Apple has added a new "iPhone Handoff" feature to iOS 27 that will allow you to switch between two iPhones while using the same phone number on each device.
This functionality was briefly mentioned during the WWDC 2026 keynote in June, on a slide that listed hundreds of new features coming in iOS 27 and corresponding software updates, but Apple never shared any further details at the time.
MacRumors forum member pdfu today shared a video that demonstrates how the feature will work, using two simulated iPhones running in Xcode 27's Device Hub.
"iPhone Handoff" can be set up from the Settings app, under the Cellular menu. During the setup process, you can choose which iPhone you want to be the main device that you use most often and which one you want to be the companion device.
Apple says a user's main eSIM will remain on the main iPhone, while the companion iPhone will receive a companion eSIM, and this will enable you to switch between the devices back and forth while using the same phone number.
All cellular settings are managed on the main iPhone, and location sharing is based on whichever iPhone is actively using the phone number.
In addition to needing two iPhones running iOS 27, "iPhone Handoff" will seemingly require carrier support. The forum post mentions that T-Mobile in the U.S. and Deutsche Telekom in Germany might be among the first carriers to offer the feature.
Following three months of beta testing, iOS 27 is expected to be released later this month, so we will likely hear more about this feature soon.
Uploaded xdg-desktop-portal-wlr 0.8.4-1 to unstable
Uploaded swayimg 5.5-1 to unstable
Uploaded fyi 1.0.4-2 to unstable
Uploaded labwc 0.20.2-1 to unstable
Uploaded yambar 1.11.0-2 to unstable, but that got removed because it FTBFS;
given that upstream has a big warning saying “This project is not developed
anymore” it is probably for the better
Closed #1133660
which was a FTBFS bug on usbguard, but neither I nor another use could
reproduce the buil failure
Created
ITP#1145583 for
miru which is a nice
little screen magnifier for wlroots based compositors
I did not partake in the flamewars on debian-vote about the LLM situation. I am
not sure how anyone can find this style of “discussion” productive. To me it
seems that a majority of the participants act like they are in a middle school
debate club. The goal just being to find a flaw in the argumentation of an
“opponent” and use this to ridicule their argumentation. Basically what
politicians do.
The good thing is, that most Debian members did not stoop on that level.
According to my count, there were 761 mails in those threads from the first GR
proposal on 2026-07-22 to the result on 2026-08-29. Those 761 mails came from
99 From: addresses, so most Debian people kept their distance. Given that
according to nm.debian.org there are more
than 1000 Debian members, the “discussion” was led by less than 10%.
The distribution of who wrote how many mails is also interesting. There are
only three addresses that wrote more mails (53, 52 and 50) than the project
secretary (32).
I think the most fitting approach to Debian mailinglists is a quote from
WOPR:
A STRANGE GAME. THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS NOT TO PLAY.
DH Related Work
I released version 0.66.0 and 0.67.0 of the APIS framework as well as a couple
of bugfix releases for the 0.67.x version. In 0.67.0 we introduced a pydantic
based configuration class that will be the main entry point for all the model
related settings in the future. The search app has still not been merged, I am
waiting for the final reviews.
Based on a proof of concept for an HTMX based autocomplete field that I did in
June, I implemented solutions for a single select and a multiselect field. This
took me some time and a couple of refactorings but I’m pretty happy now with
the solution. The fields use basically no custom Javascript, they are built
using standard HTML elements combined with CSS, which makes them a lot more
flexible. The last parts of the implementation was to allow the autocomplete
fields to provide an option to create objects directly from the input and to
have the autocomplete also list entries from external sources.
Apple today shared a short video featuring an Apple Watch user named Amanda who says her device saved her life.
In 2024, Amanda began receiving alerts about an abnormal heart rate. Her watch alerted her about changes to her resting heart rate and her overnight vitals, prompting her to visit her doctor.
She ended up being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, an aggressive cancer. After treatment, she is in remission.
"I absolutely believe that if it wasn't for my Apple Watch, I wouldn't be talking to you," she said.
The Apple Watch regularly monitors heart rate and can send alerts when a high heart rate is detected during rest. It also notes low heart rates and irregular heart rhythms, plus the ECG app can detect atrial fibrillation.
It worked, I wore it. Years later I saw a blog post on Pour La Victoire
on making a corset cover based on the same book, but with completely
different results, and thought that it would have been nice to make
another one to publish instructions for my take on it.
However, I didn’t have any embroidery flouncing on hand, nor did I have
a need for a new corset cover, and the project remained on the list, on
low priority (although I did buy some beading lace for it, when I
stumbled on it).
Then, after finishing my vampire shirt, I noticed that I had just enough
fabric left for a corset cover, and by just enough I really mean just
enough, as I discovered when laying the pattern on the fabric.
So I dug in my files to get the original pattern I used, brought it up
to date, and added the missing details such as the pleating guides that
I had skipped when making the pattern just for myself. Doing so I
realized that on my old cover I had done the fake pleat in the front
wrong, making just a single pleat instead of a box pleat. Also, I
originally directly gathered the sleeves in the armscyes, but watching
the book again I realized that the sleeves were made up of a gathered
ruffle plus a straight band.
