Apple's next-generation AI dictation feature for the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air is not turned on by default in the first developer beta of iOS 27.


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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



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

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

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

Siri AI App

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

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

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

Apple TV Remote App Returns

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

All-New Find My on Apple Watch

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

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

Pass Designer

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

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

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

Claris FileMaker Go 2026

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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



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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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



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

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

‌iOS 27‌, the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌, and ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max are expected to be released this fall.
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Signify has launched Sports Live, a new feature for Philips Hue and WiZ smart lighting products that synchronizes lighting effects with live soccer match data in real time (via Hue Blog).


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

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

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

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

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

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

Sports Live is compatible with existing Hue and WiZ entertainment features, including Hue Sync and WiZ Sync with TV, with the 2026 FIFA World Cup now underway in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S.
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A known Weibo leaker has reiterated that the iPhone 18 Pro will retain its aluminum alloy build, while issuing a specific warning that the new color options may be susceptible to paint peeling.


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

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

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

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

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

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

The ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ and ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max are expected to be announced in September 2026, alongside the first foldable iPhone.
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Apple last week announced a series of new App Store features, including personalized app recommendations and expanded tools for developers to market their apps.


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

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

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

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

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

Apple also announced that the age rating questionnaire in ‌App Store‌ Connect will be updated in July to allow developers to indicate whether their app includes social media capabilities such as interacting with user-generated content through a social feed. This ties into new Time Allowances features coming in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, which give parents more granular controls over how much time children spend in apps across categories including Entertainment, Games, and Social Media.
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Apple developed more for its next-generation software updates than it revealed at WWDC last week, with three features already present in internal builds being deliberately withheld from the public announcement, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.


Writing in the latest edition of his "Power On" newsletter, Gurman says all three missing features are active in internal versions of Apple's operating systems on employee devices today, and each is expected to surface publicly at a later date.

Customizable Camera App

A customizable Camera app for the iPhone, first reported by Gurman in May, also failed to appear at WWDC. The feature would let users rearrange camera controls as widgets along the top of the interface, choosing from options like flash, exposure, timer, depth of field, photo styles, and resolution.

Gurman believes Apple is holding it back specifically for the iPhone 18 Pro, which is expected to bring the most significant camera hardware upgrade in several years.

Siri Extensions

The most notable omission is Extensions, a framework that would allow third-party AI chatbots beyond ChatGPT to integrate with Siri, Apple Intelligence, and features like Writing Tools and Image Playground. Gurman says underlying support for Extensions is already present and visible in the first iOS 27 developer beta, with both a dedicated settings panel and an App Store section built and waiting to be switched on.

Apple has reportedly already held discussions with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google about the framework, including details about an entitlement those companies would need to apply for. Gurman says he has "no doubt" the feature will arrive eventually.

As for why the Extensions feature was kept out of the WWDC, Gurman offers four theories. Firstly, demonstrating strong AI interoperability could weaken Apple's ongoing argument against EU regulators. Secondly, announcing robust third-party chatbot support could have overshadowed Apple's own Siri overhaul. Thirdly, the threat of litigation from OpenAI may have persuaded Apple to avoid publicly stripping ChatGPT of its exclusive status at its developer conference. Finally, adding a range of external AI options would have further complicated Apple's messaging at a time when it already needed to explain its use of Google's AI models in ‌Siri‌ AI.

Anyone running the first ‌iOS 27‌ or macOS Golden Gate betas can already see a chatbot picker allowing users to switch between ‌Siri‌ and ChatGPT; Gurman says that list is expected to grow via the new developer framework and ‌App Store‌ section. The feature has reportedly been in active use inside Apple for months.

Modular Watch Face

A new Modular watch face for Apple Watch was among the items Gurman had flagged as expected at WWDC but did not appear. Gurman's earlier claim that watchOS 27 would introduce new faces centered on a simplified take on the Modular Ultra design currently exclusive to the Apple Watch Ultra.

Gurman now expects the new face to debut alongside new Apple Watch models this fall.
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Apple may eventually build a direct competitor to OpenClaw, an agentic AI system capable of autonomously operating software on behalf of the user, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes.


Writing in his Power On newsletter, Gurman says he expects Apple to develop a system that could fully operate iPhone, iPad, and Mac software on the user's behalf. The prediction comes on the back of comments made by Apple's Siri engineering chief, Mike Rockwell, following last week's WWDC keynote.

