Apple News
Apple set to debut $2,000 ‘iPhone Duo’ foldable iPhone that supports Apple Pencil
Apple is expected to use Wednesday’s “Surprise and Shine” event in Cupertino as the public debut of new CEO John Ternus and one of the company’s most ambitious hardware slates in years, according to reporting from Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman.
The centerpiece is a foldable smartphone Apple has named the iPhone Duo. Gurman reported that Apple settled on a starting price of about $2,000 after absorbing extra memory costs, with storage configurations reaching 2 terabytes and a top price near $3,000. The device is slated to ship in October, support Apple Pencil, and launch in dark blue and white. Apple is positioning the expensive foldable as both a status product and a bid to reassert itself as a hardware innovator.
The event, scheduled for 10 a.m. local time, is also expected to include the iPhone 18 Pro lineup, new Apple Watches, and updated AirPods. Gurman said the five biggest storylines are Ternus’s first major product showcase, the $2,000-and-up Duo, camera upgrades on the iPhone 18 Pro models, Watch and AirPods refreshes, and higher iPhone prices. He separately listed expected Pro colors as black, light blue, silver, and burgundy.
The Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 are expected to add a privacy-focused AI “recaps” feature that uses the microphone, GPS, and other sensors to summarize a user’s day, including conversations. Gurman reported that the system is not designed to store audio recordings or produce transcripts. Users would be able to run it all day or only in selected locations, with summaries living in a new Siri app. The feature is aimed at competing with always-listening AI wearables while emphasizing on-device processing and tighter privacy controls. New Watch chips are expected to handle that processing.
AirPods 5 are also expected, in versions with and without a wireless charging case and with stronger noise cancellation. Camera-equipped AirPods that Apple had considered for this cycle were delayed, Gurman has reported.
The Duo’s long development path has been a decade-plus effort.
Pre-orders for the new iPhones are widely expected to start Friday, September 12th. Supplies of iPhone Duo are expected to be extremely tight for many months. As with any pre-event report, Apple can still change names, prices, colors, or feature details on stage.
MacDailyNews Take: iPad mini hardest hit.
As for Apple Pencil support, we can see it for specific use cases, but mostly not:
Oh, a stylus, right? We’re going to use a stylus. No. Who wants a stylus? You have to get them and put them away and you lose them. Yuck. Nobody wants a stylus. So, let’s not use a stylus. We’re going to use the best pointing device in the world. We’re going to use a pointing device that we’re all born with — we’re born with ten of them. We’re going to use our fingers. We’re going to touch this with our fingers. And we have invented a new technology called multi-touch, which is phenomenal. It works like magic. You don’t need a stylus. – Steve Jobs
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Apple expected to unveil first foldable iPhone as new CEO John Ternus takes center stage
Apple is widely expected to introduce its first folding iPhone at a product event Wednesday at its California headquarters, the first major launch under new CEO John Ternus.
The event would represent the most visible change to Apple’s flagship smartphone since the iPhone X dropped the physical home button in 2017. The iPhone generated $209.6 billion, or just over half of Apple’s sales, in the company’s most recent fiscal year.
The keynote will also be Ternus’s first extended public appearance as CEO. The former hardware chief has kept a relatively low profile aside from occasional product introductions and sustainability efforts.
Samsung and Huawei have sold folding phones since 2019, but the category has remained a niche. Analyst firm IDC nevertheless expects Apple to sell every unit it can make and capture about 40% of the foldable market by the end of next year.
Analysts say Apple’s late entry could help it solve longstanding engineering problems, including a durable – potentially Liquidmetal – hinge that minimizes the crease where the display folds. Dust and water resistance remains a question; Google’s latest Pixel 10 Pro Fold carries an IP68 rating* that some rivals have not matched.
The event is also expected to alter Apple’s usual product calendar. Analysts anticipate new watches but say the company will likely postpone updates to cheaper iPhone models until next spring, focusing instead on the foldable and the iPhone Pro and Pro Max lineup. The shift is intended to even out Apple’s typically strong holiday-quarter sales in the U.S. and Europe.
*In IP68, (6 means the device is dust-tight (no dust gets in). 8 means it can survive being immersed in water deeper than 1 meter for a period specified by the manufacturer (often 30 minutes or more), under defined conditions. It does not guarantee protection against high-pressure jets, steam, or damage from drops. Actual depth and time vary by product.
MacDailyNews Take: We’re just hours away now!
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UK to force Apple, Google to block nude images on kids’ devices
The UK government will require technology companies such as Apple Inc. and Google to stop children from taking, sharing or viewing nude images on their phones and tablets, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told the House of Commons on Tuesday.
Nandy said ministers would introduce primary legislation “as soon as we can,” but declined to give a precise timetable. The government had given Apple and Alphabet Inc.-owned Google a three-month deadline in June to introduce such measures voluntarily. Although both firms offer content protections for young users, neither comprehensively blocks the taking or sending of nude images across devices.
Nandy praised some “meaningful changes” at the operating-system level, including progress toward blocking rather than merely blurring nude imagery on underage devices, and Apple’s earlier rollout of operating-system age assurance tied to safety features on iMessage and FaceTime. She said those steps were not enough.
“For too long, technology companies have failed to protect children from some of the worst harms,” Nandy said. “And to be frank, I am not prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt that progress will continue at the pace that we need it to, while harm is being done now.”
The planned law would require major platforms to build device-level protections into smartphones and tablets sold and used in the UK, covering both existing and newly sold devices. Officials also intend to require apps used by children to introduce similar blocks on nude imagery, so restrictions are not limited to cameras and first-party messaging.
Nandy said the government could reassess legislation if Apple and Google implement technical solutions before a bill is passed. “We know that this is a sector that can, when required, innovate at an extraordinary pace when the chips are down,” she said. Based on the past three months, she added, it was “almost certain” that legislation would be needed.
The June challenge, announced during London Tech Week, set a goal of making Britain the first country where children could not take, share or view naked pictures on their devices. Protections would be on by default for under-18s, with adults able to use unrestricted features after age verification. Officials have said the measures would not require monitoring or reporting of adult users’ content.
An Apple spokesperson said the company launched its Communication Safety feature in 2021 and has continued to expand it.
Nandy said some details still need to be resolved, including which devices would be covered. Draft legislation is expected to apply to operating-system providers and potentially others in the supply chain, such as retailers.
MacDailyNews Take: Forcing Apple to make it impossible for children to take, view, or share nudes at the whole-device level sounds simple. In practice it would trade one harm for others that hit ordinary users, not just predators.
