Apple recently updated its website with a list of products eligible for upcoming 2026 sales tax holidays in select U.S. states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.


The tax-free holidays run between July 17 and August 20 depending on the state, with the exact dates in each state outlined on Apple's website.

Sales tax holidays provide a limited-time opportunity to purchase select Apple products online or in stores without paying sales tax. Apple says tax savings may not appear during checkout, but will be reflected on the final receipt.

Apple products that are eligible for the tax-free holidays vary by state, and there are also price limits in some states. The most common eligible products include select Macs, iPads, and related accessories, but the iPhone and Apple Vision Pro are also eligible in a few states. All of this information is outlined on the page.

Sales tax holidays are especially beneficial to students, as the tax savings can be combined with Apple's Back to School promotion, which offers students a free or discounted accessory or gift card with the purchase of an eligible Mac or iPad. The promotion just started rolling out in select Asian countries today and will likely begin in the U.S. soon.
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Apple's annual Back to School promotion is now live in select countries in Asia, including China, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.


The offer provides college students and educational staff with a free item with the purchase of an eligible Mac or iPad model. The exact offer varies by country, with options including a pack of four AirTags, AirPods 4, an Apple Pencil Pro, or an Apple gift card. You can also opt to receive a discount on some higher-value accessories.

In China, Singapore, and Vietnam, eligible students and educators can receive a pack of four AirTags with the purchase of any new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iPad Air, or iPad Pro through Apple's education store.

In India, you can receive a pack of four AirTags or AirPods 4 with a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, or an Apple Pencil Pro with an iPad Air or iPad Pro.

Apple is offering a gift card in Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand.

Notably, the MacBook Neo is not an eligible product in any of the countries, and the iPad mini, entry-level iPad, and desktop Macs are excluded too.

In these countries, the offer is available through August 27.

Apple has yet to begin its Back to School offer in the U.S., Canada, or Europe, but it will presumably be rolling out in more regions very soon.
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Nomad is celebrating its anniversary by offering up to 30 percent off sitewide this week, giving shoppers a chance to save on the brand's best wireless chargers, iPhone cases, Apple Watch bands, and more. This sale does not require a coupon code as all the discounts have been automatically applied, and it will last for this week only.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Nomad. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

One highlight of the event is Nomad's Stand One Qi2 2-in-1 charging station, available for $90, down from $129. This accessory simultaneously charges your iPhone and AirPods, supporting both horizontal and vertical orientations for the iPhone.



You'll find a collection of iPhone 17 cases in this sale, including Nomad's Sport Case for $39 ($10 off), Modern Leather Case for $55 ($14 off), and Rugged Leather Case for $60 ($25 off).

iPhone 17 Cases

• Sport Case - $39, down from $49


• Modern Leather Case - $55, down from $69


• Rugged Leather Case - $60, down from $85

Charging

• Stand One - $90, down from $129


• Base One Max - $119, down from $159

iPad Cases

• Leather Folio for iPad Air - $97, down from $129

Apple Watch Bands

• Sport Slim Band - $44, down from $59


• Rugged Case - $48, down from $119

If you're on the hunt for more discounts, be sure to visit our Apple Deals roundup where we recap the best Apple-related bargains of the past week.

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Now that Siri AI is ready to launch in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 Golden Gate, Apple can finally introduce new smart home products built to work with the smarter version of ‌Siri‌.


Apple has multiple new home devices in development, several of which are rumored to launch before the end of the year. We're waiting on a new version of the Apple TV 4K, a smart home hub, a new HomePod, and a new HomePod mini.

Home Hub

Similar to an iPad in design, but with a 7-inch square display. There will be a wall mount option or a speaker base option. The speaker base has a hemispherical dome, similar to the base of the iMac G4. The device will have a built-in camera for video calls, facial recognition, and presence detection. It'll run apps like Safari, Calendar, Photos, and Home, and it will integrate with ‌Siri‌ AI. Rumors suggest it could be priced around $350.

Apple TV 4K

The next ‌Apple TV‌ 4K will have the same form factor as the current model, but it's expected to have an A17 Pro chip or better that supports Apple Intelligence and ‌Siri‌ AI. There are no ‌Apple Intelligence‌ features on the ‌Apple TV‌ right now, so a more powerful chip will bring quite a few changes. It could also get more RAM and Apple's N1 networking chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread.

HomePods

Apple is expected to refresh both the ‌HomePod‌ and the ‌HomePod mini‌, but we're not expecting new form factors.

The speakers will get new chips that are faster and could support ‌Siri‌ AI via the iPhone like the Apple Watch. A faster processor could bring improvements in sound quality, and an upgraded Ultra Wideband chip could bring connectivity improvements and new features.

The ‌HomePod mini‌ is expected to get new colors.

Cameras

Apple is designing its own security camera, and it could launch as soon as this year. HomeKit Secure Video cameras are getting several upgrades in ‌iOS 27‌, including 4K video recording, AI summaries, and the option to stitch video from different cameras together for tracking a single event across rooms.

All of these features would be ideal for an Apple-created camera, so it's not hard to imagine the update is meant for Apple hardware. A 2026 launch isn't a sure thing for the camera, and it could come at a later time.

The ‌Apple Intelligence‌ Home app features require an ‌Apple TV‌ or ‌HomePod‌ to serve as a hub, and Apple's upcoming home hub will likely also serve as a hub for accessories like cameras.

Launch Timing

With so many home devices planned for the end of the year, we could get them alongside the new iPhone models at Apple's September event, or Apple could do a second home-centric event around the October timeframe. Apple often holds two fall events. The second event is typically for iPads or Macs, but there's no reason it couldn't be home products this year.

So far, we haven't heard concrete rumors on when Apple will debut its smart home devices, but as we get closer to fall, we should hear more.
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OnePlus is exiting the U.S. and European smartphone markets as part of a broader restructuring at parent company Oppo, Bloomberg reports.


OnePlus is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oppo. The change could happen as early as this week, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to Bloomberg. Realme, another Oppo-owned mobile brand, will exit the China market as part of the same restructuring. Outside China, OnePlus' withdrawal is expected to expand to the rest of the world, including India, at some point in 2027.

OnePlus built a loyal following among some Android enthusiasts in its early years for pairing solid performance and lightweight software with aggressive pricing that consistently undercut Apple and Samsung by hundreds of dollars, but its influence has waned considerably in recent years.

Apple and Samsung continue to dominate the U.S. smartphone market, with Apple capturing a record 20% of the global smartphone market in the second quarter of 2026 as Samsung held the top spot at 22%, according to Omdia. OnePlus, meanwhile, trails far behind smaller contenders like Motorola and Google in the U.S.

