Apple has accused Indian antitrust investigators of "copy-pasting" claims from its rivals and failing to conduct their own analysis, arguing the regulator's findings against it should be thrown out.


In a June 25 submission to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) reviewed by Reuters, Apple escalated its long-running dispute with the regulator, where Match and a group of Indian startups are among its opponents. The CCI's investigators privately concluded in 2024 that Apple had engaged in "abusive conduct" on the App Store and wrongly mandated the use of its own payment system.

Apple has denied the allegations. The company said it is a "minuscule player" with under 6% of India's smartphone market, and argued the investigation's conclusions rest on rivals' claims rather than the CCI's independent work. It warned that "forced alterations to Apple's carefully designed ‌App Store‌ could disrupt its integrated business model," and that remedies would "create regulatory uncertainty and could deter investments in India's digital economy."

In its submission, Apple provided tables intended to show the CCI's investigation team had simply reproduced filings from opponents in the case, including Match, Walmart's Indian payments app PhonePe, and Indian rival Paytm. "The DG [Director General] made no effort whatsoever to independently verify or critically assess these statements, often parroting them verbatim," Apple said.

Apple also claimed the CCI "blindly replicated" a graphic on worldwide consumer spending on mobile apps and games drawn from a 2024 EU ruling against the company, despite India facing different market conditions. In its own case, Google argued that Indian investigators had copied parts of a European ruling, but it had little effect on the final ruling resulting in forced changes to promotion of Android.

Apple is also arguing that officials failed to grant it "a single opportunity to record its statements and provide oral evidence" during the probe, in contrast to Google, which it says was given several chances to defend itself.

The regulator has accused Apple of stalling the case for more than two years by withholding responses and pursuing a parallel challenge to India's antitrust penalty law, which allows for fines of up to 10% of a company's turnover over the previous three years. That law lets India base any penalty on global rather than local turnover, the basis on which Apple has estimated its potential exposure at as much as $38 billion. Apple is separately contesting in a New Delhi court whether the law, which took effect in 2024, should apply to the full 2022–2024 period in question.

Apple had refused to supply global financial documents for that period before agreeing to cooperate in early June 2026, ultimately submitting only its local Indian turnover after requesting a "final extension" that ran to June 25, which was the same day it filed its copy-pasting accusation.

The dispute comes as India grows ever more central to Apple's business. The country is set to make 26% of the world's iPhones in 2026, up from 6% four years ago.
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Apple plans to adopt OLED panels capable of displaying a much wider range of colors, according to a new report from research firm TrendForce.


The new panels would cover 95% of the BT.2020 color standard, which describes a far broader spectrum of colors than the DCI-P3 standard Apple's screens currently target. In practice, that means deeper, more accurate reds, greens, and blues. Reaching those richer colors demands more precise control over the light a display emits, along with better energy efficiency, so TrendForce expects the next round of OLED competition to hinge less on familiar specs like brightness and thinness and more on balancing color, power consumption, and overall performance.

Apple first brought OLED to the iPad Pro in 2024, and the technology is expected to come to the MacBook Pro between 2026 and early 2027. To reach the wider color range, panel makers are changing the chemistry of the layer inside each pixel that actually produces light, moving from a simpler recipe toward more sophisticated designs that pass energy between materials more efficiently.

TrendForce points to several of these new approaches. One makes a pixel emit a purer, more precise color, which is what lets a screen reach the tougher BT.2020 targets. Another adds a "helper" material so the pixel turns energy into light more efficiently. A third mixes in extra materials to keep a panel bright for longer without wearing out.

The shift is also a chance for display makers to rely less on technologies they have to license from others. All of this is said to be changing the relationship between the companies that manufacture displays and the companies that supply the materials inside them, with the winners increasingly being whoever can offer the best mix of cost, ease of manufacturing, and freedom from patent licensing.

Apple plans to adopt the more advanced OLED panels gradually across future ‌MacBook Pro‌, ‌iPad Pro‌, and iMac models, according to the report.
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On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we discuss potential price rises for the iPhone 18 lineup following Apple's wave of hikes yesterday, as well as plans for the Apple Watch Ultra 4 and camera-equipped AirPods.



Apple yesterday raised prices across most of its lineup, including HomePod mini, HomePod, Apple TV, the entire iPad line, the entire Mac line, and Vision Pro, following CEO Tim Cook's warning to The Wall Street Journal that hikes were "unavoidable" due to soaring memory and storage chip costs. Apple's online store was briefly taken offline before returning with the new pricing, with increases ranging from $30 on the ‌HomePod mini‌ to $1,300 on the high end Mac Studio, averaging $246.67 across the affected products.

The iPhone, AirPods, Studio Display, Apple Watch, and accessories such as the Apple Pencil appear to be the only product lines left unaffected. Separately, the 256GB Mac mini has returned to the lineup after disappearing earlier this year, now priced at $799, which is a $200 increase over its earlier price.

The same pressure is likely to hit the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, which were already speculated to cost more than their predecessors before yesterday's increases. Speaking with the Wall Street Journal, Cook acknowledged Apple isn't immune to these cost pressures, and said clarity on iPhone pricing would come with the lineup's September launch.

Citing research firm TechInsights, the ‌Wall Street Journal‌ reported that DRAM and flash storage costs are projected to roughly quadruple by fall, pushing the iPhone 17 Pro's bill of materials from about $582 up 25% to around $726 for its successor. TechInsights has said Apple would need to raise the iPhone 18 Pro's price by about $270 to preserve current margins, though Apple's preference for standardized pricing makes a $1,299 starting price more likely on its own.

Factoring in the new camera system, which analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says could cost about 50% more than the previous generation, the ‌Wall Street Journal‌ estimates Apple could ultimately set the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌'s starting price at $1,399 or higher, a $200 to $300 jump over the current model, with the iPhone 18 Pro Max likely starting $100 above that.

The ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ is rumored to keep the ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌'s aluminum build, with four new colors including Dark Cherry, a muted wine-red expected to be the signature shade. As with last year, there's likely no true black option. Weibo leaker Fixed Focus Digital recently warned the new colors could be prone to the same chipping and surface issues seen on last year's Cosmic Orange and Dark Blue, which Apple reportedly treats as a material characteristic rather than a defect.

The ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ and ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max are expected to launch in September alongside Apple's first foldable iPhone, the "iPhone Ultra." Shipping could slip slightly later for the foldable. A Chinese leaker recently said any gap would be at most a month, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has reported the device remains on track for September, after Barclays analyst Tim Long earlier suggested shipments could slip to December. The foldable is expected to feature a 7.8-inch inner display, 5.5-inch cover display, the A20 chip and C2 modem, Touch ID instead of Face ID, two rear cameras, and a starting price of at least $2,000.

Gurman recently reported that the Apple Watch Ultra 4 and Apple Watch Series 12 will launch alongside the new iPhones. Little is known about the devices, though a faster chip seems highly likely given that both the Series 11 and Ultra 3 stuck with the S10 from the previous year. watchOS 27 will likely add new watch faces, including a variant of the Modular Ultra face.

For 2027, Apple is developing camera-equipped AirPods. The cameras, embedded in the AirPods' stems, are not designed for taking photos or video, and will instead feed information about the wearer's surroundings to Siri, which will be able to answer questions about objects and whatever the wearer is looking at, alongside contextual reminders and improved turn-by-turn directions. An included light will indicate to people nearby when the cameras are active. The AirPods were originally targeted for a 2026 launch, but Apple's broader AI struggles and the need to develop reliable object-identification models apparently pushed the timeline back.

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If you haven't already listened to the previous episode of The MacRumors Show, catch up to hear our further discussion about WWDC 2026 and iOS 27, macOS Golden Gate, and Apple's other new software updates coming this fall.