It cannot stay “kids-only” without checking everyone.
The government itself says blocks would be on by default and lifted only after age assurance. That means adults — and older teens — must prove they are adults to use a normal camera, Photos, Messages, or many apps. Age checks are leaky: they can be wrong around the 16–18 boundary, biased by face/age models, spoofed, or borrowed (a child using a parent’s unlocked phone). Shared family devices become a mess.
A phone that inspects every photo is a different kind of device.
To stop taking nudes, the OS has to watch the camera, the gallery, screenshots, and third-party apps — not just iMessage. Apple’s current Communication Safety blurs and warns after content appears in specific apps, on-device, without sending images to Apple. A mandate to block creation and viewing everywhere is a live content filter on the device. Even if images never leave the phone, users lose the assumption that the camera and photo library are private tools they control. Privacy groups and encrypted-messaging firms called that a surveillance architecture, even when UK ministers claim “no reporting, no monitoring.”
Nudity detectors get it wrong.
Skin, babies in a bath, medical photos, art, sports, breastfeeding, theatre, and accidental crop can all look like “nudity” to a model. A high accuracy rate still produces a lot of false blocks when every UK iPhone is scanning constantly. Kids and parents then fight a black-box “your photo is banned” system with no good appeal.
Safety software can create new security holes.
The UK has already pointed to on-device blockers as the model. A phone sold as doing exactly this kind of blocking was later pulled after researchers found serious other flaws (including a reported way to pair as another child’s “guardian”). Extra privileged scanners in the OS are more attack surface: bugs, poorly designed parental pairing, and pressure to expand the same pipeline later (violence, “harmful” speech, whatever the next statute names).
Determined harm still happens; everyday use gets worse.
A child can still use an adult’s phone, an old un-updated handset, a cheap Android, a laptop, or a friend’s device. Groomers already move platforms. Meanwhile lawful users get friction: ID to turn features off, broken camera workflows, apps that refuse to work unless they hook the OS filter, and a UK-specific iOS that diverges from the rest of the world.
The precedent is the long-term cost.
Once Apple is legally required to classify and suppress a category of pixels on every UK device, the next demand is easier: more categories, more apps, more “just keep the scanner.” That is bad for users who want a general-purpose computer in their pocket—not a government-specified content appliance with an adult unlock.
Child sexual abuse is real; Apple already ships on-device warnings for that reason. The harm of a forced, default, device-wide ban plus age gates is that it weakens privacy and reliability for everyone, while remaining easy to route around for anyone with another device.
Apple already has Communication Safety (and the related Sensitive Content Warning) to detect possible nudity on-device, blur it, warn the child, and offer help—not a full device-wide ban on taking nudes with the Camera app.
What it does
• On-device machine learning checks photos/videos for nudity. Apple says it does not get the images or a signal that nudity was found.
• If a child receives or tries to send such content, it is blurred and they see a warning plus options: message a trusted adult, leave the chat, block the contact, or open safety resources.
• For children under 13 (age can vary by country), a Screen Time passcode can be required before they can view it.
• Apple documents that it is on by default for under-18s in Family Sharing on current software (age varies by region).
• It applies in Apple apps and some share flows: Messages, AirDrop, FaceTime (calls/video messages), Contact Posters, shared albums, the Photos picker, and when choosing media to send in some third-party apps—not the camera itself across every app.
Apple Support documentation
• About Communication Safety on your child’s Apple device
• Check for sensitive images and videos in Screen Time on iPhone
• About Sensitive Content Warning on Apple devices
• Receive warnings about sensitive content on iPhone
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Apple’s foldable iPhone took a decade to arrive — and may start above $2,000
Apple’s first foldable iPhone is expected to headline Wednesday’s “Surprise and Shine” event, but the product itself is not a last-minute bet. According to Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman, the company spent about a decade studying folding displays and related hardware before bringing a book-style phone to the stage.
Gurman reports that Apple’s hardware engineering teams were examining foldable phones, screens, and components well before Samsung’s first Galaxy Fold arrived in 2019. Early thinking inside the company included a device closer to an iPad mini that opened into a larger tablet. That path shifted after then-CEO Tim Cook returned from a 2020 trip to Asia “unusually energized” by how many people he saw using foldables from Samsung, Huawei, and others. He pushed Apple to move faster and to make a foldable iPhone, not a foldable tablet, the priority. One person familiar with the work told Gurman that Cook was “the earliest and biggest champion” of the project.
The work began under former hardware chief Dan Riccio and later continued under John Ternus, who now leads the company. Engineers focused on four difficult problems: making the crease less visible, making the hinge last, creating flexible cover glass for the inner screen, and exploring under-display cameras. Designers compared the closed device to a passport and the open device to a Magic Trackpad. The rumored layout is a wide book-style phone with about a 5.5-inch outer display and a 7.8-inch inner display.
Price was always going to be part of the story. Gurman writes that Apple first aimed for a $1,999 starting price — just under the $2,000 line, in the same way the iPhone X launched at $999. Rising component costs, including the memory shortage, later pushed internal discussions toward about $2,199. Higher-storage versions could approach $3,000. Apple expects sticker shock, Gurman reports, but concluded that customers already paying near $2,000 for loaded iPhones would accept an even more expensive foldable. Internally, the product is often called the iPhone Ultra.
The device is expected to appear Wednesday alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max. If Gurman’s reporting holds, it will be the largest change to the iPhone’s physical form since the product launched in 2007.
MacDailyNews Take: Regardless of price, Apple will not be able to make enough. The foldable iPhone will be supply-constrained for months, so, if you want one of the first ones, get your pre-order(s) in as soon as Apple starts taking them!
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Apple’s ‘Surprise and Shine’ event arrives tomorrow: Foldable iPhone, 18 Pro lineup, and a new CEO era
Apple holds its biggest product event of the year on Wednesday, September 9, at 10am PDT / 1pm EDT at Apple Park in Cupertino. The “Surprise and Shine” keynote will be livestreamed on Apple’s website, the Apple TV app, and YouTube. It is also the first major launch under new CEO John Ternus.
The company is expected to skip a standard iPhone 18 this fall and instead focus on premium hardware: the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and its first foldable iPhone, widely referred to as the iPhone Ultra. New Apple Watch models are also on the docket. The base iPhone 18 and a follow-up iPhone Air are rumored for spring 2027.
The foldable is the main actThe long-awaited foldable is expected to use a book-style design: a compact phone when closed and a larger tablet-like screen when opened. Reports describe an outer display around 5.5 inches and an inner display of about 7.8 inches. Pricing is expected to start above $2,000.
