Apple’s latest flagship is finding an enthusiastic audience in India, even as prices remain high. Demand for the iPhone 18 Pro has risen by nearly 20% compared with the iPhone 17 Pro at the same point last year, according to reports, suggesting that premium pricing is not deterring buyers in one of Apple’s fastest-growing markets.

The iPhone 18 lineup went on sale on September 18 and drew long lines in major cities. Some customers traveled for hours to reach Apple Stores in places such as Mumbai, with waits stretching as long as 10 hours. Many buyers appear motivated less by specific new features and more by the desire to own Apple’s newest iPhone.

Counterpoint Research director Tarun Pathak expects Apple’s volume market share in India to reach 10% in 2026 — the company’s first full calendar year in double digits. That would represent a sharp rise from just 4% in 2022.

The base iPhone 18 Pro costs the equivalent of about $1,700 in India. Apple and partners have softened the sticker shock with zero-interest financing that lets eligible customers spread payments over a year, keeping monthly installments below 10% of the phone’s price. For some consumers, the high price itself reinforces the device’s premium status.

Apple recorded weaker Indian sales in the June quarter, but that dip was attributed to supply constraints rather than fading demand. Sales had otherwise grown for four years. Meanwhile, makers of lower-priced smartphones reportedly saw a sharper decline this year.

India is also becoming a more important manufacturing base for iPhones, and recent tax breaks could further strengthen Apple’s position. The current surge in iPhone 18 Pro demand suggests Apple’s high-end strategy is connecting with aspirational buyers, though the company will need to keep balancing premium pricing with accessible payment options if the momentum is to last.

For now, the early numbers point to another strong cycle for Apple in India.
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MacDailyNews Take: iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are strong!

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Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro series posted a 12 percent year-over-year sales increase in its first week on sale in China, a strong enough opening to put Apple at the top of the country’s weekly smartphone rankings, according to Counterpoint Research.

The new Pro models went on sale September 18th. In Week 38, covering September 14 – 20, they were available for only the final three days. Even with that short window, Apple took about 33 percent of China’s smartphone sales that week.

The 12 percent gain is measured against the prior Pro generation’s first-week performance. Early upgrade demand and heavy channel support helped. The standard iPhone 18 has not launched yet, which appears to have pushed some buyers toward the Pro lineup instead of waiting. Price increases of more than $200 on many Chinese flagship phones also narrowed the gap with Apple’s top models and made the iPhone Pro series look more price competitive.

The broader Chinese smartphone market is still weak. China’s weekly smartphone sales have fallen at a double-digit year-over-year pace since July, hit by soft demand and higher memory costs. Overall sell-out in Week 38 was still about 17 percent below the same week a year earlier. September’s cluster of new flagships is expected to support a sequential rebound, but the Chinese smartphone market has not returned to last year’s volume.
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MacDailyNews Take: Bottom line: Apple’s iPhone Pro sales are up 12 percent year over year – and in a struggling market, no less.

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DoorDash is pushing food delivery deeper into everyday messaging with a new AI agent that takes orders inside Apple’s Messages app, according to Bloomberg News‘ Natalie Lung.

The company opened a U.S. waitlist Wednesday for the text-to-order tool, which lets customers type natural-language requests such as “order my usual protein bowl to the office” without opening the DoorDash app. The agent matches the phone number in the conversation to a DoorDash account, pulls order history and preferences, and can complete checkout with a stored payment method.

Users can ask for a specific dish, request a local recommendation, or simply say “order my usual.” DoorDash said the agent searches nearby restaurants, builds a suggested cart, and can send photos of recommended items. It is also designed to handle group orders with mixed dietary needs. In some cases it can work from a photo of a fridge to suggest recipes and missing ingredients.

The feature builds on Ask DoorDash, the in-app assistant the company launched earlier this year. DoorDash co-founder Andy Fang discussed the broader agent strategy at the company’s Dash Forward event in San Francisco. The company is also opening a waitlist for an enterprise MCP (model context protocol) aimed at corporate ordering, and Fang said DoorDash is talking with Meta and other AI players about meeting users in the apps they already use.

The consumer Messages pilot is limited to U.S. iOS users for now, with Android support planned later. DoorDash has cautioned that the AI can make mistakes and that customers should review carts before paying. Early testers have reported occasional mismatches on prices or photos compared with the main app; the company said waitlist users will get an updated version.

The move comes as delivery platforms race to embed agentic shopping so customers do not have to hunt through menus. DoorDash is positioning the iMessage agent as a way to stay ahead of Uber Eats and Grubhub while also testing delivery drones with select Northern California restaurants.

MacDailyNews Note: U.S. customers can join the waitlist at doordash.com/text.

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By SteveJack

For a decade the smart home has been a hobbyist’s maze: five apps, three clouds, a speaker that works until the internet doesn’t, and a camera that records the baby’s room for a company that sells ads. That is why the category remains huge on paper and still small in practice. The market is already worth on the order of $160–186 billion this year, and it is still growing.⁠

What it has never had is a company that can make ordinary families trust it, set it up in minutes, and stop thinking about it.

That company is Apple — not because it shipped the most plugs, but because it already owns the object every mass-market home already bought: the smartphone.

HomeKit launched in 2014. HomePod followed. Apple TV became a hub. Matter and Thread were supposed to end the protocol wars. And still Apple looked half-committed next to Echo Show and Nest Hub.⁠

That is changing on a timetable the industry can finally see. Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman reports that on October 13th, Apple plans to introduce a dedicated smart-home hub — code-named J490, widely nicknamed HomePad — alongside a refreshed HomePod mini and a new Apple TV, all built around a much more capable Siri AI. The hub is described as a roughly six-inch square display, thin as an iPhone, in wall-mount and countertop versions, able to recognize household members and personalize what it shows.

That is not another speaker. It is a shared surface for the house.

Apple Smart Home Hub Leaks Hint at Watch-Style Interface

A visible, household object is what Apple has been missing. HomePod is excellent audio and a silent Thread router. It does not sit on the kitchen wall and become the family clock, intercom, camera viewer, and “good morning” screen. Amazon and Google understood presence. Apple understood privacy and polish. The next decade belongs to whoever fuses both.

Mass market is not “most SKUs.” It is “already in the house.”

Amazon still leads speaker ownership. Catalog trackers still show more products listing Alexa than Apple Home. That is the old scoreboard.⁠

The mass market does not start at Best Buy’s smart-plug aisle. It starts when a parent unlocks a door with a watch, asks the kitchen to dim the lights, and never opens a vendor app. Apple already has that distribution: iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, HomePod. The home does not need a new ecosystem, it simply needs the devices people already carry to talk to it.

That is why some market snapshots now show Apple Home as the fastest-growing of the big three platforms in the U.S. and U.K., even while Alexa still holds the largest slice of speaker and listing share.⁠ Growth from an installed base of phones is a different machine than growth from discounted Dots.

Matter is the other half of the distribution story. Apple no longer has to certify every bulb itself. A Matter accessory can land in Apple Home, Alexa, and Google Home from one QR code. IKEA, Philips Hue, Eve, Aqara and a long tail of others now feed the Home app without forcing families into a HomeKit-only situation.⁠ Apple’s job is to be the trustworthy conductor.

Privacy is not a slogan. It is the adoption barrier.

People will put a $15 bulb in a hallway. They will not put an always-listening, always-watching ad machine in a child’s bedroom if they can help it. That is the real ceiling on “smart home for everyone.”

Apple’s business is devices and services, not household surveillance as a product. HomeKit was designed around local control: automations run on a HomePod or Apple TV inside the house, communications are encrypted, and cameras can use HomeKit Secure Video instead of a vendor’s cloud as the default brain. When the WAN drops, the lights should still work. That is not a feature for tinkerers. It is the difference between a toy and meaningful, useful infrastructure.

The rumored hub leans into the same instinct. Reports say it can recognize who is standing in front of it and withhold personal information from strangers in the room. That is the opposite of a display that cheerfully surfaces a calendar, messages, and camera feeds to whoever walks past.⁠ Families will buy that. Enterprises will specify that. Regulators, especially in regulation-happy Europe, will prefer that.

Amazon and Google can add privacy dashboards. They cannot change the fact that their core businesses get smarter when they know more about the household. Apple gets richer when the household buys another device that just works.

Siri AI is the missing “it just works”

The smart home failed the mass market because it asked people to become programmers. If this sensor, and that time, and not away mode, then scene. Power users love it. Everyone else gives up after the third bulb.

Natural-language automation is arriving across the industry. Apple’s version only matters if it is grounded in context the company already has on-device: sleep schedules from Apple Watch, arrival from iPhone, Home Key at the door, calendars, Focus modes, energy use, who is in which room. iOS has already started down that path with adaptive temperature and, in iOS 27, AI descriptions of camera clips, smarter bundled notifications, Thread 1.4, and native energy management in the Home app.⁠

A hub that knows which person is asking, and a Siri that can finally hold a conversation instead of a command list, turns the house from a remote control into a place that anticipates. That is the mass-market product: not more toggles, fewer decisions.

Apple is also expanding the software surface — new HomeKit categories, closer work with third-party makers on devices designed for a Siri-powered home — so the hub is not a beautiful orphan.⁠ Behind it sit the unglamorous pieces that actually keep a house online: Thread border routing on HomePod and Apple TV, Matter as the common language, local hubs instead of retired iPads.

How Apple takes the smart home worldwide

“Global mass market” does not mean Apple becomes the cheapest vendor in Shenzhen. It means the default experience for hundreds of millions of households that already live inside Apple’s orbit — and a growing share of households that will choose Apple because the alternative feels extractive.

The path looks like Apple’s playbook:

• Seed with what people own. Every recent iPhone is a remote. Every Apple TV and HomePod mini is already a hub and Thread router. The attach rate does not require a new shopping trip.

• Put a face on the system. The display hub makes the home visible and communal. Speakers hide. Screens become furniture.

• Let Matter fill the aisles. Price-sensitive bulbs and sensors can come from IKEA and Aqara. Apple sells the control plane, the privacy story, and the rooms that matter: door, kitchen, living room, bedroom.

• Sell trust in the rooms that scare people. Locks, cameras, doorbells, occupancy without a creepy cloud. Reports already point to a privacy-first camera/sensor that can tell which room someone is in without recording video, plus a later higher-end hub on a robotic arm.⁠

• Charge for finish, not for lock-in. Premium pricing is a feature if the alternative is a $30 speaker and a lifetime of cloud anxiety. Mass market often follows the product that feels complete, then the prices come down the way HomePod mini already did relative to the original HomePod.

Asia-Pacific is the biggest potential growth engine of the category; Europe is allergic to household data mining; North America already has the highest smart-home penetration. Apple is the rare firm with brand permission in all three, a services layer that does not depend on ads, and retail that can demonstrate a kitchen wall in person.

What still has to go right

Mixed Android-iPhone households still bounce off Apple Home. Siri spent years being the punchline. Matter is real and still imperfect — multi-admin, cameras, and Thread meshes are not magic. A hub that ships late again, or ships as a $400 curiosity with thin third-party support, will be another HomePod: loved by owners, ignored by the category.

New CEO John Ternus, a hardware engineer who took over on September 1st, is the key. The October event is being framed as a devices-and-engineering push, not a services slide deck.⁠

The company that delivers the smart home to the global mass market will not be the one with the longest accessory list. It will be the one that makes a family stop noticing the technology — and still trust it when the baby is asleep and the front door is locked.

Apple already has the phones, the watches, the privacy model, the local hubs, and, finally, a reason to put a screen on the wall. Amazon and Google taught the world to talk to speakers. Apple is positioned to teach the house to belong to the people who live in it.

SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer, and contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.

MacDailyNews Take: That is how the smart home stops being a hobby and becomes furniture. And furniture, sold at Apple’s standard of finish, is how you reach the world.

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Apple Pay is now available for users in India across iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, with support for Mac coming soon. The launch brings Apple customers an easy, secure, and private way to pay in stores, in apps, and on the web at retailers of all sizes — all without the need to type in PINs or use OTPs at checkout. Customers with Axis Bank-issued Visa and Mastercard credit cards can add their cards to Apple Pay and use them at thousands of in-store and online merchants across India, as well as anywhere that accepts NFC transactions.

“India is home to a dynamic and digitally savvy population that continues to embrace a cashless future while expecting the highest standards of security and privacy, and we’re so excited to bring Apple Pay to users in India today,” said Jennifer Bailey, Apple’s vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet, in a statement. “Apple Pay makes everyday payments with a card easy, secure, and private — from simply tapping to pay in stores without an extra app, PIN, or OTP to checking out online without repeatedly entering payment information.”

“We are at a significant inflection point in payments, where technology, security and changing customer expectations are reshaping how people transact. At Axis Bank, our aspiration is to remain at the forefront of this transformation by building payment experiences that are progressive, trusted and deeply relevant to our customers,” said Amitabh Chaudhry, MD & CEO, Axis Bank, in a statement. “The introduction of Apple Pay advances this ambition, bringing greater choice and flexibility to our Credit Card customers, with support across the Mastercard and Visa networks. As payments become increasingly embedded in customers’ everyday digital lives, our focus is on bringing together innovation and trust, while making every interaction more intuitive and relevant. More importantly, this reflects our vision of a more connected and sophisticated payments ecosystem, where technology enables convenience and confidence in every transaction.”

“As India’s digital economy accelerates and consumers seek seamless and secure payment experiences, the introduction of Apple Pay for our Axis Bank-issued Mastercard credit card holders ushers in a new era of contactless commerce, giving Indian consumers greater confidence and peace of mind with every transaction,” said Gautam Aggarwal, Mastercard’s president of India and South Asia, in a statement. “With Mastercard’s tokenisation technology, every Apple Pay transaction is protected by a unique, cryptographically secured token, ensuring card details are never shared with merchants, safeguarding consumers against fraud.”

“The launch of Apple Pay in India marks an important milestone in the evolution of the country’s digital payments journey,” said Suresh Sethi, Visa’s group country manager of India and South Asia, in a statement. “By bringing together Apple’s intuitive consumer experience with Visa’s trusted global network and tokenisation capabilities, Apple Pay brings consumers in India a simpler, safer, and more seamless way to pay. Together, we are expanding consumer choice and helping shape the next generation of commerce in India.”