Subscribe to ‌The MacRumors Show‌ for new episodes every week, where we discuss some of the topical news breaking here on MacRumors, often joined by interesting guests such as Kayci Lacob, Kevin Nether, John Gruber, Mark Gurman, Jon Prosser, Luke Miani, Matthew Cassinelli, Brian Tong, Quinn Nelson, Jared Nelson, Eli Hodapp, Mike Bell, Sara Dietschy, iJustine, Jon Rettinger, Andru Edwards, Arnold Kim, Ben Sullins, Marcus Kane, Christopher Lawley, Frank McShan, David Lewis, Tyler Stalman, Sam Kohl, Federico Viticci, Thomas Frank, Jonathan Morrison, Ross Young, Ian Zelbo, and Rene Ritchie.

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Micron's chief business officer has hinted, without calling it out by name, that Apple's tough supplier negotiations contributed to the conditions behind the global memory shortage.


In remarks given to The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Sumit Sadana explained that Micron was unable to fund capacity expansion during the industry's previous slump, a period when its margins turned negative partly because some buyers pushed relentlessly for lower prices.

We told a couple of the customers who were being very aggressive with pricing at that time that this is not constructive. A lot of the industry investments got shut down in 2023 because of really poor pricing and really poor margins.

Micron is one of Apple's memory suppliers, providing some of the DRAM and NAND flash chips that go into iPhones, Macs, and iPads. Apple has a reputation for getting favorable terms from suppliers like Micron through long-term purchasing contracts.

Sadana's comments came just hours after Apple unveiled a sweeping round of price hikes that touched nearly every part of its hardware lineup. Products across the Mac, iPad, Apple TV, HomePod, and Vision Pro lines all went up in price, with only the iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods left untouched. Apple's stock closed down 6% the same day, its worst single-day performance in more than a year, wiping out roughly $265 billion in market value.

Apple CEO Tim Cook forewarned about this outcome more than a week earlier in comments to the same publication, warning that price increases had become unavoidable given how the company was being squeezed on memory and storage costs. Cook said Apple had been trying to shield customers from the worst of it but had reached a breaking point, describing the shortage as a "hundred-year flood" unlike anything he had seen in more than four decades. He pointed to the surge in demand for high-bandwidth memory used in AI servers, arguing that consumer products were now competing for a shrinking pool of supply and that pricing needed to come back down to earth before Apple's own prices could follow.
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Apple's upcoming high-end MacBook model featuring an OLED touchscreen display will use the company's current M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.


The new, top-of-the-line device will launch "between late this year and early next year," Gurman said, adopting the existing high-end Apple silicon chips rather than next-generation M6 versions. Like the MacBook Pro, the touchscreen MacBook will be available in 14- and 16-inch display sizes, code-named "K114" and "K116." The device will also feature a new design and an iPhone-style Dynamic Island. It is expected to be more expensive than the M5 Pro ‌MacBook Pro‌, which now starts at $1,999 as of Apple's recent price rises.

Yesterday, Gurman revealed that Apple plans to skip what would have been the "M6 Pro" and "M6 Max" for more powerful "M7 Pro" and "M7 Max" chips. The M7 series of chips is said to be focused on intense AI workloads, featuring upgraded neural accelerators, graphics enhancements, and increased memory bandwidth. A new entry-level ‌MacBook Pro‌ with the M6 chip is still expected to launch later this year.

Apple is apparently working on a successor to the high-end MacBook model containing the M7 Pro and M7 Max chips, planned for release toward the end of 2027. The company is also planning to refresh the Mac Studio with M7 Max and M7 Ultra chip options in 2028.
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Apple's iPhone 18 Pro lineup and its first foldable iPhone will launch at higher prices than originally predicted this September, according to several known Chinese leakers.


The leaker known as "Fixed Focus Digital" said on Weibo that while Apple's current iPhone models haven't seen a price increase, the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ models launching this fall "will definitely see a price hike," adding that the foldable iPhone in particular could be priced 10% to 20% higher than previously expected.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that the foldable iPhone is expected to "cross the $2,000 threshold" in the U.S., which would make it the most expensive iPhone Apple has ever sold, surpassing even the $1,999 iPhone 17 Pro Max in its 2TB configuration. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes pricing will not be below $2,000, and could even exceed $2,500. Other projections have also fallen within that range. Given that spread of existing estimates, the new Weibo claims about a further 10% to 20% price increase would push even the lowest of those projections well past the $2,099 mark, and could put a higher storage configuration of the device beyond $3,000.

"Digital Chat Station" said it is "highly unlikely" that the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ series avoids a price increase altogether. The leaker pointed to the ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌'s 8,999 yuan starting price in China and suggested Apple could push the 18 Pro to a 9,999 yuan starting price to protect its margins, which would put the entire September lineup, including the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌, ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max, and the foldable iPhone, at 10,000 yuan or more. That would amount to an increase of roughly 11% over the ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌'s Chinese price. Apple has historically kept its Chinese and U.S. starting prices roughly proportional across recent iPhone generations, so an 11% increase applied to the ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌'s $1,099 U.S. starting price would put the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ at around $1,220.

The leaker known as "Instant Digital" floated an even steeper number, suggesting the 256GB ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max could start at 10,999 or even 11,499 yuan, calling that an expensive price point for what is a non-foldable phone. At that level, the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max would be priced roughly 15% to 20% above the current ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌ Max's 9,999 yuan starting price in China, a jump that, if mirrored in the U.S., could put the 256GB model's starting price somewhere in the $1,300 to $1,400 range, up from $1,199 today.

These leaker estimates echo a wave of recent reporting on the rising cost of building the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌. Research firm TechInsights estimates that Apple paid around $39 for the 12GB of DRAM in the ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌, a figure that could climb to $145 in the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌, pushing the device's total bill of materials up by roughly 25%. Based on similar cost projections, Apple would need to charge around $1,369 for the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ to preserve its current profit margin on the ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌. Once a pricier new camera system is factored in, The Wall Street Journal estimates a starting price of $1,399 or higher.

The latest rumors follow Apple's decision to raise prices on most of its devices this week, with the exception of the iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch. Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed last week that the increases were unavoidable, citing the soaring cost of memory and storage chips as a "hundred year flood." Apple has historically absorbed component cost swings rather than passing them on to customers, making this round of increases a notable shift in approach.

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Apple today began selling refurbished MacBook Neo units through its Certified Refurbished store, a day after raising prices on the laptop and several other products.


The refurbished ‌MacBook Neo‌ is available in all four colors, Silver, Citrus, Indigo, and Blush, in both configurations. The base model with 256GB of storage starts at $599, while a higher end version with Touch ID and 512GB storage starts at $679. Both configurations are available across the full color lineup, for eight refurbished SKUs in total.

The refurbished pricing undercuts Apple's current new unit pricing for the ‌MacBook Neo‌. Apple yesterday raised prices on many products, including the MacBook Neo, which now starts at $699 in the United States, up from $599 when it launched in March. The higher end configuration with 512GB of storage and a ‌Touch ID‌ button also received a $100 price increase and now starts at $799, up from $699. That means the new refurbished listings are priced at or near to the laptop's original, pre-hike rates.

Apple said the broad range of price increases are due to the ongoing memory chip shortage, which has led to skyrocketing prices for the RAM and SSD storage used in products like the ‌MacBook Neo‌, with the company pointing to AI server demand from companies buying up memory chips as a key driver. The changes extended the same day to Apple's Certified Refurbished store, with the company raising prices across refurbished Macs and iPads alongside the hikes on new hardware.

The ‌MacBook Neo‌ is powered by the A18 Pro chip with 8GB of RAM and features a 13-inch Liquid Retina display. It is still Apple's most affordable Mac.
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Apple today raised the price of the Vision Pro to $3,699, up from $3,499, as part of a sweeping round of price increases across its lineup.


The change came after Apple's online store was briefly taken offline earlier today and brought back up with new pricing across the HomePod mini, HomePod, Apple TV, iPad, iPad mini, iPad Air, iPad Pro, MacBook Neo, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini, both Mac Studio configurations, and Vision Pro. The iPhone, AirPods, Studio Display, and accessories such as the Apple Pencil were seemingly the only product lines left untouched.

