Just two days before Apple's "Welcome home" experience in New York, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has leaked several details about the new products set to be unveiled, including an all-new smart home hub, a HomePod mini 2, and a new Apple TV 4K.


Here is an all-in-one summary of the details shared by Gurman:

• Apple's home hub with a touch-enabled display will be named HomeView, seemingly confirming a trademark filing discovered by MacRumors.


• HomeView is equipped with an A18 chip, which has 8GB of RAM in iPhones.


• HomeView will support Siri AI for voice control.


• HomeView will be available in a tabletop version with a speaker base made of metal, as well as a wall-mounted version with a flat, square wall plate.


• The tabletop HomeView will offer "better sound quality" than the HomePod mini.


• The tabletop HomeView will be available in four finishes: Gray, Silver, Starlight, and Rose. The wall-mounted version will be limited to Gray and Silver.


• HomeView will be unveiled this Tuesday, October 13, but the device is apparently not launching until "around mid-November."


• HomeView will have a selection of Apple apps, but no App Store for third-party apps.


• HomeView will be accompanied by an "Apple Home Collection" of accessories that brands such as LG and Schneider Electric developed in partnership with Apple. This will include a smart doorbell, deadbolt lock, thermostat, temperature sensor, indoor and outdoor security cameras, and a floodlight camera.


• LG's accessories for the HomeView will not ship "until later this year at the earliest."


• The new HomePod mini will be equipped with the Apple Watch Series 10's S10 chip, up from the S5 chip in the current model.


• The new HomePod mini will be available in green, pink, blue, white, and midnight.


• The new Apple TV 4K will be equipped with an A19 chip, which has 8GB of RAM.


• The new Apple TV 4K may have built-in microphones for Siri AI.


• The new Apple TV 4K may have an updated Siri Remote with a built-in speaker that makes it easier to find.


• The new HomePod mini and Apple TV 4K models will be unveiled on October 13 and launch on Friday, October 30.

This article, "New Apple TV 4K, HomeView, and HomePod Mini: 16 Details Just Leaked" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple's next entry-level iPad models, codenamed J581 and J582, will not arrive until early 2027, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

He added that Apple plans a major iPad Air refresh to add an OLED display and a new iPad Pro in 2027. The latter could gain a vapor chamber to improve thermals and performance. A new iPad mini is still expected to arrive at the end of October this year.
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Apple is preparing new displays and large numbers of demo units for the iPhone Duo's October 23 launch, but supply will be limited, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.


Ahead of the October 23 launch, Apple plans to set aside a section of its Fifth Avenue flagship store for the ‌iPhone Duo‌. Most locations will add an extra spotlight table for the device, using Apple's white display tables with central posts. Gurman said a new fixture will show how the phone folds and unfolds.

The number of demonstration devices will vary considerably between locations. Fifth Avenue in New York is expected to receive more than 150 units for customers to try and for other displays, compared with nearly 100 at the Apple Park Visitor Center. Non-flagship stores will receive approximately 20 units each on average.

Three other prominent stores will fall between those allocations: Chicago's Michigan Avenue, The Grove in Los Angeles, and Manhattan's Upper West Side. Each is expected to have approximately 30 to 40 devices.

Visitors will be able to explore StandBy on untethered phones in the Avenue display areas along the sides of stores. For comparisons on store tables, Apple has designed a MagSafe stand that accommodates an open ‌iPhone Duo‌ and two conventional iPhones.

The retail preparations come as Apple faces tighter supply than it had anticipated. According to Gurman, around two months ago the company believed production constraints could prevent sales from starting until later in November. It has since assembled sufficient inventory to proceed with this month's release, although stock is expected to remain limited.

Apple is also equipping stores with "Presto" machines adapted for the ‌iPhone Duo‌. Apple's wireless system can install software updates without opening an iPhone's packaging, and will also add the buyer's name to the greeting displayed during the device's first startup. Gurman previously said the personalized greeting will be offered in U.S. Apple Stores in English and Spanish.