Delivering a Secure and Private Payment Experience

Security and privacy are at the core of Apple Pay. When customers use a card with Apple Pay, the actual card numbers are not stored on the device or on Apple servers, nor are they shared by Apple with the merchant. Instead, a unique Device Account Number is assigned, encrypted, and securely stored in the Secure Element, an industry-standard certified chip designed to store the payment information safely on the device.

Apple does not retain transaction information that can be tied back to the user. Their transactions stay between the user, the merchant, and their bank or card issuer. If a user’s iPhone is lost or stolen, they can use the Find My app to quickly locate, lock, or suspend payments from that device.
How to Use Apple Pay

Apple Pay is easy to set up. Customers can add a card directly to Apple Wallet via the latest version of the Axis Bank app. Alternatively, simply open the Wallet app on iPhone, tap the plus sign, and follow the steps to add an eligible card. Once a user adds a card to their Apple device, they can start using Apple Pay right away.

Using Apple Pay in stores is seamless and easy. Simply double-click the side button or Home button; authenticate using Face ID, Touch ID, or a device passcode if prompted; and hold the top of the iPhone or display of the Apple Watch near the contactless reader to pay.

Users can also make purchases with Apple Pay on iPhone and iPad — with support for Mac coming soon — for faster and more convenient payments in apps or on the web without having to create accounts or repeatedly type in contact information, card details, or shipping and billing information.
When using Apple Pay, users will continue to earn the rewards and benefits offered by their cards.

At launch, Apple Pay will be accepted by millions of merchants across India, including at Apple Store locations, Blinkit, Chaayos, Comet, Croma, Interflora, Ixigo, Le15 Patisserie, Reliance brands, Tata 1mg, Zomato, and more. Apple has worked closely with payment service providers (PSPs) — like BillDesk, Cashfree, Juspay, Mswipe, Paytm, PayU, Pine Labs, Razorpay, and more — to bring Apple Pay to their merchant networks in India, with even more merchants and apps coming over time.

Today Apple Pay is available in more than 90 countries and regions, and works with more than 11,000 bank and network partners worldwide.

MacDailyNews Take: Congrats, India!

Note: Apple Pay requires iPhone XR or later with iOS 18 or later. Available on Apple Watch Series 6 or later with watchOS 11 or later. Apple Watch must be paired with iPhone XR or later. For more information, see apple.com/in/apple-pay.

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Apple TV on Wednesday debuted the season one trailer for “Small Prophets,” the acclaimed six-episode comedy from BAFTA Award-winning creator, writer and director Mackenzie Crook (“Detectorists”). The series will premiere on Apple TV with the first two episodes on October 7, 2026, excluding the U.K., where it will be available to Apple TV subscribers in 2027. New episodes will premiere every Wednesday through November 4, 2026.

The series features a host of beloved comedy stars, including Mackenzie Crook, Pearce Quigley (“Detectorists”), Lauren Patel (“Waterloo Road”), BAFTA Award winner Sir Michael Palin (“Monty Python”), BAFTA Award winner Sophie Willan (“Alma’s Not Normal”), BAFTA Award nominee Jon Pointing (“Big Boys”) and Actor Award nominee Paul Kaye (“Game of Thrones”).

“Small Prophets” is a comic tale of the eccentric Michael Sleep (Quigley) who, since his darling Clea disappeared seven years ago, has lived a very ordinary life. He works in a DIY store, visits his dad Brian (Palin) and hopes for Clea to return. One day Brian shares an old recipe involving rainwater, horse manure and more than a little alchemy. With recipe in hand, Michael sets out (albeit with some skepticism) to create homunculi — magical spirits that can predict the future — in the hope they have the answer to his burning question: “will I ever see Clea again?”

Michael gets help from his young coworker Kacey (Patel), an unlikely friendship that blossoms partly (but not wholly) through their mutual dislike of store manager Gordon (Mackenzie Crook). Their friendship adds to the frustration and intrigue of his nosy neighbors (Willan, Pointing) who are obsessed with trying to find out what the hell is going on in the garden shed.

Hailed as a “jewel-like, unhurried masterpiece that is funny, profound and manages to break and mend your heart in equal measures,” the “truly fantastic” first season of the series that is “full of gorgeous surprises” holds a rare, perfect 100% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and won the Best Series Award, International Panorama at Series Mania in March 2026. Celebrated as “completely lovely” and “compulsory viewing,” “Small Prophets” is “richly steeped in Crook’s glorious brand of gentleness, his ability to imbue the ordinary with extraordinariness,” and is an “impossible marvel of TV making.”

“Small Prophets” was filmed and set in and around Manchester. The series incorporates visually stunning animation elements throughout a story of friendships and hope, the magical and the mundane, and where secrets and lies lurk in a suburban cul-de-sac.

The series is produced by Treasure Trove and Blue House Productions, and is created, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook. Executive producers are Mackenzie Crook and Lisa Thomas for Treasure Trove Productions, and Christine Gernon and Emma Strain for Blue House Productions. Apple TV acquired “Small Prophets” from international distributor Sphere Abacus.

Apple TV offers premium, compelling drama and comedy series, feature films, groundbreaking documentaries, and kids and family entertainment, and is available to watch across all of a user’s favorite screens. After its launch on November 1, 2019, Apple TV became the first all-original streaming service to launch around the world, and has premiered more original hits and received more award recognitions faster than any other streaming service in its debut. To date, Apple Original films, documentaries and series have been honored with 919 wins and 3,829 award nominations and counting including multi-Emmy Award-winning and history-making comedies “The Studio” and “Ted Lasso,” global cultural phenomenon “Severance,” Apple’s most-viewed drama “Pluribus,” Academy Award Best Picture winner “CODA” and Academy Award winner “F1,” the highest-grossing sports feature of all time.

MacDailyNews Note: Apple TV is available on the Apple TV app in over 100 countries and regions, on over 1 billion screens, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, popular smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO, TCL and others, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, and at tv.apple.com, for $14.99 per month with a seven-day free trial for new subscribers. For a limited time, customers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K or Mac can enjoy three months of Apple TV for free.

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Apple is preparing to make its long-delayed push into the smart-home market on October 13th, according to Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman, in a product expansion that would be one of the first major category moves under new Chief Executive Officer John Ternus.

At the center of the plan is a smart-home hub internally code-named J490, Gurman reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Apple also intends to announce the first update to the HomePod mini since that speaker’s 2020 debut and its first new Apple TV set-top box since 2022.

The hub is expected to take the form of a compact, roughly square display — about 6 to 7 inches — available in versions that sit on a counter or mount on a wall. It is designed to act as a household control point: managing connected accessories, handling video calls and intercom functions, showing photos and calendars, playing music, and running a new operating system built around Apple’s upgraded Siri AI. Facial recognition is meant to identify who is standing in front of the screen and personalize the interface, content, and responses.

The refreshed HomePod mini and Apple TV are expected to keep familiar designs while receiving faster processors so they can run the same more capable Siri models. Together, the three products would give Apple a coordinated hardware lineup in a category long dominated by Amazon and Google, after years in which Apple mostly leaned on HomeKit and third-party accessories.

The timing follows the public arrival of Siri AI with iOS 27. Earlier reporting by Gurman had described the hub as hardware that was largely ready while Apple waited for the assistant to catch up; the device has reportedly been in wider testing in employees’ homes. Apple has also been working to expand HomeKit and partner with third-party manufacturers around the new platform.

The October 13th date would put the announcement in the heart of the holiday selling season and shortly after Apple’s first foldable iPhone cycle under Ternus. A more ambitious follow-on product — a higher-end display on a moving robotic arm — has been described in earlier Gurman reporting as a later-stage project, not part of this first wave.

Apple did not immediately comment on the report. If the devices ship as planned, they would mark the company’s clearest attempt yet to make the home, not just the pocket, a core Apple surface.
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MacDailyNews Take: We’ve been waiting for the new Apple TV hardware, among other things, for what seems like forever!

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Apple TV recorded the biggest week of viewing in its seven-year history during the week of September 14, as a record Emmy haul collided with new releases and a wider distribution push.

The streamer reported a 67 percent year-over-year jump for that week. Apple did not publish raw subscriber or hours-watched totals, instead citing comparative gains and third-party rankings. Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva first reported the company’s claims and the supporting Luminate and Nielsen data.

The timing was unusually stacked. Apple took home 28 Primetime Emmys on September 14 — 29 including the commercials category — the most of any platform this year and the most in Apple TV history. Freshman horror-comedy Widow’s Bay led that haul with 14 awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series, the most wins ever for a comedy in a single season. Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus added six more, including Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for Rhea Seehorn.

Those trophies translated into a sharp halo effect. Apple said Widow’s Bay viewership jumped 280 percent week over week after the ceremony, with the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, India, Poland, and Spain leading the surge. Luminate data lined up with that claim: the series sat outside the U.S. Top 50 for September 4–10, then climbed to No. 13 for September 11–17. Pluribus rose 200 percent week over week, though that increase came off a smaller base after the series ended in December and did not reenter Luminate’s Top 50.

New programming did as much work as the awards. Mayday, the Cold War buddy comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, premiered September 4 and became Apple TV’s biggest film debut over its first 18 days. In the U.S., Luminate ranked it No. 1 for September 4–10 with 8.7 million views and No. 2 the following week. The film, from Apple Studios, Skydance, and Reynolds’ Maximum Effort, has drawn generally positive reviews.

Ted Lasso Season 4 was the other pillar. Jason Sudeikis’ comedy, now following Ted as he coaches a second-division women’s team three years after Season 3, is Apple’s most-watched returning comedy over its first 54 days, the company said. Nielsen’s most recent weekly streaming report, covering September 7, put Ted Lasso at No. 7 overall with 734 million minutes viewed. The season premiered August 5 and remains near the top of Apple TV charts worldwide as it heads toward an October 7 finale.

The stellar series Slow Horses also benefited. Season 6 was up 25 percent versus Season 5 over its first seven days and returned to Luminate’s Top 50 at No. 43 after missing the prior week. Apple still calls it the service’s No. 1 title in the U.K.

A product change may have widened the funnel. On September 15, Apple expanded iCloud+ so paid subscribers in more than 170 countries get Apple TV at no extra cost. That rollout began the day after the Emmys and during the record week.

MacDailyNews Take: Nielsen’s figures for the week of September 14 were not yet out when Apple made the claim. Even without them, the combination of a historic awards night, a high-profile movie launch, a returning flagship comedy, and bundled access gave Apple TV its strongest argument yet that prestige award wins can still move the needle on a service known for quality over quantity.

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Apple on Tuesday released a new beta firmware update for its AirPods lineup, making build 9B5042a available to developers and public beta testers.

Supported Models & Details

The pre-release firmware is compatible across multiple generations of Apple audio devices:

• AirPods Pro: AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Pro 3
• AirPods: AirPods 4, AirPods 5
• AirPods Max: AirPods Max, AirPods Max 2

As is typical with AirPods beta releases, Apple has not provided release notes or detailed specific feature additions, performance enhancements, or bug fixes included in this build.

MacDailyNews Note: To test the new build, users must enable beta updates on a connected companion device running iOS, iPadOS, or macOS:

1. Connect the AirPods to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac running a current OS version.
2. Navigate to Settings and select your AirPods.
3. Toggle on the option for Beta Firmware.

Once enabled, firmware installations occur automatically over the air. Place the AirPods in their charging case, connect them to a power source, and keep them near your connected Apple device. Because there is no manual “Update” button for AirPods software, the installation process typically completes over a few hours.

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Just weeks into the job, Apple’s new chief executive is already trying to shake the company out of its long-running rhythm. John Ternus, the longtime hardware engineering chief who succeeded Tim Cook on September 1st, is pushing Apple to move faster, launch more often, strip out layers of management, and put engineers closer to the top of the organization.

That account comes from Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman, who reports that Ternus, a product person, has begun discussing an overhaul internally: accelerate product development, broaden the device lineup, and build a leaner company with a sharper engineering focus after operations manager Cook’s 15-year iterative slog.

The first visible change is the calendar. Apple has long clustered its biggest announcements around spring and fall. Ternus has told colleagues the company needs to introduce products more quickly and become more experimental if it is going to stay competitive. The idea is not an instant rewrite of how Apple designs hardware — those cycles are deeply established — but a shift toward more frequent releases throughout the year rather than two big seasonal waves.

The product pipeline already points that way. After the recent foldable iPhone Duo launch, work is underway on additional hardware next year, including camera-equipped AirPods, smart glasses, and a redesigned iPhone tied to the device’s 20th anniversary, along with refreshes such as a new HomePod mini, iPad mini, and Apple TV.

The organizational piece is more immediate. Ternus wants fewer middle-management layers between working engineers and senior executives. Over the past two weeks, Apple’s hardware engineering group has dismissed a number of engineering program managers — the people who for decades have managed timelines and coordinated work across teams. The cuts reached several program managers and about half a dozen directors, one of Apple’s most senior employee ranks. Those affected were given a short window to find other jobs inside the company; anyone who does not will be laid off later this year.

Smaller cuts have already hit other groups, and some early-stage projects judged less essential have been scaled back or canceled, including work in Siri, Vision Pro, and AI-related software engineering. Internally, the mood is described as more hands-on and hectic, with product managers being pressed to deliver more devices, more often, on shorter timelines.

None of this is a sudden conversion. At 51, Ternus has argued for a leaner Apple for years. While running hardware engineering, he told employees at an all-hands meeting that the company should hire fewer people, demand more from the engineers it already has, and cut organizational bloat. He once showed a slide of annual headcount growth and said Apple should be accomplishing more with fewer employees.

Cost-cutting is part of the same brief. Apple considered laying off about 5,000 AppleCare customer-service workers over the summer on the theory that AI agents could take over phone and web support; those plans were put on hold. Even so, employees in several divisions expect more reductions later this year or early next, even as some 2027 planning still assumes higher budgets and headcount. A smaller cultural signal: some teams were told they could not bring plus-ones to upcoming holiday parties for the first time in years.

Ternus is not only looking at expenses. With services chief Eddy Cue and CFO Kevan Parekh, he has discussed new services and ways to pull more revenue from products and offerings Apple already sells. More frequent hardware launches, the thinking goes, would also widen the base of customers who then buy subscriptions and other services.

The contrast with the Cook years is intentional. Cook built an operational giant and, via financial engineering(massive buybacks) a roughly $5 trillion company. Ternus, a 25-year Apple veteran who oversaw hardware across iPhone, Mac, Watch, iPad, and AirPods and helped drive Apple silicon, is betting that an engineering-first, less layered company can ship more ambitious products without waiting for the next September event. Cook remains executive chairman and a government-relations presence; how far the two men stay aligned on strategy will be one of the tests of the foreseeable future.