In China, Oppo trails market leaders Huawei and Apple, and the broader market is under strain from surging memory costs. IDC said this week that total smartphone shipments in China fell 4.3% year-over-year in the second quarter to roughly 66 million units, the fifth consecutive quarterly decline, with Apple and Huawei the only major vendors to grow. The slowdown is tied to the same memory chip shortage that has forced Apple to raise prices across much of its product lineup, with CEO Tim Cook calling the increases "unavoidable."

Counterpoint Research said Chinese brands like Oppo face greater pressure than Apple and Samsung from the memory crunch, since thinner margins leave less room to absorb rising component costs, particularly in the entry-level segment where costs have jumped 20% to 30% since early 2025.

OnePlus' most recent flagship, the OnePlus 15, launched globally on November 13, 2025, but OnePlus postponed the U.S. sale specifically because the FCC certification process was backed up due to the federal government shutdown, which had just ended the day before the launch.
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Apple today announced that Major League Soccer is returning to the Apple TV streaming service tomorrow, July 16, with the regular season resuming as the 2026 FIFA World Cup wraps up.

Apple TV subscribers in more than 100 countries can watch every MLS match. A separate subscription is no longer required.
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Apple is looking to acquire AI chip companies as part of an effort to reduce its dependence on Nvidia for demanding AI workloads, according to The Information.


Apple currently handles some AI processing in its own data centers using its own chips, but relies on Nvidia hardware housed within Google Cloud for more demanding tasks, an arrangement that includes the Gemini model powering the overhauled version of Siri. Apple's own AI server chip, internally code-named Baltra, had been expected to ship this year but has been delayed, according to people said to be familiar with the project.

Apple has historically limited its acquisitions to deals in the hundreds of millions of dollars and avoided large purchases, but that approach appears to be shifting. In January, Apple completed its acquisition of Q.ai, an Israeli company specializing in interpreting speech through facial micromovements, paying close to $2 billion, second only to the $3 billion Apple paid for Beats Electronics in 2014.

Apple also signaled a change in financial strategy during its most recent quarterly earnings call, when CFO Kevan Parekh told analysts the company would no longer target "net cash neutral" status, a policy under which it had kept its cash reserves roughly in line with its total debt. Apple did not explain the reasoning behind the change, though the added flexibility could free up capital for larger acquisitions.

Apple is already reportedly pursuing acquisitions of AI companies that could help shrink AI models for more efficient use on iPhone.

It is also worth noting that Apple's own in-house chip design capabilities originated with an acquisition. In 2008, the company acquired PA Semi for $278 million, a deal that laid the foundation for the custom processors now used across many of its product lines.

Impending leadership transitions could also bring a more aggressive approach to dealmaking, with hardware chief John Ternus set to succeed Tim Cook as CEO in September, and chip executive Johny Srouji being given expanded responsibility over all of Apple's hardware engineering, in addition to semiconductors.

Apple's chip design team has traditionally focused on battery-powered mobile devices rather than the high-performance server chips required to compete with Nvidia, the dominant supplier of AI server hardware. That limitation became apparent during development of the revamped Siri, when engineers reportedly attempted to run Google's Gemini models on Apple's own server infrastructure but found that the chips, designed with Mac workloads in mind, could not handle a model of that scale. As a result, Apple was required to process portions of the new ‌Siri‌'s workload using Nvidia chips within Google's cloud infrastructure.

Acquiring outside chip expertise would complement work already underway internally. Apple is currently developing a server chip based on the M5 Ultra chip, according to Bloomberg, while a future M7 Ultra chip is reportedly intended to substantially improve AI performance to a level that could begin to rival Nvidia's Blackwell chip. The M7 Ultra is expected to support up to 1.5TB of memory, roughly double the capacity of M5 Ultra, though Bloomberg added that a server chip based on M7 Ultra is unlikely to be ready before 2029.

Acquisitions represent only one avenue Apple is pursuing to reduce its reliance on Nvidia. The Information first reported Apple's collaboration with Broadcom on an AI server chip in 2024, and Broadcom confirmed in a securities filing last week that the companies had extended that partnership through 2031.
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Following a monthlong break for the FIFA World Cup, Major League Soccer returns to Apple TV tomorrow, July 16.

Apple has introduced 36-month financing for cellular iPad purchases through AT&T and Verizon, adding to the 12-month option previously available via Apple Card.


The new financing, first reported by 9to5Mac, replaces Apple Card Monthly Installments as the sole route to spreading out a cellular ‌iPad‌ purchase. That plan paid off the balance interest-free over 12 months; the new carrier options extend across Apple's full cellular ‌iPad‌ lineup, including the ‌iPad‌, iPad mini, iPad Air, and iPad Pro.

Both carriers restrict eligibility to subscribers activating a new line of service, rather than those adding a cellular ‌iPad‌ to an existing plan. The principal distinction between the two options is term length. Extending repayment from 12 months to 36 months substantially reduces the monthly cost, although the total amount financed remains unchanged.

The addition follows Apple's ‌iPad‌ price increases from late June, which affected the entire lineup. The extended financing term offers a way to offset the impact of those higher prices at checkout.

The 11-inch ‌iPad Pro‌'s cellular configuration now starts at $1,399, up from $1,199 prior to the price increase, which amounts to $116.58 per month under the 12-month ‌Apple Card‌ plan. Financed through AT&T or Verizon instead, the same purchase costs approximately $38 per month over 36 months.
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The European Commission yesterday adopted new exemptions to its Batteries Regulation that free the Apple Watch and AirPods from having to offer user-removable and replaceable batteries.


The EU's Batteries Regulation generally requires consumer products sold in the region to let users swap out their own batteries, a push meant to keep devices in use longer and make it easier to recover materials for recycling. The Commission has now expanded its list of exempt product types to six additional categories, folding in wearables like smartwatches and fitness trackers.

The reasoning largely mirrors why devices like electric toothbrushes were already exempt: Opening a compact, sealed enclosure and failing to reseal it properly could let water in and create a safety risk. Products can also qualify for exemption if their construction makes battery removal inherently dangerous, or if there is no realistic way to build in user access given current manufacturing methods.

The new categories effectively cover the Apple Watch and AirPods, both of which rely on the kind of small, sealed designs the Commission is now carving out, along with Meta's smart glasses. The change follows months of pressure from U.S. officials over rules that had reportedly complicated ‌Meta‌'s plans to bring its newest display-equipped smart glasses to Europe.