Both issues were fixed and I could cut the fabric and start sewing. By
machine, including using a narrow hem foot instead of sewing rolled hems
by hand as my instinct kept reminding me would have looked neater.
But this is a garment from a sewing machine time, and probably one that
in many cases would have been bought from a mass producer, and it’s
underwear, so there is no real need for the hems to be perfect, as it’s
going to be hidden anyway. But most importantly, I wanted to write
instructions for machine sewing, for a change, and so I had to machine
sew all steps that I had to take pictures of.
I did do the buttonholes by hand, because I hate the buttonhole
attachment on my machine, and the buttonhole attachment hates me.
I used a lighter weight fabric for the sleeve ruffles, both because I
didn’t have a big enough piece of main fabric not to have to piece them,
and because I felt that it looks better, as it’s the same voile I used
for the ruffles on the vampire shirt.
When it came to the beading lace, I had two that I had bought more or
less thinking about this project: the earlier one was narrow and
suitable to do its job, but the one I had bought more recently was
taller, with an edge that made it suitable to give more fullness to the
bust when gathered up.
I contemplated for a short while, and then decided to go for fullness
and use the taller border for the top edge, but the smaller one at the
waist, where fullness is not wanted.
The book claimed that this pattern required little labour, and indeed it
did: even when taking step by step pictures it only took a few hours
spread over a week, plus the time to make buttonholes by hand over the
next week.
Recently, Daring Fireball's John Gruber resurfaced an old tip that lets you quickly access the settings menu for the currently opened app on your iPhone. If you find it a hassle digging through the Settings app to find the associated app menu, this solution saves you the bother.
It uses a simple Shortcut – made conveniently downloadable courtesy of Quinn Nelson – that you can add to Control Center (or better yet the Action button) by using the "Run Shortcut" control. We couldn't not highlight it here because it's so useful.
Amazon has introduced the first cash discounts on Apple's brand new Mac mini, with discounts including two of the M6 models as well as the M5 Pro model. All of these deals are pre-order discounts on the 2026 Mac mini, which officially launches on September 22.
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.
You can get the 16GB RAM/256GB SSD Mac mini for $879.99, down from $899.00, and the 16GB RAM/512GB SSD model for $1,069.99, down from $1,099.00. Both of these devices come with the new M6 chip, and Amazon also has $29 off the M5 Pro Mac mini right now.
In terms of upgrades, Apple said the Mac mini with the M6 chip delivers up to 40% faster CPU performance, up to 4× faster performance for AI tasks in particular, up to 2× faster graphics performance, and up to 2× faster storage speeds compared to the previous-generation model with the 10-core M4 chip, 32GB of unified memory, and 2TB of storage.
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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Starting today, Oklahoma residents can add a digital version of their driver's license to the Apple Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch. The digital ID can be used to display proof of identity or age at TSA checkpoints in select airports, at select businesses, and in select apps, but the number of places where it is accepted is still quite limited.
Oklahoma is the 16th state to implement support for Apple Wallet IDs in the U.S., joining Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia. The feature is also available in Puerto Rico and works with Japan's My Number Card.
Apple has also been preparing for the feature to go live in North Carolina and Utah in the coming months, and years ago it announced that Connecticut, Kentucky, and Mississippi were committed to launching the feature at some point.
To set up the feature, open the Wallet app on the iPhone and tap on the plus sign in the top-right corner. Next, tap on Driver's License and ID Cards, select Oklahoma from the list, and follow the on-screen steps to complete the process. Then, you can present your digital ID where it is accepted without handing over your device.
You can present an Apple Wallet ID where accepted by simply tapping your iPhone or Apple Watch on an identity reader. Then, you will be able to view the specific information being requested by the TSA or business. Only after authorizing with Face ID or Touch ID is the requested identity information released from your device.
As mentioned, you do not need to unlock, show, or hand over your device to present an Apple Wallet ID in person, ensuring user privacy.
Apple Wallet IDs are generally not accepted by law enforcement, so carrying a physical ID is still legally required for traffic stops. In addition, the number of businesses that accept Apple Wallet IDs is still quite small. At least for now, Apple Wallet IDs are designed to be a convenient alternative where they are accepted.
Apple Wallet IDs are accepted at TSA checkpoints in more than 250 airports across the U.S. for domestic travel, according to Apple.
Apple last week announced two new Mac Studio models, with one built around the M5 Max chip and one around the all-new M5 Ultra chip, replacing the M4 Max and M3 Ultra models that had been on sale since March 2025.
The gap between the two is unusually wide this time. Mac Studio with M5 Max starts at $2,499, holding the price Apple set when it raised Mac prices in June, while Mac Studio with M5 Ultra starts at $5,499, a further $200 increase on the post-June M3 Ultra price and $1,500 above what the M3 Ultra cost at launch.