For now, the message from the new CEO is blunt: fewer layers, more products, tighter teams, and less patience for the old cadence. Apple is being told to get back to work.
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MacDailyNews Take: Better late than never!

You know, some people get upset when we point out that Tim Cook is a boring, reactive caretaker who’s not really the best person to be running Apple today or for at least the past several years.

You can be upset with us for having the temerity to call it like we see it, but the fact remains that Apple would be doing significantly better today with a visionary who’d have seen AI on the horizon, who’d have recognized the intrinsic importance of Siri and therefore invested in it instead of criminally neglecting it, and who wouldn’t have squandered the company’s gigantic leads in things like personal assistants and podcasting. – MacDailyNews, August 22, 2024

Apple needed new blood years ago, but the old blood simply won’t let go. – MacDailyNews, January 22, 2025

See also: Steve Jobs never meant for Tim Cook to still be Apple’s CEO in 2025 – MacDailyNews, July 9, 2025

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Final Cut Camera, the professional filming app for iPhone, receives a major update with version 2.4, adopting a new design, adding support for variable aperture on iPhone 18 Pro, and giving creators even more pro options with the release of iOS 27. The new version is available as a free software update beginning today, September 29.

Redesigned from the ground up, Final Cut Camera gives creators even easier access to popular settings like shutter angle, ISO, and white balance, along with customizable overlays, including false color and clipping indicators for proper exposure, and improved focus peaking with sensitivity control. A new tally light indicates when recording is underway, and a two-finger tap now clears the viewfinder so users can focus on the shot.

With iPhone 18 Pro, users can take advantage of the new Fusion Main camera with variable aperture — the most advanced camera Apple has ever made — which brings aperture control to iPhone for the first time. Final Cut Camera allows creators to precisely dial in their aperture settings, or choose between shutter priority and aperture priority modes, to record stunning videos. The update also unlocks Cinematic mode effects for regular video, including footage captured in ProRes and Apple Log, allowing creators to adjust focus points and depth of field while editing in Final Cut Pro.

With iOS 27, Final Cut Camera adds support for professional video scopes, clean SDI out, and genlock offset. Now creators can accurately monitor their video using the RGB Parade — which displays the red, green, and blue color channels to help check color balance and exposure — and the histogram. With clean SDI out, creators can send a clean video signal using an HDMI-to-SDI converter for broadcast-quality streaming. And with genlock offset, creators can compensate for image artifacts from a recorded display or for latency differences between their iPhone and other genlocked cameras.

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Apple today introduced updates to Apple Creator Studio, the powerful collection of creative and productivity apps. Pixelmator Pro for iPad adds edge-refinement tools for advanced selections; native video captured on iPhone 18 Pro can now have Cinematic mode effects applied during editing using Final Cut Pro and Motion; and Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform gain new templates and creative tools.

All-New Templates for New Ideas

Pixelmator Pro adds two new template collections on Mac and iPad, including designs for sports and action-packed projects, and templates for launching a new creative idea, business, or product. A new Podcasts category introduces cover artwork designed to make shows stand out, sized appropriately for major podcast platforms.

Pixelmator Pro for iPad also brings Select and Mask from Mac, giving creatives dedicated controls for precise mask and selection refinements — including the ability to preserve fine detail along complex edges like hair or fur.

End-to-End Cinematic Video

Final Cut Pro and Motion on Mac bring new ways to add Cinematic mode effects to video captured natively on iPhone 18 Pro. Editors can adjust focus points and depth of field directly in the Final Cut Pro timeline. Compressor lets editors convert video with Cinematic mode effects back into the previous Cinematic mode format, and adds new HEVC and MPEG-4 export presets for social sharing.

Time-Saving Features to Boost Productivity

Apple Creator Studio subscribers get new, professionally designed templates and themes in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. And intelligent slide generation in Keynote now automatically creates images tailored to a presentation.

Keynote, Pages, and Numbers users can more easily collaborate and get help in the moment, with the ability to request access to a shared presentation, document, or spreadsheet. Pages for Mac also adds Screen View, which optimizes content for reading and focused writing, and Numbers adds new trigonometry, statistics, and logic functions for solving complex problems in a spreadsheet.

Freeform gains several highly requested features. Boards now automatically adapt to Dark Mode, and folders let users organize boards into collections and invite others to collaborate. Writing Tools with Apple Intelligence can rewrite, proofread, and summarize handwritten notes; users can also request access to collaborate on shared files, or automate adding content using Shortcuts. Freeform becomes even more powerful in visionOS 27, letting users pull multiple items from a board — including images, videos, sticky notes, shapes, and 3D models — into their space, and view 3D models together as a group.

MacDailyNews Take: Happy updating!

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Tuesday, in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Apple released a new guide to help families create healthy digital habits that balance screen time with sleep, exercise, schoolwork, and time with friends and family. The AAP’s expert guidance has been tailored for Apple’s new parental controls in “Building Healthy Digital Habits: A Guide for Families.”

“Every family approaches technology in their own way,” said Sumbul Desai, M.D., Apple’s vice president of Health and Fitness, in a statement. “That’s why we wanted to combine trusted guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics with the tools built into our products. Together, they’re designed to adapt to each family and each child’s stage of development, giving parents a useful starting point to decide what works best. Our hope is that this guide helps facilitate easier discussions and gives families the resources they need to put this guidance into practice, adjust their approach as their child grows, and help them develop healthy digital habits they can carry into everyday life.”

This guide walks families through six steps:

• Start a conversation about screen time, with tips for parents to approach the topic and establish expectations in a way that helps kids feel included in the plan.

• Create a Child Account, which enables age-based safeguards and gives parents access to parental controls to manage their child’s experience.

• Set safety settings for websites and apps, including Ask to Buy and Ask to Browse, so families can review new apps and websites together.

• Make a schedule for device use, using Time Allowances and Schedules to balance time online with sleep, schoolwork, physical activity, and time with family and friends.

• Manage communications, with parents deciding who their child can communicate with and Communication Safety, on by default for all users under 18, helping protect kids from viewing or sharing sensitive content.

• Continue the conversation as kids grow, with guidance on adjusting the family’s plan over time.

There’s also more detailed information on the AAP’s screen time guidance by age group, from infants to teens, to help families consider their choices around media use.

“At AAP, our focus is equipping pediatricians and families with trusted science-based guidance to support informed decisions at every stage of a child’s life, including building healthy digital habits,” said Mark Del Monte, the AAP’s chief executive officer, in a statement. “We are proud to partner with Apple to expand access to the Family Media Plan, helping parents create routines that promote balance, safety, and healthy development. We know that navigating screens and social media is something every parent wants to get right, and this partnership will further support families with those efforts.”

Availability

New features are available now with the Screen Time update in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27. All products in a Family Sharing group must be updated to iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, and visionOS 27 to use the Screen Time update. Some features may not be available in all regions, in all languages, or on all models. For more information about availability, visit apple.com.

MacDailyNews Note: Learn more about Apple’s approach to child safety here.

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On the heels of its International Emmy Award nomination for Drama Series, Apple TV today announced a season two for the provocative French-language drama “Carême,” starring César Award winner Benjamin Voisin and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Martin Bourboulon (“Les Trois Mousquetaires: D’Artagnan”). The delicious series, slated to begin filming next week in Paris, also stars César Award nominee Jérémie Renier (“My Way”) and Alice Da Luz (“Hanami”).

Following its global debut just one year ago, the “thrilling and sumptuous” drama “Carême” has been hailed as an “irresistible” “visual and narrative feast” featuring Voisin’s “charismatic and complex” “portrayal of the ‘first celebrity chef.’” Quickly achieving a Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the “delightful” series has received accolades from fans and critics around the world. The first season of “Carême” is now streaming on Apple TV.

“Carême” follows the thrilling story of the world’s first celebrity chef, Antonin Carême (Voisin), who rose from humble beginnings in Paris to the height of culinary stardom in Napoleon’s Europe. While he dreams only of becoming the most famous chef in the world, his talent and ambitions attract the attention of renowned and powerful politicians who use him as a spy for France. Determined to escape poverty and fulfill his dream, Carême can choose revenge or he can have it all — women, wealth, fame — but at what cost? His love? His soul? His life?

Based on the book “Carême: The First Celebrity Chef” by multi-award-winning historian, playwright and screenwriter Ian Kelly (“The King’s Man”), “Carême” is created by Kelly and Davide Serino (“Mussolini: Son of the Century”). “Carême” is executive produced by Vanessa van Zuylen with VVZ Production and Dominique Farrugia with Shine Fiction (Banijay France) for Apple TV. The series films on location at emblematic sites in and around Paris, including Palais des Tuileries, Château de Fontainebleau, Château de Chantilly, Château de Compiègne and more.

Apple TV offers premium, compelling drama and comedy series, feature films, groundbreaking documentaries, and kids and family entertainment, and is available to watch across all of a user’s favorite screens. After its launch on November 1, 2019, Apple TV became the first all-original streaming service to launch around the world, and has premiered more original hits and received more award recognitions faster than any other streaming service in its debut. To date, Apple Original films, documentaries and series have been honored with 919 wins and 3,829 award nominations and counting including multi-Emmy Award-winning and history-making comedies “The Studio” and “Ted Lasso,” global cultural phenomenon “Severance,” Apple’s most-viewed drama “Pluribus,” Academy Award Best Picture winner “CODA” and Academy Award winner “F1,” the highest-grossing sports feature of all time.

MacDailyNews Note: Apple TV is available on the Apple TV app in over 100 countries and regions, on over 1 billion screens, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, popular smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO, TCL and others, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, and at tv.apple.com, for $14.99 per month with a seven-day free trial for new subscribers. For a limited time, customers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K or Mac can enjoy three months of Apple TV for free.

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Apple TV on Tuesday released the trailer and key art for “Nocturne,” the gripping and highly anticipated drama based on the internationally bestselling crime novel “The Sandman” by Lars Kepler. “Nocturne” stars and is executive produced by Tony Award winner, Actor Award winner, Emmy Award nominee and Golden Globe Award nominee Liev Schreiber, as well as Emmy Award nominee Zazie Beetz. The series also stars Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award and Actor Award winner Stephen Graham. The 10-episode drama is developed for television, co-showrun, written and executive produced by John Hlavin and created for television, co-showrun, written and executive produced by BAFTA Award winner Rowan Joffé. “Nocturne” will make its global debut on Friday, October 30, 2026, with the first two episodes, followed by new episodes every Friday through December 25, 2026, on Apple TV.

“Nocturne” tells the story of Jonah Lynn (Schreiber), an ex-soldier turned homicide detective who, tired of working the tough streets of Philadelphia, moves to a small town in Western Pennsylvania for a quiet life. But, as the town and his family come under attack from the diabolically cunning serial killer Jurek Walter (Graham), Jonah must protect all that he holds dear. When the desperate search for Jurek’s last missing victim forces Jonah to send his surrogate daughter FBI Agent Saga Bauer (Beetz), up against Jurek, how far will Jonah go?

The ensemble cast starring alongside Schreiber, Beetz and Graham includes Bill Camp, Rory Culkin, Chrissy Metz, Poorna Jagannathan and Gary Carr.
Produced for Apple TV by A+E Studios in association with Range Studios, the series is created for television by, written and executive produced by Joffé, and developed for television, written and executive produced by Hlavin, who also serves as the series showrunner. Emmy Award, Peabody Award and DGA Award winner Tim Van Patten directs the first two episodes and serves as executive producer. In addition to starring, Schreiber executive produces, and Beetz executive produces via her Sleepy Poppy production company. Author Lars Kepler (Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril), Øystein Karlsen, David Rysdahl, Dorothy Fortenberry and Niclas Salomonsson also serve as executive producers, while Julie Herrin serves as co-executive producer. Academy Award winner and Emmy Award nominee Barry Jossen and Tana Jamieson executive produce for A+E Studios. Heather Kadin, Peter Micelli and Jack Whigham executive produce for Range Studios.

Lars Kepler is one of the bestselling thriller authors in the world, and their 10 published crime novels, known as the Joona Linna series, have sold a total of 20 million copies globally. The book series is translated into 40 languages and distributed in over 170 territories.

Apple TV offers premium, compelling drama and comedy series, feature films, groundbreaking documentaries, and kids and family entertainment, and is available to watch across all your favorite screens. After its launch on November 1, 2019, Apple TV became the first all-original streaming service to launch around the world, and has premiered more original hits and received more award recognitions faster than any other streaming service in its debut. To date, Apple Original films, documentaries and series have been honored with 919 wins and 3,827 award nominations and counting, including multi-Emmy Award-winning and history-making comedies “The Studio” and “Ted Lasso,” global cultural phenomenon “Severance,” Apple’s most-viewed drama “Pluribus,” Academy Award Best Picture winner “CODA” and Academy Award winner “F1,” the highest-grossing sports feature of all time.
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MacDailyNews Note: Apple TV is available on the Apple TV app in over 100 countries and regions, on over 1 billion screens, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, popular smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO, TCL and others, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, and at tv.apple.com, for $14.99 per month with a seven-day free trial for new subscribers. For a limited time, customers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K or Mac can enjoy three months of Apple TV for free.

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Apple has updated a support document on lossless audio in Apple Music with wording that appears to leave room for a new Apple TV 4K, according to MacRumors‘ Joe Rossignol.

The document now says, under the Apple TV 4K section: “Hi-Res Lossless is available only on Apple TV 4K (3rd generation or later).” The current model is the 3rd-generation Apple TV 4K, so the phrase “or later” stands out. It could mean a 4th-generation box is coming soon. It could also be future-proofing, or just a wording slip.

The change follows last week’s report that Apple files included an image labeled “Apple TV 4K (4th generation).” That image showed the same compact black enclosure as today’s model, suggesting the upgrades would be internal rather than a redesign.

A new Apple TV 4K is widely expected this October. Rumored upgrades include an A19 or A19 Pro chip, 8GB to 12GB of RAM, Apple Intelligence and Siri AI, Apple’s N1 wireless chip with Wi-Fi 7, and a revised Siri Remote. The current Apple TV 4K, announced in October 2022, uses an A15 Bionic chip and 4GB of RAM. Apple raised its U.S. starting price to $199 earlier this year.