The iPhone was already exempt from the removability rule under the original regulation, thanks to its battery cycle life and water resistance rating. Apple offers battery service through Apple Stores, authorized providers, and its Self Service Repair program, which lets owners handle certain repairs, including batteries, at home. Not every device gets the same pass: Nintendo has now said it will sell a version of the Switch 2 in the EU with a user-replaceable battery to meet the incoming rules.

The delegated act still has to clear scrutiny from the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. It takes effect 20 days after publication in the Official Journal of the EU if neither body objects, ahead of the regulation's wider rollout in 2027.
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Amazon is taking $150 off multiple models of the M5 MacBook Air, focused mainly on 13-inch models this time around. These are some of the lowest prices we've seen on the notebooks in the wake of Apple's price hikes last month.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

In terms of 13-inch models, Amazon has the 16GB/1TB 13-inch MacBook Air for $1,449.00, down from $1,599.00. This one is available in one color on Amazon, and it's accompanied by a similar discount on the 24GB/1TB model.




We aren't currently tracking any discounts on the 15-inch M5 MacBook Air models this week. If you're on the hunt for more discounts, be sure to visit our Apple Deals roundup where we recap the best Apple-related bargains of the past week.

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Apple Intelligence has been approved by Chinese regulators, opening the door for the AI system to reach iPhones in the country for the first time.


Reuters reports that China's Cyberspace Administration registered Apple's on-device generative AI service this week, putting it on a list of newly cleared providers that also includes homegrown systems from Chinese phone makers.

An unnamed source told the outlet that Apple's AI features in the country will draw on models from both Baidu and Alibaba. In February 2025, Alibaba was reported to be building the primary system and Baidu contributing on a smaller scale.

Alibaba confirmed its part of the arrangement directly, telling Reuters that its Qwen model will power ‌Apple Intelligence‌ functions across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS for Chinese users, including both text and image generation. No launch date has been given, though approval typically precedes a rollout by only a few months, putting a China debut roughly in line with Apple's usual fall software release cycle.

Apple actually briefly switched the features on early for some Chinese users back in March, months ahead of getting the green light, and a feedback form aimed at Chinese users appeared on Apple's site late last year as the company inched closer to approval.

iPhone shipments in China climbed 24.4 percent year-over-year in the second quarter, making Apple the fastest-growing smartphone brand in a market that otherwise kept shrinking. A working version of ‌Apple Intelligence‌ could help sustain that momentum, though Apple is still catching up to domestic rivals that built AI features into their phones well before it did.
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The DistroWatch news feed is brought to you by TUXEDO COMPUTERS. Trace Labs has announced the release of OSINT VM 2026.5, the latest version of the project's Debian-based distribution with specialist open-source intelligence (OSINT) tools to help find missing persons and reunite them with their families, designed exclusively to run on virtual machines. Unlike the previous release, which were....

Five years or so ago, I had a look at trying to speed up dpkg's package installation; I concluded that it was probably possible to speed up, but that there was no appetite for this kind of large-scale changes. (You'd probably need to rewrite the transaction system to get rid of a lot of fsyncs, you'd ideally want to reduce the number of syscalls for unpack by io_uring and so on.)

This summer, I've been looking at something related on and off; it is possible to speed up the startup time? That's in a sense the opposite scenario; instead of installing lots of packages in a newly debootstrapped chroot (with very few packages), see how fast you can install one in a much more busy chroot (I just copied my laptop's dpkg dir, with ~6600 packages installed).

Before I show the numbers, I must stress that this is an investigation, not a fair benchmark, and you should not go shout at the dpkg maintainers that they need to get to “catch up”. That said:

> sudo time dpkg --root=root -i hello_2.12.3-1_amd64.deb >/dev/null
Not building database; man-db/auto-update is not 'true'.
1.12user 0.49system 0:01.85elapsed 87%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 171880maxresident)k
0inputs+14648outputs (0major+72963minor)pagefaults 0swaps

> sudo time ./src/dpkg --root=root -i hello_2.12.3-1_amd64.deb > /dev/null
0.04user 0.01system 0:00.15elapsed 38%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 6520maxresident)k
0inputs+1080outputs (0major+2705minor)pagefaults 0swaps

How is it unfair? Well, for one, the code to run triggers is messed up so they're not run (but the trigger in question should be very fast). And there's one step at the end with detecting “disappearing packages” that doesn't run properly because it's a bit tricky in my model and I didn't want to deal with, well, difficult problems. But I think both are perfectly doable without really affecting the end time, it just requires engineering. There's a lot of work to be done, though; diving into the code makes me shudder at all the complexities that need to be in place to support all the corner cases of multiarch, for instance.

The code is extremely proof-of-concept, but it runs and can read (and write) metadata from SQLite instead of flat text files, it can resolve dependencies in the most basic fashion, it can keep track of installed files, it should be crash- and powerloss-proof. You know, the very very basic stuff, and without changing the model fundamentally (like e.g. Michael Stapelberg did with distri, fundamentally replacing packages with disk images and ending up in a very fast but rather different-looking system). So it was satisfying to see that it ends up around 10x even on my not-very-new laptop (plus a significant RAM reduction); I believe it should be possible to squeeze under 100 ms, but that would probably require also optimizing the unpacking itself, which I didn't look at this time.

Having a bunch of files being read into RAM and then processed freely was a design that made a lot of sense when dpkg was written (in 1995!) and Debian had ~250 binary packages in total (and you probably wouldn't install all of them). There was no reasonable database available for desktop systems; the closest thing you'd have was probably BerkeleyDB and that wasn't really it, so flat files and fsync made a lot of sense, and was easy to manipulate and persist. But now, SQLite is widely available and probably the most battle-tested code in history, a typical system has thousands of packages (you could easily install tens of thousands if you're doing heavy development), SSDs have replaced HDDs almost everywhere for system disks, and the environment has just changed a lot in general. So I hope that someone at some point will be crazy enough to pick this up and run with it, because it's a lot of work and I don't intend to. :-)

PS: I didn't look at apt; I think what I'd really love to see first and foremost is a package format change so that apt-listchanges can look at (or look for) NEWS.gz without having to unpack the entire package. Perhaps a control field saying “nothing new here”?

I’ve just filed a Debian bug report about libproc-processtable-perl giving bad errors when SE Linux denies access to files under /proc [1].

Ran into unknown state (hex char: 0) at /tmp/test.pl line 8.