Rockwell appeared to leave the door open for ‌Siri‌ to expand beyond its current capabilities, describing the new engine underpinning the assistant as "a completely modern architecture" built with extensibility in mind:

[An agent is] something that is operating on a loop of information coming in, making decisions, and then taking action. And ours is primarily request based today.
 But the underpinning architecture for Siri is a completely modern architecture, and so our ability to extend in the future is is very similar.

Apple's SVP of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, acknowledged the broader category but was measured in his framing of it, describing the space as experimental and saying that finding the right user experience remains the priority, while stopping short of ruling out Apple's eventual participation.

Apple's upcoming ‌Siri‌ implementation is newly rebuilt on a large language model foundation, and remains a request-based system. Full computer-use agentic functionality of the kind offered by OpenClaw and similar tools from Google and Anthropic would represent a significant expansion beyond what Apple announced last week.
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Apple will end software support for 16 devices this fall across four product lines, with the Apple Watch seeing the most sweeping cull in the product's history.


The full extent of this year's software drops became clear with the announcements of macOS 27 Golden Gate, iPadOS 27, tvOS 27, and watchOS 27 at WWDC this week. The one bright spot is that iOS 27 features identical device support to iOS 26, with no iPhone models removed from the compatibility list, and the same goes for the HomePod.

The Apple Watch sees the sharpest cuts. watchOS 27 drops the Series 6, Series 7, Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra (first generation), and Apple Watch SE (second generation) in a single wave, requiring an S9 or S10 chip. watchOS 26 had supported the same lineup as watchOS 11 before it, including the Series 6 and later, the SE (2nd generation) and later, and all Apple Watch Ultra models. Wiping out three launch generations at once is the biggest loss of latest-generation support for Apple Watch to date.

The iPad lineup also sees an unusually aggressive set of cuts. iPadOS 27 raises the floor to the A14 Bionic chip or the M1 chip, dropping five models that still run iPadOS 26: The iPad Air (3rd generation), the iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation), the ‌iPad Pro‌ 11-inch (1st generation), the ‌iPad‌ (8th generation), and the iPad mini (5th generation). By comparison, ‌iPadOS 26‌ cut only a single device from the iPadOS 18 list (the 7th generation ‌iPad‌).

macOS Golden Gate brings the era of Intel Macs to a close. The four remaining Intel machines supported by macOS Tahoe don't make the cut this year: The MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019), ‌MacBook Pro‌ (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports), iMac (2020), and Mac Pro (2019). Apple said last year that ‌macOS Tahoe‌ would be the final release for pre-Apple silicon Macs, and macOS 27 makes that official.

Apple TV sees two models dropped with tvOS 27: The ‌Apple TV‌ HD from 2015 and the ‌Apple TV‌ 4K (1st generation) from 2017. Only the 2nd and 3rd generation ‌Apple TV‌ 4K models will receive the update. The full list of devices losing support for the latest software this fall is as follows:

‌watchOS 27‌

• Apple Watch Series 6 (2020)


• Apple Watch Series 7 (2021)


• Apple Watch Series 8 (2022)


• Apple Watch Ultra (1st generation, 2022)


• Apple Watch SE (2nd generation, 2022)

‌iPadOS 27‌

• ‌iPad Air‌ (3rd generation, 2019)


• ‌iPad Pro‌ 12.9-inch (3rd generation, 2018)


• ‌iPad Pro‌ 11-inch (1st generation, 2018)


• ‌iPad‌ (8th generation, 2020)


• ‌iPad mini‌ (5th generation, 2019)

macOS 27 Golden Gate

• ‌MacBook Pro‌ (16-inch, 2019)


• ‌MacBook Pro‌ (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)


• ‌iMac‌ (2020)


• Mac Pro (2019)

tvOS 27

• ‌Apple TV‌ HD (2015)


• ‌Apple TV‌ 4K (1st generation, 2017)

Owners of affected devices aren't entirely without options in the near term; Apple typically continues issuing security patches for the previous OS version for at least a year after it's superseded. For the latest features, though, newer hardware is the only path forward. Apple's new operating systems are expected to be released in September following a period of beta testing.
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Apple this week confirmed that Notion is migrating its user interface to SwiftUI, citing the app's desire for greater performance and UI consistency than its existing web-based stack can deliver.