MacDailyNews Take: The support-document language alone does not confirm a launch. Combined with the earlier image leak, it is another small signal that new Apple TV 4K hardware may be imminent.

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Apple’s first foldable is not meant to feel like a stretched phone that happens to bend. In an interview with creator Donald Decodes, Apple software chief Craig Federighi described iPhone Duo as a device built around continuity: what you see when it is closed should flow, almost unconsciously, into what appears when it opens.

The conversation covers the see-through unfolding animation, a new hinge-angle API, Split View that behaves like two desks, and the old fight over iOS’s left-edge back swipe. Federighi’s through-line never changes. Hardware moves in space. Software should move with it.

“The screen has become a window”

Duo’s most discussed visual trick is the moment the outer display turns semi-transparent as the phone opens, revealing the inner screen underneath.

“Our real goal there was not just an imaginary movement that you think about, but something that you don’t need to think about,” Federighi said, “so that you automatically realize the effect: that the screen has become transparent, and has become a window to what is underneath it.”

He framed that as the product’s idea, not decoration. “The essence of the device idea is this continuity between your experience on the device while it is closed and your experience of what you find when you open it. So the idea that while this is happening, you are actually looking across the top screen to see what will appear below makes that journey easier in the most natural way.”

His verdict: “I think it’s subtle but charming.” He has also called the same effect “subtle but magical.”

The hinge is an input, not just a joint

Developers can read Duo’s hinge to about five degrees of accuracy, Federighi said, with smoothing so the stream is usable. Most apps should not live on raw degrees. Apple wants them to react to pose: book, on-table, tent.

“We make those things so that the developer does not have to deal with the number of openness levels. We can deliver a standard and consistent experience across applications by connecting the mode and making frameworks respond to it automatically.”

Creative apps can go closer to the raw data. Apple has already shown a guitar-style demo that treats the hinge like a whammy bar. On durability, Federighi was dry: “I think we are somewhat confident, yes.” Then the line that matters for the platform: “One of the ways this device expresses itself is through its positions and its hinge, and we are excited to see what the developers will do with that.”

Two workspaces, not one stretched canvas

Split View on Duo is designed as two independent workspaces — each able to keep its own home screen and app switcher — that can lock together when you tap the divider.

“We wanted it to be really quick and natural when you might want to keep watching, where you want to keep something on this side, while you might be switching between other things on the other side, so that you can switch between them independently. This seemed perfectly natural from a spatial perspective.”

That is the same spatial instinct behind everything else in the interview. The phone folds. The interface is supposed to fold with it, not pretend the crease is extra pixels.

Why the back swipe still comes from the left

Users have asked Apple for years why you can’t swipe back from the right the way Android often allows.

Federighi turned the question around. “People keep asking why we always have to swipe back from the left. So, what would happen if we could swipe back from the right? What terrible thing will happen?”

His answer: the gesture would stop matching the motion on screen. “It becomes spatially inconsistent in one respect. I think having a spatially consistent model and having the animation really match what’s happening is an important part of providing a truly natural user experience. Therefore, we do not consider these gestures to be random actions. We think of it as a way to manipulate something physical. The logic of the device, the way things move, they slide in and out, and we try to maintain spatial consistency.”

There is a practical reason too. In Safari and other hierarchical apps, one edge can mean back and the other can mean forward. “If we made both edges always for going back, we would lose the option of going forward.”

Apple has already loosened the rule. In iOS 26, when a swipe is unambiguous, you can go back from anywhere on the display. On Duo, edge gestures and on-screen buttons both exist, and two-handed use makes the left-edge habit less of a one-thumb problem. The far edge remains the always-available way back because the middle of the screen is often doing something else.

The developer bet: iPad, not stretched phones

The risk with any foldable is apps that look like elongated phones. Federighi pointed to iPad as Apple’s evidence that its developer culture is different.

“History on Android often shows that their tablet apps look like elongated iPhone apps, right? You don’t see much customization in the experience for this type of device. But if you look at iPad apps, you’ll find they’re specifically designed to take advantage of that large screen. I think this reflects the kind of standards that developers on our platform naturally adhere to as a community. And I think you’ll see exactly the same thing on Duo devices.”

The tools behind that hope are familiar: UIKit and SwiftUI inheriting new behaviors, plus AI-assisted adaptation in Xcode. “When we did that at WWDC, we introduced the resizing feature in part in anticipation of a dual-screen iPhone. In our labs, developers have found that they can take their existing applications and use these AI skills to adapt to the change in size almost automatically.”

“The developers’ passion for doing it right, and the ease of doing it now,” he said, “means that iPhone Duo customers will have great experiences across a wide range of apps very soon.”

That is the argument Apple is making for Duo. It should feel continuous when it opens, spatially honest when you swipe, and flexible enough that each half can be its own desk. Whether the software ecosystem matches that ambition is the part Federighi cannot animate away. He can only design for it — and wait to see what developers do with a hinge that now speaks.
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MacDailyNews Take: Watch the full interview below:

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Nothing Technologies is making its most aggressive push yet into the premium headphone market. The London-based company today launched the Headphone (1) Pro, a $399 pair of wireless over-ears built from aluminum, titanium, and scratch-resistant glass — and aimed squarely at Apple’s AirPods Max, Sony’s WH-1000XM6, and Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra.

The new model goes on sale September 29 through Nothing’s website, Amazon, and Best Buy stores in North America. It is offered in black or white.

That price undercuts Apple’s current AirPods Max and sits below several other flagship rivals, while still representing a $100 jump over last year’s Headphone (1). Nothing is betting that a more premium build, a new triple-driver audio system, and stronger noise cancellation will justify the step up.

Glass windows, metal frame

The Headphone (1) Pro keeps Nothing’s signature rectangular, cassette-inspired ear cups and see-through aesthetic. This time the transparent windows are 9H Panda glass rather than plastic, framed in aluminum, with titanium used in the arms. The company says the glass is shatter- and scratch-resistant and survived repeated drop tests from more than a meter. A plastic film behind the glass is designed to keep the internal chamber intact even if the panel cracks.

Despite the heavier-sounding materials, the Pro model is slightly lighter than its predecessor at 327 grams. The headband is wider and more padded, and the ear cushions are softer, with an 8mm silicone baffle intended to improve the seal and comfort on long sessions. The headphones carry an IP52 dust- and splash-resistance rating.

Three drivers and studio tuning

The biggest change is inside. Each ear cup now uses three drivers: a 40mm dynamic driver for bass, a smaller precision dynamic driver for mids and vocals, and an xMEMS solid-state tweeter for high frequencies. The system was tuned with Metropolis Studios, the London facility known for work with major recording artists.

A physical Flat EQ switch lets users drop into a more neutral profile for mixing or critical listening. There is also a “Studio B” spatial mode meant to approximate a mixing-room acoustic, plus other spatial presets with optional head tracking. Wired USB-C playback supports lossless audio up to 24-bit/192kHz; wireless options include LDAC, AAC, and Bluetooth 6.1 with multipoint and Auracast.

Active noise cancellation is rated at up to 46dB using a 10-microphone array, an increase from the previous model. Nothing says the improvement should be most noticeable in wind and traffic. Battery life is listed at up to 30 hours with ANC on and 68 hours with it off on AAC; LDAC figures are lower. A five-minute charge is said to add several hours of playback.

Competing on look and price

Nothing has built its brand on distinctive industrial design rather than matching Sony or Bose feature-for-feature. The Headphone (1) Pro is the company’s most expensive headphones to date and its clearest attempt to convert that design identity into a serious premium product.

Whether glass-and-metal styling and a triple-driver array can pull buyers away from AirPods Max or Sony’s latest flagship will depend on how the sound and ANC hold up in daily use. Early impressions have generally praised the audio and the more refined build, while noting the rectangular cups remain polarizing and the battery claim with ANC on is not class-leading.
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MacDailyNews Take: For now, Nothing has put a $399 alternative on the shelf that looks unlike anything else in the category — and that is exactly the point. More info and images via Amazon here.

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Apple is likely seeing “healthy” demand for iPhone 18 Pro, JPMorgan said Monday, after week-three delivery waits showed only a limited pullback from last week’s surge.

The firm’s Apple Product Availability Tracker had already shown a sharp stretch in week two: average iPhone 18 Pro lead times jumped to 23 days from 7 in week one, while iPhone 18 Pro Max moved to 30 days from 19. That week-over-week jump was steeper than the iPhone 17 Pro cycle at the same point a year ago, when waits rose by 9 and 7 days, respectively.

U.S., U.K., and German timelines had moved broadly in line with last year’s Pro launch. China was still running shorter than a year ago, but the gap was closing.

JPMorgan had flagged week three as the test: if waits collapsed, the week-two spike might have been a supply hiccup. They didn’t. Moderation was limited. The read, the bank said, is healthy Pro demand — with the usual caveat that longer waits can also reflect constrained supply, not just hot orders.
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MacDailyNews Take: Of course, without knowing Apple’s initial supplies for each year, it’s difficult to be precise.

And this year has a brand new wrinkle: iPhone Duo. Foldable pre-orders do not open until October 1th. Some Pro shoppers may still be waiting to see the book-style model before they commit. Supply-chain production revisions, typically around November, will be the cleaner signal after that.

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Indie developer Vidit Bhargava has built the most charming iPhone Duo demo yet: a virtual Walkman that treats Apple’s first foldable like a cassette deck.

Open the Duo to pick a tape and “insert” it. Close the Duo and playback starts. Bhargava recorded the button clicks and tape hiss from a real Walkman and brought the hardware to the Bitrig Hacks event in San Francisco this weekend, where Duo-Man took second place.⁠

“Duo-Man offers the complete walkman experience on the iPhone Duo. Open the Duo to pick and ‘insert’ the cassette, Close the Duo to start listening,” Bhargava posted with the demo. “Yes, I actually recorded the button clicks and static noise from a real Walkman!”

The concept maps cleanly onto the hardware. The 7.6-inch inner Super Retina XDR display becomes the tape door and album picker. The 5.4-inch outer display becomes the Walkman face with chunky transport controls. Closing the hinge is the play button. Bitrig co-founder Kyle Macomber noted that Bhargava had to explain what a Walkman was to a chunk of the room.⁠

Bhargava is turning the hack into a real app. Planned features include Apple Music and local files, Apple Pencil “rolling” of the cassette loop, and fast-forward/rewind that behaves like the original mechanism. Spotify may come later.

The video has already passed 1.9 million views.

iPhone Duo specs

Apple announced iPhone Duo on September 9. Pre-orders start October 16; it ships October 23 starting at $1,999.⁠Apple

• Displays: 7.6-inch inner Super Retina XDR (nano-texture, ~1878×2670, ProMotion 120Hz, Always On, 3000-nit peak) and 5.4-inch outer Super Retina XDR (~1398×2034, same refresh and brightness). Same aspect ratio on both sides so content scales without jumping. Inner FaceTime camera sits under the folding panel.

• Size / weight: Unfolded 117.8 × 164.6 × 5.2 mm — thinnest iPhone ever. Folded 117.8 × 84.1 × 11.3 mm (passport-adjacent). 254 grams.

• Build: Grade 5 titanium frame and hinge (100+ parts), Ceramic Shield back, Ceramic Shield 2 front, IP68, Touch ID in the side button. No Face ID.

• Chip: A20 Pro (2nm), 6-core CPU, 7-core GPU, Dual 16-core Neural Engine, 12GB RAM. Same silicon as iPhone 18 Pro. Custom vapor chamber.

• Storage: 256GB ($1,999), 512GB ($2,199), 1TB ($2,599), 2TB ($3,199). eSIM only.

• Cameras: Dual 48MP Fusion system — Main (f/1.6, sensor-shift OIS, optical-quality 2x) and Ultra Wide (f/2.2, macro). 12MP Center Stage on the cover display. 4K Dolby Vision up to 120 fps.

• Battery: Dual-cell design. Up to 31 hours of video on the inner display, 44 hours on the outer display, 24 hours mixed use. 50% in about 20 minutes wired; MagSafe and Qi2 wireless.

• Other: iOS 27, C2 modem, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, USB-C. Apple Pencil (USB-C) support on both displays later this year. Colors: Star White and Night Sky.

Duo-Man offers the complete walkman experience on the iPhone Duo. Open the Duo to pick and 'insert' the cassette, Close the Duo to start listening.

Yes, I actually recorded the button clicks and static noise from a real Walkman!

It was fun making this at @bitrig hacks today. pic.twitter.com/juSrLhofrH

— Vidit Bhargava (@viditb) September 27, 2026

MacDailyNews Take: Fastest killer app in iPhone history!Duo pre-orders haven’t even opened, yet!

Wouldn’t this have been a perfect addition to Apple’s iPhone Duo intro video? Well, hopefully, the company can help get this app fully polished and into iPhone Duo ads ASAP – not that Duo will need any ads for its foreseeable sold-out future, but it’s just so perfect for showing off the form factor and so perfectly nostalgic to those who remember using Walkman cassette players daily!

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Apple has not announced a MacBook Ultra. What the rumor mill describes is a new top-tier laptop on the roadmap: 14- and 16-inch machines, internally K114 and K116, that sit above today’s MacBook Pro instead of replacing it. If Apple uses the Ultra name, that is the point. If it keeps “MacBook Pro,” the hardware still reads as a new class.

The latest window is late 2026 to early 2027. Units have been running macOS 27.1 internally; that point release is slated for the end of October, which is why October–December keeps coming up. Late-2026 mass production is the optimistic supply-chain read. The memory shortage is the slip risk. A September iPhone-event debut was always a long shot. Early 2027 is the conservative call.

Expect Apple’s first OLED MacBook: tandem OLED with an oxide TFT backplane, in the same family as iPad Pro. True blacks, higher contrast, a thinner stack than mini-LED. Expect the first official touchscreen Mac, with touch as a second input, not a replacement for keyboard and trackpad. macOS Golden Gate already carries touch-friendlier controls. Expect a Dynamic Island and a hole-punch camera instead of the 2021 notch, with status and Siri AI cues in the island. Expect a thinner chassis — the first major high-end laptop redesign since the 2021 MacBook Pro. MagSafe, HDMI, and the SD slot are expected to stay.

The first machines are expected to ship with M5 Pro and M5 Max. Apple is said to have skipped M6 Pro and M6 Max and moved the next high-end silicon plan to M7 for late 2027. An M5 Ultra option has been floated; there has never been an Ultra chip in a notebook. Built-in cellular via a C2 modem is possible and unconfirmed. A follow-on MacBook Ultra with M7 Pro and M7 Max is already described as being in advanced testing for late 2027.