‌iPhone Duo‌ pre-orders open October 16 at 5 a.m. Pacific Time, with sales starting on October 23. The 256GB model starts at $1,999 in the United States.
This article, "Apple Plans Major iPhone Duo Retail Showcase, But Supply Will Be Limited" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple's new Apple TV 4K will be powered by a standard A19 chip, up from the A15 in the current 2022 model, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Writing in his Power On newsletter, Gurman also said Apple has tested a refreshed Siri Remote with a speaker to make it easier to find between couch cushions.

Apple has also tested built-in microphones for the Apple TV 4K to let users query Siri without the remote or a paired HomePod, though whether this feature and the new Siri Remote will come with the shipping device appears unconfirmed. The new Apple TV 4K arrives in stores on October 30 alongside the new HomePod mini. Apple is expected to unveil both at Tuesday's "Welcome home" event.
This article, "Apple TV 4K Getting A19 Chip and a Potentially Easier-to-Find Siri Remote" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Amazon has Apple's brand new Mac mini for up to $149 off this weekend, with both the M6 and M5 Pro Mac mini available on sale. You'll also find $200 off the M5 Max Mac Studio below.

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

One of the best deals is on the M5 Max Mac Studio with 36GB RAM and a 512GB SSD, on sale for $2,299.00, down from $2,499.00. Regarding the Mac mini, you can get the 16GB RAM/256GB SSD Mac mini for $779.99 ($119 off), the 16GB RAM/512GB SSD model for $949.99 ($149 off), and similar savings on the M5 Pro model.






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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This article, "New Mac Mini and Mac Studio Receive Up to $200 Price Cuts at Amazon" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple's all-new smart home hub, the HomeView, will ship around mid-November, roughly a month after its unveiling at Apple's "Welcome home" October 13 event, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.


Writing in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Gurman said the HomeView, "at least as of now," will follow the launch of the new Apple TV 4K and new HomePod mini models, which will arrive to customers and in stores on October 30.

The HomeView will be positioned as the Siri command center of an Apple-powered home, pairing a display with an A18 chip. It will come in two versions, including a countertop model with a metal speaker base, offered in space gray, silver, starlight and pink, and a wall-mounted version with a flat, square base, limited to space gray and silver. The HomeView will offer better sound quality than the new HomePod mini, according to Gurman.

The device is controlled primarily by voice, though its screen supports touch input. It supports a limited selection of Apple applications, and there will be no dedicated App Store for it.

The HomeView name first appeared in a trademark filing by a shell company, a discovery reported on Friday by MacRumors and credited by Gurman. The "view" part of the name is said to reflect how the device is meant to be used, in the sense that it's a display that people look at and control mainly with their voice.
This article, "Apple HomeView Smart Hub to Ship in Mid-November in Four Colors" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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The new upcoming Apple TV 4K with A19 chip and new HomePod mini with S10 chip will launch on Friday, October 30, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Writing in his Power On newsletter, Gurman said the devices will ship to customers and arrive in stores on that day.

Apple is expected to announce the new devices at its October 13 "Welcome home" event, which will also debut "HomeView" – the company's new smart home hub, whose name was first spotted by MacRumors in a trademark filing. The HomeView will ship – "at least as of now" – around mid-November, according to Gurman's sources.
This article, "New Apple TV 4K and HomePod Mini to Ship on October 30" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Today, for a slightly more complicated snippet, but still in the same general area; say you have code like this:

x = (0x1000 - y) / 24;
z = var_s5 < 5;
if (x >= 0x81) {
    x = 0x80;
    z = var_s5 < 5;
}
var_s4 = 0;
if (z == 0) {

In particular, note the z = var_s5 < 5; repeated. Most likely, this is the compiler sticking stuff into branch delay slots, or else re-checking the condition if var_s5 changed in the branches (it does not here). You almost certainly want to undo this into:

x = (0x1000 - y) / 24;
if (x >= 0x81) {
    x = 0x80;
}
var_s4 = 0;
if ((var_s5 < 5) == 0) {

and the if, as we already know, should probably rather then be:

if (var_s5 >= 5) {

For a small bonus (since I'm not going to have a separate post about it), you can choose to change the upper if to:

if (x > 0x80) {
    x = 0x80;
}

which generates exactly the same code (on MIPS), but may in many cases be easier to understand.