Notion is a productivity app that combines notes, documents, databases, and project management tools in one place. Users can create pages containing text, tables, kanban boards, calendars, and more, and organize them in a flexible hierarchy.

The announcement was made during Apple's SwiftUI segment during its Platforms State of the Union, where Notion was used as a flagship example of an app moving away from cross-platform and web technologies to native Apple frameworks. The callout was clearly deliberate; Notion is one of the most widely used productivity apps on the Mac, and has long been criticized for the sluggishness that comes with its Electron-based architecture.

This is not Notion's first step toward native. Notion had already been gradually moving its iOS and Android apps away from web-based rendering in 2025, with most of the mobile experience now running natively except for the editor. The WWDC mention suggests that effort is now extending more substantially, with SwiftUI as the target framework.

Apple also noted that agentic coding tools are making migrations like this more practical, saying "porting code to Swift has never been easier," pointing to AI-assisted development workflows lowering the barrier for teams considering a move away from cross-platform stacks.

The SwiftUI session also covered a broad set of framework improvements. Apple is unifying SwiftUI, AppKit, and UIKit around a common foundation, so improvements made for Apple's own apps automatically benefit third-party developers. Nested stack layouts now resize up to twice as fast, state objects initialize lazily, and AsyncImage gains automatic HTTP caching.

SwiftUI also gains reorderable containers for drag-to-reorder in any container type, swipe actions inside any container, and full-fidelity text selection on iOS. On macOS, Text now supports custom renderers, text vibrancy, and vertical text.

Toolbar control is more granular, with a new visibilityPriority modifier, an overflow menu for deprioritized actions, and a topBarPinnedTrailing placement to anchor items to the trailing edge. A new document infrastructure adds first-class URL access for reading and writing to disk, and the ability to write only changed file portions on save.
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Apple introduced new content in its Fitness+ subscription service this week, including a new menopause-focused workout program.


Fitness+ gains "Strong Through Menopause," a progressive three-week program featuring weekly Yoga and Strength workouts designed to help users navigating perimenopause and menopause build strength, improve balance and mobility, and reduce stress. A new episode of Time to Walk also features actor Busy Philipps, who shares stories from her life including her own experience with perimenopause.

The program complements perimenopause and menopause tracking support introduced in Cycle Tracking with watchOS 27 and iOS 27.

‌iOS 27‌ also brings several broader updates to the Health and Fitness apps. Users can now sort by completed Fitness+ workouts, route maps in the Fitness app are said to be more accurate following workouts, and step count is now synced between the Health and Fitness apps.
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Apple appears to have modified the audio of this week's WWDC 2026 keynote video whenever "Siri" was mentioned, apparently in an effort to prevent viewers' nearby devices from waking inadvertently during the presentation.


The technique was spotted by observers on X, who shared spectrogram screenshots showing clear gaps in those specific frequency ranges coinciding precisely with instances of the ‌Siri‌ name throughout the video. Apple appears to have cut out the 3kHz, 4kHz, 5kHz, and 6kHz frequency bands.



The approach is designed to defeat wake-word detection, which relies on recognizing the acoustic profile of phrases like "‌Siri‌" and Hey ‌Siri‌." By surgically removing the frequencies that carry key phonetic energy in the word "‌Siri‌," Apple can reduce the likelihood that HomePods, iPhones, iPads, and Macs in a viewer's home will trigger while the keynote plays back.

The technique does not appear to have been fully effective, however, as multiple viewers reported their devices activating anyway during the stream.

In 2017, Amazon was found to use a similar approach in its Alexa TV commercials, notching out frequencies to avoid triggering Echo smart speakers in viewers' homes.
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Apple software chief Craig Federighi used the WWDC 2026 keynote to draw a pointed contrast between Apple's approach to artificial intelligence and the broader industry, suggesting that some competitors are developing AI without meaningful consideration for the people using it.


During Monday's ‌WWDC 2026‌ keynote, Federighi said:

AI is incredibly powerful technology. Still, some appear to be racing forward, seemingly pursuing AI for the sake of AI, without clear regard to the people, all of us, that it's ultimately meant to serve.

