy.

The image is a mosaic containing more than 60 million stars, as well as nebulae and star clusters. It will allow scientists to confirm the possible presence of exoplanets using a microlensing technique and measure their masses with greater precision.

The Power of Euclid

Although Euclid was designed to observe billions of distant galaxies, its visible-light camera is sensitive enough to resolve individual stars at the center of the Milky Way—a region that is both extremely bright and densely populated—without being overwhelmed by the intense light.

On March 23, 2025, Euclid turned its gaze toward the galactic bulge, capturing this enormous image in just 26 hours of observations. The result was remarkable: a mosaic composed of nine separate “pointings” (exposures) by its visible-light camera, each covering an area of sky larger than the full moon.

While the quality of Euclid’s visible-light images is comparable to that of the Hubble Space Telescope, there is one major difference: Each pointing that Euclid captures in just a few hours covers an area 270 times larger than Hubble’s field of view. It is also much faster. To put this into perspective, the Keck Observatory would require roughly 2,000 hours to observe the same mosaic.

The Image of the Milky Way

The new Euclid image captures more than 60 million stars, along with nebulae and star clusters, in one of the Milky Way’s most crowded regions—a location ideally suited for searching for exoplanets through gravitational microlensing.

“To catch microlensing, you need to observe parts of the sky that are crowded with stars, such as close to the centre of our galaxy,” said Jean-Philippe Beaulieu, who led the observing campaign, in a press release. “During the last 20 years, almost 300 exoplanets have been discovered using this technique, all with ground-based telescopes and all towards the center of our galaxy. This image from Euclid includes 51 known planetary systems—and it will assist in studying many more that will be found.”

Two of Amazon’s top Prime Day MacBook Air deals have been extended, resulting in discounts of up to $450 off.

After many M5 MacBook Air deals sold out during Prime Day, two of the top choices at Amazon have been extended into the weekend. Save $450 on the 13-inch MacBook Air M5 with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

On sale for $1,149.99, only select colors are available at press time due to the increased demand after Apple raised prices on Thursday.

Buy 1TB 13″ MacBook Air for $1,149.99

Need additional screen real estate? The standard 15-inch MacBook Air with Apple’s M5 chip, 16GB of memory, and a 512GB SSD is also marked down to $1,149.99, reflecting a $350 price cut off Apple’s new MSRP.

Prime Day MacBook Air deals have been extended

You can compare prices across retailers in our MacBook Air Price Guide for offers on CTO models as well.

Apple is still expected to update the Mac Studio with the M5 Ultra in 2026 and an M7 Ultra version in 2028, but don’t expect major changes to the form.

The Apple Silicon chip series consists of four tiers, with the standard base model, Pro, and Max variants appearing in every generation. The fourth, the Ultra chip, hasn’t seen a release since the M3 Ultra, with the M4 Ultra skipped entirely.

The Mac Studio is the model of Mac to get if you want the massive number of cores that the Ultra model provides. If Mark Gurman’s “Power On” newsletter for Bloomberg on Sunday is accurate, you won’t have to wait long for the next release.

Gurman writes that there are two updates to the Mac Studio on the way. The near-term model will be the M5 Ultra, which is due to arrive later in 2026.

The second update is further in the future, with an M7 Ultra expected sometime in 2028.

The lack of an M6 Ultra release seems to correlate with another Gurman story from June 25. One that has Apple skipping the higher-end M6 chips in favor of bringing out AI-oriented M7 Pro and Max versions in 2027.

A spec-bump update, again

As for what to expect when those Ultra-equipped models arrive, Gurman provides bad news if you want more than just performance improvements.

He is informed that internal changes have been made to the Mac Studio. Chiefly, this consists of a better heatsink, which will improve thermal performance under heavy loads.

A major redesign is not anticipated for the M5 Ultra model. As for the M7, there’s a slightly better chance, but Apple’s tendency to stick to model designs for long periods of time doesn’t bode well for a revamp.