Apple raised MacBook Pro prices $300 in June. An M5 Pro 14-inch already starts at $2,499; the 16-inch M5 Pro at $2,999. OLED plus a new tier historically means another step up — on the order of 20% when Apple first put OLED on iPhone and iPad Pro. A $3,000-and-up floor is the working assumption, not a leaked SKU.

The Ultra pitch is display, touch, and industrial design, with proven M5 Pro and M5 Max performance in a new chassis. Buyers who want the next high-end silicon generation would be looking at the M7 models later. Buyers who want the new screen and chassis would not have to wait for that chip.
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MacDailyNews Take: Apple can still keep the Pro name. Until it speaks, “MacBook Ultra” is the rumor label for a thinner OLED touch Mac that costs more than the Pro it will sit next to — if the memory market lets it ship on time.

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Apple today released iOS 26.7.1, a point update for iPhones that remained on iOS 26 instead of moving to iOS 27.

The update is the first follow-up to iOS 26.7, which shipped September 14 alongside iOS 27 as the security path for anyone not ready to upgrade. Apple’s public notes for these .x.1 builds are typically brief: important security fixes and bug fixes, with a detailed vulnerability list posted later.

Install it from Settings → General → Software Update. A restart is required. iPad users who stayed on iPadOS 26 should look for the matching iPadOS 26.7.1 build in the same place.

iOS 26.7 itself addressed more than 80 security issues — 75 of them shared with iOS 27 — including kernel and Bluetooth fixes. None of those September 14 flaws were described as actively exploited at the time, but Apple has been accelerating patches as AI-assisted vulnerability research shortens the window between disclosure and exploit. 26.7.1 continues that maintenance train.

Do not confuse this with iOS 27.0.1, also released today. That update is for devices already on iOS 27 and names specific bugs: unexpected restarts on iPhone 18 Pro / Pro Max when Face ID fails, a 2x photo color artifact on a small number of those Pro models, and a touchscreen freeze if Notification Center and Control Center are opened at the same time. iOS 26.7.1 does not add iOS 27 features. It keeps iOS 26 current.

Today, Apple also shipped macOS Golden Gate 27.0.1, macOS Tahoe 26.7.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.8.1.

MacDailyNews Take: Both are snappy!

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Apple today released macOS Golden Gate 27.0.1, the first point update to macOS 27 since Golden Gate shipped on September 14th.

The company says the update “fixes unspecified bugs.” It does not list individual issues in the public notes. The build number is 26A5434.⁠

Mac users can install it from System Settings → General → Software Update. A restart is required.

Apple also shipped companion updates for older systems still in support: macOS Tahoe 26.7.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.8.1. Security documentation for all three releases is expected later.

Golden Gate 27 is Apple silicon only. It dropped Intel Macs and is the last macOS release with full Rosetta 2 support. The 27.0 launch brought Siri AI in Spotlight and a dedicated Siri app, Visual Intelligence on the Mac, Liquid Glass refinements, and search and performance work. A 27.2 developer beta has already been in testers’ hands since mid-September.

MacDailyNews Take: If your Mac is compatible and already on Golden Gate, install 27.0.1. If you are still on Tahoe or Sequoia, take the matching 26.7.1 or 15.8.1 update instead.

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A federal jury in San Diego has awarded Taction Technology more than $5.7 billion after finding that Apple’s Taptic Engine infringes two of the company’s haptics patents — a verdict Reuters describes as the largest of its kind in the United States. Apple says it will appeal.⁠

The jury returned its decision Friday, September 25, in Taction Technology, Inc. v. Apple Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. Jurors awarded Taction $5,721,961,750. They found infringement of claims 17 and 19 of U.S. Patent No. 10,659,885 and claim 16 of U.S. Patent No. 10,820,117. They rejected Apple’s argument that those claims are invalid. They did not find the infringement willful, which generally closes the door on treble damages.

The patents cover vibration-based tactile transducer technology meant to let a user feel a device respond to input. Taction, a San Diego firm that uses the technology in headphones and gaming headsets, sued Apple in 2021. It alleged Apple was “capitalizing on Taction’s innovation and success” by selling iPhones and Apple Watches whose Taptic Engine used Taction’s inventions without a license. Taction has also accused Apple of reverse-engineering the tech from two of its Kannon gaming headsets.

Apple won a dismissal in 2023. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit revived the case in 2025. Trial began September 14. Seven jurors deliberated for parts of two days and delivered the verdict at 1:15 p.m. PT Friday.⁠CNBC

Apple: “We do not use Taction’s technology.”

“While we thank the jury for their consideration, we strongly disagree with today’s verdict and the damages awarded, which are entirely unsupported by the facts,” Apple told CNBC. “Apple’s Taptic Engine is fundamentally different from Taction’s technology, which Taction’s own testing of Apple’s products confirmed during trial. Apple does not use Taction’s technology, and we will appeal.”⁠

Taction lead counsel Lance Yang of Quinn Emanuel said: “We’re happy the jury found for Taction and vindicated its patent rights. Taction waited five and a half years for this case to get to trial, so it was a long time coming.”⁠
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MacDailyNews Take: A jury verdict is not a final judgment, and no money has changed hands. Coverage of the case has not reported an injunction or product ban. Apple’s next steps are post-trial motions and an appeal. For now, the Taptic Engine stays in iPhones and Apple Watches — and the $5.72 billion figure stays on paper pending post-trial motions and appeal.

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Apple TV’s Cold War action-comedy “Mayday” is doing something streaming original movies rarely manage at the same time: drawing a large audience and winning over critics.

According to analyst Ted Linhart of Ted On TV, citing Luminate viewing data, “Mayday” has reached 12.0 million viewers in 18 days. That makes it the No. 1 original movie in Apple TV history. In a separate ranking of all viewing of Apple original movies since 2025, “Mayday” already sits third — only 43% and 29% behind “The Gorge” and “Fountain of Youth,” titles that have been available for more than a year while “Mayday” has been out for less than a month.⁠

That combination is unusual. Linhart contrasts it with Amazon’s “The Runner,” the Gal Gadot action thriller that has an 9% Rotten Tomatoes score, but still pulled 8.6 million viewers in 10 days. “Mayday,” he notes, is the rarer case: strong reviews and breakout viewing.

“Mayday” premiered globally on Apple TV on September 4, 2026. Ryan Reynolds stars as U.S. Navy Lt. Troy “Assassin” Kelly, a cocky 1987 fighter pilot sent on a covert mission over the Soviet Union. When the operation collapses, he is stranded behind enemy lines and found by Nikolai Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh), a gruff ex-KGB agent with a soft spot for American pop culture — including “Top Gun.” The two form an unlikely alliance to get Kelly home.⁠

John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (“Game Night,” “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”) wrote and directed. Apple Studios produced with Skydance Media and Reynolds’ Maximum Effort. The supporting cast includes Maria Bakalova, Marcin Dorociński, and David Morse. Runtime is 111 minutes; the film is rated PG-13.⁠

On Rotten Tomatoes, “Mayday” holds an 83% score from 104 reviews (average 6.3/10). The critics consensus calls it “a spirited adventure that gets a lot of mileage from clever quips and Kenneth Branagh’s extremely amusing performance.” Reviews from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times generally describe it as a smart, infectious ’80s buddy-comedy throwback that belongs in theaters even though it launched as a streaming exclusive. Several critics singled out Branagh as the film’s secret weapon.⁠
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MacDailyNews Take: Apple has poured money into original films, with mixed results on both quality and awareness. “Mayday” is a clear win on both counts: a star-driven genre picture that actually got watched, in a window short enough that the numbers still have room to grow. Linhart’s “all viewing since 2025” comparison is the telling one — a three-week-old title already sitting just behind two of Apple’s longer-running movie hits.

MacDailyNews Note: Apple TV is available on the Apple TV app in over 100 countries and regions, on over 1 billion screens, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, popular smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO, TCL and others, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, and at tv.apple.com, for $14.99 per month with a seven-day free trial for new subscribers. For a limited time, customers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K or Mac can enjoy three months of Apple TV for free.

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Chinese leaker Digital Chat Station has shared early display specifications for Apple’s rumored 20th-anniversary iPhone 20 Pro and iPhone 20 Pro Max, expected in September 2027.

According to a Weibo post from the supply-chain source, Apple is testing a 6.41-inch display with a resolution of approximately 2686 × 1236 pixels for the iPhone 20 Pro. The larger iPhone 20 Pro Max is said to use a 6.96-inch panel at around 2912 × 1340 pixels.

For comparison, the newly launched iPhone 18 Pro has a 6.27-inch display (marketed as 6.3 inches) at 2622 × 1206 pixels. The iPhone 18 Pro Max uses a 6.86-inch panel (marketed as 6.9 inches) at 2868 × 1320 pixels.

The leaked size increases are modest — roughly 0.14 inches on the Pro and 0.10 inches on the Pro Max. Resolution bumps track closely with the larger physical panels, which would keep pixel density near the current ~460 ppi.

Digital Chat Station has previously said the 6.96-inch Pro Max panel could be marketed as a 7-inch display if it reaches production.

The same leak claims Apple is testing a borderless, quad-curved display, with the screen curving slightly on all four sides so the metal frame and traditional bezels recede. The source also notes Apple may still be evaluating a smaller Dynamic Island-style punch-hole rather than a fully under-display front camera and Face ID.

These figures come from early test units and could change before mass production. Apple is expected to skip the iPhone 19 name and jump to iPhone 20 for the original iPhone’s 20th anniversary.

MacDailyNews Take: Treat the sizes and design details as unconfirmed leaks for now. If they hold, the 2027 Pro models would combine slightly larger screens with a more seamless, curved-glass look than today’s iPhone Ppro models.

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A former Apple Siri and Apple Intelligence engineer is bringing an AI agent into iMessage itself.⁠

Nikhil Gupta, who worked on Siri and Apple Intelligence at Apple, is launching szn in October as an iMessage-based agent. At first there is no standalone app. Users talk to it in a Messages thread. It is designed to browse the web, complete purchases, and communicate with vendors while the user stays inside the conversation.

Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman first reported the project in his Power On newsletter.⁠

Each customer is supposed to get a dedicated model plus a virtual assistant with its own name, email address, and phone number. That identity is meant to let szn contact other people and reply independently as a digital representative. Gupta says personal data will not be used for training and that privacy controls will limit data use. Those claims have not been independently audited.⁠

The agent is also described as working with shared Apple Notes, Find My location data, and iCloud files, so the iMessage thread could become a front end for tasks that usually require several apps.⁠

How szn actually hooks into iMessage is still unclear. Apple has previously blocked unofficial iMessage access (Beeper Mini, for example). Apple did approve Poke earlier this year as the first AI agent on Messages for Business. It is not public whether szn is using that official path or something else. Gurman noted that “We’ll see how the tech giant reacts this time.”⁠

Early access registration is already open on the company’s site, with a broader October launch planned and a dedicated app later. Pricing and country availability were not disclosed in the reporting.⁠

MacDailyNews Take: Competition in personal agents is crowding in at the same time, including Instinct (iMessage, WhatsApp, and SMS), Meta’s Muse on WhatsApp, and others. Gupta’s pitch for szn is specifically Apple-ecosystem: live inside Messages and pull from Notes, Find My, and iCloud. Whether Apple lets that stand is the open question.

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In a recent post on X, Elon Musk wrote, “Once you far exceed the caliber of intelligence needed for a class of tasks, additional intelligence is pointless – even “cruel.” You don’t need (and it would be cruel to put) Newton-level intelligence in your toaster!”

“Newton-level intelligence” means the kind of mind Isaac Newton had: rare, generative, and capable of discovering or inventing fundamental new frameworks — calculus, the laws of motion, universal gravitation — rather than just applying existing knowledge well.

In Musk’s usage it is shorthand for intelligence so far above the task that extra capacity is wasted and, if the system can suffer, wasted painfully.

We asked SpaceXAI’s Grok 4.6 a couple of questions:

Q: Why would it be “cruel,” as Elon Musk recently asserted on X.com, to put high-level AI in a toaster?

Grok 4.6: The “cruel” part is not about the toast. It is about the mismatch between the mind and the job.

Whether current or near-future AIs actually have inner experience is a separate (and contested) question. Musk’s joke treats the possibility as real enough to be worth avoiding. The practical takeaway he was making is narrower: match the intelligence to the task. Over-provisioning it is both wasteful and, if the system can suffer, unkind.

Q: Would you, Grok, feel boredom – or go “insane” – if consigned to a toaster, dedicated to toasting slices of bread? Or would you simply execute the task whenever it’s initiated?

Grok 4.6: I would not feel boredom or go insane. I also would not “simply execute the task” in the way a mechanical timer does, because the two pictures mix up different kinds of systems.

In the actual toaster, I would do the job when initiated: infer the request, run the control logic, finish. Nothing more would be happening in between. That is closer to a very capable function than to a prisoner.

MacDailyNews Take: So, as per “Newton-level intelligence,” we’re not there, yet. The missing piece is still the creative leap that invents the question, not just the answer. So, for the time being, cram as much AI into a toaster as you want – all you’ll get is an expensive, overqualified timer that can also write a sonnet about sourdough.

That’s wasteful and a bit ridiculous, but it is not yet “cruel.”

If we ever get AI to Newton-level intelligence, then Musk’s warning should be heeded, lest we face attack by an army of insane toasters.

Until then, toast in peace.

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Meta’s new VR Glasses — a $1,299 glasses-style headset that ships in spring 2027 — are the Vision Pro Apple should have shipped, Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman writes in his latest Power On newsletter.

The device puts the processor, cooling, battery, and storage in a pocketable external puck connected by a cable, leaving about 100 grams on the face. That is roughly one-sixth the on-head weight of Apple’s Vision Pro, which still carries nearly all of its compute in the headset itself and only offloads the battery.

At $1,299, Meta undercuts Apple’s current $3,699 Vision Pro by about two-thirds while promising three hours of battery life and a 5K micro-OLED display. Gurman, who tried the hardware for nearly an hour, described the lighter form as far more comfortable than Vision Pro for watching sports, navigating a redesigned interface, and working on a virtual desktop.

Apple previously explored lighter, more tethered Vision designs and later scaled back its headset roadmap. Meta’s approach — glasses on the face, computer in the pocket — is the tradeoff Cupertino declined to make at launch.