That makes the premium $3,000 before any configure-to-order options, and memory and storage upgrades are more expensive than usual because of the memory chip shortage. Our guide helps to answer the question of how to decide which of these two Mac Studio models is best for you. The shared features include:
An identical enclosure measuring 3.7 inches tall and 7.7 inches wide
Neural Accelerators built into every GPU core, and hardware-accelerated ray tracing
Hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW, plus AV1 decode
A next-generation SSD architecture that Apple says is up to twice as fast as before
Thunderbolt 5 with up to 120Gb/s of bandwidth, and clustering of multiple systems using RDMA (remote direct memory access)
10Gb Ethernet, HDMI, and an SDXC card slot (UHS-II)
Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 via the N1 chip, both new to the Mac Studio
Genlock over USB-C for synchronization with professional camera capture
A 3.5mm headphone jack with support for high-impedance headphones
Here is everything that differs between the two models:
Mac Studio (M5 Max)
Mac Studio (M5 Ultra)
Starts at $2,499
Starts at $5,499
M5 Max chip
M5 Ultra chip
18-core CPU with 6 super cores and 12 performance cores
Up to 36-core CPU with 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, from 30 cores
Up to 40-core GPU, from 32 cores
Up to 80-core GPU, from 64 cores
16-core Neural Engine
32-core Neural Engine
Up to 614GB/s memory bandwidth
1.2TB/s memory bandwidth
36GB, 48GB, 64GB, or 128GB of unified memory
96GB, 256GB, or 512GB of unified memory
512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, or 8TB of storage
1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB, or 16TB of storage
Up to 3.9x faster AI performance than M4 Max
Up to 4.3x the peak AI compute performance of M3 Ultra
Up to 50% faster graphics than M4 Max
Up to 1.8x faster graphics than M3 Ultra
One video decode engine and two video encode engines
Two video decode engines and four video encode engines
Two ProRes encode and decode engines
Four ProRes encode and decode engines
Four Thunderbolt 5 ports, two USB-C ports, and two USB-A ports
Six Thunderbolt 5 ports and two USB-A ports
Support for up to five 4K displays, four 6K displays, or two 8K displays
Support for up to eight 4K displays, eight 6K displays, or four 8K displays
6.0 pounds (2.7 kg)
8.0 pounds (3.6 kg)
For the overwhelming majority of buyers, including most professionals, the M5 Max is the more appropriate choice. An 18-core CPU, up to 40 GPU cores with Neural Accelerators, up to 128GB of unified memory, and up to 614GB/s of bandwidth cover workflows such as multi-stream 4K and 6K editing, large Logic sessions with real-time plugins, compiling substantial codebases, and most 3D and motion work.
Apple's own figures support this, with up to 3x faster Magic Mask performance in Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Studio and 1.4x faster scene rendering in Maxon Redshift compared to M4 Max, and graphics that are up to 50% faster than the previous generation. Since memory cannot be added later, the sensible approach is to spend more on unified memory at the point of purchase rather than on the higher chip tier.
You should only choose the M5 Ultra if you anticipate running into a performance ceiling the M5 Max cannot clear. The most obvious use-case is local AI inference, where the whole model needs to be resident in memory. 256GB and 512GB configurations paired with 1.2TB/s of bandwidth allow models with hundreds of billions of parameters to run on the machine itself, which keeps sensitive material on-device and eliminates the recurring cost of paying for cloud inference.
The other workflows that can take advantage of the M5 Ultra include studios finishing 8K material from several cameras at once, where the doubled Media Engine and its four encode engines earn their keep, research and simulation work that needs an enormous memory pool, and anyone who specifically needs six Thunderbolt 5 ports or more than five displays.
There is a notable catch in how the two memory ladders overlap. The M5 Ultra begins at 96GB, which is less than the 128GB you can configure on the M5 Max, so paying the premium at the entry configuration buys you more cores and more bandwidth, but less memory. The Ultra only separates itself at 256GB and above, and Apple limits the 512GB option to the 80-core GPU model, which means the configurations that justify the machine sit far above its starting price.
This is where the price proximity argument becomes noticeable. Configuring an M5 Max with memory and storage narrows the gap considerably, and at that point the Ultra becomes worth pricing alongside it, because it roughly doubles GPU cores, Neural Engine cores, memory bandwidth, and Media Engine capacity in one step. If your workload sits comfortably inside 128GB, though, that money is better spent on storage and displays than on the chip.
Both models support clustering over Thunderbolt 5 and RDMA, and Apple says four Mac Studio systems working together deliver up to 3x faster AI inference than a single machine, so scaling inference does not necessarily mean buying the most expensive configuration outright.
If the M5 Max still looks like more performance than you need, the new Mac mini with the M5 Pro chip starts at $1,699 with up to a 20-core GPU and 307GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is enough for a great deal of professional work.
Both new Mac Studio models are available to pre-order now, with availability beginning on September 22. The 512GB configuration arrives in late October, and its pricing is expected to start well above $10,000.
The Elec reports that Google, Oppo, and Vivo plan to adopt ultra-thin glass (UTG) in their foldable phones next year, following Apple's lead. Apple's book-style iPhone Ultra, expected to be unveiled next week, reportedly uses two UTG layers, with the display sandwiched between them, isolating it from direct contact with the hinge.
The method, pioneered by Apple, is meant to spread mechanical stress across multiple layers to improve durability and reduce visible creasing over time. The UTG layers will be mass produced for Apple's rivals by Samsung, for wide adoption in 2027.