One curiously absent element from the report is any mention of the M5 Max model. Gurman only talks about the Ultra, and doesn’t refer to any other versions of Mac Studio in the newsletter.

Previously, in March, he did refer to Mac Studio models in plural form for the 2026 launches. The lack of a Max reference in the latest report could simply be a decision made during the writing process, in that he didn’t feel the need to bring it up.

Micron, the Boise, Idaho-based memory chip maker, has captured Wall Street’s heart. Whether the love affair endures will heavily depend on how long the AI-driven supply crunch for memory chips lasts.

Micron promises that it has shored up its position for the long term, which would allow it to withstand a sudden drop in demand or overcapacity of supply. And Wall Street has become a believer, helping Micron briefly surpass the market valuation of Meta and Tesla for the first time on Thursday, though it floated back down by Friday to nearly match them.

Specifically Micron closed Friday’s trading with a market cap close to $1.27 trillion, while Meta was at $1.39 trillion and Tesla was at $1.42 trillion. Micron’s stock has soared over 236% in the past month alone, closing Friday at $1,132 a share. In comparison, it spent years upon years before mid-2025 at below $100 a share.

It’s a dizzying rise for a company that most consumers associated with the tiny memory cards that, back in the day, were commonly needed to boost PCs, smartphones, or other device storage.

Wall Street isn’t sweating over that product line. Micron is benefiting from the AI data center buildout boom that has created a shortage of system memory chips, both DRAM and NAND, which Micron makes, particularly High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM). A single AI server requires magnitudes more memory than a laptop.

AI system makers like Nvidia, as well as the hyperscalers building their own systems, are buying up large quantities of memory, such as Microsoft, Amazon AWS, Google, Meta and Oracle. This is forcing all the other companies who need memory to hoard it as well, from PC makers like Dell and HP, to other kinds of device makers.

This lack of supply, which has been dubbed RAMageddon, is predicted to persist into 2027. And it’s already driving up the price of consumer electronics like Apple products and Xbox consoles.

With the whole tech industry clamoring for more memory, Micron’s delivered blockbuster third-quarter earnings last week. Revenue quadrupled year-over-year to $41.45 billion, and profits skyrocketed from $1.88 billion to $28.2 billion over the same period. Micron also provided a positive outlook, forecasting fourth-quarter revenue of between $49 billion and $51 billion.

And Wall Street, which has been eager to find more public AI-related companies that may do as well as Nvidia, became even more enamored.

The historic problem for memory chip makers like Micron and Samsung is that building out manufacturing facilities to increase capacity is a time-consuming, expensive endeavor. And demand often falls just as companies can increase capacity, creating a glut and subsequent price drop.

Micron got ahead of any AI bust chatter by emphasizing a series of long-term supply agreements, including with Nvidia and AI lab Anthropic, that would presumably protect it. The company said in its earnings presentation that it has signed 16 strategic customer agreements across the data center, consumer, and auto market segments, which it expects to fundamentally transform its business model.

That seemed to convince a number of analysts that this company could be another long-term, profitable investment. In a research note, William Blair tech analyst Sebastien Naji noted demand growth continues to outpace the rate that new cleanroom space can come online.

“Given the strong likelihood of continued ASP growth in the coming quarters and improving revenue visibility thanks to a rapidly expanding set of long-term agreements (SCAs) with key customers, we see potential for more durable earnings growth and reiterate our Outperform rating,” Naji wrote.

Whether Micron really can sustain itself for long-term without a bust cycle remains to be seen. But for a brief moment on Thursday, this U.S. company was more valuable than some of the industry’s giants.

Because they dry fast, they’re also great for swimming. They’ve replaced traditional rash guards for a lot of people. I wear mine to the beach and into the pool. When I go on vacation, I take three or four sun hoodies with me and often end up doing laundry in town when I no longer have any sun hoodies that aren’t salty from sweat and/or the waves of the ocean in Maine.