No Apple product carries more baggage around its price tag than Vision Pro. The headset launched in February 2024 at $3,499 for the base 256GB configuration, a figure that was widely flagged at the time as a major barrier to mainstream adoption. Today's increase pushes the entry price to $3,699, with the 512GB and 1TB configurations similarly rising in step to $3,899 and $4,199.

A product like the ‌MacBook Air‌ going up by $200 is naturally an unwelcome change for consumers, but it's a shift on a product with an enormous addressable market. The Vision Pro was already priced roughly seven times higher than Meta's $499.99 Quest 3, and reviewers and analysts have repeatedly pointed to that gap as the headset's defining weakness. the Vision Pro's share of the XR market is estimated to be around 5%, against roughly 75% for ‌Meta‌, a split that reflects just how badly the price has limited Vision Pro's reach relative to its technical ambitions.

When the company refreshed Vision Pro with an M5 chip and a new Dual Knit Band in October 2025, it kept the $3,499 starting price exactly where it was.

The increase is tied to a broader cost problem for the technology industry. Apple CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal last week that price increases across Apple's lineup had become "unavoidable" because of the soaring cost of memory and storage chips.
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Apple today dramatically increased device prices across multiple product lines.


After temporarily taking it down earlier today, Apple's online store is back up with a series of product price increases. The changes are as follows:

• HomePod mini: $129, up from $99 (+$30)


• HomePod: $349, up from $299 (+$50)


• Apple TV: $199, up from $129 (+$70)


• iPad: $449, up from $349 (+$100)


• iPad mini: $599, up from $499 (+$100)


• iPad Air: $749, up from $599 (+$150)


• iPad Pro: $1,199, up from $999 (+$200)


• MacBook Neo: $699, up from $599 (+$100)


• MacBook Air: $1,299, up from $1,099 (+$200)


• MacBook Pro: $1,999 up from $1,699 (+$300)


• iMac: $1,499, up from $1,299 (+$200)


• Mac mini (M4 Pro): $1,599, up from $1,399 (+$200)


• Mac Studio (M4 Max): $2,499, up from $1,999 (+$500)


• Mac Studio (M3 Ultra): $5,299, up from $3,999 (+$1,300)


• Vision Pro: $3,699, up from $3,499 (+$200)

The average price increase is $246.67. The iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods, Studio Display, and accessories such as the Apple Pencil are seemingly the only unaffected product lines.

It is also of note that the 256GB Mac mini is now available again, but for $799. This is a $200 increase over when it was available before temporarily disappearing from the lineup earlier this year.

Last week, Apple announced that it was preparing to raise prices across its product lineup, with CEO Tim Cook confirming that that the move was inevitable. Cook made the announcement in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, citing the soaring cost of memory and storage chips. "Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable," he said. "We're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable." Cook described the scale of the memory shortage as a "hundred-year flood," adding, "I've never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years."

Apple has historically absorbed component cost swings rather than passing them on to customers, so this marks a notable shift in approach.
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Apple's online store has gone down with the message "We'll be right back," for reasons that are currently unclear.


The change could be due to the launch of Apple's 2026 "Back to School" program, impending price increases, or the launch of new devices.

Apple's annual Back to School promotion for the U.S. and Canada is widely expected to launch any day now, since it still hasn't gone live despite the keynote-driven pattern Apple has followed in recent years. In three of the last five years, the sale has started 8 to 10 days after the WWDC keynote, and with the 2026 keynote held on June 8, that would have pointed to a start the week of June 15, a date that's now passed, making it seemingly overdue.

Apple has typically offered free AirPods or Beats headphones, gift cards, or other accessories with qualifying Mac and iPad purchases, with offers in North America and Europe usually launching in the June to July timeframe, and last year's U.S. version ran a free AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation offer worth $179 through the end of September.

Apple could raise device prices any day now because the signals have moved from speculative to nearly confirmed in the past week. Apple CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal that price increases are "unavoidable" due to memory and storage costs, saying Apple is no longer able to absorb the increases and will need to pass some of the cost on to consumers.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes the timing of Cook's comments indicates price hikes are "imminent" and has linked them to Apple's Back to School sale, theorizing Apple may bundle the two together as a "buffer," with Gurman noting the increases are "not a fall thing."

Apple regularly takes its online store offline to quietly swap in new pricing, new product pages, and back-end configurator changes. This typically happens when Apple is about to launch new products or kick off a promotional campaign, so whatever they are, changes to the store are almost certainly imminent.
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A group of 48 China-based iOS developers have filed an antitrust complaint against Apple with the country's market regulator over the App Store's commission rates, the South China Morning Post reports.


The developers sent an open letter to China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), alleging that Apple failed to deliver on a promise to offer the lowest commission rate to the Chinese market. The group asked the SAMR to investigate and penalize Apple for allegedly abusing its market dominance to impose "unfair and excessively high" costs on local developers.

Apple currently charges a 25% commission on paid apps and in-app purchases in China, down from 30% after a cut made in March. The commission on subscription renewals, along with the rate for qualified developers in Apple's Small Business and Mini Apps Partner programs, was lowered to 12% from 15% at the same time.

The complaint follows a series of similar challenges to Apple's China ‌App Store‌ policies dating back nearly a decade. A Beijing law firm filed a complaint in 2017 over app removals and high fees, a Chinese consumer sued over ‌App Store‌ fees in 2021 (a claim ultimately rejected by a Shanghai court in 2024), and another Chinese law firm sued again in 2025.

The 48 developers point to Apple's recent moves elsewhere as evidence the company can do better. Apple lowered its Brazil commission last week to between 10% and 21% of a transaction, plus a 5% processing fee, while also letting Brazilian developers distribute iOS apps through other app marketplaces for a 5% fee. Apple made comparable adjustments in Japan late last year.

The developers want more than Brazil-style pricing. They argue that allowing third-party app stores in China, as Apple already does in the European Union under the Digital Markets Act, would push its effective commission down to as low as 5%.

Apple has faced mounting regulatory pressure over ‌App Store‌ fees worldwide in recent years. The company was fined €500 million ($572.2 million) last year for violating the EU's Digital Markets Act and has appealed the decision, while in the U.S. it has been ordered to allow external payment links following its legal fight with Epic Games. Apple said earlier this month that its ‌App Store‌ ecosystem generated more than $1.4 trillion in developer billings and sales in 2025, with China contributing the largest share at $562 billion.
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Meta today unveiled its first smart glasses sold under its own brand rather than Ray-Ban or Oakley, undercutting its existing lineup on price as it works to expand its lead in the category before Apple enters the market.


The new Adventurer and Fury models are priced at $299, $80 less than the second-generation Ray-Ban ‌Meta‌ Wayfarer that launched last year. A third model, the Starfire, was designed in collaboration with Kylie Jenner and costs $399.

EssilorLuxottica, the parent company of Ray-Ban and Oakley, is manufacturing the glasses despite ‌Meta‌ designing them in-house and putting its own name on them, with EssilorLuxottica's logo appearing on the temple arms and packaging alongside ‌Meta‌'s.

The Adventurer has a rectangular Wayfarer-like shape available in standard and large sizes, while the Fury shares that silhouette but is thicker. The Starfire takes a slimmer oval shape and includes a small gemstone on the right lens near the camera, a metal nose pad designed to resist makeup residue, and the option to set an AI-generated version of Jenner's voice for the assistant and onboarding prompts. The Starfire's case includes a handwritten note from Jenner and a built-in mirror.

Across all three styles, ‌Meta‌ added a three-way adjustable nose pad, adjustable temple tips, and overextension hinges so the arms flare out slightly for wider head shapes. The companies are offering 26 color and lens combinations between the Adventurer and Fury alone, including tortoise, black, and green finishes, plus transition, polarized, and clear lens options, and the glasses support prescription lenses with a power range of -12 to +2.25.

The new glasses carry over the same 12-megapixel camera, 3K video capture, five-microphone array, and eight-hour battery life as the existing Ray-Ban ‌Meta‌ Gen 2 glasses, with the included case adding about 40 hours of additional charge. ‌Meta‌ is also offering a separate ‌Meta‌ Glasses Charging Stand compatible with the new models as well as the Ray-Ban ‌Meta‌ and Oakley ‌Meta‌ HSTN lines.