Longtime leaker Sonny Dickson has shared an image of differently colored SIM card trays that he claims are for Apple's upcoming iPhone 18 Pro models, suggesting Apple's flagship lineup will again be available in a trio of colors: Silver, Dark Cherry, and Sky Blue.
Apple currently offers the iPhone 17 Pro in Cosmic Orange, Silver, and Deep Blue.
Dickson shared the image in response to a MacRumors report on Tuesday covering a Chinese leaker's claim that the iPhone 18 Pro models could come in Dark Cherry, Sky Blue, and Black.
Dickson told MacRumors the colors in the shared image are the only ones he's come across in recent months. However, the leaker did share iPhone 18 Pro dummy units back in May that included a fourth Black color. When that was pointed out to him, Dickson argued that black dummies are made every year, but it's not a color Apple prefers to use anymore.
iPhone models sold in the U.S., Canada, and several other regions use eSIMs and don't come with SIM card trays, but devices sold in Europe, Japan, China, and Australia still include one (with the exception of the iPhone Air, which lacked a SIM tray everywhere it was sold).
Chinese leaker Instant Digital in April said there would be no black color for the iPhone 18 Pro. Last year was the first time Apple's high-end iPhones have not been available with a black or dark gray color option in any way, so it's possible Apple will continue that trend. Macworldreported in the same month that Apple would offer Light Blue, Dark Cherry, Dark Gray, and Silver colors.
We'll know either way soon enough. Apple's iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are expected to be unveiled at the company's September event next week, alongside the company's first foldable iPhone, aka "iPhone Ultra."
Apple last month announced a new Mac mini and a new Mac Studio. Both machines start shipping on Tuesday, September 22, which means they will launch in the same month as new iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods.
Apple is expected to introduce the unannounced products at its annual iPhone fall event, which is this year carrying the tagline "Surprise and shine." The event takes place on Wednesday, September 9, making this month one of the busiest Apple has had in a while.
We should therefore see eight new Apple products go on sale before the end of September:
Mac mini (M6 and M5 Pro): Announced last week, the new models start shipping September 22, with prices starting at $899.
Mac Studio (M5 Max and M5 Ultra): Also announced last week, the new models begin shipping September 22, with prices starting at $2,499.
iPhone 18 Pro: The flagship device set to be unveiled at Apple's fall event, with a smaller Dynamic Island and a A20 Pro chip.
iPhone 18 Pro Max: The device is rumored to gain a camera upgrade exclusive to the larger model, alongside a bigger battery.
Foldable iPhone: The company's first foldable is expected to have a ~5.5-inch display when closed, and a ~7.8-inch display when open, plus a super thin design with minimal crease and a durable hinge. It could be called "iPhone Ultra."
Apple Watch Series 12: Apple's upcoming smartwatch is expected feature fitness tracking improvements and a faster S12 chip.
Apple Watch Ultra 4: Apple's flagship rugged watch is expected to be updated alongside the Series 12, gaining the same S12 chip.
AirPods 5: The new earbuds were referenced in macOS 26.7 and are reportedly ready for release, suggesting a launch alongside the new iPhones.
Apple isn't going to release a standard iPhone 18 in September 2026. The lineup will instead focus on more expensive iPhones. The iPhone 18, iPhone 18e, and iPhone Air 2 will come out in spring 2027 instead. Apple does not plan to refresh the Apple Watch SE this year.
Apple has held its fall event in the first two weeks of September in each of the last several years, with new iPhones going on sale the following Friday.
Apple's "iPhone Ultra" was recently believed to have a delayed launch running into October, even though it's expected to be announced at the same time as the iPhone 18 Pro models. However, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said this week he would be "very surprised" if the foldable did not come out at the same time as the Pro iPhones or "very close to it."
"Either on the same launch date, a dual launch, or coming out within weeks later. This idea of a late October, November launch, massive delays, supply chain issues, I don't believe to be the case," he said.
Note that the Mac Studio configuration with 512GB of unified memory is coming in late October rather than on September 22. Every other Mac Studio configuration ships in September. This article, "Apple Launching Eight New Products This Month" first appeared on MacRumors.com
As we enter the next era, what will be the defining measure of our progress?
Every industry has a word that shapes how it thinks. For pilots, it’s safety. For insurers, it’s risk.
For the semiconductor industry, it’s yield.
Yield does not ask how elegant the solution is, how many years it took or what the roadmap promised. Rather, it asks one simple question: What useful output did we produce?
For more than 60 years, the semiconductor industry has asked that question, relentlessly maximizing the number of usable chips produced from every wafer. Generation after generation, wafer after wafer, it is precisely that discipline that turned the transistor from a laboratory curiosity into the foundation of modern life.
Today, we need to apply the same principle to the unprecedented resources that the world is pouring into AI: capital on a scale once reserved for nations, gigawatts of power and record-breaking fabs and datacenters.
The question that will define this decade is the same one this industry has always asked: What actually comes out? Not just chips and tokens, but as affordable intelligence, as work that matters and as outcomes that improve lives.
That is the yield imperative.