On a hot, sunny day, they’re also often cooler than bare skin. Yes, long-sleeve sun hoodies do bundle you up, but because the fabric is so light and breathable—and I wear mine just a little baggy—they block sunlight and shed heat so well that I find them more comfortable than any other clothing or no clothing.

What to Wear

Here are four favorites from my sun hoodie collection—I have a few more that I wouldn’t recommend or that are now past season and out of production.

Heavy Rotation: The sun hoodie I wear the most is the EMS Sunguard Overhead Hoodie. It’s very soft and comfortable with a generous cut that wicks sweat away. I wear it in the city pool, and after a few minutes sitting back on the lounge chair, it’s dry enough to wear into a grocery store without it dripping everywhere.

Heavy Duty: The heaviest sun hoodie I have, and the one I’d wear up a mountain, is The North Face Summit Series Direct Sun Hoodie. This is a slightly thicker hoodie, though it’s still light and very breathable. Because it has a zipper, you can also get more ventilation if you need it, so the weight is never an issue. When zipped all the way up, the shirt also has a collar to protect your neck and jaw from wind or sun. There is a proprietary finish applied to the fabric of The North Face’s SPF-rated clothing, which varies by garment.

More Discreet: “Day-to-night” garments that transition seamlessly from the office to a casual dinner and a night out are something of a cliche in women’s fashion. But sometimes you really do want something that can pull double duty. When I’m going to be wearing a sun hoodie into a bar or restaurant, I reach for the Blackstrap Brackish Sun Hoodie, which looks more like a regular shirt than any other arrow in my quiver. I have it in the shark tooth jory, a red and black pattern that looks like something I’d wear even if I was not trying to keep the sun off my back. I also really like that it’s safe to wipe lenses off on—I’ve scratched up too many pairs of eyeglasses and am extremely careful about what I’ll wipe them with.

Totally Natural: I tested an earlier version of the Free Fly Bamboo Lightweight Performance Hoodie and really like it. Bamboo is supersoft and is naturally odor-resistant, though less than wool. This hoodie wears a little on the warmer side and only offers SPF 20 protection, but it dries relatively quickly, and the loose cut is excellent.

And What About Your Legs?

Hoodies with shorts are a little controversial in some quarters, but I am happy that our colleagues at GQ have blessed the look—repeatedly. The single best way to wear a sun hoodie is with swim trunks. You may think swim trunks are just for the pool or the beach, but I would submit that they have the potential to become the male equivalent of yoga pants, which you can wear everywhere in the summer (again, GQ agrees). Luckily, I’ve also been testing some of those.

Eye-Catching: These Minnow Boardies in a red-and-white striped pattern called Gondola have a Venetian flair. They’re on the short side (6-inch inseam) but are stretchy and soft. They’re advertised as comfortable enough for all-day wear, and I can confirm they are—into the pool, out of the pool, off to happy hour. They are showstoppers, but you’ll need a dark and neutral-colored sun hoodie to pair with them.

Today’s best phone cameras are astonishingly capable when it comes to taking pictures. With large sensors, wide apertures and a wealth of extra software features, they can take images that rival what you’d expect from pro-level mirrorless cameras.

I’ve thoroughly tested all of today’s best camera phones, including the iPhone 17 Pro, Galaxy S26 Ultra and Leica Leitzphone in my time as both phone reviewer and professional photographer.

But I still wouldn’t ever want to fully replace my camera with just a phone. I have a few key reasons why.

Ergonomics

While cameras have come in all shapes and sizes over the last few decades, they’re designed to be held the same way, with your fingers naturally resting in the same places when pressing the shutter button. They feel like a natural fit and even smaller compact cameras such as the Fujifilm X100VI or my own Leica Q3 43 still allow you to hold them up to take your shot in a typically comfortable way.  