The glasses ship with ‌Meta‌'s Muse Spark AI model, which the company says improves response quality and adds 14 new languages to live translation support, including Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Arabic, and Hindi, bringing the total to 20. A new "Dynamic Photo" feature captures a burst of images and selects the best shot, and pedestrian turn-by-turn navigation is coming to the camera-equipped lineup after debuting on ‌Meta‌'s display glasses.

According to Bloomberg, ‌Meta‌ also hinted that it's considering a version of its glasses without a camera, focusing on an audio-only experience for phone calls, media playback and interacting with its AI tools. A camera-free option could both lower the price point and enable new styles, it said, given the need to include fewer components.

The company also addressed Apple directly, calling the iPhone maker "formidable" in the space ahead of its own glasses debut. "I think you need to take anything they do seriously," ‌Meta‌'s Alex Himel said, adding, "they're good at hardware, they're good at design. There's a number of places where we won't necessarily be able to build the same quality consumer experience when paired with the phone, and so I think they're taking advantage of that."

Apple is widely expected to release its first smart glasses in 2027, designed in-house rather than through a partner brand. Apple's glasses will likely rely on a camera, microphones, and Siri for AI-driven features without an integrated display, putting them in direct competition with ‌Meta‌'s camera-equipped lineup rather than higher-end display models like ‌Meta‌'s Ray-Ban Display glasses.

‌Meta‌ said it explored facial recognition tools for identifying people the wearer knows but has not put the feature into active development while it works through privacy and societal concerns.

The Adventurer, Fury, and Starfire glasses are available starting today through ‌Meta‌ and EssilorLuxottica retail partners including LensCrafters.
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A new resale value study suggests that a $2,000 foldable iPhone could lose as much as $1,292 of its value within its first 12 months on the market, based on current foldable depreciation trends.


The estimate comes from SellCell, which analyzed the 12-month resale performance of flagship smartphones from Apple, Samsung, Google, Motorola, and OnePlus. The site found that foldable smartphones lose an average of 64.6% of their value within a year, the worst depreciation rate of any smartphone category, compared with 55.3% for traditional smartphones.

SellCell calculates that foldable phone owners lose $997.69 on average after 12 months, compared with $605.32 for owners of traditional smartphones, a gap of $392.37. Foldables retain just 35.4% of their launch value after a year, versus 44.7% for non-folding phones.

Apple is widely rumored to be preparing its first foldable iPhone, expected to be called the "iPhone Ultra," for launch alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max in fall 2026, with a price of around $2,000.

Using that rumored price point, SellCell modeled what a foldable iPhone's resale value might look like after a year if it depreciated at the average rate seen across today's foldables, landing at around $708 after 12 months. This would represent a loss of roughly $1,292.

SellCell notes Apple has historically outperformed competitors on resale value. The iPhone 16 lineup retained 51.5% of its value after 12 months, the strongest of any major manufacturer in the study, ahead of OnePlus (46.8%), Google (40.8%), Samsung (39.5%), and Motorola (24.5%). If a foldable iPhone matched the ‌iPhone 16‌ lineup's depreciation rate instead, SellCell estimates it could be worth around $1,030 after a year, over $300 less depreciation than a typical foldable.

Real-world depreciation would likely land closer to Apple's existing figures. The base ‌iPhone 16‌ retained 51.4% of value after a year and the 256GB ‌iPhone 16‌ Pro Max retained 56.4%, though even at those rates, the total loss on a $2,000 device would still come out to roughly $1,000 over 12 months.
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Apple's next-generation AI dictation feature for the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air is not turned on by default in the first developer beta of iOS 27.


Apple says the new AI-powered dictation system delivers "a major boost in accuracy," with more reliable on-the-fly capitalization and punctuation than the existing dictation system. The feature runs on Apple's new AFM 3 Core Advanced model, which is a 20-billion-parameter, natively multimodal system that uses a sparse architecture, activating just one to four billion parameters at a time depending on the request.

To fit a model that large onto a smartphone, the full model is stored in flash memory rather than DRAM, with a lightweight routing block selecting a fixed set of "experts" during initial processing and periodically reselecting them during generation, a technique Apple calls Instruction-Following Pruning.

In side-by-side human evaluations against Apple's previous production dictation system across seven quality dimensions, AFM 3 Core Advanced was preferred on overall quality by a margin of 44.7% to 17.6%, with that preference holding consistently across the other six dimensions, which include punctuation, casing, layout, meaning capture, disfluency handling, and style.

Because of the model's size, the upgraded dictation is limited to a handful of newer devices: the ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌ and ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌ Max, the ‌iPhone Air‌, the Vision Pro with M5 chip, iPads with an M4 chip or later with at least 12GB of RAM, and Macs with an M3 chip or later with at least 12GB of RAM. Notably, the standard iPhone 17 is excluded, as it ships with 8GB of RAM rather than the 12GB the larger model requires. The same AFM Core Advanced model also powers Apple's new customizable expressive Siri voices, another opt-in preview as of beta 1.

The new dictation model runs entirely on-device, so transcription quality stays the same whether or not the iPhone is connected to a network. It remains unclear whether the preview will stay off by default when ‌iOS 27‌ is released officially later this year, or whether Apple will switch it on automatically at some point during the beta cycle this summer.
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Samsung Display has received Apple's approval to begin module production of OLED panels for Apple's first foldable iPhone, according to a report today from TheElec.


Citing industry sources, the report says Samsung Display has started operating part of its back-end production lines in Vietnam to fulfill an initial order of around three million panels scheduled for delivery this year. Module production approval requires a supplier to demonstrate final assembly quality and mass-production stability, and Apple's threshold is reportedly a yield rate of at least 70%. Samsung Display is said to have passed that bar after achieving final yields above 80%.

Samsung Display is believed to be the exclusive supplier of OLED panels for the foldable iPhone under a three-year agreement, meaning Apple will not source foldable OLED panels from any other display maker during that period. Back-end processing, which includes adding driver circuits, flexible printed circuit boards, and protective components before final inspection and shipment, is being handled at Samsung Display's Vietnam facility. That site has around 80 production lines in total, with roughly 50 currently active, leaving capacity to spare given the relatively modest three million unit order.

The panels are expected to use Color Filter on Encapsulation (CoE) technology, which removes the polarizer and forms a color filter directly on top of the encapsulation layer, along with Samsung Display's newest M16 OLED material set. The M16 stack is said to bring improvements to brightness, color performance, lifespan, and power efficiency over prior generations.

Apple's foldable iPhone is rumored to feature a 7.8-inch inner display and a 5.5-inch cover display, along with Touch ID instead of Face ID, an A20 chip, and Apple's C2 modem, with pricing expected to start around $2,000.
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iOS 27 introduces a new recovery mode for iPhone and iPad that lets the device boot into an alternative, lightweight interface without loading the full operating system, similar to recovery mode on Apple silicon Macs.


To use the feature, users must turn the device off, then hold the side button to power it on. The Apple logo appears as it would during a normal boot, but holding the button for an extended duration brings up a progress bar, and the device then launches into the new recovery environment rather than continuing into iOS or iPadOS as normal. The process mirrors how recovery mode is triggered on Apple silicon Macs by holding the power button.

The new recovery screen offers five options: Recovery Assistant, Software Update, Diagnostics Mode, Erase All Content and Settings, and Recovery Mode. The interface also displays the current battery percentage in the corner of the screen and automatically connects to a known Wi-Fi network, while a power button in the toolbar lets users attempt a normal restart instead.



The addition means some last-resort repairs that previously required connecting an iPhone or ‌iPad‌ to a computer can now be carried out independently on the device itself. Apple's Recovery Assistant tool is designed to handle some of these automated fixes without further input.

The need to use the new recovery mode should remain rare. One scenario where it could come in handy is if a software update fails to install, such as when a device runs out of battery mid-update. Some iOS beta versions have in the past caused devices to soft-lock or enter boot loops, and in those cases, the Software Update option in the new recovery mode could allow a user to reinstall the last stable version of the OS without needing to put the device into DFU mode and restore it from a Mac or PC.