Rumored details include Apple’s A20 Pro chip, an in-house modem, Touch ID instead of Face ID on at least some reports, and a hinge designed to reduce the crease that has defined earlier foldables. Camera setup is expected to be more limited than the Pro models, with some reports saying there will be no dedicated telephoto lens. If Apple pulls it off, this would be the first major iPhone form-factor change in nearly two decades.
iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max stay the volume play
The Pro and Pro Max are expected to look similar to last year’s models, with most of the work happening inside. Anticipated upgrades include the A20 Pro processor, better thermal design, improved battery life, and camera refinements. Some reports point to a smaller Dynamic Island and new color options. The Pro Max may get the larger battery and extra cooling.
Apple appears to be splitting its iPhone calendar: high-end and experimental devices in September, more affordable models later. That would keep this week’s stage focused on the products with the highest prices and the most novelty.
Watches and the rest of the lineup
Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 are widely expected. Typical September extras such as new AirPods could appear, though camera-equipped AirPods Pro rumors have been less consistent for this date. Macs and iPads are more likely later in the fall. Software release windows for iOS 27 and related updates usually get mentioned as well.
Why this event matters
Ternus takes the stage after years as Apple’s hardware chief. The company has spent much of the past decade refining existing lines. A foldable iPhone, a narrower fall phone lineup, and a new CEO on the same day add up to more than a routine refresh. Whether the foldable becomes a mainstream product or a high-priced niche will be one of the first real tests of the next chapter.
MacDailyNews Note: Watch the stream Wednesday at 10am PDT / 1pm EDT here and check our home page tomorrow for the link to our live coverage.
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Apple’s foldable iPhone set to grab 25% share in 2026, 40% in 2027 as foldables pass 100 million cumulative shipments
Global foldable smartphone shipments are on track to pass a major milestone by the end of 2026, with lifetime volumes expected to exceed 100 million units, according to Counterpoint Research. That would come in the eighth year of the category, which first reached commercial devices in 2019.
Foldables still make up only about 2% of the overall smartphone market, leaving substantial room to grow. Counterpoint says demand should accelerate after Apple’s expected entry, alongside stronger interest in wider book-style devices from Samsung and Huawei. Global foldable shipments are forecast to rise 37% year over year in 2027, the fastest growth rate since 2022. With that pace, the next 100 million cumulative units could arrive within about three years.
Apple is expected to make an immediate impact even with a short selling window in 2026. Counterpoint forecasts up to 6 million foldable iPhone shipments this year, giving Apple about 25% of the global foldable market and the No. 2 position behind Samsung at 38% and ahead of Huawei at 22%. The firm says that ranking would be significant so soon after Apple enters the category.
Supply, not demand, is expected to cap the early ramp. Initial production of Apple’s first foldable iPhone is likely to stay limited after this week’s expected unveiling, with sales and deliveries building gradually as availability expands by market. Associate Director Liz Lee said those constraints keep the upper end of the 2026 forecast at 6 million units, but that Apple can still take a quarter of the market and move straight into second place.
A full year of Apple sales is then expected to be a major driver in 2027. Counterpoint forecasts Apple’s foldable shipments will more than double and its share will reach 40%. Samsung remains the innovation leader in the category, while Huawei continues to be a key force in China with a wide range of designs. Other brands, including Xiaomi, Motorola, HONOR, Google, vivo and OPPO, are also preparing new foldables, including wider-format models.
Research Director Tarun Pathak said Apple’s entry will increase competition at the premium end, but the category is still small enough that there is room for several vendors to grow. The broader mix of designs and brands, he said, should help the market expand over the next few years.
Counterpoint argues the longer-term test will be user experience, not just hardware novelty. Price points remain about three times those of conventional slab smartphones, and mass-market adoption is still some years away. For now, the firm sees foldables splitting between productivity and content-consumption use cases as more premium buyers enter the segment.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple will quickly dominate the foldable smartphone market.
Apple’s first foldable iPhone is projected to ship more than 10 million units in its debut year, according to research firm IDC.
Apple will sell every foldable iPhone it can make next year and still have people lining up to buy.
Apple wasn’t first with fingerprint recognition, they were the first to do it right with Touch ID. Apple wasn’t first with facial recognition, they were the first to do it right with Face ID. Apple wasn’t first with contactless payments, they were the first to do it right with Apple Pay. — MacDailyNews, February 27, 2019
If and when Apple debuts a foldable iPhone, they’ll be showing the world how it should be done and what to copy going forward. As usual. — MacDailyNews, February 27, 2019
As with fingerprint and facial recognition, when Apple debuts a foldable iPhone, then foldable smartphones will have been done right. — MacDailyNews, January 17, 2019
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Apple Certified Refurbished still looks like new; Amazon and Walmart refurbs cost less, but come with trade-offs
Patience is the cheapest upgrade in Apple’s lineup. Skip launch day, wait a few months, and you can buy a Certified Refurbished iPhone, iPad, or Mac that Apple says is indistinguishable from new — typically for about 15% less.
That pitch is looking more crowded. Amazon Renewed and Walmart Restored now sell the same products at steeper discounts, including recent iPhone 17 Pro models that still command $1,099 and up when new. The savings are real. So are the compromises: who inspects the device, whether the battery and shell are new, which accessories you get, and how long you are covered if something goes wrong.
A comparison published this week by 9to5Mac‘s Ben Lovehoy, plus the retailers’ own program rules, makes the split clear. Apple sells peace of mind. Amazon sells price. Walmart is cheaper too, but much vaguer about what “restored” actually means.
Apple’s program is refurbished in name only
Apple Certified Refurbished products are inspected and tested by Apple, not a marketplace seller. For iPhones and iPads, Apple replaces the outer shell and battery, includes original accessories and cables, and ships the device in a plain white box. The one-year limited warranty is the same as new hardware, and the product remains eligible for AppleCare+ or AppleCare One.
That is why buyers who have used the store often describe the units as new devices with different packaging. Official Apple pages currently advertise savings of up to 15%, full functional testing, genuine Apple parts as needed, and free delivery and returns. Featured stock this week includes a refurbished iPhone 16 128GB for $619, down from $729, and a 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro for $1,439, down from $1,599.
The catch is timing and selection. Refurbished models usually show up on Apple’s site about three months after launch, stock is limited, and the discount is modest compared with third-party listings. If you want the newest phone immediately, Apple’s own refurb store will not help. If you want a device that looks and is warranted like new, it is still the cleanest option.