YouTube Video
The limit of more
AI has proliferated with remarkable speed, at a rate of adoption faster than the internet, the PC or even the smartphone. Yet, global penetration still stands at just 18% of the working population, and the vast majority of that usage is chat-based. As systems move from answering individual prompts to reasoning, planning, using tools and executing longer agentic workflows, the infrastructure equation changes dramatically. A single agentic task can use more than 3,400 times as many tokens as a typical chat interaction.
Source: Microsoft AI Diffusion Report
We are only in the early innings of agentic adoption, and the infrastructure is already strained. Power is setting the limits on what we can build and when. Packages and racks are growing larger and denser. Memory is becoming an even tighter constraint.
For years, the industry’s rational answer to each new requirement resulted in more: more silicon in the package, more memory beside it, more power to feed it and more fiber to connect it. Each generation delivered meaningful progress. But when each new gain requires more input than the one before it, we are on a treadmill. It moves only as long as we keep adding to it.
I believe we need to pursue two paths forward. The first is evolutionary: we continue improving the architectures we have today, driving incremental efficiency, utilization and economics within each generation. The second is transformational: changing the curve itself with innovation in new architectures, new materials and new approaches to system and model design.
The history of our industry is defined by transformations like these. When increasing CPU clock speeds ran into the power wall, we moved to multicore processors. When planar NAND reached its limits, memory went vertical.
And now, once again, we have an opportunity to challenge our assumptions and rethink the fundamentals. Because the next chapter of AI won’t be defined simply by how much infrastructure we build, it will be defined by how much intelligence we can create from it.
Engineering useful yield
For decades, the computing industry has optimized yield in the context of manufacturing. Today, that discipline has to extend across layers, from datacenters and silicon through models and the agentic harnesses that orchestrate them. And the work does not stop once the technology is built. We must then deploy and scale it faster, while developing new tools and systems to maximize utilization across our fleet.
From development through execution, each layer has a yield of its own, and losses and gains compound across them. Capacity at any one layer is only a starting point. The real measure is how effectively those layers work together to produce useful output from the system as a whole.
Our experience at Microsoft building and operating AI infrastructure at scale has reinforced two key lessons. First, the biggest constraints are rarely solved in the layer where they appear. Second, when we attack a constraint across the whole stack, tradeoffs that seemed inherent to the problem often turn out to be artifacts of the architecture.
The greatest advances often come when we apply these learnings through co-design, working across layers to turn apparent limits into solvable system constraints. Innovations in memory, networking and power show what this approach looks like in practice.
Memory: More intelligence from every byte
Today, memory is viewed as a supply problem or a component problem. In reality, it is a system problem.
In AI inference, memory is now setting the limits on system performance. It must hold larger models, preserve longer contexts and deliver data fast enough to keep the compute fed. And agents raise the bar even further. Generation, retrieval, tool use and persistent memory run together in loops that can last minutes or hours. The result is a much longer memory horizon, with far more information kept close to the compute and available across an expanding sequence of turns. Doing that efficiently at scale will define the next generation of AI infrastructure.
Our experience building the Azure Maia platform demonstrates that memory bottlenecks are not resolved by a single layer.
Model architecture, data science and compression can reduce the amount of KV cache, which stores the model’s working context during generation. Software can manage memory hierarchies more effectively, silicon can be optimized for data movement efficiency and compilers can place data closer to compute. No one change removes the constraint. Together, they increase the useful intelligence the system can deliver from the same memory resources.
That is useful yield: not simply adding bytes but getting more useful intelligence from every byte we already have.
Networking: Designing across layers
As we zoom out to the cluster level, we see that intelligence does not come from one chip. It comes from thousands of chips operating as one system. Faster links matter, but the productivity of the system also depends on congestion management, failure recovery, workload placement, programming complexity and the boundaries between silicon, system and software. Together, they determine whether expensive compute is producing intelligence or sitting idle.
When architecting the platform for Maia, we did not begin with an existing networking design. We began with the outcome we wanted to deliver: efficient inference at fleet scale, designing across silicon, networking and system software. Instead of separate scale-up and scale-out fabrics, we built a two-tier scale-up network, integrated the NIC functionality directly into the chip and developed a custom transport layer.
The result is scalable, consistent performance across dense inference clusters, with a unified fabric that simplifies programming, improves workload flexibility and makes better use of available capacity. And with less network hardware needed to deliver this performance, we also lowered the cost of running the entire system.
Our objective is not merely to move data faster. It is to keep more compute productive and deliver more tokens from every watt and every dollar.
Power: Co-designing for efficiency, from grid to chip
Moving from the cluster to the grid, AI has introduced new challenges around power availability, distribution and utilization. Racks have gone from tens of kilowatts to hundreds of kilowatts, and datacenter campuses can operate on the scale of gigawatts. Power used to be something the system simply plugged into. Now, it is something we design around, from the grid to the chip.
That is why the industry is rethinking power across the system. Solid-state transformers and 800-volt direct current power delivery can reduce distribution losses as power moves through infrastructure. Power and cooling are no longer downstream of the design, they are part of the product definition from the start. And increasingly, that co-design is needed all the way into the silicon.
Azure Cobalt 200, our Arm-based server CPU, shows what this looks like in practice. We designed Cobalt so that every core has its own voltage and frequency controls, paired with software-based, per-virtual-machine power capping. This finer-grained control enables targeted power adjustments while protecting the performance of critical workloads, allowing us to run more servers within the same power envelope.