‌iOS 27‌ and iPadOS 27 are in developer beta testing now, with a public beta expected next month, and an official release in the fall.
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Apple last week unveiled five new apps, with four announced at WWDC 2026 alongside its upcoming fall software updates, one released in beta for developers, and one released independently by its subsidiary Claris.

Siri AI App

One of the biggest announcements of WWDC 2026 was Siri AI, a ground-up rebuild of Apple's voice assistant that for the first time comes with a dedicated standalone app.

Like other chatbots, Siri can search the web and access general world knowledge, evaluate documents, solve math problems, and take action in and across apps, such as getting detailed Maps directions with multiple stops, editing and sharing photos, or writing an email in the user's own writing style. The app lets users type or talk to it like a chat thread, and syncs conversation history across all devices through iCloud.

The ‌Siri‌ app is available in most of Apple's next-generation operating systems, arriving this fall as part of iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS Golden Gate, watchOS 27, and visionOS 27. The operating systems are currently available to developers in beta, though access to Siri AI itself involves a waitlist. ‌Siri‌ AI will not be available in the EU at launch, though Apple says it is working on a path forward.

Apple TV Remote App Returns

Apple used to offer an Apple TV Remote app in the App Store, but it was removed in 2020. With this year's major updates, Apple is restoring the app as a proper Home Screen icon. It comes pre-installed with ‌iOS 27‌ and ‌iPadOS 27‌. To add it to the ‌Home Screen‌ as an app, users can swipe down, search for "Remote," then tap and hold the app icon to drag it into place. It is also accessible via the App Library.

All-New Find My on Apple Watch

‌watchOS 27‌ is bringing a long-overdue consolidation to Find My on Apple Watch. Previously split across separate Find Devices, Find People, and Find Items apps, the new app consolidates everything into a single, map-centric interface.

The main screen provides quick access to actions like getting directions and finding nearby items, and Precision Finding is available for locating a paired iPhone, AirPods Pro 3, or AirTag 2. The redesign also introduces more flexible sharing options, giving users greater control over how they share their location and item tracking with others.

Pass Designer

Apple also introduced Pass Designer, a new Mac app for building and previewing Apple Wallet passes aimed at developers and businesses. The app supports templates provided by Apple or custom designs, letting developers bring in images such as logos, backgrounds, and strip images. As edits are made, Pass Designer updates a real-time preview using the same rendering as iOS and watchOS, so what is seen in Pass Designer is exactly what customers will see on their device. Pass Designer validates the pass as work progresses, alerting developers to issues such as missing required key values.

For boarding passes and event tickets, Pass Designer also supports semantic tags, which add structured data such as event dates, venue locations, and flight details that the system uses to enable features like ‌Siri‌ Suggestions, Calendar integration, and Maps directions. It can also automatically generate a backward-compatible pass structure from semantic data, ensuring passes work across devices where semantic tags may not be supported.

Pass Designer beta requires macOS 27 or later and is available to download now for registered Apple developers.

Claris FileMaker Go 2026

Unlike the four WWDC announcements, this app is already available. Claris FileMaker Go 2026 became available on June 10. FileMaker is a low-code database application platform that lets users build custom apps to organize, manage, and automate data without extensive programming knowledge.

The new version of the app adds support for iOS and iPadOS 26, and brings Google Gemini to FileMaker's roster of supported AI models, which already includes Anthropic, OpenAI, and Cohere. The 2026 release also focuses on developer productivity, infrastructure resilience, and an AI-ready architecture, and was shaped directly by feedback from the Claris developer community.

FileMaker is developed by Claris International, a subsidiary of Apple.
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On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we continue unpacking WWDC 2026 and take a closer look at iOS 27, macOS Golden Gate, and Apple's other new software updates coming this fall.


iOS 27 supports the same iPhones as iOS 26, including the iPhone 11 and second-generation iPhone SE, giving the update the widest device compatibility of any iOS release to date.

macOS Golden Gate drops Intel Macs entirely, confirming the end of an era that Apple flagged a year earlier when it said macOS Tahoe would be the final release for pre-Apple silicon machines. Four models that ran Tahoe miss out: the 16-inch MacBook Pro (2019), the 13-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ with four Thunderbolt 3 ports (2020), the 2020 iMac, and the 2019 Mac Pro. Golden Gate is also the last version with full Rosetta 2 support, meaning the translation layer that keeps Intel-built apps running on Apple silicon will disappear entirely after this release.

iPadOS 27 raises its hardware floor to the A14 Bionic or M1 chip, cutting the fifth-generation iPad mini, the eighth-generation iPad, the third-generation iPad Air, the first-generation 11-inch iPad Pro, and the third-generation 12.9-inch ‌iPad Pro‌.

watchOS 27 makes the steepest cuts in Apple Watch history, dropping the Series 6, Series 7, Series 8, original Ultra, and second-generation SE in a single wave and effectively erasing three years of device support at once. The only models that remain compatible are the Series 9, Series 10, Series 11, Ultra 2, Ultra 3, and SE 3.

tvOS 27 drops two Apple TV models, the Apple TV HD from 2015 and the first-generation ‌Apple TV‌ 4K from 2017, leaving only the second- and third-generation ‌Apple TV‌ 4K boxes supported.

In ‌iOS 27‌, notifications now slide in from the left edge of the screen rather than dropping down from the top, and reaching Notification Center requires swiping down from the top-left corner instead of the center, freeing up that gesture for Siri. Other changes include colorful sidebar icons, real-time widget updates when an app is already open, extra-large Home Screen widgets, and web audio that no longer interrupts other system audio.

The centerpiece of the update is Siri AI, which replaces Spotlight with a "Search or Ask" interface accessed by swiping down from the center of the display. ‌Siri‌ is designed to tone-match a user's own writing style when composing messages. Apple's pill-shaped ‌Siri‌ indicator is seemingly a hardware workaround for current Dynamic Island constraints, and a smaller ‌Dynamic Island‌ on the iPhone 18 Pro could allow the indicator to become a true circle. On the Apple Watch, ‌Siri‌ AI requires pairing with an iPhone that supports Apple Intelligence. In the European Union, ‌Siri‌ AI is available on macOS and visionOS at launch but not on the iPhone or ‌iPad‌.

‌Apple Intelligence‌ is also getting smarter Writing Tools and a composition assistant in Mail and Messages that adapts to how a user typically communicates with different contacts. Apple has overhauled Genmoji, adding a "Describe a change" interface for iterating on existing creations and the ability to start a new Genmoji from an existing emoji, a photo, or a person tagged in the user's photo library. Image Playground similarly adds support for multiple aspect ratios for wallpapers, Contact Posters, and social media images, alongside new photorealistic image generation.

Visual Intelligence, meanwhile, gets a new primary entry point called ‌Siri‌ Mode, though holding down Camera Control still works as an alternative. The feature is expanding to the ‌iPad‌ and Mac, and now supports importing multiple calendar events from a single photo of a flyer, as well as importing contacts directly from a photographed business card.

On the Mac, ‌macOS Golden Gate‌ extends toolbars and sidebars to the edges of the screen with a more consistent, tighter corner radius across windows. iPadOS 27 adds undo and redo for ‌Home Screen‌ edits, extra-large widgets in Today View, an optional persistent menu bar, and Visual Intelligence support for screenshots combined with Apple Pencil highlighting. Notes gains an Image Wand tool that generates photorealistic images from rough sketches, the ‌Siri‌ app gets a dedicated sidebar with full windowing support, and Shortcuts adds support for Magic Keyboard triggers.

watchOS 27 drops the Walkie-Talkie app entirely, with the feature missing from both the app list and Control Center in the first developer beta, while adding new Smart Stack suggestions, more accurate step tracking, and a consolidated Find My app. visionOS 27 lets users activate ‌Siri‌ simply by looking at its on-screen bubble rather than requiring a button press, and adds a redesigned Control Center along with new curved windows. tvOS 27 brings a redesigned Podcasts app, Hi-Res Lossless audio support in Apple Music, and on-device processing for HomeKit Secure Video.