Amazon Renewed is cheaper — and not the same product
Amazon Renewed can undercut Apple by a wide margin. Inspection and testing are done by the seller, not Apple. The outer shell is used, so marks and scratches are possible. The battery is used and only guaranteed above 80% of original capacity on standard listings. Accessories may not be genuine Apple parts. Coverage is the Amazon Renewed Guarantee: 90 days on most items, 365 days on Renewed Premium.
Amazon grades cosmetics in four tiers:
• Premium: no signs of damage when held 12 inches away; battery typically above 90%; one-year coverage
• Excellent: same cosmetic standard, battery above 80%, 90-day coverage
• Good: light scratches barely visible at 12 inches
• Acceptable: scratches that can be seen and felt
Those grades matter. Premium is the only Amazon tier that approaches Apple’s warranty length, and even then the device is still a used shell with a used battery. Seller quality also varies, which is why independent buyer guides treat Amazon as reliable if you check the seller, the grade, and the return window before you click Buy.
The price gap is the reason people take that risk. <em>9to5Mac flagged all-time or near all-time lows on Amazon Renewed iPhone 17 Pro models this week:
• 1TB Cosmic Orange: $1,214 (new: $1,499)
• 1TB Deep Blue: $1,215
• 1TB Silver: $1,208
• 512GB Cosmic Orange: $1,164 (new: $1,299)
• 512GB Deep Blue: $1,170
• 512GB Silver: $1,171
That is roughly $280 to $290 off the 1TB models and about $130 off the 512GB models — far more than Apple’s usual 15%. The iPhone 17 Pro launched in September 2025, so these listings are appearing just as the next cycle approaches and shoppers start hunting for last year’s flagship at a discount.
Walmart Restored is the least specific of the three
Walmart Restored uses third-party sellers, not Apple. The company promises “like-new performance and reliability,” but it does not match Apple’s guarantees on a new enclosure, a new battery, or original accessories. Tiers are Premium, Like New, Good, and Fair. Walmart is thinner on public definitions than Amazon, which is the main knock in the 9to5Mac comparison.
Walmart’s own help pages fill in some of the gaps. Restored Premium items are supposed to come from manufacturers or authorized sellers, carry at least a one-year warranty, and offer 30-day returns. Like New, Good, and Fair Restored items get 90-day free returns; warranty details often sit with the individual seller. Separate category rules say Premium batteries should be at least 90% of new capacity, while the lower restored grades are typically 80% or better. Cosmetic language is similar to Amazon’s 12-inch test, but enforcement still depends on the seller.
How the three programs actually compare
Apple Certified Refurbished Amazon Renewed Walmart Restored Who inspects it Apple Seller Seller Outer shell New Used No hard cosmetic promise Battery New on iPhone/iPad 80%+ (90%+ on Premium) 90%+ Premium; ~80% other tiers Accessories Original Apple May be generic Not clearly specified Warranty 1-year Apple; AppleCare eligible 90 days; 1 year on Premium 1 year Premium; 90 days other tiers Typical discount About 15% Often larger Competitive, inconsistent Best for Near-new condition and official support Maximum savings Price plus easy returnsIndependent 2026 buyer guides land in the same place. Apple is the safer buy when the price gap is small, especially on expensive Macs. Amazon becomes more interesting when the savings hit $150 or more and the listing is Premium from a strong seller. Desktop devices such as a Mac mini or Apple TV carry less risk than a laptop or phone, because battery wear and cosmetic damage matter less.
The practical rule
Buy from Apple if you want the product to look new, last like new, and stay inside Apple’s support system. The white box is the only obvious tell.
Buy from Amazon if the discount is large enough to offset a used battery, possible scuffs, possible third-party cables, and a shorter warranty — and stick to Renewed Premium when you can.
Treat Walmart as a third option, not a peer to Apple’s store. Confirm the seller, the grade, the battery claim, and the warranty on the product page before you pay.
Refurbished Apple gear is no longer a niche. The secondhand phone market alone is now measured in the billions, and Amazon and Walmart want that business. Apple is still selling the closest thing to a new device. Everyone else is selling a cheaper one. The right choice is whichever gap — price or uncertainty — you are more willing to live with.
MacDailyNews Take: In short: Walmart is Walmart; it can be a bargain and you can send the product back if it is a miss, but you should not assume you are getting an Apple Certified Refurbished device.
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iOS 27 beta shows Apple’s Camera app is getting real pro tools; some likely locked to iPhone 18 Pro
Apple has already previewed a more customizable Camera app and a dedicated Siri shooting mode for iOS 27. Code in developer beta 8 points to a second wave of changes that look aimed at photographers who want more than tap-to-shoot.
A deep dive into the beta, first detailed on Reddit, describes five features that are implemented or stubbed in the system but have not been announced. Some appear broadly useful. Others look tied to new hardware expected this week, especially a rumored variable-aperture lens on iPhone 18 Pro.
1. Exposure scopes: waveforms and histograms in the viewfinder
The Camera app contains a full implementation of waveform and histogram displays so you can judge exposure while framing, not only after the shot. The tools would show how pixels fall across shadows, midtones, and highlights. Three presets show up in the code: RGB Composite, RGB Parade, and Luminance. A histogram answers “how much is blown or crushed?” A waveform answers “where in the frame?”
2. Focus peaking and highlight clipping
Focus peaking would outline high-contrast edges that are in focus — a staple of cinema cameras and serious video apps. Highlight clipping (or highlight warnings) would flag areas that are already overexposed. Code reportedly includes options for marker color, sensitivity, and how quickly the overlay appears.
3. Repeating self-timer
Instead of one countdown and one frame, the timer could fire, save, and immediately start the next countdown so you can grab a burst of posed shots without resetting. That is how many dedicated cameras already work; the stock iPhone app has never done it this cleanly.
4. Manual focus — with a hardware gate
Apple tested a focus slider in earlier software. In iOS 27 beta 1 the visible control was pulled, but capability checks remain. Those checks look for a phone whose first supported iOS version is 27 or later — language that, if it ships as written, would exclude every current iPhone and point at new models. The leak ties this to aperture control on iPhone 18 Pro.
5. Aperture-aware lens correction
Processing code can choose and blend lens-correction data based on the current aperture value. That is the kind of pipeline you need if the lens opening actually changes and light falloff / distortion change with it. Combined with rumors of variable aperture on the Pro models, it is one of the strongest software hints that the new camera is not just a software skin.
MacDailyNews Take: As beta strings vanish all the time, none of this is guaranteed to appear on September 9th, or to reach every iPhone that gets iOS 27. Still, the pattern is consistent: Apple is putting tools that used to live only in Final Cut Camera or third-party apps into the default Camera interface, then gating the most hardware-specific pieces to the next Pro generation.