Phones aren’t built to be cameras first, so they naturally force a different way of holding them. The big touchscreens mean you have to delicately hold the phone by its edges to avoid accidentally touching something on screen, and with no viewfinder, there’s no option to hold them up to your eye, as you would with most regular cameras.

Phones are small and thin (at least compared to most cameras), making it difficult to get a firm grip, and tapping an on-screen button to take a photo always feels awkward. I worry about dropping the phone as I shuffle my fingers around into the right position. Even those phones that offer physical shutter buttons on the edge (or let you use the volume key as a shutter) still feel like you’re holding them in a way they were never truly designed for. 

Sure, you can get camera grips or cases that help bulk out the phone to give you something to hold onto and some of those even offer shutter buttons and settings wheels to let you use them like a compact camera. I’ve tried many of them, but none feel as good as holding an actual camera. 

Image quality

Today’s best phone cameras can take truly stunning images. I’ve been blown away by the photos I’ve been able to capture with Xiaomi and Leica’s Leitzphone, especially when using its filmic color profiles. But even this phone — arguably the best camera phone money can buy — doesn’t fully compete with a real camera. 

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And how can it? While it has a larger image sensor than most phones, it’s still tiny compared to the vast majority of cameras out there. As is its lens. It’s why all smartphone cameras have to rely heavily on software image processing to squeeze every bit of quality they can from their sensors. Some take this way too far with images that can look seriously overprocessed, with heavy-handed sharpening being a common factor in most phones’ quality.

In reality, if you just look at these images on your Instagram feed, you’d probably never realize they were taken on a phone. The often “crunchy”-looking over-sharpened aesthetic a lot of phones produce typically only becomes apparent when you zoom into the fine details. But those signs will still be there, often alongside increased saturation and an over-reliance on HDR techniques to control highlights and shadows. 

Pro cameras with larger image sensors and higher-quality lenses can produce far more natural-looking details without an algorithm stepping in.

Generative AI

Speaking of algorithms, I can say with certainty that I don’t want generative AI anywhere near my photos. That’s becoming increasingly difficult to avoid with phone cameras. Google proudly boasted that it uses generative AI to upscale its zoom photos on the Pixel 10 Pro while some of Samsung’s new camera features involve using AI to replace items of clothing on your subject. Apple’s upcoming iOS 27 will even allow you to change the perspective of an image after you’ve taken it, using AI to create an angle that you never actually took in the first place.

Almost all phones offer some kind of AI in their image-taking workflow. Even phones that aren’t actively changing the background or other elements in your images are still using generative tools to upscale your photos to make them look “better.”

The result is that it’s difficult to say that you’ve really taken an image when you don’t know how much of it has been reconstructed by software. Oppo explained that its recent Find X9 Ultra doesn’t use any generative AI when in its Master mode — and honestly, you can tell; shots in its regular mode can certainly look over-processed, especially when it comes to the artificially-lifted shadows. Switching to Master mode (and thereby bypassing all the AI) is the way to get the best-looking shots from this phone. I found the same when using the camera on the Honor Magic 8 Pro. 

Call me a purist, a luddite or a technophobe, but AI has no place in my photography — either at the point of capture or when I’m editing my images later. I want to know that what I captured in my finished shot is what I, the photographer, actually wanted in that frame, not just what an algorithm spat out. 

Life cycle

I own and frequently use cameras that are decades old. My Pentax K1000 film camera was released in 1976, while one of my favorite digital cameras — the Sony RX1R — is now 13 years old and still going strong. A phone’s life cycle is much shorter, with even top models receiving security updates for only up to seven years.

Once that support period is over, your phone is simply not safe to use and it’s time to upgrade. Sure, the idea is that by then, new technology would be available, so the phone you’d be upgrading to would be even better than your old one. But it still means that the phone camera you’re used to shooting with, which delivers the look and tones you like, simply isn’t going to hang around as long as a regular camera. 