The MacRumors Show has its own YouTube channel, so make sure you're subscribed to keep up with new episodes and clips.



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If you haven't already listened to the previous episode of The MacRumors Show, catch up to hear our discussion about all of the major announcements Apple unveiled at WWDC 2026, including ‌Siri‌ AI, new ‌Apple Intelligence‌ features in apps, and system-wide performance and design improvements.

Subscribe to ‌The MacRumors Show‌ for new episodes every week, where we discuss some of the topical news breaking here on MacRumors, often joined by interesting guests such as Kayci Lacob, Kevin Nether, John Gruber, Mark Gurman, Jon Prosser, Luke Miani, Matthew Cassinelli, Brian Tong, Quinn Nelson, Jared Nelson, Eli Hodapp, Mike Bell, Sara Dietschy, iJustine, Jon Rettinger, Andru Edwards, Arnold Kim, Ben Sullins, Marcus Kane, Christopher Lawley, Frank McShan, David Lewis, Tyler Stalman, Sam Kohl, Federico Viticci, Thomas Frank, Jonathan Morrison, Ross Young, Ian Zelbo, and Rene Ritchie.

‌The MacRumors Show‌ is on X @MacRumorsShow, so be sure to give us a follow to keep up with the podcast. You can also email us at podcast@macrumors.com or head over to The MacRumors Show forum thread. Remember to rate and review the podcast, and let us know what subjects and guests you would like to see in the future.
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Apple today detailed why five Apple Watch models will miss out on watchOS 27 and the new Siri AI features that come with it.


The Apple Watch Series 6, 7, 8, SE 2, and the original Apple Watch Ultra will not receive watchOS 27, and will only get basic security updates going forward. With the update, Apple is effectively dropping three years' worth of device support in a single software update, which is unprecedented for the product line.

Speaking to TechRadar, Cait Dooley, Apple Watch and Health product marketing manager, said performance requirements were behind the cutoff:

With every software release across every single one of our platforms, we always want to ensure that you have the best experience, so we make power and performance a priority. The great new features in watchOS, including the capabilities of Siri AI and the new tap gesture, work best with the processing power that is in Apple Watch Series 9 and later, Ultra 2 and later, and SE 3.

Dooley added that older watches paired with an iPhone running the latest software will keep working and will continue to receive security updates.

David Clark, senior director of watchOS software engineering, said one of the goals of ‌watchOS 27‌ was to "expand the intelligence story on Apple Watch and make it a true co-partner to Apple Intelligence." He described the watch as often "the most convenient way to interact with ‌Siri‌," since it's on the wrist all day and useful for quick questions when hands are full:

We really wanted to make sure the Siri experience is a singular and consistent experience, whether I decide to ask Siri on my wrist a question, or whether I have my phone in my hand and I decide to interact with Siri there. We really wanted to feel like it's one Siri, that has access to your data and is able to personalize it in a consistent way.

Clark used the example of asking ‌Siri‌ on Apple Watch for a recipe's ingredients while grocery shopping with both hands full, then later pulling up the same list on the iPhone in an easier-to-read format. He called that handoff a "superpower."

‌watchOS 27‌ is currently available in beta to developers, with a public beta expected next month ahead of official release in the fall.
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Apple this week confirmed that price increases are coming across its lineup due to rising memory chip costs, and now The Wall Street Journal has published its own analysis estimating the iPhone 18 Pro could start as high as $1,399.


Speaking with The Wall Street Journal, Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged that the company is not immune to soaring memory chip costs. Asked which devices would see price increases and when, Cook said, "We're still working through that," with more clarification expected to arrive with the next iPhone lineup this September.

The price hikes stem from a global shortage of DRAM and NAND flash storage, driven largely by AI data centers competing for the same components. Manufacturers including Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology have been shifting production toward enterprise-scale memory chips for AI servers, squeezing supply for consumer electronics like the iPhone.

Citing analysis from research firm TechInsights, The ‌Wall Street Journal‌ now reports that prices for DRAM and flash storage are projected to roughly quadruple by this fall compared to last year. TechInsights estimates that Apple paid around $39 for the 12GB of DRAM in the iPhone 17 Pro, a cost that could climb to $145 in the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌. The 256GB flash storage tier, which cost Apple about $13 in the ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌, could rise to $51.

Overall, TechInsights estimates Apple's component and manufacturing costs for the ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌ excluding memory at roughly $530. Combined with DRAM and flash storage, that puts the total estimated bill of materials for the base ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌ at about $582, with the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌'s costs projected to rise 25% to around $726.

TechInsights' research suggests the $1,099 ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌ carries a gross margin of around 47%. To preserve that margin on the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌, Apple would need to charge $1,371, but The ‌Wall Street Journal‌ notes that Apple's preference for standardized pricing makes a $1,299 starting price more likely, working out to a 44% margin.

That estimate doesn't factor in a new camera system, which supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says could cost Apple about 50% more than the previous generation. Accounting for that added cost using the same approach, The ‌Wall Street Journal‌ estimates Apple could set the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌'s starting price at $1,399 or higher.

A starting price in that range would represent a $200 to $300 jump over the $1,099 ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌. The ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max would likely start $100 above whatever price Apple sets for the Pro, consistent with the current gap between the two models. The ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ models are expected to launch alongside the foldable "iPhone Ultra," which has been rumored to carry a starting price of around $2,000.
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Security research firm Paradigm Shift today published details of a new BootROM vulnerability affecting Apple's A12 and A13 chips, along with a working proof-of-concept exploit named "usbliter8."


The BootROM, or SecureROM, is the first code an iPhone runs when it powers on. Because it is baked directly into the chip at manufacture, any vulnerability found there cannot be fixed with a software update, meaning affected devices will remain vulnerable for the rest of their lives.

The last publicly known BootROM exploit of this kind was "checkm8," released in 2019 which affected devices from the iPhone 4S through to the iPhone X. usbliter8 now extends that history to the next generation of chips, covering the iPhone XS through to the iPhone 11 series.

The exploit works by taking advantage of a bug in the USB controller built into Apple's chips. When an iPhone receives USB data during startup, the controller uses a memory buffer to store incoming packets. Paradigm Shift found that by sending a specific sequence of unusually small packets, they could manipulate an internal hardware pointer in a way that causes it to walk backwards through memory, allowing data to be written to locations it should never reach. The researchers say this appears to be a bug in the USB controller hardware itself, not in Apple's software.

The A11 chip, used in the iPhone X, is not affected because its USB driver manually resets the pointer after each packet. A14 and later chips are also safe, as they configure a memory protection feature correctly at the BootROM level. The A12 and A13 sit in a vulnerable middle ground between the two.

On A12 devices, gaining code execution is relatively straightforward. On A13 devices, things are considerably harder because Apple introduced a security feature called Pointer Authentication Codes (PAC), which detects and blocks certain types of memory tampering. Paradigm Shift says working around PAC on the A13 required a lengthy multi-step process before the researchers could finally take control of the processor.

Once in control, the exploit installs a custom handler that survives a device restart and adds two capabilities: temporarily lowering the device's security settings, and booting unsigned software without any verification checks. It also injects the traditional "PWND" string into the iPhone's USB serial number as a signal that the device has been compromised, a convention that carries over from checkm8 and earlier exploits.

Paradigm Shift notes that while usbliter8 does not affect the Secure Enclave directly, a BootROM compromise of this kind opens up wider avenues for attacking it. The firm says it reported its findings to Apple Product Security before publication and worked with Apple on coordinated disclosure. The full proof-of-concept code has been published alongside the write-up at ps.tc.
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Microsoft engineers have published benchmark results showing that a Chromium-based browser using its own rendering engine scores 28.6% higher than Safari on Apple's own Speedometer 3.1 performance test on iOS.


