Update 02/02/18: Refurbished Apple TV 4K units are now available for sale, for $30 less than the original price.

Looking for a way to save some money on the latest Apple products? Consider a refurbished MacBook, refurbished iPhone, or refurbished iPad from the Apple Certified Refurbished store. A refurbished product is just like a new, but at a lower price. Apple just added the 10.5-inch iPad Pro to its refurbished store, so if you're in the market for one, you can save a tidy sum.

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NordVPN promises a private and fast path through the public internet, with no logs and unmetered access for 6 simultaneous devices. They are currently running a promotion, but you'll have to use this link to find it. Its typical price has been discounted to $99 for 3 years of service. That's a good deal at just $2.75 per month.  See the $2.75/month NordVPN holiday deal here.

The tech sector is thriving, and demand is high for those proficient in coding, web design, and other highly-regarded digital skills. Now, going to a four-year university is one way to acquire this know-how, but Stone River eLearning offers an alternative pathway for a fraction of the time and cost. Plus, you can sign up for a lifetime membership for over 90% off the usual price for a limited time.

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When it comes to turn-based strategy games, you'd be hard-pressed to find a series as venerable and decorated as Sid Meier's Civilization. And now the Mac and Linux versions of the latest installment are 50% off the usual price.

The turn-based strategy franchise has sold over 35 million units worldwide since its creation and generated a massive community of players attempting to build an empire to stand the test of time.

Winner of 15 E3 Awards, including Best PC Game and Best Strategy Game, Sid Meier's Civilization VI has you advance your civilization from the Stone Age to the Information Age by waging war, conducting diplomacy, advancing your culture, and going head to head with history's greatest leaders.

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Apple may have embraced the pro market on the Mac hardware side with the recent release of the iMac Pro and forthcoming Mac Pro, but the software side, well, that’s a slightly different story.

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Three months ago, Apple boldly asserted that the holiday quarter of 2017, its first financial quarter of this fiscal year, would be the company’s biggest in history. They weren’t wrong. In fact, Apple’s holiday quarter generated $88.3 billion in revenue, blowing past even the high side of Apple’s estimates.

By just about any way you measure it, this was a great quarter for Apple. But of course, the devil’s in the details, whether it’s line items in the corporate reports or in tidbits revealed during the company’s regular phone call with analysts. So here’s a look at four tidbits we learned about Apple’s big quarter.

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If iPhone X is slumping, it’s sure not affecting Apple’s bottom line. In the quarter ending December 31, 2017, Apple reported a record revenue of $88.3 billion, a 13 percent increase over last year’s $78.4 billion (which was also a record). Additionally, Apple posted an all-time record quarterly earnings per diluted share of $3.89. And that's with one less week of sales over last year's first quarter.

Leading the way was the iPhone, but not due to unit sales. Apple moved 77.3 million iPhones in the three-month holiday quarter, about a million less than last year, but revenue grew by more than $7 billion to $61.6 billion. While Apple didn’t break out the different models of iPhone, it’s clear that the higher price of iPhone X contributed to the gains. Tim Cook said the newly redesigned handset “surpassed our expectations and has been our top-selling iPhone every week since it shipped in November.”

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If you need a 4K-compatible streaming device, Amazon, Staples, Best Buy, and Target have the 4K Fire TV on sale for $55 right now. That's about 21 percent off the usual price, and close to the all-time low of $50.

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Welcome to Apple doom watch (not to be confused with the Apple Watch doom watch). We are now on day…

Uh, Siri? How many days has it been since April 1, 1976?

Writing for MarketWatch, Jurica Dujmovic brings us another day closer to the inevitable.

“Keep focusing on bling, Apple, and you will continue to decline.” (Tip o’ the antlers to Neil and Craig.)

Because Apple’s declining.

I used to love Apple.

But not anymore. There goes your biggest fan ever, Apple. Again. Way to go.

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The discovery that in iOS 11.3 Apple is renaming the iBooks app to “Books” seemed... not particularly revelatory. We’ve all read about how Apple’s been slowly stripping away the lower-case-i prefix from older products. New products and services are a generic word preceded with the word “Apple,” as in Apple TV and Apple Watch. This is the conventional wisdom. But is it true?

No, kill ‘i’

Apple’s made no pronouncements itself about it. Yes, it seems the “i” prefix introduced with the iMac 20 years ago has fallen out of favor. (I’m reminded of the time when Steve Jobs said that the “power” prefix of the PowerBook and Power Mac had gotten tired.) And yet that same prefix continues to appear in front of some of Apple’s most popular products and platforms! Meanwhile, Apple has announced new hardware—like AirPods and the HomePod—with absolutely no sign of either the letter “i” or the Apple prefix.

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With the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, Apple has finally joined the wireless charging revolution. For years, many Android users have had the ability to simply plop their phone on a pad to juice it up, but to do that with an iPhone used to require a special (and bulky) case.

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Details about iOS 12 have leaked, while Apple released the iOS 11.3 beta. Apple could release new Macs with its T co-processor later this year. We also feature your comments and questions for Michael Simon, Jason Cross, Roman Loyola, and Dan Masaoka in the Macworld Podcast, episode 590.

Here are relevant links to get more info on the stuff discussed on the show.

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Charger maker RavPower is having a one-day sale on Amazon today. The discounts are decent across the board, but the best item of the bunch is a 20,000mAh dual-port power bank for $26. This deal lasts until just before midnight on Wednesday Pacific time.

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If you watched the Grammy Awards, you saw a lot of Bruno Mars, a lot of Kendrick Lamar, and a lot of HomePod. Apple’s new smart speaker was featured in several 15-second ad spots throughout the show, none more prominent than the one that immediately followed Lamar’s show-opening performance.

The spot featured audio of Lamar singing “I got loyalty” from his hit song “DNA,” which he had incidentally just finished performing. It was as well-timed as it was electric, capitalizing on a blistering performance and showcasing HomePod’s street cred. For many people, it was an introduction to HomePod that wasn’t about Siri or home control or even tech—it was about music. 

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