Amazon has Apple's AirPods Max 2 on sale for $429.00 this weekend, down from $549.00. This is a Prime Day sale that has stuck around all these days later, and it's available in all five colors of the AirPods Max 2: Blue, Midnight, Orange, Purple, and Starlight.

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.

Stock has begun to dwindle on select colors, so it might be time to make your purchase on this deal if you've been holding off since Prime Day. Apple launched the AirPods Max 2 in March 2026 with the H2 chip, bringing improved ANC, better audio, Live Translation, and more.



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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This article, "AirPods Max 2 Available for $429 in All Colors on Amazon" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Review: Daggerbound, by T. Kingfisher

Series:	Swordheart #2
Publisher:	Bramble
Copyright:	2026
ISBN:	1-250-40009-0
Format:	Kindle
Pages:	436

Daggerbound is a secondary-world fantasy and a sequel to Swordheart, although it follows different protagonists for most of the book. It's also a sort of sequel to the Clocktaur War duology in that one of the protagonists was a protagonist of those books. T. Kingfisher is the pen name Ursula Vernon uses for her adult fiction.

Learned Edmond was once a devout acolyte of the Order of the Many-Armed God and a true believer in its teachings, including the ones about the evils of women. Then he went on an adventure with, among other people, a forger named Mistress Slate, during which he learned a great deal of things about the world that his order did not teach him. He has spent the subsequent years trying to bring this important new information to his order and encourage them to adjust their view of the world accordingly.

The order has not changed, and Edmond is very tired.

Someone needs to carry a number of books and a magical sword to the city of Archon's Glory. Edmond has volunteered and intends to perform the task exactly as expected, and then never return. He is unsure what he will do then, but at least it will be different.

Edmond did not expect to be waylaid by bandits or to accidentally draw the magical sword. He certainly did not expect the man who appeared in a flash of light and violently saved him from the bandits.

It would have been very convenient for the Dervish if Edmond died of his injuries after drawing the sword. That would leave the sword without a wielder and therefore the Dervish without someone he had to protect. All he would have to do was sit and watch while the fever and cold and lack of water did the work, and then he would be free. Given his past experience with wielders, no one could even blame him. Except maybe his own conscience.

I did not realize I wanted to read a novel about a traumatized Mercedes Lackey sword waking up in a T. Kingfisher universe, but apparently I did.

The Dervish is not a sword, precisely, at least not in the way that Need has become by the time we meet her in Lackey's novels. He's a man trapped in a sword, he doesn't like it, and he would very much like it to stop. But at the start of the book, he has the rest of the vibe of a Mercedes Lackey protagonist: vast past trauma, poor emotional regulation skills, and a prickly cynicism that only runs skin deep. Pairing him with an Edmund who is far more mature than in the earlier duology but still rather innocent and delightfully neurodivergent is a great touch.

The rest of the plot was fine but not that memorable. Like the Clocktaur series, there is a strong feeling of episodic D&D adventure as the characters stumble across disconnected problems and hostilities while collecting party members. Like Ursula Vernon's occasional D&D recaps, this party has a tendency to adopt everyone they come in contact with, which includes a gnole (as always one of the best parts of the book) and a sentient giant pill bug. The pill bug, who has a complex appendage-operated mechanical talk box and a banner that says "I DO NOT EAT HUMAN MEAT," is the most Ursula Vernon character that has ever existed in fiction.

There is a romance because there is always a romance in the novels set in this universe. I didn't mind this one. Like every Kingfisher romance, it involves a lot of irritating refusal to communicate and endless angst about how the other person couldn't possibly be in love with them, but the characters have rather more justification than usual and at least I didn't spend most of the book thinking one half of the romantic pairing was an idiot. Apparently it helps if no paladins are involved.