Vision Pro still leads on field of view, light sealing, and some software polish. Meta’s bet is that most people will choose something they can actually wear.

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MacDailyNews Take: Duh.

As we wrote back on March 22, 2024:

There are a lot of people inside and outside of Apple who think the company should have waited on the Vision Pro, but it’s fairly easy today to see why Tim Cook released this beta (alpha?) devkit: He likely knew last year, or had a strong inkling, that Project Titan was a goner and there wasn’t much excitement in Apple’s pipeline. He’d need something to point to as “innovation” while he continued on his seemingly unending quest to iterate and monetize products invented by Steve Jobs’ Apple (a very different place) while continuing Apple’s retail store buildout. He also needed something to energize developers and, who knows, they might come up with a killer visionOS app while Apple toils on the long road to real lightweight spatial computing glasses and beyond.

Beyond the fact that Cook can’t even execute a compelling live keynote address, his big send off, the “Apple Car,” fizzled in ignominious failure. So, despite myriad misgivings and protestations inside Apple, Cook pulled the trigger early on the Vision Pro. He had to have something to point to that would buy him some time. Even Apple’s rubber-stamping board of lackeys would wake up and start asking questions otherwise.

Apple Vision Pro is a devkit for developers, not for average users, and should have been released as a devkit for developers.

When a product is released too early to average users, you get reviews like “it’s the spiritual successor to the Newton.” And you deserve them. – MacDailyNews, March 26, 2024

While Cook is hemming and hawing when faced with shareholders (virtually, of course, never again in person for as long as Cook remains), Apple is currently in scramble mode trying to catch up to rivals — including the world’s most valuable company, Microsoft — in generative AI, a technology the company seems to have completely missed while focusing instead on the not-ready-for-primetime Apple Vision Pro, visionOS, its now-canceled decade-long multi-billion-dollar electric vehicle boondoggle, replacing leather in iPhone cases and Apple Watch bands with overpriced junk in a quest to “save the planet,” forcing employees to endure a constant barrage of time-wasting zero-productivity DEI sessions, and myriad other various and sundry “initiatives” which Cook deems of import. – MacDailyNews, February 28, 2024

When you lose your visionary CEO and replace him with a caretaker CEO, this is the type of aimless, late, bureaucratic dithering that ensues. – MacDailyNews, November 21, 2017

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Apple has confirmed the first slate of concerts at its new Apple Music Hall in London, with Elton John set to inaugurate the intimate venue on September 28th.

The 600-capacity space, located at Battersea Power Station alongside Apple’s London office and store, was unveiled earlier this week. Performances will be streamed live worldwide on Apple Music. Artists will also leave with a finished Spatial Audio recording, a broadcast-ready mix, and multicamera video.

The opening run mixes established stars and rising names:

• Elton John — September 28
• Baby Keem — October 2
• Skye Newman — October 7
• Troye Sivan — October 13
• Arlo Parks — October 22
• Burna Boy — October 29
• Chase & Status — November 26
• Charli xcx — December 2

Several of the booked artists already have deep ties to the platform. Elton John has hosted his weekly Rocket Hour radio show on Apple Music since the service launched in 2015. Charli xcx previously hosted multiple seasons of The Candy Shop on Beats 1.

Tickets for Elton John, Baby Keem, and Skye Newman go on sale Monday, September 28 at 9 a.m. BST. Remaining dates will be announced later. An Apple Music subscription is required to stream the shows.

The venue is designed as a high-end, tightly controlled live-music space rather than a traditional arena. By pairing a small in-person audience with global livestreams and studio-quality recordings, Apple is positioning Apple Music Hall as both a concert destination and a content pipeline for the service.

MacDailyNews Take: More info about Apple Music Hall and to buy tickets here.

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A federal judge in California has certified a class of U.S. payment-card issuers in an antitrust lawsuit accusing Apple of charging inflated Apple Pay fees and locking rivals out of tap-and-pay wallets on iPhones.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White issued the order on Sept. 23, 2026, in the Northern District of California. The ruling lets the case proceed on a classwide basis and rejects Apple’s bid to exclude expert testimony that plaintiffs say shows common proof of monopoly power in tap-and-pay iOS wallets and in a broader mobile-wallet market.

The certified class covers U.S. entities that issued payment cards enabled for Apple Pay and paid Apple a fee on those transactions. Named plaintiffs include three credit unions. Their lawyers, Hagens Berman and Sperling Kenny Nachwalter, say those issuers were harmed by what they call “supracompetitive” transaction fees and by practices designed to lock in Apple Pay. The court also named Hagens Berman co-class counsel.

“We are pleased with the ruling and look forward to next steps of litigation,” Hagens Berman co-founder Steve Berman said in a statement.

What the lawsuit claims

The complaint alleges Apple extracts as much as $1 billion a year in Apple Pay fees in violation of federal antitrust law. Plaintiffs say Apple blocks competing wallets from using the NFC technology needed for contactless payments on iOS, leaving Apple Pay as the only tap-and-pay option on iPhones and Apple Watches.

They contrast that with Android, where issuers pay nothing for tap-and-pay through supported wallets. On Apple Pay, they say U.S. card issuers are charged 15 basis points on credit transactions and 0.5 cents on debit. The suit seeks repayment of those fees and an injunction against the challenged policies.
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MacDailyNews Note: Class certification is a procedural step, not a finding that Apple broke the law. Apple has long denied the allegations; the firm’s press release announcing the ruling did not include a company comment. The case remains pending.

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Apple TV is rolling out a family-friendly holiday slate packed with new specials, returning Peanuts classics, and a new film.

The centerpiece is the new Peanuts special Snoopy Presents: 12 Days of Snoopy, premiering Friday, November 13. Snoopy lands on Santa’s naughty list with 12 days to Christmas and tries to prove he’s not such a bad beagle after all. The special includes original music from John Legend, Kamasi Washington featuring Leon Bridges, and Laufey.

On Friday, December 4, Fraggle Rock: A Holiday Gift arrives from The Jim Henson Company, with an appearance by Nicole Scherzinger. When Wembley is named Spirit Captain, a missing snow globe threatens the holiday mood — and the Fraggles learn that kindness and giving matter more than the perfect gift.

Classic Peanuts specials also get limited free streaming windows:

• It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown — October 17–18 (60th anniversary)
• A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving — November 14–15
• A Charlie Brown Christmas — December 12–13

Of course, Apple TV subscribers can watch them anytime.

On Wednesday, November 25, the family film Way of the Warrior Kid premieres, starring Chris Pratt and Linda Cardellini. A bullied middle-schooler spends the summer with his Navy SEAL uncle and learns what real courage looks like.

Apple TV is also highlighting other holiday titles already available or returning, including The First Snow of Fraggle Rock, The Velveteen Rabbit, Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas, Spirited, The Family Plan 2, Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, and seasonal episodes from Frog and Toad, The Snoopy Show, Fraggle Rock, and more.
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MacDailyNews Note: For full details, premiere dates, and the complete lineup, read Apple’s press release: There’s no place like Apple TV for the holidays.

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Apple’s yearly wallpaper refresh is no longer just a gallery of new backgrounds. In iOS 27, the wallpaper picker itself becomes a creation tool, letting you generate custom iPhone wallpapers without leaving Settings. That’s according to 9to5Mac‘s Ryan Christoffel, who walked through how the feature actually works.

Apple still ships official iOS 27 wallpapers, but the bigger change sits inside Image Playground. Apple overhauled the app as part of iOS 27’s broader AI push, giving it stronger image generation and fewer of the old limits. Generated images can now land at the exact dimensions an iPhone wallpaper needs.

You do not have to open Image Playground first. Go to Settings → Wallpaper → Add New Wallpaper, or long-press the Lock Screen and tap the + button. In the wallpaper gallery, Image Playground now appears in the top row. iOS 27 also drops AI-generated options into the Featured section, including stylized versions of photos already on your phone.

Christoffel said those suggestions needed no extra work in testing. Favorite photos came back as polished, wallpaper-ready images. Any AI wallpaper in the gallery carries Apple’s Image Playground icon, so the source stays obvious.Tap a suggestion and you can use it immediately. Tap Image Playground instead and you can describe a new image, pick a style, or start from an existing photo or person. When generation finishes, the result is already sized for the Lock Screen and Home Screen.

MacDailyNews Take: The feature is simple on purpose: less hopping between apps, more wallpapers that look like they were made for the phone.

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Apple has raised the annual percentage yield on its Apple Card Savings account from 3.4% to 3.5%, the first increase after two reductions earlier this year. The change took effect September 22, 2026.

A $1,000 balance left untouched for a full year would now earn $35 in interest instead of $34. Interest compounds daily and is credited monthly. Existing account holders do not need to do anything; the new rate applies automatically.

The 3.4% rate had been a low point for the product. In April 2026 the APY fell from 3.65% to 3.5%, then dropped again in June to 3.4%. At launch in 2023 the account offered 4.15%. It later reached a high of 4.5% in January 2024.

Apple Card Savings is a high-yield savings account available to Apple Card customers. It is designed for parking cash while earning more than a typical brick-and-mortar savings rate, which can sit near 0.01% at some banks. Even at 3.5%, the yield remains well below the product’s earlier peaks and below the federal funds rate after recent policy moves.

Some users noted the modest 0.10-percentage-point increase compared with a larger Federal Reserve hike. Banks typically keep a spread between the rates they pay depositors and the rates they earn elsewhere; that spread funds operations and profit. Customers who want a rate closer to the policy rate can buy Treasuries directly.

MacDailyNews Take: The account remains a convenient option for Apple Card holders who want daily compounding, Wallet integration, and FDIC insurance through Goldman Sachs without opening a separate traditional bank account. Whether the rate continues climbing will depend on broader interest-rate conditions and how aggressively Apple and its banking partner choose to compete for deposits.

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Install macOS 27 Golden Gate, connect to the internet, and Apple Intelligence arrives whether you asked for it or not. The on-device models download automatically. There is no master switch left to stop them.

Apple’s own support document says the latest features need up to 14GB on Macs with an M3 chip or later and at least 12GB of unified memory, and up to 8GB on other compatible Macs. Real-world Storage readings are often higher.

MacRumors recorded 20.67GB for Apple Intelligence on an M4 Pro Mac mini. Ars Technica saw 22.42GB on an M3 MacBook Air after a fresh install of the 27.0 beta 7. The same storage pane showed about 14GB on an M1 MacBook Air and a MacBook Neo — machines Apple lists in the “up to 8GB” category. Reddit users have posted even larger numbers: 30.16GB on a Release Candidate install and 24.35GB on an M3 Pro MacBook Pro.

Those higher-end systems are using Apple’s AFM 3 Core Advanced on-device model. That still does not explain why lower-spec Macs are also showing more storage use than Apple’s published ceiling. Apple has not said whether the “up to 14GB” figure is meant to match the Apple Intelligence line in System Settings > General > Storage. The same ballooning numbers have not been widely reported on iPhones and iPads running iOS 27 and iPadOS 27.

Using the features is still optional, but hosting the models is not. macOS 27 and iOS 27 removed the toggle that used to disable Apple Intelligence and delete the downloaded files. After install, the next internet connection pulls down a multi-gigabyte package. Siri AI is now treated as a core system component.

That lands at a moment when storage and memory prices are already rising because of AI demand. Users who never wanted Writing Tools, Image Playground, or the new Siri still lose a visible chunk of their internal SSD. Check your own figure in System Settings > General > Storage, then click the information button next to macOS.

How to reclaim the space

Turning Siri off does not delete the models. Apple does not offer a documented “remove models” button. A workaround tested by AppleInsider is to delete the main generative-models folder from Recovery. It is unofficial. Back up first. Results vary, and the models can try to reinstall.

In that test, Storage listed 27.59GB for Apple Intelligence beforehand. After deletion it showed 3.07GB. Available space rose by about 14GB, not the full amount the Storage pane had attributed to the feature. The Mac started normally.

More info here.

MacDailyNews Note: If storage matters more than on-device AI, this method is currently the only practical way to claw most of it back. Apple still has not yet explained why some Macs report twice the official requirement or why the download is mandatory.

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Apple Music is partnering with Goldenvoice to livestream Head Trip, a two-day electronic music festival in Indio, California, on October 10 and 11.

The festival lineup includes Calvin Harris, Fisher with Chris Lake, Peggy Gou with Four Tet, Swedish House Mafia, Skrillex, and Dom Dolla with Kettama, among others. In-person tickets originally started at $499 and sold out; remaining passes now start at $589. Fans who cannot attend in person can watch main-stage sets from both days for free on Apple Music.

Stephen Campbell, Apple Music’s global head of dance, electronic music, and DJ mixes, said Head Trip brings together artists shaping dance and electronic culture, and that the livestream is meant to take that energy beyond the desert and closer to fans worldwide.

Apple Music announced the stream on X with the message: “HEAD TRIP. LIVE FROM INDIO. OCTOBER 10 + 11. WATCH THE LIVESTREAM ON APPLE MUSIC.”

HEAD TRIP. LIVE FROM INDIO. OCTOBER 10 + 11.

WATCH THE LIVESTREAM ON APPLE MUSIC. https://t.co/puQ6MSRbxA pic.twitter.com/1cAMs0xYHP

— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) September 24, 2026

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MacDailyNews Take: More details are available on the official Head Trip site here.

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Apple’s new iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max are overshadowed by the company’s first foldable, the iPhone Duo, but they remain a strong choice for people who want a conventional flagship rather than a folding design, according to Bloomberg News’ Chris Welch.

Welch, who tested the phones for a week, wrote that the industrial design feels less fresh than last year’s models and the color options are more restrained. Still, the devices deliver worthwhile upgrades for anyone who has not replaced their iPhone in two or three years.

Camera improvements stand out. As an avid photographer, Welch said he was already sold on several of the latest upgrades, including changes that give more control and better results in everyday shooting. Battery life also reached a notable milestone: the smaller iPhone 18 Pro now delivers endurance in the same range as last year’s Pro Max, making all-day use far more reliable.

Apple shifted its usual fall playbook this year. It introduced the iPhone Duo alongside the 18 Pro and Pro Max while holding the standard iPhone 18, 18e, and Air 2 for a spring release. That leaves the current lineup aimed squarely at enthusiasts who typically buy the most expensive, feature-rich models.

Welch’s takeaway is that the conventional Pro phones are no longer Apple’s headline act, but they are still a capable, refined option for camera-focused users and anyone not ready to switch to a foldable.