The remarks appeared to be aimed squarely at rivals including OpenAI, Google, and Meta, all of which have aggressively shipped AI products and services over the past two years. Federighi argued that Apple's conservative approach is more useful because it draws on personal context.

The comments arrived alongside Apple's unveiling of Siri AI, a ground-up rebuild of its digital assistant powered by the next generation of Apple Intelligence. Federighi described the effort as "a big leap forward," with "an innovative architecture that unlocks a new Siri across platforms."

Apple said it has created a second version of its Apple Foundation Models capable of understanding speech and reading text and images, with a new system orchestrator coordinating capabilities across its platforms.

The implicit dig at competitors carries some irony given Apple's own recent history with AI. The company spent the better part of two years struggling to deliver a meaningfully improved ‌Siri‌, and earlier this year parted ways with John Giannandrea, its former head of AI and machine learning, following a prolonged restructuring of its AI teams.

Federighi pushed back against the idea that the new ‌Siri‌ is simply another "bolted-on chatbot," saying the company sees it as "an integral but conversational tool that you use in the moment." Privacy, he said, is "non-negotiable," with data used only to execute a user's request.
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Audible last month launched a connected subscription that lets members stream nearly 700 premium podcast titles directly within Apple Podcasts, available across 135 countries.


The integration gives Audible members ad-free access to an expansive catalog of Audible Originals spanning true crime, investigative journalism, celebrity-led audio dramas, and personal growth categories.

Titles available at launch include award-winning series like Dr. Death, American Scandal, Business Wars, Dying for Sex, and Hysterical, Reinvent Your Life with Mel Robbins, The Prophecy, and The Big Lie. Marshall Lewy, Head of Audible Content for North America, said:

By bringing Audible's distinctive catalog to Apple Podcasts, we're allowing members to find their favorite Originals where many of them already listen to their podcasts. And by making select shows and episodes available widely, we have the opportunity to introduce new listeners to the extraordinary audio storytelling Audible offers right inside the Apple Podcasts app.

Existing Audible members can access the integration by opening ‌Apple Podcasts‌, where their subscription should connect automatically, or by searching for any Audible premium show and linking their account at no additional cost.

New subscribers can sign up directly through ‌Apple Podcasts‌ by searching for an Audible show such as Dr. Death and subscribing via the Audible app. Membership also unlocks standard Audible benefits including one audiobook per month and an unlimited listening library.

The full Audible channel on Apple Podcasts is available now in over 135 countries. Audible says the integration is expected to roll out to members in Australia, Japan, and Canada this month.
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Apple shares have lost roughly $25 per share this week following the company's WWDC 2026 keynote, though a wave of upward analyst price target revisions suggests Wall Street's longer-term view of Apple remains constructive.


According to Tech Times, AAPL hit an all-time intraday high of around $317.40 on June 8 during the unveiling of Siri AI, before reversing to close at $301.54, down 1.89%. The slide continued over the following two days, with shares falling to around $290.55 by the close of June 10. The stock is trading around $292 as of writing.

The drop has been attributed in part to mixed investor reaction to ‌Siri‌ AI. ‌Siri‌ AI will not launch on iPhone and iPad in the European Union due to compliance issues, and the feature faces a similarly delayed rollout in China due to regulatory hurdles. According to Yahoo Finance, Morgan Stanley estimates those two excluded markets together account for roughly 35% of trailing 12-month iPhone shipments.

The analyst community's response to this year's WWDC has been broadly positive, with several firms raising their price targets. TheStreet reports that TD Cowen raised its Apple price target to $350 from $335, Maxim Group raised its target to $350 from $310, and Morgan Stanley raised its target to $360, all maintaining Buy or Overweight ratings.

JPMorgan reiterated its Overweight rating with a $325 price target, while Jefferies held its target at $299.88. According to Investing.com, Bernstein reiterated an Outperform rating and a $350 price target, while UBS maintained a Neutral rating with a $296 target. Maxim Group increased its fiscal 2027 projections on the expectation that improvements in AI-related products will serve as a catalyst for both services and hardware sales.

TradingKey characterized the post-WWDC selloff as a classic "buy-the-rumor, sell-the-news" reaction, noting that Apple's second quarter results of $111.2 billion in revenue and a $31 billion services all-time high remain unchanged by any of the WWDC announcements.