The errors are of the above form which Google didn’t find before now so obviously isn’t a common situation, below is my test program.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

use Proc::ProcessTable;

my $process_table = new Proc::ProcessTable('cache_ttys' => 0 );

foreach my $process ( @{$process_table->table} )
{
  print $process->fname . "\n";
}

Here is the relevant part of strace output:

newfstatat(AT_FDCWD, "/proc/2", 0x7fff19533c10, 0) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
openat(AT_FDCWD, "/proc/2/stat", O_RDONLY) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
access("/proc/2", F_OK)                 = 0
write(2, "Ran into unknown state (hex char: 0) at /tmp/test.pl line 8.\n", 61) = 61

Below is the apt sources.list line for my personal repository which has a version of the package with this fix. The gpg key is in the etbe-base package in that repository and the source is all there. To access it without apt use this web page [2].

deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/etbe.gpg arch=amd64 ] https://www.coker.com.au trixie misc

I’ve also done some work on the ps.monitor script in etbe-mon that uses this Perl package and made it better handle program names longer than 15 characters. That improvement apparently only works on Linux, Darwin, and Cygwin. People who want things to work better on BSD etc could patch libproc-processtable-perl accordingly.

• [1] https://tinyurl.com/2ckw4kh2
• [2] https://www.coker.com.au/dists/trixie/misc/binary-amd64/

Debian Contributions: 2026-06

Contributing to Debian is part of Freexian’s mission. This article covers the latest achievements of Freexian and their collaborators. All of this is made possible by organizations subscribing to our Long Term Support contracts and consulting services.

Python 3.14 as default transition, by Stefano Rivera

Debian has had Python 3.13 and 3.14 in unstable and testing since December 2025, with Python 3.13 as the default version (/usr/bin/python3 = 3.13). This gave time for packages to implement support and detect issues in their test suites.

A slot to transition to 3.14 as default was requested from the release team in March, and they indicated that we would likely be able to schedule it in late June. In preparation, Stefano reviewed the open bugs against Python interpreters and squashed some in uploads of the latest point releases of Python: 3.13.14 and 3.14.6. Also in June, Python 3.15.0 beta 2 and beta 3 released. Stefano uploaded these to Debian experimental.

The 3.15 betas were reason to attempt to revive review of a blocked upstream patch to support Debian multiarch in stable ABI Python extensions, now that Python 3.15 is adding a new stable ABI abi3t.

DebConf 26 preparations, by Stefano Rivera, Antonio Terceiro, Lucas Kanashiro, Santiago Ruano Rincón and Anupa Ann Joseph

DebConf 26, the annual Debian Developer Conference, is being held in Santa Fe, Argentina, in July. Stefano Rivera, Antonio Terceiro, Lucas Kanashiro, Santiago Ruano and Anupa Ann Joseph contributed to the preparations for the event.

• As usual, Stefano has been supporting the conference website and registration, helping the local team to get accurate data on attendee numbers.
• Antonio has been supporting the conference website and helping the content team to put together the conference schedule.
• Santiago has been helping the local team on different topics regarding logistics.
• Anupa assisted with the accommodation arrangements for DebCamp and DebConf, working alongside Nattie.
• Lucas has been coordinating the conference schedule and communicating with some speakers.

debvm, by Helmut Grohne

The debvm tool used for creating and running ephemeral virtual machines saw a number of small improvements. The requirement of having a filesystem label has been removed in favor of using a uuid and /etc/fstab is no longer created. A memory balloon is enabled by default and this enables qemu to automatically release free guest memory to the host. Booting Ubuntu VMs regressed as a result of their use of uutils and has been fixed. The --architecture flag is back to be able to better support Hurd, which is a work-in-progress of Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues. Thanks to Jochen Sprickerhof, you can more easily create VMs for autopkgtest-virt-qemu using --hook-dir=/usr/share/mmdebstrap/hooks/autopkgtest-create-qemu. There also are a few documentation and error message improvements. All of this is pending in git waiting to be uploaded once development slows down. While booting a machine from virtiofsd succeeded, turning the proof-of-concept into production remains for later.

pconr, by Helmut Grohne

At DebConf25, Helmut reported on a schroot substitute called unschroot. The second iteration uses varlink IPC to construct a container. That varlink API is now separated into a new project called programmable container runtime. It is meant to provide more flexibility in constructing containers than established solutions such as the unshare command from util-linux, bubblewrap or podman provide while still managing repetitive complexity such as process orchestration for the developer. A new example that uses this infrastructure is a better containment for mmdebstrap eliminating chroot escape. There also is an asyncvarlink/0.3.2 release taking steps to become more maintainable in Debian to eventually get pconr into Debian.

Miscellaneous contributions

• Stefano did routine uploads (mostly new upstream versions) of python-pip, python-pipx, hatchling, dh-python, beautifulsoup4, python-virtualenv, python-mitogen.
• Stefano uploaded a snowball mini-transition: snowball, snowball-data, and pystemmer
• Stefano did some debian.net team admin, setting up a container and later a VM for vote.debian.net.
• Stefano responded to a semi-escalation to the Debian Technical Committee, after some communication between an upstream, a bug reporter, and a Debian package maintainer went sideways and got heated.
• Emilio managed several transitions, and filed bugs against the few remaining GCC 13 rdeps.
• Antonio did salsa maintenance work, debugging service issues, approving user registrations, and processing support requests.
• Antonio worked on Debian CI maintenance, including but not limited to deploying new armhf and armel workers, fixing bugs and preparing an upcoming release of debci.
• Antonio did several maintenance tasks for MiniDebConf websites.
• Antonio uploaded ruby-bunny, ruby-sinatra and ruby-mustermann, fixing a few FTBFS bugs among them.
• Carles using po-debconf-manager: Reviewed Catalan translations for 5 packages, submitted 6 packages. Added a draft blog/update about the po-debconf-manager project.
• Carles submitted a new Geeqie Catalan translation: it had accumulated a large number of untranslated strings over the last 4 years.
• Carles contributed to the Debian wiki: improved documentation for the Framework Laptop and added a new section “Battery charging control” (after doing some debugging and testing). He wrote a page about Signal Desktop. Carles started looking at testing/documenting Mailman2 -> Mailman3 migration.
• Carles, in relation to the migration process, double checked old pages without relevant information in the Debian wiki.
• Thorsten did another upload of package hplip to fix some bugs.
• In the context of the Google Summer of Code 2026 project, Santiago continued co-mentoring Aryan Karamtoth, who is working on the Linux live-patching project. As part of the team, Santiago guided Aryan to help design the different workflows and to study the different tools available, including the upstream klp-build (that was introduced in v6.19), and compare it with SUSE’s klp-build.
• Colin clarified the bug tracking system’s documentation to indicate that maintainers may sometimes reasonably ask users to file bugs upstream themselves.
• Colin fixed 15 packages for pytest 9.1.
• Colin fixed a depthcharge-tools regression with Python 3.14 as default that broke debian-installer builds.
• Helmut continued to report undeclared file conflicts and correspond about them.
• Helmut wrote patches for strace to enable cross building and a 32bit personality on arm64.
• Helmut continued maintaining rebootstrap working fixing build failures in fontconfig, gettext and sqlite3 as well as changing the way packages from gcc builds are installed to better serve a need reported by Samuel Thibault.