If the event this week is about “Surprise and Shine,” the surprise for photographers may not be another megapixel bump. It may be that the stock Camera app finally grows up.
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Apple TV eyes ‘Silo’ expansion as sets stay standing after season 4 wrap
Apple TV’s dystopian hit “Silo” is heading toward a planned conclusion, but the underground world may not be sealed off for good.
Season 3 wrapped its weekly run on September 4. The fourth and final season, already filmed, is scheduled to premiere July 9, 2027. Apple announced years ago that season 4 would complete Hugh Howey’s original trilogy of Wool, Shift, and Dust. Seasons 3 and 4 were shot back-to-back; production on the finale season ended in March.
On September 7, Apple TV reporter Sigmund Judge posted that the streamer is developing a follow-up project. According to Judge, the show would begin pre-production later this year and tie into Howey’s planned “Silo 40” book trilogy, which Judge said is expected next summer.
9to5Mac amplified the report, noting Apple’s pattern of expanding successful science-fiction worlds. The service has already launched “Star City” from the F”or All Mankind” universe and announced a series set in the “Monarch” universe. “Silo” has been one of Apple’s strongest original dramas, which makes a continuation commercially logical even after the main story ends.
Howey pushed back immediately. Replying to Judge, the author wrote: “Yo, this is news to me. So probably not true.” Apple has not confirmed any spin-off.
The physical evidence is harder to dismiss. Judge and 9to5Mac both point out that the “Silo” sets have not been torn down nearly six months after cameras stopped. Production lots usually clear standing sets quickly when a series is finished. Leaving them intact is consistent with plans to reuse them.
The source material already points in that direction. Howey has said for more than a year that he is writing another trilogy focused on Silo 40, one of the 50 bunkers in his books. That story would run from before the events of Wool through after Dust. In the novels, Silo 40 is the bunker that learned the truth earlier than most and tried to disappear from the system that monitors the others. It is mentioned, but never visited in the original trilogy.
MacDailyNews Take: If Apple is quietly lining up the next chapter, it would follow the same playbook it used with “Silo” itself: lock in the conclusion of one story while keeping the world available for another. Season 4 is still the advertised ending of Juliette Nichols’ arc. Whether the standing sets are insurance, a coincidence, or the first visible sign of Silo 40 will become clearer once pre-production either starts or doesn’t later this year.
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Apple code points to two unreleased game controllers
Code in an early macOS 26.7 release candidate suggests Apple has been developing two unreleased game controllers that identify as first-party hardware, according to reporting from MacRumors‘ Juli Clover.
MacRumors reader Pdfu found GameController profiles for devices labeled T6502 and T1057 in the first 26.7 release candidate, which shipped in mid-August. Both appear to include standard gamepad parts: a D-pad, dual analog sticks, shoulder buttons, Home and Menu buttons, and analog triggers. The two designs differ in haptics. T1057 also includes accelerometer and gyroscope support; T6502 does not.
Dedicated hardware plug-ins for each device were present as well, which Clover noted is more consistent with real hardware than leftover placeholder strings. Apple later removed the references in the second 26.7 release candidate.
The find sits alongside a broader set of unreleased-device strings previously spotted in the same build. Apple has long rumored work on a physical game controller and has never shipped one, despite chances around Apple TV, Apple Arcade, and Vision Pro. The company has instead leaned on third-party pads and, in the Vision Pro case, partnered with Sony on PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers.
The strings could describe shipping products or internal test hardware used to validate controller support. If Apple did bring a controller to market, features such as Find My and instant pairing across Apple devices would be the most obvious ways to stand out from Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo pads that many players already own.
The relevant diffs are available in the blacktop/ipsw-diffs repository on GitHub, with Pdfu’s notes in the MacRumors forums.
MacDailyNews Take: To accompany the next-gen Apple TV hardware?
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Apple Watch loses convenient fast app-switching gesture in watchOS 27
Apple is seemingly dropping a long-standing Apple Watch shortcut in watchOS 27: double-clicking the Digital Crown no longer triggers the App Switcher allowing users to jump between and/or close recently used apps.
According to 9to5Mac’s Zac Hall, the change first showed up in the watchOS 27 beta and has stuck around all summer. For years, a double-click on the crown let users bounce quickly between two apps — or between an app and the watch face — without opening the full app grid. Hall says he used the gesture so often it became muscle memory, especially for jumping between Workout and Music.
That same recent-apps view also gave Watch owners a way to quit apps. On watchOS 26, users can still double-click the Digital Crown to open the App Switcher, swipe left on an app, and tap the X to close or quit it. iPhone users on iOS 26 have a similar option: open the recently used apps view and swipe left on an app to close or quit it. watchOS 27 takes away the double-click path that made that Watch workflow possible.
watchOS 27 instead pushes a new “dynamic app grid.” A single press of the Digital Crown now shows the Siri icon, five suggested apps, and a shortcut to the full grid. Hall writes that the new launcher has grown on him when the right app is already suggested. What it does not replace is a guaranteed, one-motion switch between two apps — or the swipe-left close action tied to the old App Switcher.
In the current beta, a double-click does the same thing as a single click. Hall argues that is a poor trade on a device with so few physical buttons. Only Apple Watch Ultra models have an Action button, and the side button below the crown still opens Wallet. Removing a dedicated double-click action from the crown, he says, leaves a useful control unused.
Hall first flagged the issue when the public beta launched in July and says he sent feedback to Apple in June. He still hopes Apple restores the crown gesture before watchOS 27 ships this month, or at least brings it back in watchOS 27.1.
Whether most Watch users will notice depends on how often they relied on the old shortcut. For those who used it both to jump between apps and to swipe left to quit them, watchOS 27 currently offers no equivalent.
MacDailyNews Take: Unless Apple has new plans for double-clicking the Digital Crown, they should bring back the App Switcher for that action.
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Apple TV’s hit drama ‘Silo’ to return for fourth and final season on July 9, 2027
On the heels of the riveting season three finale of “Silo,” Apple TV today announced that the globally acclaimed, hit world-building drama will return for its fourth and final season on July 9, 2027, and unveiled a sneak peek at the final chapter of the “gripping,” “thought-provoking” and “masterful dystopian tale” hailing from Emmy Award-winning creator Graham Yost, and starring and executive produced by Rebecca Ferguson.