The September iPhone event will be the next major test for investors and the first keynote under incoming CEO John Ternus.
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Apple and leaker Jon Prosser have jointly asked a federal court to set aside the default judgment entered against him last October, with Prosser agreeing to hand over documents he had thus far failed to fully produce.


Apple filed suit against Prosser and Michael Ramacciotti in July 2025, alleging misappropriation of trade secrets after Prosser published videos showing recreated renderings of iOS 26's Liquid Glass design months before Apple's announcement. According to the complaint, Ramacciotti secretly accessed the iPhone of Apple software engineer Ethan Lipnik and showed Prosser a pre-release build of the software in exchange for payment. Lipnik was subsequently fired.

Prosser missed his deadline to formally respond to the complaint, prompting Apple's lawyers to file a request for a default judgment. The court entered the default in October 2025, after which Prosser told The Verge he had "been in active communications with Apple since the beginning stages of this case."

The situation did not improve significantly in the months that followed. A joint status report filed in April showed Prosser was still failing to comply with discovery, prompting Apple to seek a court order to compel him. The filing noted that while Prosser had provided some responsive materials, he had failed to fully respond to certain requests and had not responded at all to others.

This stood in contrast to Ramacciotti, who allowed Apple to forensically review an additional device, agreed to supplement his interrogatory responses, and offered to sit for a follow-up deposition, with Apple and Ramacciotti having been informally discussing a potential settlement since at least October.

Prosser did not retain legal counsel until April 14, 2026. According to the joint stipulation filed June 9, Apple served Prosser with subpoenas in January 2026 seeking documents and a deposition related to its claims against Ramacciotti, but Prosser had not fully responded to the document subpoena and had not sat for a deposition.

As part of the agreement, Prosser committed to producing all materials responsive to Apple's document subpoena by June 9, 2026, and to sit for a deposition by no later than June 16, 2026. Apple stated it believes setting aside the default is "the most efficient way to advance this case without further delay."

The stipulation still requires approval from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. If approved, Prosser would have ten days from the date of the order to file a responsive pleading to Apple's complaint, giving him a formal opportunity to contest the allegations for the first time.
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A new report from TrendForce claims Apple's iPhone production surged 19.7% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2026, even as the broader global smartphone market contracted 1.7% over the same period.


According to TrendForce, Apple produced approximately 60.2 million iPhone units in the first quarter, placing it second among global smartphone brands. Samsung retained the top spot with approximately 62.6 million units, a 2.3% year-over-year increase. TrendForce attributes Apple's strong output partly to the launch of the iPhone 17e, in addition to ongoing production ramp-up for the broader iPhone 17 lineup.

The figures reflect Apple's relative resilience in a market increasingly burdened by rising memory component costs. TrendForce says Apple is better positioned than most competitors to absorb those higher costs without sacrificing profitability, and suggests the company is more likely to prioritize market share growth during the current downturn as it lays the groundwork for its expanding software and services business. Apple is one of the few major smartphone brands that has not raised prices in response to the memory price surge.

The picture is considerably grimmer elsewhere. Chinese brands Oppo, Xiaomi, and Vivo ranked third through fifth globally with 29.5 million, 26 million, and 22 million units respectively, with TrendForce warning that all three face significant uncertainty around their 2026 production plans as surging memory costs weigh on profitability. Transsion, which ranked sixth at approximately 19.8 million units, is said to be particularly exposed given its heavy concentration in entry-level and budget segments where margins are already thin.

Looking ahead, TrendForce forecasts global smartphone production will decline approximately 16.2% year-over-year to 1.051 billion units across 2026. The firm warns that figure could worsen if memory prices remain elevated and brands are forced to pass costs on to consumers through repeated retail price increases.
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Apple announced a sweeping set of new subscription tools for App Store developers at WWDC 2026, including cross-developer subscription bundles, group and enterprise purchasing options, retention tools, and a streamlined submission workflow.

Subscription Bundles and Suites

The main change is a new Bundle and Suite system that lets developers partner with each other to offer combined subscriptions spanning multiple apps for the first time. Previously, developers could only bundle subscriptions within their own catalog. With Bundles, subscribers can purchase access to multiple subscriptions in a single transaction rather than buying each individually.

Suites go a step further, offering a set of subscriptions that are not available standalone, purchasable as a single subscription. Apple says more details on how to request Bundle and Suite functionality will be available later this summer.