The strongest parts of this book are the beginning, before the Lackey vibes unfortunately drain out of the story, and the end, when all of the best characters from Swordheart show up again. The Temple of the White Rat continues to be the best feature of this fictional universe, and I could read endless books about how they solve problems.

The Dervish gazed at her with admiration. "And here I thought you'd be on the side of law and order..."

"No, young man," said Beartongue, despite being several centuries his junior. "I am on the side of justice. If we're lucky, the two run in parallel. If they don't, we bend the law to attain justice, not the other way around."

The ending also featured some exploration of the edge cases of the rules for the sentient swords that reminded me a bit of Fred Saberhagen with better characterization.

Daggerbound was not as charming as Swordheart, mostly because Halla appeared only at the end. I wish Kingfisher had leaned more into the Mercedes Lackey vibes rather than taking her normal D&D-flavored romance approach. But this was enjoyable, charming at times, had great supporting characters like all Kingfisher novels, and was a satisfying continuation of the series. I am looking forward to the third (and I believe final) book, which is supposed to be out next year.

Recommended if you liked Swordheart.

Followed by the not-yet-published Shieldborn.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Apple may be planning to announce a new partnership with home security company ADT, alongside the introduction of its all-new smart home hub, according to several clues.


First and foremost, ADT has been posting "Low Voltage Technician" job listings in various U.S. cities since around July, but those hired for the position so far have been provided with very few details about their specific responsibilities. Some of the new hires said they have primarily been shadowing other ADT technicians while they await further information. In addition, some of the employees and their managers said they signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) related to the role. This level of secrecy is typical for something involving Apple.

Second, ADT has provided these new hires with an iPhone 17 Pro for work, whereas it typically provides other technicians with Android devices.

Third, some of the new hires said ADT finally plans to share more details about the role later this month, so the company may be waiting for Apple to announce its smart home hub on Tuesday. Apple is also expected to unveil an ecosystem of third-party smart home accessories it developed in partnership with brands such as LG.

One of the new hires said ADT initially planned to provide details about the role in September, but later delayed this timeframe until October. This would be consistent with reports that Apple has postponed the announcement of its home hub multiple times, as Siri AI was not ready. The revamped version of Siri finally launched last month.

In addition to Siri AI, the home hub will reportedly offer smart home accessory management, home security monitoring, photo faces and galleries, an overview of calendar appointments, music playback, FaceTime video calling, and more. The hub will reportedly be available in a tabletop version with a speaker base and a wall-mounted version.

Some of the new hires who asked their managers about the secretive role were told that it will apparently relate to home automation and in-home installation services, so perhaps Apple will announce an option for customers to have an ADT technician professionally install the wall-mounted home hub or the related accessories from LG.

It is unclear if Apple's partnership with ADT would extend to home security monitoring.

ADT already reached a home security partnership with Google in 2023, but it reportedly dropped some features that it offered on Google Nest devices earlier this year. A person familiar with the matter told us that ADT's exclusivity agreement with Google recently expired and is not set to be renewed, with Google now turning to AT&T. If so, then it would pave the way for ADT to reach a partnership with another tech giant: Apple.

Apple is expected to unveil its smart home hub on Tuesday, October 13, so it might announce details about a partnership with ADT then, if there is going to be one. However, keep in mind that a potential partnership between Apple and ADT is still just a rumor for now, and all of these clues could prove to be one big coincidence.
This article, "Rumor: Apple to Announce New Partnership With ADT" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Here’s my monthly but brief update about the activities I’ve done in the FOSS world.

Debian

Whilst I didn’t have much time, here are still a few things that I worked on:

• Sponsored ubuntu-dev-tools/0.214 for Florent ‘Skia’ Jacquet, which updates seeded-in-ubuntu to use the new per-series indexer (LP: #2160240).
• Assisted a few folks in getting their patches submitted via Salsa.
• Mentoring for newcomers.
• Moderation of -project mailing list.