Based on Hugh Howey’s New York Times bestselling trilogy, season three of “Silo” reveals an origin story set centuries earlier, while continuing the saga of a dystopian society of 10,000 people living underground under mysterious circumstances. In the present, Juliette Nichols (Ferguson) survives her forced “cleaning” but returns with memory loss as the silo recovers from rebellion and faces a dangerous new threat. Meanwhile, in the “Before Times,” journalist Helen Drew (Jessica Henwick) and Congressman Daniel Keene (Ashley Zukerman) uncover a conspiracy that pulls them into a chain of events with catastrophic, irreversible consequences.
SPOILER WARNING: Do not watch if you haven’t seen “Silo” season 3 finale
“Silo” is produced by Apple Studios. The series is executive produced by Yost, Michael Dinner, Nina Jack, Joanna Thapa, Ferguson, Morten Tyldum, Howey, Amber Templemore, Fred Golan, Rémi Aubuchon and AMC Studios.
Apple TV offers premium, compelling drama and comedy series, feature films, groundbreaking documentaries, and kids and family entertainment, and is available to watch across all of a user’s favorite screens. After its launch on November 1, 2019, Apple TV became the first all-original streaming service to launch around the world, and has premiered more original hits and received more award recognitions faster than any other streaming service in its debut. To date, Apple Original films, documentaries and series have been honored with 880 wins and 3,826 award nominations and counting including multi-Emmy Award-winning and history-making comedies “The Studio” and “Ted Lasso,” global cultural phenomenon “Severance,” Apple’s most-viewed drama “Pluribus,” Academy Award Best Picture winner “CODA” and Academy Award winner “F1,” the highest-grossing sports feature of all time.
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Apple preps privacy-first home security cameras and monitoring service
Apple is preparing a dedicated home-security product line and a companion monitoring service, according to Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman, as the company maps a broader expansion of its smart-home business beyond next week’s iPhone event.
In a Sept. 4 report on Apple’s product pipeline under new Chief Executive Officer John Ternus, Gurman said the company is working on an in-home security sensor and system slated for 2027. The device is described as a privacy-centric camera and automation accessory that would use artificial intelligence to watch a room’s environment rather than continuously storing traditional video footage. That hardware, he wrote, is expected to tap into a new Apple home-security and monitoring service.
The framing is consistent with earlier Gurman reporting that Apple has been developing battery-powered security hardware — previously discussed as a camera and later as a small sensor, internally associated with the J450 project — that can recognize people, use infrared sensing, and trigger automations such as lights or music when a household member enters or leaves a room. Apple has also been said to be exploring a wider lineup that could eventually include additional cameras and a facial-recognition doorbell aimed at rivals such as Amazon’s Ring and Google’s Nest.
A service layer would be a notable shift. Apple already offers HomeKit Secure Video through iCloud, but Gurman’s latest account points to a more complete security and monitoring offering — the kind of recurring product that could sit alongside Apple’s other subscription businesses. Industry coverage of the same Bloomberg report has noted that such a service could later be bundled into Apple One, though Apple has not announced pricing, professional monitoring, or how much processing would stay on-device.
The security push is part of a larger home reset. Gurman and other reports have said Apple is first rolling out refreshed living-room hardware, including a new Apple TV 4K, an updated HomePod mini, and a screen-equipped home hub often referred to as a HomePad, before the 2027 security system arrives. The company has long lagged Amazon and Google in connected-home hardware even as it has marketed privacy as a differentiator. An AI-first sensor that avoids constant video recording would be an attempt to turn that brand position into a product category.
Apple has not publicly confirmed the devices or the service. Details on design, battery life, outdoor coverage, emergency dispatch, and whether video would still be captured after an AI alert remain unreported. What Gurman’s reporting does make clear is that Apple now sees home security as both a hardware line and a services opportunity — and that the company is targeting 2027 to bring them to market together.
MacDailyNews Take: This will be great – as long as it works with our Eufy cameras!
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What’s next for Apple’s MacBook Neo: Faster chip, more memory, new colors
Apple is, of course, already working on the next MacBook Neo, a follow-up to the budget laptop that became one of its surprise hits this year. According to Bloomberg News‘ Mark Gurman, the company is testing an updated model with an A19 Pro processor, more memory, and additional color options as part of a broader Mac refresh stretching through 2026 and 2027.
The current MacBook Neo launched in March with a 13-inch Liquid Retina display, an aluminum chassis, and Apple’s A18 Pro chip. It ships with 8GB of unified memory and either 256GB or 512GB of storage. Apple introduced it at $599, or $499 with education pricing, in blush, indigo, silver, and citrus. The starting price later rose to $699 during an industrywide memory squeeze.
That 8GB memory ceiling is the machine’s most cited limit. Everyday browsing and documents are fine. Heavy tab stacks, several apps at once, and on-device Apple Intelligence features run tighter. Gurman has reported that the next Neo is being built around the A19 Pro and a larger memory configuration. Prior reporting around that same pipeline has pointed to 12GB as the likely step up, which would give the laptop more headroom for multitasking and local AI workloads.
Color remains part of the plan. Gurman has said Apple intends to keep refreshing the Neo’s finishes. That fits how the product was sold: as a cheaper Mac that still looks like a statement.
The next Neo is not expected to jump to M-series chips, MagSafe, or a touch display. Those upgrades sit on other MacBook lines in the same multi-year overhaul Gurman has outlined, including redesigned Pro models with touch and OLED. The Neo’s job stays the same: a lower-priced aluminum notebook that uses A-series Apple Silicon to undercut Windows laptops and Chromebooks.
A spring 2027 window has been the working assumption in coverage of Gurman’s reporting, alongside other consumer hardware. Pricing is the open question. Component costs already forced Apple to lift the first Neo’s sticker. A faster chip and more RAM could make another increase likely, even if the company keeps the model clearly below the MacBook Air.
MacDailyNews Take: Until Apple confirms the specs, the next MacBook Neo sounds like a targeted refresh: A19 Pro, more memory, new colors, and the same basic idea that made the first one sell: macOS in a machine more people can afford.
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iOS 27 adds iPhone Handoff, letting two iPhones share one phone number
Apple is preparing a practical multi-device feature for iOS 27 that lets users keep a single phone number while moving between two iPhones. The capability, called iPhone Handoff, was first spotted in detail by MacRumors after appearing only as a brief line on a WWDC 2026 feature slide.
The idea is straightforward. One iPhone is set as the main device and keeps the user’s primary eSIM. The second phone is designated a companion and receives a companion eSIM tied to the same number and carrier account. The number then follows whichever iPhone is unlocked and in active use, rather than ringing on both devices at once. A Dynamic Island notification can appear when the number transfers. Cellular settings stay on the main iPhone, while location sharing updates to the device currently using the number.