The twentieth release of the qlcal package arrivied at CRAN today, and has been built for r2u. This version synchronises with QuantLib 1.43 released today as well.

qlcal delivers the calendaring parts of QuantLib. It is provided (for the R package) as a set of included files, so the package is self-contained and does not depend on an external QuantLib library (which can be demanding to build). qlcal covers over seventy country / market calendars and can compute holiday lists, its complement (i.e. business day lists) and much more. Examples are in the README at the repository, the package page, and course at the CRAN package page.

This releases updates to several new calendars (see below), and extends the calendars for Israel to some added new conventions, updates a few helper functions, and turns on ccache for continuous integration builds.

The full details from NEWS.Rd follow.

Changes in version 0.1.2 (2026-07-14)

• Synchronized with QuantLib 1.43

• Calendar updates for India, Israel, and South Korea; small interface update for Israle

• New calendars for Croatia, Malta, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, Uzebekistan

• Updates to a number of QuantLib helper functions

• Continuous integration now uses ccache via a setup action

Courtesy of my CRANberries, there is a diffstat report for this release. See the project page and package documentation for more details, and more examples.

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. If you like this or other open-source work I do, you can sponsor me at GitHub.

LEGO today said the iMac G3 project submitted for consideration on its "Ideas" site has been moved to Parking Lot status, which means it hasn't been ruled out and could still possibly be turned into an official LEGO set.


On its "Ideas" website, LEGO lets fans submit mockups and suggestions for future LEGO sets. Any project that gets at least 10,000 votes goes to the LEGO Review Board and has a chance to become a LEGO set. Back in August 2025, LEGO fan terauma submitted a recreation of Apple's 1998 ‌iMac‌ G3 in Bondi Blue.


The LEGO creation captures the distinctive look of the ‌iMac‌ G3, featuring an all-in-one computer design, "hockey puck" mouse, matching keyboard, and accompanying cables. The design uses translucent blue LEGO pieces in a shade close to Bondi Blue, and the interior has details like a cathode ray tube and a circuit board.

The design successfully reached 10,000 supporters to make it to the LEGO Ideas team, and LEGO has been considering turning it into a set. Parking Lot status means LEGO needs more time to review the project, and in this case, LEGO could be communicating with Apple for permission.


Many Ideas set proposals get early rejections, so it's somewhat promising that LEGO is taking the time to further consider making an ‌iMac‌ G3 LEGO set. The Downton Abbey and The Old Man and the Sea LEGO sets were in the Parking Lot before making it to production.

The third 2025 Ideas review round that the ‌iMac‌ G3 set was in had 75 total qualifying ideas. Three were chosen to become sets, four (including the ‌iMac‌ G3) were given Parking Lot status for further consideration, and the rest were rejected. Projects can remain in the Parking Lot for up to three review periods before a final decision is made.

LEGO will share updates in the future on whether the ‌iMac‌ G3 project will move forward or will be rejected. A LEGO Apple Store proposal went through the same process, but it was rejected outright.
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OpenAI's first AI hardware product is a mobile smart speaker without a display, reports Bloomberg. The device is at the heart of a new legal dispute with Apple, with Apple accusing OpenAI of stealing trade secrets that have contributed to the development of the product.


OpenAI's speaker-like product is designed to "serve as a humanlike AI companion that lives in the home," according to Bloomberg. It will be able to control smart home accessories, answer questions, play media, respond to messages, and more, with the device powered by ChatGPT. It is meant to learn more about the user over time, becoming more personalized and proactive, using GPT-Live to communicate with users.

The device will have a personality, and will be able to "connect on a humanlike level with users." It has mechanical elements that can move on their own, to create a sense that the device is alive. There's also a camera so it can understand a user's surroundings. The AI product includes a rechargeable battery and it can be carried from room to room.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and former Apple designer Jony Ive have teased the device several times, suggesting it will have "incredible contextual awareness" about a user's life, and describing it as a new type of computer built for AI. The two have suggested prototypes are "jaw-droppingly good" and "exciting."

In a lawsuit filed against OpenAI for theft of trade secrets, Apple claims OpenAI used its confidential information developing the AI device, including gaining access to a proprietary metal finishing technique. "OpenAI's nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets," reads Apple's filing.

People familiar with the project told Bloomberg that the device is different from anything Apple has on the market today, and it is "unlikely" it violates Apple trade secrets. Though Apple has the HomePod and HomePod mini speakers, OpenAI does not see Apple's speakers as comparable to its hardware product.

Apple is also working on a home hub device that sounds similar to what OpenAI is developing. Apple's smart home hub is rumored to have a 7-inch square display, a speaker, a camera for video chats and facial recognition, and Siri AI integration.

Initial rumors suggested OpenAI's hardware device could come out as soon as 2026, but it's now not expected to launch until 2027. OpenAI could unveil the AI product this year ahead of its 2027 release, but the Apple lawsuit could change the timing. Apple has asked the court for an injunction, and if granted, OpenAI could be prohibited from releasing hardware.
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OpenAI says it is "not aware" of any evidence that Apple's allegations of trade secret theft have merit in a statement provided to Bloomberg.

While we take these allegations seriously, we're not aware of any evidence that this complaint has merit. We believe in fair competition and allowing people the freedom to work wherever they choose, and we're focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.

Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI on Friday, accusing the company of intellectual property theft. Apple said OpenAI employees Tang Tan and Chang Liu schemed to steal confidential Apple information to further hardware development at OpenAI. Tan is OpenAI's Chief Hardware Officer and a 24-year Apple veteran who led product design, while Liu is on the hardware team at OpenAI after working as a senior system electrical engineer at Apple.

Tan and Liu allegedly asked Apple employees interviewing at OpenAI to come prepared with details on unreleased devices, components, manufacturing processes, and vendor relationships. Liu is also accused of keeping an Apple-issued laptop and exploiting an authentication bug to view confidential documents while working at OpenAI. From the lawsuit:

This is the tip of the iceberg. Apple lacks visibility into what's been happening behind closed doors at OpenAI, where such misconduct is normalized and exemplified by leadership. This much is clear, however: at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple's trade secrets and confidential information. As a natural result, OpenAI's nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets.

When Apple first filed the suit, OpenAI gave a dismissive response. "We have no interest in other companies' trade secrets," said OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri. "We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere."