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Ubuntu

I joined Canonical to work on Ubuntu full-time back in February 2021.

• With 26.10 in Feature Freeze, wore my Release team hat to:
  • Review and approve a bunch of Feature Freeze Exceptions, including the Go 1.27 transition, Qt 6.11.2, rust-coreutils 0.12.0, devscripts 2.6.12, kdump-tools moving to dracut, and a few GCE packages.
  • Point linux-entra-sso to the SRU team, as it didn’t need an FFe at all, and milestone a couple of bugs for 26.10.
• Continued to push for infrastructure improvements:
  • Made ubuntu-cdimage more resilient to Launchpad hiccups (MP).
  • Taught generate-freeze-block in ubuntu-archive-tools a couple of new options (--skip-update and --series) and better error handling (MP).
  • Bumped the arm64 generic non-cloud image to 4.5G in livecd-rootfs and uploaded it as 26.10.16; also sponsored the follow-up 26.10.17 for Chloé.
• Sponsored aevol/9.4.0-2ubuntu1 for Matthieu, fixing an FTBFS with GCC 15’s LTO (LP: #2167811).
• Reviewed quite a lot of MPs - britney hints, meta-release, ubuntu-release-tools, ubuntu-archive-tools, ubuntu-cdimage, livecd-rootfs, ubuntu-seeds, and so on.
• Enabled upgrades to 26.04 LTS.
• Released 26.10 Beta and announced it on Discourse.
• Did Archive Admin, DMB, and Release team duties as usual.

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Debian (E)LTS

This month I have worked 33.5 hours on Debian Long Term Support (LTS) and on its sister Extended LTS project and did the following things:

(A quick note that I did quite a lot of the work during my work as Frontdesk that went on till 4th Oct, so 33.50 hours include the work I did till 4th October 2026.)

Released Security Updates

• node-lodash: Prototype pollution in _.unset and _.omit (plus a bypass of the initial fix for it), and code injection via the imports option of _.template.

  • [LTS]: Fixed CVE-2025-13465, CVE-2026-2950, and CVE-2026-4800 via 4.17.21+dfsg+~cs8.31.198.20210220-9+deb12u1 for bookworm. This has been released as DLA 4820-1.
  • This is the bookworm follow-up to DLA 4663-1 that I carried over from July. The update had been sitting prepared and tested on debusine, so once the upstream discussion wrapped up, it went straight out. It also carries an extra patch to the lodash-cli dependency map - without it, the regenerated lodash.template module throws “assignWith is not defined” at runtime, which node-gulp-util’s autopkgtest caught.

• libpng1.6: Use-after-free of zlib input in png_read_end() after incomplete zTXt, iTXt, or iCCP decompression, which could result in denial of service.

  • [LTS]: Fixed CVE-2026-46675 via 1.6.39-2+deb12u6 for bookworm. This has been released as DLA 4824-1.
  • I picked this one up whilst on front desk; the upstream fix that went into trixie via DSA 6537-1 applied to 1.6.39 as-is.

Work in Progress

• libpng1.6: The same CVE-2026-46675.
  • [ELTS]: Claimed in ela-needed; the same upstream fix applies to all three ELTS suites, so this should go out shortly.

Other Activities

• [E/LTS] Did my front-desk week from 28-09 to 04-10.