That lifespan can really sting, especially as advanced camera phones tend to demand more money — like the £1,700 ($2,245) Leitzphone. Are you better off buying one expensive device that does everything for a shorter period of time, or spending less on a regular phone and also buying a camera that’ll last you much longer? That’s a decision only you can make.

The look

I might be vain here, but as a professional photographer, I simply wouldn’t want to be seen only taking photos on a phone. It doesn’t matter if that phone is the best in the world at taking images; there’s a certain stigma around it that suggests a level of amateurism. I’m not really talking about what it looks like to strangers on the street — if anything, using a phone allows you to blend in and become effectively invisible, which is amazing for things like street photography.

I’m talking about more professional scenarios. If I turned up to a shoot for a commercial client paying me five figures for my images and all I used was a phone, I don’t think I’d ever get work from that client again. I could argue all I want that the quality is good enough, that they’re paying for my expertise and that the end images will still be great but it wouldn’t matter. That client would see the phone and wonder why the hell they’re paying so much for someone to take some snaps on a phone — they could have done that themselves and saved a ton of money in the process.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that only the best gear can take the best photos — I’ve done commercial shoots using Canon’s cheapest 50mm “nifty fifty” lens and had images taken with that lens licensed for luxury photo books. Most clients care about the images, not the equipment you’re using to get them. But there’s a balance to be struck here and using professional gear suggests that you are a professional. Turning up to a shoot — commercial, wedding, whatever — and pulling out my iPhone for the job isn’t going to do my photography career any favors.

So many notifications

I’ve saved my most important one for last because it’s the biggest stumbling block for me when using a phone as a camera for extended periods. If I’m taking images — whether wandering around a Tuscan village on holiday, taking photos for my YouTube channel or on set for a commercial job — I don’t want distractions that pull me away from the creative mindset I’m trying to maintain. 

Using my phone for any purpose already means battling with near-constant incoming notifications from my email, from Slack, WhatsApp, Instagram and many others. It’s a perpetual onslaught of things going on that makes it increasingly difficult to concentrate on the task at hand. Sure, you can turn Do Not Disturb on — and I do — but I also don’t want to miss important phone calls or other messages I might need to act on. So I don’t like switching things off altogether either. 

Using a dedicated camera feels like choosing the right tool for the right job. Unlike our phones, it’s not trying to be something else by doing 1,000 other things in the background. My camera doesn’t come with bubble-pop games pre-installed and it’s not vibrating every ten seconds while my friends share memes on our WhatsApp group. Using the camera means shutting off from everything else going on in my life and focusing on the joy of image creation. 

I don’t want one device that can do all the things. Sometimes it’s better to have a product that does only one thing but it does that one thing exceptionally well. And just as I don’t want a wrench that’s also a DAB radio and a meat thermometer, I don’t want a camera that’s a games console, an exercise tracker and my portal to social media. 

It’s why I — and many other photographers around the world — have also really enjoyed getting into analog film photography recently as it strips out even more of the technology and allows for a more simplistic, arguably more authentic way to take images.

I use my camera increasingly as a way of finding some zen in the chaos of life and not feeling like I’m constantly switched on. It’s why my camera makes me feel more inspired. Picking it up means making an intentional decision to want to go and take photos, not just whipping out my phone to get a quick snap if I happen to see a cute dog. That intentionality invokes a deeper sense of creativity. And more often than not, it results in better, more meaningful photos.

As the adage goes, the best camera is the one you always have with you, but that doesn’t mean it’ll always be the one you can take your best photos with. I love using phone cameras and I’m thrilled that I can have something so capable in my pockets for those occasions where I don’t have my camera with me. 

But phones will always be supplementary cameras for me — great for those spur-of-the-moment opportunities or for shooting behind-the-scenes content. And yes, I will sometimes opt to use it on those outings where I don’t want a camera round my neck. But I’ll still always have a regular camera for my work and whether it’s a modern digital or a vintage film camera, it’ll always be the thing I reach for when I want to switch off from the world and truly focus on the joy of taking photos.