As Cobalt demonstrates, hardware-software co-design enables us to more effectively turn every megawatt into customer value.
The breakthroughs between boundaries
The pattern we see across memory, networking and power extends throughout the system: start with the useful output, then optimize the whole rather than any one layer. This first requires us to be precise about the output we are optimizing for and which design constraints are truly fixed. Are we optimizing for peak performance or sustained system throughput? Would the workload benefit from significantly more capacity with marginally less redundancy? What creates more value: a broader set of capabilities or significantly earlier customer deployment?
Not every constraint in today’s systems is a law of physics. Some are inherited from decisions made elsewhere in the system and can change only when we work across traditional boundaries. Evolution comes from the steady gains each company drives within its own domain, but transformation comes when we challenge those assumptions together and redesign the system as a whole.
The breakthroughs ahead will emerge from collaboration across the ecosystem, spanning hyperscalers and silicon providers, equipment makers and materials innovators, utilities and datacenter operators, model builders and software developers.
Toward full yield
But tokens and intelligence are not the finish line. What we produce becomes the input for someone else’s work.
What matters next is how broadly that input translates into productivity across the economy and value in people’s lives, whether it helps a scientist accelerate discovery, a clinician identify a signal earlier, a student get help at the right time or a small business find a new path to growth.
That happens as AI becomes part of everyday work across industries and around the world. People build on it, new uses emerge, the tools improve and the value compounds.
For that cycle to spread, AI must be broadly accessible. And at scale, accessibility depends on efficiency. It is the only way to deploy enough intelligence, and at a cost that allows it to reach everyone.
When every person and every company can access intelligence, build on it and create value of their own, that is full yield.
We will continue to build capacity because the world will need it. But our defining measure of progress must be what comes out: not only chips or tokens, but useful intelligence translated into empowerment, opportunity and human achievement.
That is the yield imperative. And it is work our entire industry must take on together.
Rani Borkar leads the core organizations responsible for planning, architecting, developing and deploying hardware and infrastructure for Microsoft’s leading cloud computing platform — from silicon, to systems, to supply chain.
Learn more about Microsoft’s silicon to systems approach to Azure infrastructure.
Too Like the Lightning is a science fantasy (?) novel and the first
of a four-book series. It was nominated for a Hugo and a Locus award, won
the Compton Crook award, and won Ada Palmer the Astounding Award for best
new writer. It was Palmer's first novel.
Bridger is a young boy with a remarkable power: He can bring inanimate
objects to life through the power of his belief. He is being hidden by the
Saneer-Weeksbooth bash', a family (?) business (?) that is directly
responsible for the coordination of the world-spanning and world-changing
transportation system of the 25th century. Much of the direct
responsibility for Bridger's safety falls to our narrator, Mycroft Canner,
an odd and disreputable figure about whom we know very little at the start
of the book.
As this book opens, two things are happening simultaneously. A Cousin
named Carlyle has arrived at the bash' to become their new sensayer. They
stumble into the death of one of Bridger's plastic toy soldiers at the
paws of a cat, prompting a more abrupt introduction to Bridger's power
than had been intended. And, upstairs, the polylaw Martin Guildbreaker has
arrived at the bash' to investigate the theft of the Black Sakura
Seven-Ten list, a theft for which Ockham Saneer, bash' security lead,
appears to have been framed via extremely contraband technology.
Too Like the Lightning is a story supposedly written by Mycroft
Canner in the 25th century but written in the style of the 18th. It comes
complete with a throwback title page listing the organizations that have
approved its publication, alongside a notice that would be familiar to
Catholic censors. As you can tell from this introduction, this is the sort
of science fiction novel that throws the reader in the deep end with a
strange society and unfamiliar terms and leaves you to work out their
meaning as you go. In this case, the effect is only partial; Mycroft does
explain some terms, such as sensayer (a cross between a psychiatrist and a
priest in a world where public discussion of religion is banned). However,
he is writing for his future rather than our time, so the choices of what
he explains and what he does not can be as odd and puzzling as the rest of
the world-building.
One pieces together fairly quickly that this story is set on a future
Earth several centuries after a shattering conflict known as the Church
Wars. Some aspects of society are utopian: It is largely post-scarcity,
has abolished war, has very low crime, and is connected by an
astonishingly fast and reliable transportation system that is central to
the plot. Most aspects, though, are ambiguous, mixed, or just deeply
weird. Geography-based political polities have been mostly abolished.
Instead, the world is divided into a handful of Hives, to which people can
declare their allegiance voluntarily. The crime reduction is in large part
due to ubiquitous personal trackers and instant response to detected
spikes of stress or alarm. Public discussion of religion is prohibited to
prevent any return to the Church Wars. Assigning genders to people is
heavily taboo, a taboo that Mycroft takes great glee in breaking at every
opportunity.
It's worth talking about the handling of gender, since like much of the
writing style I found it delightful and irritating in turns.