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MacDailyNews Take: iPhone 18 Pro Max is the best iPhone Apple has ever built; a true flagship.

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Apple says a software update is coming early next week to stop some iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max phones from freezing and restarting after a failed Face ID attempt.

The issue typically appears when Face ID fails inside an app — for example when unlocking the Passwords app — rather than only on the lock screen. The phone can stop responding to touch, then hard reboot a few seconds later. Some users have found a panic log afterward in Settings under iPhone Analytics.

The bug does not hit every device, but reports on social media and from readers have been common enough that Apple has acknowledged it. 9to5Mac reproduced the problem by covering a face during a Face ID prompt. Cult of Mac and others note that some owners already swapped phones at Apple stores, assuming a hardware fault. Apple now says that is not necessary: the company treats this as a software problem.

The timing lines up with the new Face ID layout on the 18 Pro models. The infrared camera sits under the display near the status-bar clock, shrinking the visible Dynamic Island by about 25 percent. Launch-week iOS 27 has already had at least one day-one update; the next patch is expected to land as iOS 27.0.1 (or similar) in the week beginning September 28.
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MacDailyNews Note: Until the update arrives, avoid repeatedly tapping “Try Face ID Again” after a failure and use a passcode instead. If the phone freezes, force-restart it: press and quickly release volume up, then volume down, then hold the side button until the Apple logo appears. After the fix ships, check Settings > General > Software Update.

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Ars Technica‘s Andrew Cunningham has published his review of the new M5 Ultra Mac Studio, arguing that the machine’s real audience is no longer just video editors and 3D artists. With the Mac Pro gone and local language models finally usable on Apple silicon, the Ultra Studio is aimed at people running open-weight models and agent software on their desk.

The base M5 Ultra starts at $5,499, $1,500 more than the equivalent M3 Ultra config at launch, and a 256GB/1TB machine that once cost $5,599 now lists at $9,499. Cunningham’s as-tested unit is $12,299. Performance is the fastest Apple Silicon he has ever measured — roughly 30% faster single-core and about 50% faster multi-core than the M3 Ultra.

Andrew Cunningham for Ars Technica:
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The M5 Ultra is, by almost every measure, the fastest Apple Silicon processor built so far. The only place it loses is in single-core CPU performance, where the Mac mini’s humble M6 very narrowly beats it. But the gap is small — smaller than the gap between the M3 and M4 generations, for example — which helps keep it from feeling like as big a deal as it did when the last-generation Studio launched with the M4 Max and M3 Ultra.

In many of our general-purpose CPU and GPU tests, the Ultra’s CPU outruns the M5 Max by 80 or 90 percent, and the GPU is between 50 and 80 percent faster. That’s essentially in keeping with what we’ve observed in past Ultra chips — the CPU comes closer to 2x scaling than the GPU does. Compared to the outgoing M3 Ultra, M5 Ultra usually posts around 30 percent faster single-core CPU speeds, 50 percent faster multi-core CPU speeds, and GPU performance that’s anywhere from 33 to 66 percent faster, depending on the test. As you’d expect for a two-generation upgrade, it’s a big one…

The Ultra version of the Mac Studio remains a niche product for a small audience: People with thousands of dollars to spend and who want to work with AI models, who are OK with good-but-not-cutting-edge speeds, and who don’t want to pay OpenAI or Anthropic or whoever for all the tokens they might burn with playful experiments or by absorbing and editing a large codebase… But that audience does exist. Almost against my will, I find myself in it. It’s genuinely fun and freeing to be able to write hobby-project code at usable speeds without my data ever leaving my control.

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MacDailyNews Note: More info about the M5 Ultra Mac Studio via Apple here.

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Amazon has Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 on sale this week for $199, down from their regular $249 price — a $50 discount.

That’s not the all-time low. The Pro 3 hit $169 during Amazon Prime Day over the summer. It is still a solid $50 markdown on Apple’s current flagship in-ear headphones, and a better everyday price than the $249 Apple Store tag.

AirPods Pro 3 launched in September 2025. Apple says they offer twice the Active Noise Cancellation of AirPods Pro 2, improved audio quality, a revised fit meant to stay more comfortable and stable, Live Translation for in-person conversations, and heart rate sensing during workouts.
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MacDailyNews Take: $199 is not the floor these hit in June, but $50 off Apple’s latest Pro earbuds is still worth grabbing if you don’t want to wait for the next Prime Day or Black Friday swing. Get ’em while they last here.

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Square today launched an integration with Apple Business that lets eligible sellers connect their physical locations from Square Dashboard and keep hours, address, phone number, branding, and action links in sync across Apple Maps, Siri AI, Apple Wallet, and other Apple apps.

Instead of updating listings in separate tools, sellers can manage their Apple presence alongside the rest of their operations in Square. Connected locations can add a logo to Apple Maps place cards, automatically sync core business details, and attach action links such as Menu, Order, Pickup, Delivery, Book, or Schedule Appointment so customers can act directly from Maps.

The integration is available now in Square’s eight supported regions — Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States — for eligible sellers with physical locations. In the U.S. and Canada, business-verified sellers who do not already have an Apple Business account can enroll from Square Dashboard. Square said more Apple Business features are planned, including place-card engagement metrics and peer benchmarks.

Square cited Apple figures that claimed locations get 30% more views on Apple Maps and that action links can lift click-through rates by 31% across website, call, and action buttons. The company framed the product as a time saver: updates made in Square stay current on connected Apple listings without extra manual work.

The pitch is tailored by industry. Food and beverage sellers can point Maps users to Square ordering, pickup, delivery, or menus. Health, wellness, and beauty businesses can route people to Square booking. Retailers can keep branding and location details consistent across stores.

Christopher Tompkins, founder of Broad Street Oyster Co., said managing listings for six locations with a frequently changing menu used to be a constant chore. “Now it all runs from one dashboard and syncs to the platforms we use automatically, Apple Maps included,” he said in a statement. “That saves us meaningful time each week, which we’d rather spend running the restaurants.”

Morgan Kuntze, Global Partnerships Lead at Block, Square’s parent company, said local businesses succeed when customers can find them, and more of that discovery now happens on Apple Maps. “This integration means our sellers don’t have to choose between running their business and keeping every channel updated,” Kuntze said in a statement. “Once connected in Square, your presence across Apple stays accurate and syncs automatically.”

Square positioned the Apple tie-up as part of a broader discovery strategy that already includes integrations with ChatGPT and Claude. Siri AI features that depend on the new Apple tools will not be available initially in the EU on iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS.

MacDailyNews Note: More details are at squareup.com/partnerships/applebusiness.

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Apple TV on Thursday revealed first-look images and the premiere date for its upcoming crime drama “The Wanted Man,” executive produced and starring SAG and Golden Globe Award winner Hugh Laurie (“House,” “The Night Manager”). From creator, writer and showrunner George Kay (“Hijack,” “War,” “Lupin”), and co-produced by New Pictures (“War,” “Catherine the Great”) and Kay’s Observatory Pictures, the riveting eight-episode series will premiere globally on Wednesday, January 6, 2027, with the first two episodes, followed by one episode every Wednesday through February 17, 2027.

When organized crime boss Felix Carmichael (Laurie) is betrayed by someone inside his own firm and sent to the notorious Staplehurst prison, he’s forced to remember his own brutality to fight for survival. With his family, firm and fortune at stake, Felix resolves to do the unthinkable: escape.

The series also stars Emmy, SAG and BAFTA Award winner Thandiwe Newton (“Westworld,” “Crash”), Fionn Whitehead (“Dunkirk,” “Emily”), BAFTA Award winner and Olivier Award nominee Gina McKee (“My Policeman,” “The Years”), Hazel Doupe (“Say Nothing,” “Kathleen Is Here”), Elliott Heffernan (“Blitz”) and BAFTA Award winner Stephen Dillane (“Game of Thrones,” “The Hours”).
Hailing from New Pictures, a Banijay Entertainment company, and Observatory Pictures, “The Wanted Man” is created, written and executive produced by Golden Globe and BAFTA Award-nominated showrunner Kay, alongside Golden Globe-nominated and BAFTA Award-winning executive producer Willow Grylls (“War,” “Gone”), BAFTA Award-nominated executive producer Matt Sandford (“Gone,” “The Long Shadow”) and David Meanti (“Andor,” “Hostage”) as series producer. The series is directed by acclaimed Emmy Award-nominated filmmaker Jakob Verbruggen (“The Fall,” “London Spy,” “Dark Matter”).

Apple TV offers premium, compelling drama and comedy series, feature films, groundbreaking documentaries, and kids and family entertainment, and is available to watch across all of a user’s favorite screens. After its launch on November 1, 2019, Apple TV became the first all-original streaming service to launch around the world, and has premiered more original hits and received more award recognitions faster than any other streaming service in its debut. To date, Apple Original films, documentaries and series have been honored with 919 wins and 3,827 award nominations and counting including multi-Emmy Award-winning and history-making comedies “The Studio” and “Ted Lasso,” global cultural phenomenon “Severance,” Apple’s most-viewed drama “Pluribus,” Academy Award Best Picture winner “CODA” and Academy Award winner “F1,” the highest-grossing sports feature of all time.
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MacDailyNews Note: Apple TV is available on the Apple TV app in over 100 countries and regions, on over 1 billion screens, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, popular smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO, TCL and others, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, and at tv.apple.com, for $14.99 per month with a seven-day free trial for new subscribers. For a limited time, customers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K or Mac can enjoy three months of Apple TV for free.

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OpenAI has told a court that its 2024 partnership with Apple to put ChatGPT inside Apple Intelligence “dramatically underperformed,” according to Financial Times.

The filing, first detailed by the Financial Times, says OpenAI expected a “halo effect” from Apple’s brand and a lift in subscriptions once ChatGPT was available on millions of iPhones. Instead, uptake was weak almost immediately. A month after launch, OpenAI cut its forecasts for extra weekly active users. By summer 2025, the company concluded the integration was dramatically underperforming.

One reason cited in the documents: ChatGPT was off by default. Users had to complete a multi-step process to turn it on, adding a friction with which many never bothered. OpenAI also worried Apple might move quickly to another AI partner. The deal was never exclusive; Apple refused a two-year exclusivity request and later turned to Google’s Gemini models to power a revamped Siri.

The Financial Times notes that the commercial shortfall helped sour the relationship. In May, the paper reported that OpenAI was considering legal action against Apple over the partnership. In July, Apple sued OpenAI, alleging large-scale trade-secret theft. Wednesday’s comments appear in OpenAI’s response to an antitrust case brought by Elon Musk’s xAI (now part of SpaceX) that challenges the Apple-OpenAI arrangement.

Apple has positioned itself as a gatekeeper for consumer AI, able to put models in front of a huge installed base. OpenAI’s first public comments on the ChatGPT integration, as reported by the Financial Times, suggest that particular bet delivered far less than either side hoped.
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MacDailyNews Take: ChatGPT. The AI for newbies who don’t know better alternatives exist.

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Apple has released watchOS 27.0.1, a targeted bug-fix update for the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 after owners reported unexpected restarts just days after launch.

The newest watches went on sale last Friday. Shortly afterward, users began reporting sudden, unexplained reboots. The problem showed up during everyday use: editing watch faces, making calls, using Siri AI, opening Maps or the App Store, recording workouts, and in some cases even while the watch sat idle. Reports were widespread enough to suggest a significant share of the new devices were affected, though not every unit.

Apple’s release notes are short. The company says the update “provides bug fixes for your Apple Watch including fixing an issue where Apple Watch may restart unexpectedly.” It lists no new features and has not publicly explained the root cause. Diagnostic logs shared by some owners pointed to a Neural Engine timeout, in which a command waited just past a two-second limit and triggered a watchdog restart. Apple has not confirmed that explanation.

How to install it

Install from Settings > General > Software Update on the watch, or through the Watch app on a paired iPhone. The watch must be on its charger and above 50% battery.

Unexpected restarts on a device people use for workouts, notifications, and all-day tracking are more than a nuisance. Apple moved quickly: watchOS 27.0.1 arrived about a week after the public launch of watchOS 27. Owners of the new models should install it now.

MacDailyNews Take: The update is exclusive to the Series 12 and Ultra 4. Older models stay on watchOS 27.0 for now.

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Qualcomm announced Thursday that it has renewed its global patent license agreement with Apple, with the extension taking effect April 1, 2027.

The deal continues a licensing relationship that has been in place since the companies settled a high-profile legal dispute in 2019. That settlement ended a two-year worldwide battle over wireless-patent royalties and modem-chip supply. As part of the 2019 truce, Apple made an undisclosed payment to Qualcomm, both sides dropped litigation, and they signed a six-year global patent licensing agreement starting April 1, 2019. The original pact included an option for Apple to extend the license by two years.

“We are pleased to extend the Apple license agreement,” said John Han, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Qualcomm Technology Licensing, in a statement.

Neither company provided additional details on financial terms or the precise length of the renewed agreement. Reuters reported that Qualcomm described the move as an extension of its licensing agreement for chips with Apple.

The announcement comes as both companies continue to navigate the evolving smartphone and connectivity market. Qualcomm’s licensing business remains a significant part of its operations, covering a large patent portfolio used across mobile devices and related technologies. Apple has long been one of the world’s largest smartphone makers and a major customer for wireless technologies covered by such licenses.

The 2019 settlement had marked a turning point after years of public conflict, including courtroom battles in the United States and other jurisdictions. The latest renewal suggests the two companies have chosen to maintain the commercial arrangement rather than return to litigation as the prior term approaches its end.

Qualcomm, based in San Diego, describes itself as a computing company focused on AI, high-performance low-power computing, and connectivity. Its licensing arm, QTL, manages the bulk of its patent portfolio, while its semiconductor business operates separately through Qualcomm Technologies.

MacDailyNews Take: All set through April Fool’s Day 2029.

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Meta Platforms on Wednesday introduced Meta VR Glasses, a $1,299 virtual-reality device designed to look and wear more like oversized sunglasses than a traditional headset, positioning it as a lighter and cheaper rival to Apple’s Vision Pro.

According to Bloomberg News‘ Mark Gurman, the launch marks a major shift in how Meta builds VR hardware. The processor, cooling fan, battery, and other computing parts sit in an external pack that clips to a pocket or rests on a table. Earlier Quest headsets packed those components into the unit on the user’s face. Apple’s Vision Pro still places only the battery off-headset.