Kyle Pflug, group product manager for the Microsoft Edge Web Platform, published results on Monday comparing a research prototype of Edge built with Apple's BrowserEngineKit framework against Safari running iOS 26.5.1. The Blink-based prototype scored 49.27 versus Safari's 38.3 on Speedometer 3.1, and also outperformed Safari on the JetStream 3 JavaScript benchmark by 13.1% (306.35 vs. 270.9) and on the MotionMark 1.3.1 graphics rendering benchmark by 2.1% (4,773.52 vs. 4,673.68). Pflug described the work as a research prototype rather than a finished product, and the numbers as preliminary results from his own device rather than lab conditions.

Apple requires all browsers on iOS to use WebKit, the engine that powers Safari, meaning browsers like Chrome and Firefox on iPhone are effectively reskinned Safari instances. The EU's Digital Markets Act theoretically changed that in March 2024, requiring Apple to allow alternative browser engines through BrowserEngineKit, yet more than two years later no browser maker has shipped an alternative engine on iOS. Companies cite technical barriers and the requirement to publish any such browser as an entirely separate app from their existing WebKit-based version.

Open Web Advocacy told The Register the results illustrate a 17-year cost to consumers. The group called on the European Commission to open a specification proceeding instructing Apple precisely how it must remove barriers to alternative engines, adding that restricting browser engines allows Apple to limit what the mobile web is capable of and keep businesses dependent on native apps and App Store rules.
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Apple's decision to move Hide My Email to a dedicated "private.icloud.com" domain appears to have the consequence of making it easier for platforms that want to block iCloud aliases to do so.


Apple is unifying the email domains used by Sign in with Apple and ‌iCloud‌+ Hide My Email under a single private.icloud.com domain later this summer. Sign in with Apple currently uses privaterelay.appleid.com, while Hide My Email uses icloud.com, the same domain as standard ‌iCloud‌ email addresses.

That shared domain has historically made it difficult for services to selectively block disposable ‌iCloud‌ addresses. Blocking icloud.com outright would also block legitimate users with standard Apple email accounts. With the new subdomain, that tradeoff disappears.

@vxdb on X was among the first to flag the implication: "platforms who want to ban ‌iCloud‌ aliases can now do so by banning this new subdomain without affecting all ‌iCloud‌ users." Others online noted that email services, signup flows, and anti-abuse systems will now have a clean, unambiguous target if they choose to restrict alias-generated addresses.

Apple has said that existing addresses on legacy domains will continue to work and that mail will be forwarded with no interruption, so current Hide My Email users won't lose access to their aliases. New addresses generated after the migration, however, will feature the private.icloud.com domain, and it is those addresses that become blockable in isolation for the first time.
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macOS 27 Golden Gate removes AFP support, ending Time Machine compatibility with Time Capsule after nearly two decades, but a community project from a Microsoft engineer offers a potential workaround for owners not yet ready to move on.


Apple's Time Capsule was introduced at Macworld Expo in January 2008, combining a Wi-Fi router with NAS-style network storage designed to work in tandem with the Time Machine backup software. Apple officially ended development on the entire AirPort line in April 2018, with the AirPort Express at $99, the AirPort Extreme at $199, and the AirPort Time Capsule at $299, available only while supplies lasted. The lineup sold out entirely by November 2018. Prior to that, Apple had not updated its AirPort products since 2013.

AFP dates back to 1988, when Apple designed a native file-sharing protocol for the Macintosh as part of the AppleTalk networking suite. SMB became the primary file-sharing protocol in OS X 10.9 Mavericks in 2013, and the ability to run an AFP server was removed in macOS 11 Big Sur in 2020.

Apple formally deprecated the AFP client in macOS Sequoia 15.5, and, when macOS 26 Tahoe launched, a warning in System Settings confirmed that AFP support and Time Capsule compatibility would end with macOS 27. As expected, the first developer beta of macOS 27 Golden Gate contains no AFP client at all, ending a protocol with more than 40 years of history in the Apple ecosystem.

All Time Capsule models rely on AFP and SMBv1, the original Server Message Block version from 1987. From macOS 27 onwards, Time Machine requires SMBv2 or SMBv3, which covers modern NAS hardware but rules out every Time Capsule model in its stock form. macOS 27 also enforces stricter network security requirements, including TLS 1.2 as a minimum, which is a bar that Time Capsule hardware cannot meet.

The community response is a GitHub project called TimeCapsuleSMB, created by James Chang, an engineer at Microsoft. Rather than replacing Apple's firmware, it installs a modern Samba build directly onto the Time Capsule. The device runs a Samba 4.24.3 server, advertises itself over Bonjour, and accepts authenticated SMB3 connections, so users can connect via a standard SMB URL in Finder rather than relying on Apple's legacy stack.

Only the fifth-generation Time Capsule tower model from 2013 auto-restarts the Samba server after a reboot. Earlier models require a manual activate command every time the device loses power, meaning backups may silently stop after an outage. It is also worth noting that switching to SMB via TimeCapsuleSMB begins a new Time Machine backup chain, with the new destination treated as a fresh start. There is no published long-term restore testing for the project, so a second backup destination is advisable.

macOS 27 Golden Gate is currently in developer beta, with a public beta due in July and a general release set for September. It is compatible only with Apple silicon Macs, meaning Intel Mac users who stay on macOS 26 can continue using Time Capsule for the foreseeable future. Apple silicon owners who want to upgrade will need a compliant backup target in place first, whether that is a modern NAS, an external drive, or a patched Time Capsule running TimeCapsuleSMB.
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Apple has redesigned its first-party app icons for the second year running, with iOS 27 addressing blurriness complaints about iOS 26 by integrating additional layers of Liquid Glass directly into the icon artwork itself.


When Apple introduced Liquid Glass with ‌iOS 26‌ last year, it redesigned its entire lineup of first-party app icons to give them a layered glass look with subtle depth. The approach drew criticism from some users who found the results blurry, and in some cases, a heavy specular sheen sat over the icon artwork, obscuring detail and giving icons a washed-out appearance.

The shimmering motion effect that animated icons dynamically as the device was tilted also caused a widely reported optical illusion, with asymmetric highlights in icon corners tricking the eye into reading icons as slanted. With ‌iOS 27‌, Apple is taking the icon design further rather than rolling it back.

The core change to how icons are constructed is the addition of multiple distinct Liquid Glass layers built into each icon's artwork, rather than the thick glass look applied uniformly over the top in ‌iOS 26‌. Apple says the new rendering pipeline adds more visual separation between layers, resulting in sharper edges and more defined refractions.



In practice, artwork is now considerably more visible and detailed with higher contrast and greater definition, with the glass look functioning as a refined finish rather than a dominant overlay. The refraction effects between layers are also selectively applied.

The motion-based shimmer has also been significantly reworked. The gyroscopic specular highlight effect introduced with ‌iOS 26‌ appears to have been removed entirely in the first ‌iOS 27‌ developer beta. Icons still feature highlights around their edges, now positioned at the top and bottom, but they no longer shift with device movement or produce the tilting illusion, and are much subtler overall.

Icon Composer, Apple's dedicated app icon design tool, has been updated to support building icons from multiple layers of Liquid Glass. New annotation features let developers add refraction effects or fine-tune content effects, while an interactive preview shows how a designed icon will render.

The updated icons are part of broader Liquid Glass refinements Apple announced at WWDC 2026, which also include a new system-wide transparency slider and improved material diffusion for better readability. For a full breakdown of all the Liquid Glass changes in ‌iOS 27‌, see our dedicated article.
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Code strings discovered in iOS 27 suggest that Apple may be planning to show users a break reminder after especially long Siri AI conversations.


Strings of code in the first developer beta of ‌iOS 27‌ refer to a "Take a Break Message" that would remind users they have been in a conversation for an extended period and that ‌Siri‌ is not a real person. Based on the shared code, the reminder appears to read: "You've been in this conversation for [n] hours - consider taking a break. ‌Siri‌ is not a person, but will be here when you're ready to continue."