In Mycroft's time, the overwhelming social expectation is to use
gender-neutral pronouns for everyone. Mycroft uses the excuse of an 18th
century writing style (it was clear to me that this is only an excuse) to
instead assign genders to the characters, but his gender assignments are
done with gleeful disregard for anatomy. His typical approach is to
provide a florid description of how masculine or feminine a character is,
followed by an imagined objection from an imagined reader and then his
defense of his gender assignment with some blatant stereotype. Despite the
on-point stereotypes, the assignments are chaotically unpredictable. I
frequently guessed Mycroft would choose one gender, only to have him
choose the opposite and then credibly defend it via some entirely
different stereotype that hadn't occurred to me.
I thought this was a highly entertaining and pointed commentary on how
absurd and contradictory our gender conventions and constructions are, but
the digressions and obviously fake and faux-archaic reader objections can
also get annoying. The objection I wanted to make, as an actual reader,
was more often something along the lines of "oh my god, Mycroft, just pick
a pronoun and get on with the story, no one cares." Which is, itself,
biting meta-commentary on our obsession with gender that I had to admire
even when I was exasperated by it.
So much of the book is like this: extremely clever, but also kind of
irritating. Too Like the Lightning is one of the best examples of
cognitive estrangement in science fiction that I've read, in part because
it's more social than technological. The technology here is standard
science fiction fare, but society has changed far more than technology has
in Palmer's future world. All (I think?) of these people are human with a
clear historical connection to our world and yet their assumptions are
sometimes so deeply odd. Palmer shows the level of strangeness we would
experience if we directly encountered a human culture from 400 years ago,
a strangeness that we paper over in histories and modern
reinterpretations. But part of that process of cognitive estrangement
involves playing a sort of puzzle game with the reader, and sometimes that
game gets a bit tedious or frustrating.
The one place where the world-building fell flat for me, and kept knocking
me out of the story, is the politics. Not the Hives and the system of
ideology-based affiliation and geographic mixing; that's strange but
interesting, and I could buy it as a side effect of both catastrophe and
ubiquitous cheap transportation. Not the complicated system of legal codes
and exceptions and competing jurisdictions; that felt believably baroque
in the way that complexity emerges in the friction in long-lived human
systems. My problem was with the scale, or rather the lack of scale.
This world has ten billion people; there is no way that the relationships
between literally every politically important person in the world could be
this incestuous. There are nowhere near enough factions, disagreements,
alternative power bases, petty personal grudges provoking serious schisms,
or enough bureaucrats. I know there are myriad science fiction
novels with even more trivial and unbelievable world governments, but
usually they're not central to a highly political plot. Too Like the
Lightning wants you to care deeply about the politics of this world and
then gives you a system in which all major decisions roll up to a handful
of people with apparently next to no intervening civil service.
Also, why is there so little redundancy? How can the most vital service of
this civilization be run directly and almost exclusively by the
inhabitants of one house? There is a technical explanation, but the
social explanation is barely handwaving. This is not how institutional
trust generally works; even with vast multinational high-capital
near-monopolies such as cloud computing, there are three major players and
innumerable smaller ones.
Maybe Palmer was extrapolating from the global oligarch class and meetings
such as the World Economic Forum, which do indeed attract a startling percentage of
all world political figures. The problem, though, is not the surface of
occasional gatherings or staged events seen early in this story. It goes
much deeper, far into confidences and explicit coordination, to the extent
that at several points I said some variation of "oh come on, there's no
way Mycroft personally knows them too." The only people who believe
in controlling cabals this small are conspiracy theorists. This is simply
not how humans work when this much power is at stake.
Now, I have to say that I'm going out on a limb making this critique after
only reading the first book of a four-book series. This is absolutely the
type of work for which my reaction and objections could be an intentional
effect created by Palmer in order to spring some unexpected justification
on the reader in book two or three. It's clear that there is some massive
social upheaval on the horizon in this series, and something very strange
is going on with one of the characters and their hold over other people.
Perhaps the reader disbelief is setting up that upheaval. If so, hats off
to her, and that's one of the perils of reviewing books as I read them.
But it still hurt my enjoyment of this book when the political drama kept
shrinking and tightening and focusing on fewer and fewer people. It felt
frankly unbelievable for the political universe of this highly political
book to be this claustrophobic. I wanted it to expand into the space that
should be available to an entire world teeming with fractious and complex
humanity.
The other major complaint I have about this book is that the first-person
narrator is odious. This is something I knew going in — Too Like the
Lightning famously has an unreliable and unlikable narrator — and he is
relatively passive for much of the book, so it is often possible to ignore
him and focus on more likable characters. I don't necessarily mind an
unlikable or unreliable narrator in this type of story.
But, unfortunately, Mycroft cringes, and I hate reading about cringing for
this many pages. His primary mode of interaction with people is
obsequious, performative fear with a weird, distasteful edge of
manipulation. Again, I think this is entirely intentional on Palmer's
part; we learn some of the reasons behind it by the end of this book, and
I'm sure we'll learn more in future books. But, nonetheless, the overall
effect is a bit like reading a book narrated by
Gríma
Wormtongue. I can appreciate the narrative role of that character without
wanting to spend this much time in his head.