The move mirrors strategies common among streaming services. For example, Apple TV itself offers Peacock as an add-on for $2 per month, and subscription bundles are generally associated with stronger user retention than standalone plans.

Retention Messaging

Retention Messaging is a new tool that lets developers reach subscribers at the moment they choose to cancel. Developers can deliver custom messaging about a subscription's value alongside imagery and even attach a special offer, without adding friction to the cancellation flow.

Retention Messages can be configured in ‌App Store‌ Connect or via a new Retention Messaging API for more direct, real-time interaction with subscribers. The feature is coming this fall.

Group and Volume Purchasing

Apple is also introducing two new ways for developers to sell subscriptions beyond individual consumers. Group Purchases let a single subscriber buy multiple seats and invite others to join, with Apple handling the invitation flow. Each member joins from their own account, making it straightforward to manage who is in the group.

Volume Purchasing makes subscriptions available to enterprise and education buyers through Apple School Manager and Apple Business, fitting into existing device and identity management workflows.

Volume Purchasing is coming this fall and Group Purchases will arrive later this year.

12-Month Commitment Plans

Monthly subscriptions with a 12-month commitment, which offer a more affordable payment option for subscribers, are now available. Subscribers can view their completed and remaining payments in their Apple Account, and Apple will send email reminders ahead of renewal dates, with push notifications available for those who have opted in.

The payment type is available on iOS 26.4, iPadOS 26.4, macOS Tahoe 26.4, tvOS 26.4, and visionOS 26.4 or later, everywhere except the United States and Singapore.

Streamlined Submission Workflow

There is also an overhauled in-app purchase submission workflow in ‌App Store‌ Connect. Developers can now group multiple in-app purchases, including subscriptions, into a single submission, or combine them with In-App Events, custom product pages, and product page optimization tests, with review status and App Review messages all visible in one centralized view.

Support for ‌App Store‌ Connect's web interface and the ‌App Store‌ Connect API is coming later this summer.
This article, "Apple Introduces Major App Store Subscription Overhaul at WWDC 2026" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple's WWDC 2026 keynote broke from a longstanding format tradition, abandoning the platform-by-platform structure that has defined the annual developer conference for years in favor of a theme-driven presentation.


Previous WWDC keynotes were organized by operating system. Last year's event walked through iOS, watchOS, tvOS, macOS, visionOS, and iPadOS in sequence before closing with a developer-focused segment. This year, Apple scrapped that structure entirely, dividing the keynote into three broad themes instead: Platform improvements, trust and safety, and Apple Intelligence and Siri.

The change appears to reflect the degree of cross-platform integration Apple has achieved this cycle, which has been growing for years. When the same features land simultaneously across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, addressing each platform individually no longer makes obvious sense. While Apple has promoted tight ecosystem integration for years, 2026 seems to be the first year that integration is deep enough to make the old format feel arbitrary.

The restructuring was not the only departure from form. Apple devoted more than ten minutes of keynote time to child safety and screen time, an unusually prominent segment that could be seen as a direct response to growing regulatory pressure on tech companies. The new parental controls include mandatory child accounts for users under 13, granular app access permissions, and an Ask to Browse feature requiring children to request parental approval before visiting new websites in Safari.

The AI demonstrations in the keynote itself also felt markedly different from their initial look in 2024. Two years ago, Apple did not allow press or attendees to try the new Siri after the event, and The Information later reported that what Apple showed on stage was not a functional demo but an elaborate concept video. This year, the Siri AI demonstrations appeared to run in real time, with presenters visibly waiting for responses and navigating results as they came in.

Apple also held live, in-person hands-on demos for media after the keynote, a format that has not featured at WWDC for years, giving the event something of a pre-pandemic feel that stood in stark contrast to the slick, wholly pre-recorded presentations the conference has leaned on since 2020. Following the keynote, Apple held a post-keynote "Tech Talk" session with Craig Federighi, where members of the media could put questions to him directly in a more conversational setting.

The visual style of the keynote also differed noticeably from previous years. Apple appeared to move away from the heavily stabilized steadicam footage, with much of this year's presentation visibly shot handheld, giving the keynote a more natural look.

Did you prefer the format of this year's WWDC? Let us know in the comments.
This article, "WWDC 2026 Keynote Marked a Major Departure From Previous Years" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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