OpenAI's new statement about employee mobility hints at how it will frame the case publicly. In the lawsuit, Apple said more than 400 Apple employees have migrated to OpenAI, so OpenAI can point to its hiring of former Apple employees as motivation for Apple's lawsuit.

Apple is aiming for a jury trial, and is hoping to uncover more evidence through discovery. Apple has requested an injunction requiring OpenAI to cease using any Apple information during the development of OpenAI's AI hardware device. Apple is also seeking damages and suing Tan and Liu for breach of contract for violating their employment agreements.
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Amazon has introduced a big discount on the Nintendo Switch 2: Choose Your Game Bundle, now available for $449.99 when you add the product to your cart, down from $499.00. As the name implies, this bundle allows you to choose from three games, all of which retail between $69.99 and $79.99, making this deal even better.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

Games available to choose from in this bundle include Donkey Kong Bananza, Mario Kart World, and Pokémon Pokopia. You'll pick one of these games as a digital game download on your new Switch 2 system.




Considering the impending price hike coming to the Switch 2 in the fall, Amazon's deal today could be the last big markdown on the console before that price increase happens. Nintendo has announced that the Switch 2 console with no game will increase from $450 to $500, so we can expect the console game bundles to increase at that point as well.

If you're on the hunt for more discounts, be sure to visit our Apple Deals roundup where we recap the best Apple-related bargains of the past week.

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Apple today released new AirPods beta firmware available for public testers. The firmware has a build number of 9A5314b, and it is available for the AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Pro 3, AirPods 4, and AirPods Max 2. The public beta firmware is identical to the third developer beta Apple released last week.


In iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS Golden Gate, Apple is adding a new AirPods interface, a slider for Adaptive mode, and support for custom EQ, so the firmware lets public beta testers use those features. AirPods are also compatible with the new Siri AI.

When the AirPods are connected to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac running iOS 26, iPadOS 26, or macOS 26 or later, there is a beta firmware option that can be accessed in the AirPods settings interface. Toggling on beta updates allows users to install the beta firmware.

Firmware updates can be downloaded by connecting the AirPods to an Apple device and connecting them to power. It can take a few hours for new firmware to be installed because there is no straightforward software update option like there is for other Apple devices.
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macOS 27 Golden Gate is available to public beta testers as of this week, which means you can try out Siri AI and the other changes coming in the update before it launches this fall.


We don't recommend betas for devices that serve a critical function, and it's always best to test on a secondary device. macOS Golden Gate is a stable beta compared to past releases, but it's still in development and there can be some bugs to contend with. Before installing the update, make sure to create a Time Machine backup so you can go back to macOS Tahoe if you need to.

Liquid Glass

Apple added a Liquid Glass slider in macOS 27, and you can adjust the transparency level. You can select a clearer version of Liquid Glass that lets some of the background show through, or a more opaque version for improved legibility. Since it's a slider, you can also pick something in between.

Apple also tweaked the overall opacity of Liquid Glass, and it better diffuses complex content behind navigation bars and buttons. Darkened edges and brighter specular highlights add more depth and separation for different UI elements.

Toolbars, Sidebars, and Windows

Uniform toolbars in apps make text headings and groups of controls more legible, and Apple has cut back on the number of icons that are used in menu interfaces. Windows have the same corner radius for more consistency, and you'll notice that app corners are not as dramatically rounded.

Changes to window shadows and the Liquid Glass updates make it a lot easier to tell which window is active when you have several apps open.

Sidebars no longer float and are edge-to-edge, which is a less distracting design. Sidebar icons once again use color, too.

Siri AI

‌Siri‌ AI is the biggest change in ‌macOS Golden Gate‌. ‌Siri‌ is smarter, more capable, and functions like a chatbot. On the Mac, you can ask ‌Siri‌ anything using the Spotlight interface that comes up with Command + Space. Spotlight is now a unified "Search or Ask" bar where you can search for files, apps, and other content, or ask ‌Siri‌ to complete tasks or answer queries.

You can also interact with ‌Siri‌ using the dedicated ‌Siri‌ app, which is where you can view past conversations and start new conversations. ‌Siri‌ conversations sync across all of your devices, and the ‌Siri‌ app is cross-platform.

‌Siri‌ can see what's on your screen and access your personal information like emails, messages, and photos to answer questions. ‌Siri‌ can also search the web and complete tasks in apps for you. It's a huge change from the prior version of ‌Siri‌, and ‌Siri‌ can handle far more than it could before.

We have more on some of the tasks you can complete with ‌Siri‌ in our Siri AI guide.

Visual Intelligence

Apple brought the iPhone's Visual Intelligence feature to the Mac in macOS 27. You can ask ‌Siri‌ questions about what's on your screen with ‌Visual Intelligence‌, choosing the entire screen or just a portion.

‌Visual Intelligence‌ on the Mac works when you press Command + Shift + Space or Command + Shift + 6 to capture one area of the display. If you press Command + Shift + 5 (also used for recording your display and capturing screenshots), you can click on the ‌Visual Intelligence‌ icon to get an adjustable selection square for selecting an area of the screen.

‌Siri‌ can search for images, summarize, translate, identify objects, add information from the screen to apps like Calendar or Reminders, answer questions about what you're looking at, and more. ‌Visual Intelligence‌ on Mac has all of the same features as Visual Intelligence on iPhone, and it includes the new ‌Visual Intelligence‌ features like telling you nutritional information for food or splitting out a bill.

Write with Siri

There is a system-wide Write with ‌Siri‌ feature that goes beyond the Apple Intelligence Writing Tools available in ‌macOS Tahoe‌. ‌Siri‌ can compose entire emails or messages for you, give you feedback on your writing, change out words, and complete other editing tasks.

To use Write with ‌Siri‌ on Mac, right-click in an app and choose the Ask ‌Siri‌ option. If you select text before the right-click, you can ask ‌Siri‌ for editing help. If you have a blank document, you can ask ‌Siri‌ to generate something for you. When drafting emails or messages, ‌Siri‌ can analyze your past communications and generate something in your own writing style.

Apple also expanded spell correction in ‌macOS Golden Gate‌, and your Mac will now also give you grammar suggestions and fixes.

iPhone Mirroring

You can resize the iPhone Mirroring window in ‌macOS Golden Gate‌, dragging at the corner to make a window larger or smaller. Depending on the app, you may be limited to a portrait iPhone aspect ratio, but other apps support iPad or landscape layouts.

Shortcuts

It's easier for anyone to create a Shortcut in just a few minutes in ‌macOS Golden Gate‌. The Shortcuts app on Mac opens to an interface that lets you describe what you want a shortcut to do using natural language.