Setup lives in Settings under Cellular. Both phones need iOS 27, and the feature depends on carrier support. Early reports point to T-Mobile in the United States and Deutsche Telekom in Germany as possible first partners, though availability will vary by network. The approach builds on how an iPhone already shares a number with a cellular Apple Watch, using eSIM provisioning instead of cloning a line or swapping physical SIMs.
MacDailyNews Take: The use case is niche, but useful for people who keep a smaller iPhone and a larger one, a personal device and a work device, or a future foldable alongside a standard iPhone. iOS 27 is expected later this month, so more official details and carrier confirmations should arrive soon.
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Apple’s Ternus era begins September 9th with foldable iPhone, iPhone 18 Pro and a bigger product wave
Apple is preparing its first major showcase under new Chief Executive Officer John Ternus, and the September 9th “Surprise and Shine” event is expected to mark more than another annual iPhone refresh. According to Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman, the keynote will introduce the latest iPhones and Apple Watches — and kick off what he describes as the company’s biggest run of new devices in years.
For much of the past decade and a half, Apple has spent more energy refining existing lines and expanding services than inventing new categories. Gurman’s reporting frames next week as the start of a different stretch: new form factors and entirely new product areas arriving across 2026, 2027 and beyond, with Ternus taking the stage as the public face of that shift.
The centerpiece is expected to be Apple’s first foldable iPhone, widely rumored to carry an Ultra-style name. Reporting tied to Gurman and other briefings describes a book-style device rather than a clamshell: a cover display around 5.5 inches and an inner screen near 7.8 inches, closer to an iPad mini when opened. The hinge and pocketability have reportedly impressed people who have handled prototypes. Trade-offs are also part of the story — a two-lens rear camera without a dedicated telephoto, and Touch ID on the side button instead of a conventional Face ID system because of how thin the folded body is. Pricing is expected to start above $2,000.
Alongside the foldable, Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. The standard iPhone 18, a cheaper 18e model and a follow-on iPhone Air are widely expected to wait until 2027. Memory and component costs have already pushed rivals higher; Gurman has indicated Apple is likely to raise Pro pricing as well, with the 18 Pro discussed in the neighborhood of $1,199 before taxes and configurations. Camera upgrades, including talk of a variable-aperture main lens, are among the features watchers will look for on the conventional Pros.
New watches are also on the agenda. The Apple Watch Series 12 is expected to be a relatively modest update, while the Apple Watch Ultra 4 is rumored to take a larger design step. AirPods 5 could appear as well, though camera-equipped AirPods and several home products sit further out on the roadmap Gurman has sketched in recent months.
That longer map is the other half of the Sept. 9 story. Gurman has written that Ternus inherits a pipeline far larger than the handful of new categories launched during Tim Cook’s tenure. A touch-screen MacBook is among the follow-on products flagged in the Bloomberg piece’s own framing. Smart-home displays, more ambitious wearables and other experiments have been discussed as 2027–2028 possibilities, even as some larger foldable tablet or Mac concepts have been reported as delayed or canceled.
MacDailyNews Take: The event is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 9, at 10 a.m. Pacific at Apple Park, livestreamed on Apple’s site, the Apple TV app, and YouTube. Pre-orders for the new iPhones could follow within a day or two if Apple sticks to its usual cadence, though early foldable supply may be tight. Whether “Surprise and Shine” delivers a true surprise or simply the first official look at products the rumor mill has already mapped in detail, Ternus’s debut as CEO will be judged on whether Apple can turn a foldable iPhone and a more active product calendar into the kind of growth it has not seen from hardware in years.
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BASF sues Apple over alleged face authentication patent violations
Worldwide Marketing, Philip W. Schiller, explained Face ID during Apple’s September 12, 2017 event
German chemical conglomerate BASF has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple in a U.S. federal court, accusing the iPhone maker of using its technology in Face ID and related facial authentication systems without a license.
The complaint, lodged in the United States, claims Apple’s TrueDepth camera system, Secure Enclave processing, and liveness-detection features in iPhones, iPads, and other devices infringe multiple BASF-owned patents covering methods for secure biometric matching, three-dimensional facial mapping, and anti-spoofing analysis. BASF alleges these technologies have been incorporated into Apple products since the introduction of Face ID in 2017 and continue to be used for device unlocking, Apple Pay, and other authentication functions.
BASF, best known for chemicals, materials, and agricultural products, maintains a sizable intellectual-property portfolio that extends beyond its core industries. The company asserts the patents in question describe techniques for capturing and verifying facial geometry in a way that resists photographs, masks, or other presentation attacks — capabilities central to modern smartphone security.
Apple has not publicly commented on the specific filing. The company has faced a series of Face ID and Touch ID-related patent cases over the years from various rights holders and has generally defended its biometric systems as independently developed and implemented within its own secure hardware architecture.
The suit seeks an injunction against further sales of accused devices, monetary damages for past infringement, and other relief. Patent cases of this type often take years to resolve and frequently involve challenges to patent validity at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in parallel with district-court litigation.
The dispute highlights how companies outside the traditional consumer-electronics sector sometimes assert older or adjacent patents against high-volume products such as smartphones. Whether BASF’s claims will survive early motions or claim-construction proceedings remains to be seen. Apple routinely contests such assertions and has prevailed in several prior biometric-patent matters.
MacDailyNews Take: The case is yet another in the crowded field of Face ID-related litigation that has dogged Apple since the feature launched nearly a decade ago. Courts and the patent office will now determine whether BASF’s patents actually cover the specific combination of sensors, algorithms, and secure processing Apple deploys.
And, yes, we haven’t thought of BASF since:
Also, yes, we’re old.
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Inde Navarrette to star in Apple Original Films sci-fi thriller ‘The Waffle House Index’
Inde Navarrette is lining up her next high-profile film after “Obsession” and Marvel’s “X-Men.” She will star in “The Waffle House Index,” a sci-fi thriller acquired by Apple Original Films. The project also marks her first turn as an executive producer.
Plan B Entertainment is producing. Andrew Nunnelly wrote the screenplay, a 2025 Black List title that sources say sold in a seven-figure deal, according to THR. Louis Paxton, whose Sundance NEXT Innovator Award-winning “The Incomer” arrives in theaters later this month, is attached to direct.
The title borrows a real-world shorthand for hurricane damage. Because Waffle House restaurants typically stay open around the clock, emergency officials use the chain as an informal gauge: green means full service and limited disruption; yellow means a reduced menu and strained supplies; red means the restaurant is closed and conditions are unsafe.