  • Over the week I did roughly:
    • Triage of 524 unique CVEs across 192 source packages and all four suites. And 1 automated ELTS end-of-life sweep.
    • Additional data is now part of the front-desk job too, so 75 commits record it for 179 CVEs across 71 packages.
  • Newly queued 22 source packages - 13 in dla-needed (apache2, chromium, firefox-esr, libnet-idn-encode-perl, libpng1.6, node-shell-quote, nvidia-graphics-drivers, openssl, pcre2, php-mongodb, php8.2, social-auth-core, and wpa) and 16 in ela-needed (apache2, firefox-esr, gegl, lemonldap-ng, libnet-idn-encode-perl, libpng1.6, libwebsockets, nsd, nvidia-graphics-drivers, pcre2, php7.0, php7.3, php7.4, rar, unrar-nonfree, and wpa), 7 of them in both. Also widened 3 ELTS entries to bullseye - antiword, ocaml, and openvswitch.
  • Most of the interesting work was again in the <not-affected> verdicts: 217 of 263 (83%, across 57 packages) rest on showing that the vulnerable code or feature isn’t in the source we ship. Another 17 cover incomplete upstream fixes that we either never shipped or shipped with the follow-up already in (expat, libxml2, node-tar, and pyjwt). 15 come from bundled components we don’t ship - node-ajv again, which uses uri-js and not fast-uri, and nvidia-open, which doesn’t ship the NGX updater. And 13 are vendor- or platform-specific - openssh’s CVE-2026-55654 lives only in a Red Hat GSSAPI patch, and the netdata and PHP ones only affect Windows.
  • Did 4 rounds of newly supported bullseye packages (33 packages overall), plus libmail-mboxparser-perl for buster - 34 in all. The existing CVE data mostly held up; the real finds were discovery gaps. One interesting gotcha: sid renamed stunnel4 to stunnel, and two new CVEs were associated only with the new name, so they never showed up for trixie, bookworm, or any ELTS suite. I also sorted the 180 “Triage needed” entries (57 packages) from elts-eol by where each was already handled, and triaged for ELTS the 100 that trixie or bookworm had already decided; the rest come next. And I imported 79 package-level lines for the older source names ELTS still ships (tomcat8, php7.0/7.3/7.4, netty-3.9, openssl1.0, python2.7/3.5/3.7, and pypy).
  • Caught some inconsistencies in released advisories: DLA 4801-1 (swift) was missing a CVE, ELA 1831-1 (redis) listed the wrong one, and DLA 4808-1 (network-manager-l2tp) listed CVE-2026-75883 - an ID that was renamed and then reassigned to an unrelated ppp issue. I fixed all three in the tracker’s advisory lists.
  • Made the Security team and the uploaders aware of regressions from our own updates:
    • libde265: the CVE-2026-49337 fix in DLA 4789-1/ELA 1828-1 (and DSA 6413-1) misses upstream’s follow-up commit.
    • libxml2 CVE-2026-76781 and policykit-1 CVE-2026-85498 were introduced by our own back-ports; the policykit-1 one is harmless.
    • expat: the CVE-2025-59375 backport in DLA 4807-1 is compiled out, because XML_GE is never defined.
    • xen: DLA 4818-1’s XSA-491 fix makes XSA-510 reachable.
    • gegl: the CVE-2026-2049/2050 back-port in ELA 1650-1 rejects valid RLE .hdr files.
    • log4cxx: DLA 4322-1 broke UTF-8 in JSONLayout output. That one is functional, not security.
  • Helped correct a set of triages and let the Debian Security team know:
    • ruby-json CVE-2026-71847: the vulnerable code was never in a released Debian version.
    • openssh CVE-2026-55654: only affects a Red Hat-specific GSSAPI patch.
    • three libxml2 issues that don’t affect trixie either.
    • the stunnel4 rename above.
    • trixie <no-dsa> lines on jsch, node-qs, and ruby-loofah, where trixie’s version doesn’t have the vulnerable feature at all.
  • Independently found a security issue in rclone and reported it privately upstream through a GitHub security advisory. Upstream already had a report for the same issue, so they folded mine into the existing advisory and credited me as a co-reporter.
    • https://github.com/rclone/rclone/security/advisories/GHSA-66qv-66mg-9h74
  • Also found some bugs in the additional-data tooling, e.g. cve-ad --package P --severity tbd wipes the CVE-level severity, and the schema doesn’t validate package-level entries at all.

• [E/LTS] Monitored discussions on mailing lists, IRC, and all the documentation updates.

• [E/LTS] Attended the monthly LTS meeting on IRC. Meeting notes here.

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Until next time.
:wq for today.