AI creates the shortcut for you, and you can refine it with further natural language commands or manually edit it. You can activate your shortcuts through the app or with ‌Siri‌ commands.

Safari Extensions

Safari has a customizable extension feature in ‌macOS Golden Gate‌, and you can use the Describe Extension option to type in what you want an extension to do. The extension is created using AI and is available to use right away.

To use it, click on the settings icon on the right side of the URL bar and choose the Describe Extension option. Some Apple examples:

• Display a reading time estimate as a badge on the extension


• Close duplicate tabs pointing to the same URL when I click the extension


• Highlight this word


• Create a 3-minute focus timer for the page


• Set the minimum font size to 14pt


• Every time I open a new tab, draw me a flower


• Highlight and show the dimensions of webpage elements when I click them


• Enter design mode for a website so that I can edit the contents


• Save this recipe

Safari Tab Grouping and Notifications

Safari also has an intelligent tab grouping feature. Tabs in related categories are automatically grouped together in the tab view.

You can also set Safari to monitor a webpage for updates, with Hourly, Daily, Weekly, and Monthly checks available. When you set this feature up, you'll get a notification when the content on the webpage changes.

Performance Improvements

In addition to introducing ‌Siri‌ and new ‌Apple Intelligence‌ features, ‌macOS Golden Gate‌ cleans up underlying code. Apple made multiple refinements to speed up performance.

Animations and interactions are faster and smoother, and you'll notice a difference when scrolling Safari and other apps, opening Mission Control and Spaces, and using other Mac interface elements.

AirDrop transfers complete more quickly, browsing through files on attached network devices is faster, and window positioning is more stable when using external displays. Messages also sync faster and more reliably across devices.

Apple rebuilt its search foundation for Spotlight, Photos, Mail, and Messages, and indexing is quicker. When you search for something recent, it's more likely to come up right away than before, and in Mail, there's a ranking system that surfaces the emails you're most likely looking for. Mail search indexing is more reliable than before, and Spotlight search suggestions are more relevant.

How to Install

Sign up on Apple's beta testing website, then open up the System Settings app. From there, click on General > Software Update and under the Beta Updates section, click on the "i" to choose macOS 27 Golden Gate Public Beta.

After that, you can install ‌macOS Golden Gate‌ like any other software update.

System Requirements

‌macOS Golden Gate‌ runs on Macs with an M1 chip or later, plus the A18 Pro MacBook Neo. Intel Macs do not support ‌macOS Golden Gate‌ and won't get the new features.

Every Mac that runs ‌macOS Golden Gate‌ supports ‌Apple Intelligence‌ and ‌Siri‌ AI, but some on-device ‌Siri‌ processing features for selecting a natural voice and getting upgraded dictation require an M3 or later.

‌Siri‌ AI is not available in the European Union or China right now, and won't be available when the update launches this fall either.
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Apple today announced that Madden NFL 27 Arcade Edition is coming to Apple Arcade on August 6, a new entry in the franchise built specifically for the service with a season-based structure and current NFL rosters.


The game is a full Madden title with no ads or in-app purchases, and it includes both Franchise and Quick Play modes, with player ratings drawn from real NFL performances. A weekly story engine drives Franchise mode, casting players as GM and tasking them with guiding a team through shifting storylines, keeping fans onside, and building toward a title. Controller support is available across the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV.

Retro Bowl College+ also launches August 6, putting players in charge of one of 250 college programs in this spinoff of the original pixel-art Retro Bowl.

On September 3, NFL Retro Bowl '27 adds a new Gauntlet Mode, where players start with limited resources and try to string together 15 wins in a row for the top spot on the leaderboard, picking between easier matchups or riskier ones that pay out real NFL players and perks. Progress carries over between runs even after a loss, building toward a final matchup against a rival team.

A handful of existing Arcade sports titles are also set to receive updates. NBA 2K26 Arcade Edition now includes Tyrese Maxey as a new Paragon player and has added the 2016-2024 era to its Association mode. PGA TOUR Pro Golf gained a new course, Bear's Best Atlanta, and starting July 16, NFL Retro Bowl '26 is rolling out Historic Super Bowl challenges built around some of the league's most memorable title games.

Apple also pointed to a handful of Arcade games that can now be sampled on the App Store without a subscription, including PowerWash Simulator, Mini Motorways, Cooking Mama: Cuisine!, and Play-Doh World.

‌Apple Arcade‌ is a subscription service that provides access to hundreds of games across the iPhone, ‌iPad‌, Mac, ‌Apple TV‌, and Apple Vision Pro. All of the games are free of ads and in-app purchases. In the U.S., ‌Apple Arcade‌ costs $6.99 per month, and it is also bundled with other Apple services in all Apple One plans. ‌Apple Arcade‌ can be accessed through the ‌App Store‌ and the Apple Games app.
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Apple Arcade grows its roster of hit sports games with the addition of EA SPORTS Madden NFL 27 and more coming in August.

Amazon today has the AirPods 4 available for $99.00, down from $129.00. This is a second-best price on the AirPods 4, which is the base model without Active Noise Cancellation, and it's accompanied by a deal on the AirPods 4 with ANC.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

Amazon provides a July 19 estimated delivery date for free shipping, with faster delivery options for Prime members. This model hasn't hit its all-time low price since last holiday season, so Amazon's price today remains one of the best we've seen all year on the AirPods 4 base model.



Additionally, you can get the AirPods 4 with ANC on sale for $148.99 right now on Amazon, down from $179.00. Similar to the base model, we haven't tracked a record low price on the AirPods 4 with ANC in months, making today's deal a solid second-best option for anyone shopping for AirPods this summer.



Head to our full Deals Roundup to get caught up with all of the latest deals and discounts that we've been tracking over the past week.

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Facilities in Apple's supply chain have finished renovations ahead of "iPhone 20" production, according to a Weibo leaker who says Apple's 20th-anniversary iPhone will move to an all-glass design.


In a new post on Weibo, the leaker known as "Fixed Focus Digital" said the "preferred approach" for the iPhone 20 is a return to glass, with manufacturing quality expected to land somewhere around that of the first-generation iPhone Air. The leaker said the relevant manufacturing facility has "already been renovated" and is now waiting for machining to begin, but didn't name the supplier involved. Lens Technology produces iPhone cover glass and previously took over metal-frame and glass-back assembly plants from fellow supplier Catcher Technology.