I have very mixed feelings about this book. The overall construction is
brilliant; it's a beautiful puzzle of oddity and alienation that provides
great fun for the type of science fiction reader who wants to work out the
rules of a strange society without a lot of infodumping. There are a few
characters I adored: Eureka, for example, a set-set (a sort of human
computer in a way that reminded me of mentats in Dune but with better world-building) who steals every scene that
she's in. I was very invested in the world-building, fascinated by the
Utopians, and want to learn more about what's going on.
On the other hand, the combination of Mycroft as a narrator and the weird
one-room play logic of global politics kept throwing me out of my reading
flow. It took me about a month to finish this book. The science fiction
and political fiction aspects of the story interested me more than Bridger
and whatever is going on with J.E.D.D. Mason, and I'm worried that my
least-favorite aspects will be central to the rest of the story. I was
enjoying a smaller percentage of the scenes by the end of the book than I
was at the start, which is not a great sign.
And yet, the ending absolutely worked on me. I don't want to stop here! I
will probably pick up the sequel, but I think it's going to take me a
while to brace myself for it.
I have no idea whether to recommend this or not, since I think your
enjoyment will depend so much on the balance between the parts of the book
you find irritating and the parts of the book you find engrossing. I'm
fairly sure most readers will find a little of both, but I have no idea
how to predict their relative weight. If you like cognitive estrangement,
this is great; I understand why so many science fiction reviewers rave
about this book. If you need to like the first-person protagonist, uh,
good luck. Maybe you'll have more tolerance for cringing than I do.
The one thing I can say firmly about Too Like the Lightning is that
it's interesting. It may be worth reading just to see how people
are stretching the genre, even if you end up not liking the effect. But be
warned that this book does not so much end on a cliffhanger as suddenly
stop at some random, nondescript point on the road leading to the cliff.
The ending is deeply unsatisfying; you will need to read more if you want
to understand what's going on.
Apple today informed developers that universal Mac App Store apps that require macOS 13 or later can remove support for Intel-based Mac computers.
We're reaching out to let you know that universal macOS apps on the Mac App Store that require macOS 13 or later can now remove support for Intel-based Mac computers.
By removing support for Intel-based Mac computers, you can simplify your development and optimize your download and on-device size.
Apps that drop Intel support will no longer deliver updates for those machines, but Intel Mac users will be able to keep using the last compatible version of an app. Apple did not previously allow Mac App Store apps with Intel compatibility to drop support.
Apple is also phasing out support for Rosetta 2, the feature that lets Intel-based apps run on Apple silicon Macs. Rosetta will stop working for most apps after macOS Golden Gate, and apps that use it won't launch. Apple is making an exception for some older unmaintained gaming titles that rely on Intel-based frameworks.
It's been almost 12 months since Apple launched the iPhone Air, and because MacRumors videographer Dan Barbera has been using it daily since launch, he decided to do a one-year review covering what it's like using Apple's super-thin iPhone on a long-term basis.
The iPhone Air is the thinnest iPhone Apple has released to date, and the form factor doesn't get old. It's pocketable, can be used with one hand, and it's much lighter than the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. There's not much compromise on screen size since it has a 6.5-inch OLED display.
Apple used a smaller battery in the iPhone Air, and it doesn't last as long as the iPhone 17 Pro models. Some people might be able to get through the day on a single charge, but others will need an external battery pack like the one Apple built for the iPhone Air.
There's a single camera, which is one of the compromises with Apple's super-thin iPhone. You only get the Wide lens, with no option for the Ultra Wide or Telephoto lenses that come with the other iPhone 17 models. No Ultra Wide also means no macro images.
Price was and continues to be the biggest iPhone Air issue. At $999, it's more expensive than the iPhone 17, which has two cameras and nearly the same processor, and only $100 less than the three-camera iPhone 17 Pro. The iPhone Air's price wasn't worth it to a lot of people, and rumors suggest that it didn't sell well.
Make sure to watch Dan's video to see all of his thoughts on the iPhone Air.
Apple has set new CEO John Ternus' target compensation at $58 million, according to an updated SEC filing [PDF]. Tim Cook's target compensation is $47 million in his new role as executive chairman.
Ternus' fiscal 2027 compensation includes a $3 million salary and an annual equity award with a target value of $55 million. A quarter of the award is time-based and will vest semiannually over four years. The rest of the restricted stock units (RSUs) will vest based on Apple's total shareholder return relative to other companies in the S&P 500, which is how Cook's RSUs have worked for many years. For fiscal 2026, Apple granted Ternus a prorated RSU award with a target value of $2.5 million.
Cook's new salary will be $2 million, but he's also earning an equity award with a target value of $45 million in fiscal 2027. Half will be granted in the form of time-based RSUs that vest over four years, and the other half will vest based on Apple's stock performance. Should Cook retire on or after the first anniversary of the grant date, his equity will vest, but he won't receive the shares until the originally scheduled vesting dates.
Target compensation figures for Ternus and Cook do not include performance-based bonuses, so the final amount each earns in fiscal 2027 could change.
In 2025, Cook earned $74.3 million, including a $3 million salary, $12 million in performance-based cash awards, and $57.5 million in stock awards.
Ternus' previous pay as Apple's senior vice president of hardware engineering was not publicly shared, so this is the first look at his compensation.
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