Nunnelly’s story begins closer to the diner floor. A Waffle House waitress is already having a rough night when a stranger with a gun walks in. From there the plot escalates into a mass flood, killer crocodiles, a nuclear explosion, a magical bunker beneath the restaurant, and aliens.
The film adds to Plan B’s relationship with Apple. The company, led by Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner, was among the producers of the racing drama “F1.” Plan B recently made the horror film “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” and is preparing Sarah Polley’s “The Bell Jar.”
Navarrette’s breakout in Curry Barker’s “Obsession” has turned her into one of Hollywood’s most in-demand young stars. The film has grossed more than $505 million worldwide, drawn strong reviews, and spilled into pop culture, including a “Halloween Horror Nights” presence at Universal Studios. Oscar talk has followed her performance. She is also set to play Rogue in Marvel’s upcoming X-Men movie. Earlier credits include Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why” and The CW’s “Superman & Lois.” A source described the Apple deal as a measure of how large her profile has become at a studio built around stars.
Navarrette is represented by CAA, Untitled Entertainment, and Hansen Jacobson. Nunnelly is represented by Buchwald, Untitled, and Hansen Jacobson. Paxton is represented by CAA and Independent Talent.
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Apple may be prepping an M5 Ultra MacBook Pro powerhouse
Apple has already put the M5 Ultra in a machine: the new Mac Studio, announced in late August with a first-of-its-kind quad-die UltraFusion design, up to a 36-core CPU, up to an 80-core GPU, and as much as 512GB of unified memory. That should have closed the book on where the chip would land. It hasn’t.
Earlier this year, software identifiers in an iOS beta pointed to both M5 Max and M5 Ultra silicon in contexts that looked a lot like upcoming MacBook hardware. Apple’s internal naming has long been consistent: “C” for Max, “D” for Ultra. Those codes were enough for some analysts to float a once-unthinkable idea: an M5 Ultra MacBook Pro.
That rumor never became the official plan. Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman has since reported that Apple’s first OLED, touchscreen high-end laptop — widely expected to be branded MacBook Ultra rather than another MacBook Pro — will ship with the existing M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, not the Ultra and not the skipped high-end M6 parts. A follow-up with M7 Pro and M7 Max is already in testing for late 2027.
So why keep talking about an M5 Ultra MacBook Pro?
Because the engineering and product logic hasn’t fully gone away. Apple skipped an M4 Ultra entirely. It built the M5 Ultra anyway, then put it in a compact desktop that can swallow the heat and power. A laptop version would be a different problem: more dies, far higher memory bandwidth (Apple cites 1.2TB/s on the Studio chip), and a thermal envelope that the current 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro chassis was never designed to hold. Battery life would suffer unless Apple cut clocks, limited cores, or redesigned the cooling stack from scratch.
That last option is exactly what the rumored MacBook Ultra is supposed to be — a thinner, redesigned chassis with OLED, a touchscreen, and a Dynamic Island. The first models are slated for late 2026 or early 2027 and are expected to stay on M5 Pro and M5 Max so Apple doesn’t have to wait for M7. Putting a true Ultra in that body would be the most aggressive move Apple has made with portable silicon since the original M1 Max.
There is still a narrow path where an M5 Ultra laptop appears. Apple could treat it as a limited, top-of-line SKU rather than the volume product. It could use a derated Ultra configuration. Or the early beta strings were simply leftover desktop code that happened to sit next to laptop identifiers. The safer read, based on the latest reporting, is that the Ultra stays on the desk for this generation and the new laptop line differentiates itself with display, input, and industrial design instead of raw die count.
Even so, the combination of an announced M5 Ultra, older software leaks that named it alongside MacBook-class chips, and a high-end laptop that Apple is clearly treating as a new flagship is why the rumor won’t die.
MacDailyNews Take: If Apple is testing an M5 Ultra MacBook Pro, it would be the first time the company has tried to put its biggest fused SoC in a notebook. That would be a statement product — and a thermal engineering marvel.
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Apple hit with $2.7 billion class action lawsuit over alleged anti-competitive app tracking transparency
Apple is facing a massive £2 billion ($2.7 billion) collective lawsuit in the UK, accused of abusing its dominant position in the smartphone market by enforcing unfair privacy rules that hobbled rival app developers while boosting its own advertising empire.
The class-action claim, filed Thursday at London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal by ATT Collective Action Limited, alleges that the tech giant’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework introduced in 2021 placed stringent restrictions on third-party developers while giving its own internal services a distinct competitive edge.
Privacy Feature or Self-Serving Gatekeeping?
Apple launched the ATT framework in 2021, marketing it as a privacy-first feature designed to give users control over whether third-party apps could track their browsing and usage activity across other companies’ apps and websites.
However, lawyers and claimants behind the action argue that Apple operated under a double standard. While third-party developers faced a mandatory prompt that dramatically curtailed opt-in rates for targeted advertising, Apple’s own ad platform operated under far less restrictive conditions—gathering user data without imposing the same burdensome consent friction on users.
“Apple’s policy resulted in very significant harm to businesses that depend on Apple as a gatekeeper,” said Ann Pope, a former senior official with Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) who is leading the litigation. “This action is important to protect the rights of British businesses that depend on Apple, to ensure that the rules that Apple applies are fair, and to compensate the losses that British companies have suffered.”
Under the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal’s opt-out regime, the class action covers all affected UK-based developers automatically unless they choose to explicitly opt out.
Growing Regulatory Scrutiny Across Europe
The London claim is part of a broader regulatory backlash against Apple’s privacy policies across Europe. Multiple antitrust watchdogs have investigated whether the iPhone maker used privacy safeguards as a shield for self-preferencing:
• Germany: Germany’s Federal Cartel Office launched an abuse-of-dominance probe into ATT, which resulted in Apple agreeing to modify its ad-tracking data rules for developers.
• France & Italy: Competition regulators in France and Italy previously levied major fines—exceeding £150 million and £98 million respectively—over anti-competitive practices tied to user consent frameworks.
• Broad Industry Pushback: Major platforms dependent on ad targeting, including Meta (formerly Facebook), alongside news publishers and independent mobile developers, have long criticized ATT for disproportionately choking off revenue models reliant on digital ads.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple has historically defended ATT as a core consumer feature aimed solely at granting users transparent choices over their personal data.
The outcome of the tribunal proceedings could set a major precedent for digital gatekeeper regulation across Europe, adding to a slew of ongoing legal challenges regarding App Store fees and ecosystem dominance.
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