Apple's iPhone production typically doesn't reach full-scale manufacturing until a matter of weeks before launch; for the iPhone 17, trial production began in June with full-volume output targeted for August, about a month ahead of the device's September release. The information likely refers to an early step in retooling a production line, which is the kind of groundwork Bloomberg said Apple is already "ramping up" as it develops the 20th-anniversary redesign.

The claim adds fresh supply chain detail to a redesign that has been rumored for well over a year. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that Apple is aiming for a "mostly glass, curved iPhone without any cutouts in the display" to mark the iPhone's 20th anniversary, with curved glass wrapping around all sides of the device and a launch expected in September 2027.

In May, Fixed Focus Digital pushed back on an earlier report from fellow leaker Instant Digital claiming Apple was exploring liquid metal or an improved titanium alloy to replace aluminum on future Pro models, arguing that aluminum remains the only practical choice for now given the heat generated by on-device AI processing.

At the time, Fixed Focus Digital said any material change was unlikely before 2027, in line with the iPhone 18 Pro's expected retention of the same aluminum unibody design introduced on the iPhone 17 Pro. Earlier this month, the leaker reiterated that aluminum mid-frames are "going to be used in straight-edge phones for a long time to come," a distinction that leaves room for a different approach on the curved-edge iPhone 20.

The 20th anniversary iPhone models are expected to launch in the fall of 2027, following the iPhone 18, iPhone 18e, and ‌iPhone Air‌ 2 in the spring.
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Apple is allegedly using a 60Hz 8.4-inch display panel in the upcoming OLED iPad mini, which is expected to be released later this year.


The information comes courtesy of a hit-and-miss tipster running the account "yeux1122" on the Korean Naver blog. The leaker claims to have been told by a source in Apple's supply chain that the unreleased iPad mini is equipped with a low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) backplane hybrid OLED panel clocked at 60Hz.

Apple's ‌iPad Pro‌ models feature two-stack low-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) OLED panels‌, which makes the display capable of dynamically adjusting its refresh rate between 10Hz and 120Hz (aka ProMotion). In contrast, LTPS OLED panels are usually paired with fixed refresh rates – such as 60Hz, 90Hz, or 120Hz – and are typically dimmer than LTPO panels.

If the leak is true, it's likely to disappoint iPad mini fans. Previous reports have not been clear on whether the iPad mini 8 will feature a higher refresh rate than the 60Hz LCD display used in the existing iPad mini 7. Given that the base iPhone 17 uses a 120Hz ProMotion panel, some would have believed it was reasonable to expect the same on the first OLED iPad mini. That said, the iPhone 17e goes to show that Apple is still in the 60Hz OLED business, so it might not consider the iPad mini to be a big enough market to justify the more advanced panel technology.

There's still hope of course that the rumor is off the mark. The leaker also said that the smaller form factor iPad is currently in mass production at Samsung Display's A2 Generation 5.5 OLED production line, which is located at its Asan campus in South Korea. Samsung has used the A2 line to manufacture LTPO panels as well as comparatively inferior LTPS panels, so if that piece of information is true, it doesn't mean the new iPad mini will definitely use the latter panel.

• OLED iPad Mini: Release Date, Pricing, and What to Expect

Late last month, a report from Korean outlet ETNews claimed that mass production of the iPad mini 8 was underway at a Samsung factory. There are no rumors suggesting exactly when the next ‌iPad mini‌ will be released, but a late 2026 launch is widely expected. Aside from refresh rates, OLED offers several advantages over the LCD technology used in the iPad mini 7, such as higher contrast, deeper blacks, and improved power efficiency.
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Apple grew iPhone shipments in China by 24.4 percent year over year in the second quarter of 2026, making it the fastest-growing smartphone brand in a market that shrank overall, according to preliminary figures released today by research firm IDC.


Total shipments in China fell 4.3 percent to roughly 66 million units, amounting to a fifth consecutive quarter of decline. Apple and Huawei were the only major vendors to grow, with Huawei up 19.4 percent.

Apple's share of the Chinese market rose from 13.9 percent to 18.1 percent year over year, which was second only to Huawei's 22.6 percent. Meanwhile, Xiaomi suffered the steepest fall among the big brands, with shipments down 21.7 percent.

IDC attributes the market divergence largely to the way vendors reacted to rising memory and component costs amid the AI infrastructure buildout. Most Android vendors raised prices from late March, but Apple and Huawei held theirs steady, instead introducing targeted promotions.

On top of this, Huawei kept widening its lineup to cover more of the market, while Apple's early warnings of upcoming price increases in the second half of the year encouraged some buyers to purchase iPhone 17 series models sooner than they might have otherwise. "That gave hesitant buyers a reason to go ahead and purchase," said IDC analyst Arthur Guo.

The growth came despite a weak June market, as smartphone sales during China's "618" shopping festival fell nearly 15 percent compared to the same period in 2025.


IDC says it expects conditions to deteriorate over the next couple of years. As vendors run down cheaper component inventory, the firm forecasts China's year-over-year decline could widen to around 20 percent in the second half of 2026, right around when Apple is expected to launch its new iPhone 18 Pro models and first foldable iPhone. Storage prices are unlikely to ease meaningfully before 2027, and a broader recovery is not expected until 2028 or 2029, reckons IDC.

On the bright side, the research firm believes customers are postponing upgrades rather than walking away from smartphones, so the delayed demand should return in time. On that basis, a recovery could arrive around 2028–2029 as a fresh replacement cycle comes due.
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WhatsApp is developing a first-party cloud storage option for chat backups on iPhone, providing users with an alternative to iCloud for the first time, according to app tinkerer WABetaInfo.


Code found in the WhatsApp beta for iOS (version 26.28.10.16), available through TestFlight, suggests that users will eventually be able to pick their preferred backup destination directly from the app's chat backup settings. iCloud however will remain the default.

The feature harks back to one that WABetaInfo spotted in development for Android back in April, which is set to give users on Google's platform a way to store backups off Google Drive.

Under the plan, WhatsApp will reportedly include 2GB of free storage on its own servers, and there will be a 50GB tier priced at around $0.99 per month, similar to Apple's entry-level iCloud+ plan. There is also said to be a 1TB option in the works, although the tiers and pricing could always change before the backup feature goes live.


Notably, backups kept on WhatsApp's servers will be protected by end-to-end encryption (E2EE) by default, with no way to switch encryption off. That's firmer protection than what is offered by iCloud backups, whose users must turn on encryption manually by enabling Advanced Data Protection (ADP). WhatsApp will reportedly recommend securing backups with a passkey, but a password or 64-digit key will also work.

WABetaInfo says the feature is still in development and not yet working for beta testers, and WhatsApp hasn't yet stated when it plans to officially launch the backup alternative.
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