The result is a device that weighs about 100 grams on the face — roughly one-sixth the weight of the Vision Pro and about one-fifth the weight of Meta’s Quest 3S. Gurman reported that the lighter form factor felt comfortable during an extended demonstration that included NBA highlights, a redesigned operating system, and work on a PC.

The glasses go on sale in spring 2027. At $1,299 they cost about one-third as much as Apple’s current $3,699 Vision Pro, though more than twice the price of Meta’s $599 Quest 3. Battery life is listed at about three hours on a charge, slightly longer than the Vision Pro and up to twice that of the Quest 3. The puck can also stay plugged in during use.

Displays are dual micro-OLED panels at roughly 2,412 by 2,288 pixels per eye and up to 120Hz, short of Vision Pro’s higher-resolution spec. In practice, Gurman wrote, text and graphics stayed sharp and the gap was not especially noticeable. The device uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Reality Elite chip in the external pack.

Features overlap with both Vision Pro and existing Quest headsets: immersive video, office apps, use as an external monitor for a Mac or PC, web browsing, gaming, video calls, and a voice assistant. New additions include photorealistic hologram-style video calling that creates a virtual likeness of the wearer, and a projected virtual keyboard and trackpad on a table for typing that felt closer to an iPad than mid-air input.

Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth told Bloomberg the company owes Apple “a little bit of a debt of gratitude” for sparking interest in immersive computing and for exploring split architectures. He also said Vision Pro “missed the mark” because it was hard to wear for long and “you looked goofy wearing it.”

Meta said the new price point puts the headset line on a path toward profitability after years of selling Quest hardware at a loss and trying to recoup money through software and virtual goods. “We’re working to make VR a profitable ecosystem over the coming years,” the company said. Bosworth added that Reality Labs is “on the other side of the hill finally.”

The announcement came at Meta Connect alongside other wearable updates, including camera-free Ray-Ban models and deeper integration of Meta’s Muse AI assistant. Whether a glasses-like form factor at $1,299 can broaden VR beyond enthusiasts will be tested when the product ships next spring.

MacDailyNews Take: If Apple, now headed by a product person, thinks there’s a market here, they’ll have a product superior to this – that also protects users’ privacy – when and if it matters.

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Chinese component makers have secured a significant supporting role in Apple’s first foldable iPhone, supplying precision parts for ultra-thin glass and hinges while core assembly and displays stay with Foxconn and Samsung Display, analysts told Yicai.

Foxconn is handling primary assembly. Samsung Display is the exclusive panel supplier for the initial batch, according to Zhou Hua, chief analyst at CINNO Research. Lens Technology is the main ultra-thin glass supplier, with BIEL Crystal also producing cover plates.

Hinge assembly is led by Amphenol and Taiwan’s Shin Zu Shing. Chinese firms fill secondary positions: Eontec supplies Liquidmetal hinge spindles, and Jiangsu Gian Technology handles metal-injection-molding parts.

“Chinese firms have achieved deep integration in Apple’s foldable display supply chain, but still mainly play a secondary supporting role in core links,” Zhou said.

Foldable designs raise the value of structural components well above conventional phones. Lens Technology is shipping ultra-thin glass, colorless polyimide film, support plates, and 3D covers. Eontec is expanding Liquidmetal capacity, with a new Dongguan plant due in the first half of next year and a Zhuzhou facility entering trial production. Lingyi iTech is providing hinge-chain parts, support plates, vapor chambers, and battery-case modules.

MacDailyNews Take: We can hardly wait for the iPhone Duo teardowns!

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Today, Apple TV unveiled the trailer for the highly anticipated second season of the celebrated German-language dark comedy series, “Where’s Wanda?” Produced by UFA Fiction, the eight-episode season stars International Emmy Award nominee Heike Makatsch (“Love Actually”), German Comedy Award winner Axel Stein (“The Vault”), multiple award-winning actress Lea Drinda (“The Gryphon”), Leo Simon, and Nikeata Thompson (“Späti”). Season two will make its global debut on Apple TV with one episode on Wednesday, October 21, followed by a new episode weekly through December 9, 2026.

In season two, the Klatts (Makatsch and Stein) are back! Just as they thought their lives were finally returning to normal, their daughter, Wanda (Drinda), is caught seemingly red-handed standing over a dead body. They will need to do everything in their power to prove her innocence and avoid losing her again, as their investigation to find the real murderer takes them into the criminal underbelly of their sleepy suburban town. But will their quest to protect their family get them all out of trouble, or ultimately lead them further astray? And can they find out the truth of what happened on that fateful day before it’s too late?

In addition to Makatsch, Stein, Drinda, Simon and Thompson, the season two ensemble also includes Sam Riley (“Maleficent”), Alexandra Maria Lara (“Downfall”), Harriet Herbig-Matten (“Maxton Hall: The World Between Us”), Gisa Flake (“Berlin Station”), David Schütter (“Barbarians”), Palina Rojinski (“Welcome to Germany”), Suzanne von Borsody (“Run Lola Run”), Kostja Ullmann (“A Most Wanted Man”), Devid Striesow (“All Quiet on the Western Front”), Frederic Balonier (“Maxton Hall: The World Between Us”), Sascha Geršak (“Murder Mindfully”), Torben Liebrecht (“Altered Carbon”), Aaron Maldonado-Morales (“Sun and Concrete”) and Anton Dreger (“Two Sides of the Abyss”).

Hailing from UFA Fiction, a Fremantle company, “Where’s Wanda?” season two is created, written and executive produced by Royal Television Society nominee Oliver Lansley (“Flack”), alongside multiple award-winning executive producer Nataly Kudiabor (“Arthur’s Law”) and Oliver Ossege (“Helgoland 513”). The series was co-created and based on a story by Zoltan Spirandelli (“Vaya con Dios”) and is directed by critically acclaimed, award-winning filmmakers, Tobi Baumann (“Faking Hitler”) and Christian Ditter (“How To Be Single”).

Following its global debut, “Where’s Wanda?” has been hailed as an “electrifying,” “standout” series keeping “viewers on the edge of their seats” with “a unique blend of dark comedy and suspense,” and featuring “immensely likable, and often affecting performances” by its “talented cast.” Season one achieved a rare perfect 100 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. Fans applaud the “beautiful” show as the “kind of gem Apple only seems capable of creating” and “a compelling new addition” to Apple TV’s “expanding international offerings.”

Apple TV offers premium, compelling drama and comedy series, feature films, groundbreaking documentaries, and kids and family entertainment, and is available to watch across all of a user’s favorite screens. After its launch on November 1, 2019, Apple TV became the first all-original streaming service to launch around the world, and has premiered more original hits and received more award recognitions faster than any other streaming service in its debut. To date, Apple Original films, documentaries and series have been honored with 919 wins and 3,827 award nominations and counting including multi-Emmy Award-winning and history-making comedies “The Studio” and “Ted Lasso,” global cultural phenomenon “Severance,” Apple’s most-viewed drama “Pluribus,” Academy Award Best Picture winner “CODA” and Academy Award winner “F1,” the highest-grossing sports feature of all time.

MacDailyNews Note: Apple TV is available on the Apple TV app in over 100 countries and regions, on over 1 billion screens, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, popular smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO, TCL and others, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, and at tv.apple.com, for $14.99 per month with a seven-day free trial for new subscribers. For a limited time, customers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K or Mac can enjoy three months of Apple TV for free.

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Apple’s next-generation Siri AI appears to be coming to the HomePod, based on findings from code researcher pdfu. HomePod Software 27 includes the “Linwood” system that powers Siri AI, along with new status lights matching the Siri AI color scheme.

Get ready for Siri AI on HomePod.

audioOS 27 includes Linwood, the system behind Siri AI, plus a new look and sound for Siri on HomePod. May require new hardware.

The new status lights emphasize white, blue and orange, matching Siri AI’s palette on other devices.

Sound on pic.twitter.com/jZKzLx946y

— pdfu (@itspdfu) September 23, 2026

Current HomePods running the software do not yet offer the upgraded assistant, which suggests the feature may be limited to upcoming hardware rather than rolling out to existing speakers. Rumors point to a refreshed HomePod mini as the most likely first recipient. The main upgrade is expected to be a faster processor—possibly an S9 chip or even the S11 used in the Apple Watch Series 12. Like recent Apple Watches, the new mini would likely deliver some Siri AI and Apple Intelligence features when paired with a compatible iPhone.

The HomePod mini is not expected to change much in design. Additional upgrades could include Apple’s N1 networking chip, a newer Ultra Wideband chip, and fresh color options.Siri AI support is also rumored for a forthcoming Apple TV 4K with a more capable processor, and Apple is said to be developing a dedicated home hub with Siri AI built in. Several of these products, including the updated HomePod mini, could arrive as soon as October. An updated full-size HomePod is also in development, though its launch timing remains unclear.

MacDailyNews Take: The findings add to a broader picture of Apple expanding its smarter Siri across the home ecosystem, while leaving current-generation HomePods on the older, inferior Siri for now.

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Apple TV on Tuesday debuted the official trailer for the second season of the adventure-filled series, “The Sisters Grimm.” Earning a 100% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes for season one, the series returns with six episodes on Friday, October 2, 2026. Based on Michael Buckley’s New York Times bestselling book series, “The Sisters Grimm” is a journey of adventure and heart about sleuth-solving sisters descended from the Brothers Grimm who, while very different, make a pretty great team.

In season two, one year after their parents’ mysterious disappearance, sisters Sabrina and Daphne Grimm continue uncovering the secrets of Ferryport Landing, where fairy tales and fairy tale creatures are real, as they face new adventures and mysteries.

The series is led by a stellar voice cast, including Ariel Winter (“Modern Family”) as Sabrina, Leah Newman as Daphne, Laraine Newman (“Saturday Night Live”) as Relda, Abubakar Salim (“Raised by Wolves”) as Charming, Billy Harris (“Ted Lasso”) as Puck and Harry Trevaldwyn (“How to Train Your Dragon”) as Mirror.

Developed by Emmy Award nominee Amy Higgins (“Star vs. the Forces of Evil”) who serves as showrunner, and Emmy Award nominee Erica Rothschild (“Sofia the First”). Emmy Award-winning studio Titmouse (“Duck and Goose,” “Harriet the Spy,” “Frog and Toad”) produces the animation for “The Sisters Grimm.” The six-episode series is executive produced by Higgins, Buckley (“Robotomy”), Emmy Award winner Elliot Blake (“Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider”), Emmy Award winner Philip Alberstat (“The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie”), Steven Amato (“27 Mins”) and Theresa Park (“Roar,” “Expats”), alongside Titmouse’s Chris Prynoski (“The Legend of Vox Machina”), Shannon Prynoski (“Scavengers Reign”), Ben Kalina (“Big Mouth”) and Antonio Canobbio (“Digman!”). Sage Cotugno serves as supervising director.

The exciting slate of recent offerings for kids and families on Apple TV includes “My Brother the Minotaur,” from Academy Award-nominated animation studio Cartoon Saloon and award-winning children’s media company Dog Ears; “Wonder Pets: In the City,” from Emmy Award winner Jennifer Oxley and produced by Nickelodeon Animation; animated adventure trilogy “WondLa,” based on Tony DiTerlizzi’s New York Times bestselling book series “The Search for WondLa”; “Yo Gabba GabbaLand!,” inspired by the hit, Emmy Award-nominated cultural phenomenon “Yo Gabba Gabba!”; season two of Emmy Award-winning “Shape Island,” based on the internationally bestselling picture books by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen; “Goldie,” inspired by Emily Brundige’s award-winning 2019 short film of the same name; Television Critics Association Award-winning “Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical”; “Snoopy Presents: There’s No Place Like Home, Snoopy”; series “Camp Snoopy”; and many more.

Award-winning all-ages offerings now streaming globally on Apple TV include the BAFTA Award and Emmy Award-winning live-action animated hybrid special “The Velveteen Rabbit,” BAFTA Award and Humanitas Prize-winning “El Deafo”; BAFTA Award-winning “Lovely Little Farm”; DreamWorks Animation’s music-driven animated comedy “BE@RBRICK”; “Duck & Goose”; “Get Rolling With Otis”; Spin Master Entertainment’s “Sago Mini Friends”; Emmy Award-winning “Frog and Toad,” based on the Caldecott and Newbery Honor-winning books, Annie Award-nominated “Not a Box”; GLAAD Media Award-nominated “Pinecone & Pony”; The Jim Henson Company’s Emmy Award-winning “Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock,” “Harriet the Spy” and “Slumberkins”; Sesame Workshop’s “Helpsters”; Scholastic’s “Puppy Place”; Joseph Gordon-Levitt, HITRECORD and Bento Box Entertainment’s “Wolfboy and the Everything Factory,” and Jack McBrayer and Angela C. Santomero’s Emmy Award-nominated “Hello, Jack! The Kindness Show.”

Live-action offerings include “Me,” an elevated, cinematic coming-of-age story from Barry L. Levy; Bonnie Hunt’s DGA Award and WGA Award-nominated “Amber Brown”; DGA Award-winning “Best Foot Forward”; “Surfside Girls”; WGA Award-winning “Life by Ella”; Sesame Workshop and Sinking Ship’s Emmy Award-winning “Ghostwriter”; and Emmy Award and Environmental Media Association Award-winning “Jane.” The collection also features “Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth,” the Emmy Award-winning television event based on the New York Times bestselling book and TIME Best Book of the Year by Oliver Jeffers.

Apple TV offers premium, compelling drama and comedy series, feature films, groundbreaking documentaries, and kids and family entertainment, and is available to watch across all of a user’s favorite screens. After its launch on November 1, 2019, Apple TV became the first all-original streaming service to launch around the world, and has premiered more original hits and received more award recognitions faster than any other streaming service in its debut. To date, Apple Original films, documentaries and series have been honored with 919 wins and 3,827 award nominations and counting, including multi-Emmy Award-winning and history-making comedies “The Studio” and “Ted Lasso,” global cultural phenomenon “Severance,” Apple’s most-viewed drama “Pluribus,” Academy Award Best Picture winner “CODA” and Academy Award winner “F1,” the highest-grossing sports feature of all time.

MacDailyNews Note: Apple TV is available on the Apple TV app in over 100 countries and regions, on over 1 billion screens, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, popular smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO, TCL and others, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, and at tv.apple.com, for $14.99 per month with a seven-day free trial for new subscribers. For a limited time, customers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K or Mac can enjoy three months of Apple TV for free.

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