Here is a list of headlines; perhaps you will spot a theme:

• “Six new Apple products will launch early this year, here’s what’s coming”

• “Apple has five all-new products launching this year, here’s what’s coming”

• “Apple will launch 20+ new products this year, here’s what’s coming”

• “Apple has rare updates coming soon for these three products”

• “Apple launching 5+ new products over the next several weeks”

• “Seven new Macs will launch this year, here’s everything coming”

• “Apple still has over a dozen products in the pipeline for 2026, here’s what’s coming”

• “Apple has six new products that could launch soon, per rumors

• “Apple has 10+ new products rumored to launch first with John Ternus as CEO”

• “Here’s everything Apple has coming this May, and what not to expect”

• “Apple will launch 15+ new products this fall, here’s what’s coming”

• “Apple has five new products coming that could launch at WWDC”

• “Next year to be Apple’s ‘biggest product year’ ever, here’s what’s coming”

• “Apple has five products launching this fall that we’ve waited a long time for”

• “Apple will launch five new products next month, here’s what’s coming”

• “Apple will launch 10+ new products soon, with September event coming”

• “Apple is about to launch five new products that I’m very excited for”

• “Apple will launch 15+ new products this fall, here’s what’s coming”

• “Apple has announced 11 new products in 2026 so far, with more coming soon”

All of these since January — and I excluded most rewrites of articles by Mark Gurman, Ming-Chi Kuo, and other well-known Apple rumour writers. Also, my list does not include articles about products rumoured to be announced at specific events. They also have another thing in common: nearly all are by Ryan Christoffel, who seems to have taken up the 9to5Mac beat for making listicles of Apple products that could be updated in the future. Cool.

Careful readers might think I listed one of these articles twice — the “15+ new products this fall” one. But this is because Christoffel originally published it in May, and then changed the date on it to August after making a few changes.

I do not know who this is supposed to serve. Maybe this is a play for search engine traffic or A.I. chatbot citations. Maybe it works pretty well, too, and maybe I should be less cynical about these kinds of churned-out listicles in a time when A.I. search features are capturing traffic that used to go to third-party websites. Or maybe this is all just filler when there is nothing newsworthy but you need to publish a dozen or so articles daily.

Update: D. Griffin Jones, formerly at Cult of Mac, says on Bluesky:

It’s a secret third thing: Google Discover, Google News, Flipboard, Apple News, and other algorithmic aggregators. Articles like that tend to reach a much broader audience.

“One listicle a day” was our goal at Cult of Mac before I was laid off. It’s a tough time out there for independent blogs. The Google AI overview is devastating.

I obviously have no authority to give business advice. I would only point out that it is disappointing to hear about chasing referral strategies. One would think the pivot to video era would be treated as a cautionary tale and not something to repeat — if one, I suppose, is not responsible for staff and paycheques.

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