Where screen time tools typically focus on usage duration, Apple appears to be specifically addressing the risk of parasocial attachment to AI, building in a prompt that explicitly reframes ‌Siri‌ as a tool rather than a companion. The concern is part of a broader conversation across the AI industry about unhealthy usage patterns. Both OpenAI and Google have moved to add guardrails to their chatbot products, and Anthropic has been spotted nudging Claude users toward healthier habits after long sessions.

Apple touched on several privacy and responsibility considerations for ‌Siri‌ AI during last week's WWDC keynote, but did not address the question of extended conversations. The existence of these code strings suggests the company is thinking about the issue behind the scenes.

It is not yet clear how Apple would trigger the reminder. The code does not appear to specify a fixed time threshold, suggesting the company may use conversation length in combination with other signals to determine when to display the message.
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In iOS 27, Siri now appears as a glowing pill-shaped orb that expands directly from the Dynamic Island, but may give way to a circle on next-generation iPhones.


Instead of the glowing light effect that previously traced the edges of the display, a swirling ‌Siri‌ orb expands from the ‌Dynamic Island‌ in ‌iOS 27‌, with the design hiding its true cutouts, just like other ‌Dynamic Island‌ animations.

Apple now represents ‌Siri‌ in most places with a circular orb, such as in the new dedicated Siri app icon, throughout promotional artwork for ‌iOS 27‌, and initially on the iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro. At the very least, the pill-shape of ‌Siri‌ AI on the iPhone appears to be necessitated because the current ‌Dynamic Island‌ hardware demands it.

Amid rumors that the iPhone 18 Pro is set to move to a narrower ‌Dynamic Island‌, X user @MichalLangmajer connected those dots to suggest that ‌iOS 27‌'s ‌Siri‌ interface could become circular on upcoming iPhone models:



The post included a visual overlaying the ‌Dynamic Island‌ shapes of the iPhone 17 and a speculated iPhone 18 model, illustrating how a narrower cutout would allow the ‌Siri‌ orb to resolve into the true circle Apple already uses elsewhere.

A series of reports suggest that the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ and Pro Max will feature a smaller ‌Dynamic Island‌, enabled by relocating Face ID components beneath the display. Leaker Ice Universe claimed the cutout will be approximately 35% narrower than on the iPhone 17 Pro, dropping from around 20.7mm to around 13.5mm in width. Prototype images and screen protector leaks that surfaced in March appeared to corroborate the change.

‌iOS 27‌, the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌, and ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max are expected to be released this fall.
This article, "Siri Uses Pill Shape to Hide the Dynamic Island in iOS 27, But iPhone 18 Could Make It a Circle" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Signify has launched Sports Live, a new feature for Philips Hue and WiZ smart lighting products that synchronizes lighting effects with live soccer match data in real time (via Hue Blog).


The feature is rolling out now for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Sports Live uses live match data to trigger lighting changes at key in-game moments, including goals, yellow cards, and red cards, with the aim of making at-home viewing feel more immersive.

Unlike traditional TV sync systems that rely on HDMI-based hardware to analyze on-screen content, Sports Live connects directly to live match data and responds to events as they occur, eliminating the need for additional synchronization hardware. During quieter periods, lights adapt to reflect a favorite team's colors, the leading team's colors, or a neutral white when the score is tied.

Setup is handled through either the Philips Hue or WiZ mobile app. In the Hue app, the feature is found under the Sync tab, where users select a room or zone, which must include at least one color-capable light, and optionally choose favorite teams to receive match suggestions.

Current games appear directly in the Sync tab, with a separate list available for upcoming fixtures. Sports Live automatically starts 15 minutes before kickoff once a match is selected, and a delay adjustment tool lets viewers sync lighting effects to their specific broadcast.

After setup, users can still customize the default scene, brightness, and room. Any lights paired with Hue Sync Box take priority and will not be used for Sports Live. WiZ users can access the feature through the company's Wi-Fi platform without requiring a hub.

The Philips Hue 5.69 app update that delivers Sports Live also introduces a new Bridge zone, which consolidates all devices and automations across an entire Hue Bridge into a single group on the home dashboard, with options to create scenes and hide or rearrange groups. The zone appears in the "Hidden" section by default and must be manually surfaced.

Sports Live is compatible with existing Hue and WiZ entertainment features, including Hue Sync and WiZ Sync with TV, with the 2026 FIFA World Cup now underway in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S.
This article, "Philips Hue and WiZ Launch Sports Live Feature for the 2026 World Cup" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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A known Weibo leaker has reiterated that the iPhone 18 Pro will retain its aluminum alloy build, while issuing a specific warning that the new color options may be susceptible to paint peeling.


In a new Weibo post, the leaker "Fixed Focus Digital" said the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ "will still feature an aluminum alloy build" and noted that heat dissipation is "indeed excellent." The leaker then added a pointed caveat: anyone unfamiliar with the durability problems that plagued the iPhone 17 Pro should "be careful about potential paint-peeling issues with the new color options."

Fixed Focus Digital previously pointed out that surface chipping on the ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌ is a common complaint, and that users who seek recourse from Apple are often told they cannot claim it, with the company classifying the issue as an inherent characteristic of the aluminum alloy material and normal wear and tear. The leaker added at the time that the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ would "continue to utilize this same design approach" despite its weaknesses.

The ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌ moved away from the titanium frames Apple used in its Pro lineup for the previous two years, adopting an anodized aluminum unibody design. Surface durability concerns surfaced almost immediately after launch. Reports suggested that Dark Blue and Cosmic Orange models appeared to scratch more easily than other finishes, with MacRumors forum users describing visible marks on in-store display units within days of availability.

A scratch test by YouTuber JerryRigEverything added some nuance, finding that most of the anodized shell holds up well against everyday items like keys and coins, but pinpointing the camera plateau as a clear weak point where the raised, unchamfered edges chip and scratch easily.

A separate issue emerged the following month, when a number of Cosmic Orange ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌ owners reported color shift, with the aluminum frame and camera plateau drifting toward a rose-gold or pink hue and in some cases prompting device replacements by Apple Support.

Rumors point to four color options for the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ models: Dark Cherry, Light Blue, Dark Gray, and Silver. Dark Cherry is expected to serve as the signature new color, described as a deep, wine-like red that is considerably more muted than last year's Cosmic Orange. The ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ is not expected to offer a black option for the second consecutive year, but the rumored gray option could come very close.

The ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ and ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max are expected to be announced in September 2026, alongside the first foldable iPhone.
This article, "Leaker Warns iPhone 18 Pro New Colors May Face Same Durability Issues" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple last week announced a series of new App Store features, including personalized app recommendations and expanded tools for developers to market their apps.


The most visible change for users is Personalized Collections, a new discovery feature that surfaces app and game recommendations tailored to individual interests and behavior. Alongside each recommendation, new "App Notes" explain why a specific app is being surfaced.

The collections can appear across the Apps, Games, and Search tabs, and will evolve over time as users' download and usage patterns change. Apple says the feature is now available in English in the U.S., with additional languages and regions to follow.

For developers, Apple introduces Creative Assets, rich images and videos that can appear in a product page header and search results, going beyond standard screenshots and app preview clips. These assets can be used to highlight seasonal content, new features, or brand identity, and are compatible with custom product pages and Apple's existing product page optimization testing tools.

A new Asset Library in ‌App Store‌ Connect gives developers a single place to manage all creative materials, with the ability to reuse assets across in-app events and promotions without re-uploading them. Developers can also submit assets for App Review approval independently of a full app update, which is useful for time-sensitive campaigns.

Mac App Store apps and games no longer require Intel support, allowing developers to ship Apple silicon-only binaries. Apple is also allowing developers to group multiple In-App Purchases into a single App Review submission, streamlining the process.

Apple also announced that the age rating questionnaire in ‌App Store‌ Connect will be updated in July to allow developers to indicate whether their app includes social media capabilities such as interacting with user-generated content through a social feed. This ties into new Time Allowances features coming in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, which give parents more granular controls over how much time children spend in apps across categories including Entertainment, Games, and Social Media.
This article, "Apple Adds Personalized Recommendations and New Marketing Tools to the App Store" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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