Apple News
Second October product launch expected as Apple lines up more late-month hardware
Apple is expected to stage a second product launch in the final week of October, according to MacRumors’ Joe Rossignol, citing multiple sources familiar with the company’s plans.
That later window would follow an earlier October event. Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman has reported that Apple intends to unveil an all-new home hub, a new HomePod mini, and a new Apple TV 4K on Tuesday, October 13th. MacRumors has since learned of a separate launch slated for the end of the month, pointing to two distinct sets of announcements rather than a single October drop.
Rossignol writes that the exact lineup for the late-month launch is not confirmed, but the most likely candidates are Macs. Those include long-rumored “MacBook Ultra” models with OLED displays and a thinner, lighter design, a base 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M6 chip, and an iMac with an M6 chip. Apple has also already said a high-end Mac Studio configuration with the M5 Ultra chip and 512GB of RAM is due in late October, which would fit the same period.
A new iPad mini is also expected this month, with an OLED display, an A20 Pro chip, a landscape front camera, and a redesigned speaker system. It is not clear whether that tablet would appear with the home products on October 13, with the Macs in the final week, or on its own.
MacDailyNews Take: The two launch windows would sit alongside the iPhone Duo, which is set to launch on Friday, October 23rd. Taken together, the schedule described points to a crowded second half of the month for Apple hardware.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Second October product launch expected as Apple lines up more late-month hardware appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Apple special event reportedly planned for October 13th
Apple is planning to hold a special event on Tuesday, October 13th, to introduce a long-awaited smart home hub, a new HomePod mini, and an updated Apple TV, according to Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman.
In his Power On newsletter, Gurman wrote that “Apple is planning to hold an event on Oct. 13 to unveil its long-awaited smart home hub with a screen, the new HomePod mini and an updated Apple TV.” He added that all three devices will have Siri AI at the core. The report goes further than earlier reporting: last week Gurman said the products were set to be unveiled on October 13th, but he did not then specify that Apple would stage an event.
Apple has not issued an invitation or confirmed the date. Based on the timing of past October launches, invitations could go out as soon as this week. If the company follows recent practice, the event is expected to be streamed online, with a hands-on session for selected media afterward.
The centerpiece is expected to be Apple’s first dedicated smart home hub, sometimes referred to in reports as HomePad. Bloomberg has described a square display of about 6 inches, an iMac G4-style design with a screen on a connected base, and versions that can sit on a countertop or mount on a wall. It is said to include a front-facing FaceTime camera, microphones, and speakers in the base, and to serve as a control point for HomeKit devices, widgets, and personalized information.
Also expected is the first new HomePod mini since the original launched in 2020, with a faster chip, improved audio, and support for Apple’s newer Siri AI features. The refreshed Apple TV 4K is likewise reported to gain a faster processor, more memory, and Siri AI.
The possible October event would follow a busy September in which Apple, under new CEO John Ternus, introduced the iPhone 18 Pro lineup, the company’s first foldable phone (the iPhone Duo), AirPods 5, and new Apple Watch models. Pre-orders for the iPhone Duo are expected to begin October 16th, with availability on October 23rd.
MacDailyNews Note: Other products still rumored for later in 2026, including an OLED iPad mini and new Macs, are not part of Gurman’s October 13th event description. Apple typically confirms event dates only when it sends invitations.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Apple special event reportedly planned for October 13th appeared first on MacDailyNews.
New tool lets Mac users strip Apple Intelligence and reclaim about 12GB of storage
Mac owners who never asked for Apple Intelligence are finding a new way to get the disk space back.
A free open-source tool called RemoveMacAI turns the feature off on macOS 27, deletes the on-device models, and tries to stop them from returning. Developer Om Lahore released it under an MIT license after Apple dropped the single master switch in Golden Gate. You can still toggle individual features, but the models stay on the drive anyway. Apple has put the footprint at up to about 14 GB on recent Macs. Lahore says the tool typically recovers around 12 GB. Some users have seen System Settings list 30 GB or more, and a few report reclaiming space in that neighborhood.
The utility runs from Terminal. You install it with a one-line curl command or Homebrew, confirm what it plans to do, then approve a configuration profile in System Settings. macOS requires that approval, so the tool cannot skip it. The profile uses Apple’s own restriction keys to shut off the features and the asset service that manages the models. RemoveMacAI then deletes the downloads through that service rather than by turning off System Integrity Protection or hand-editing protected folders. It also points future download attempts at a closed local port so they fail. A dry-run previews the change. A revert command undoes it. Dictation is left alone.
What you lose is the rest of the AI suite: Siri and “Hey Siri,” Writing Tools, Genmoji, Image Playground, the ChatGPT extension, summaries, smart replies, inline predictions, Photos Clean Up, Spatial Photos, and Xcode’s predictive completion. You can keep specific features if you want.
The appeal is obvious on a 256 GB Mac that cannot be upgraded. The risk is also obvious. This is an unofficial tool, and the restriction keys it relies on were already deprecated in macOS 26.4. They still work in 27.0.1, but a future update could break them. Storage numbers in Settings can lag while the system finishes cleaning up. Anyone who runs it should read the code first and treat the result as reversible only for as long as Apple leaves the door open.
MacDailyNews Take: More info: https://github.com/omlahore/RemoveMacAI
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post New tool lets Mac users strip Apple Intelligence and reclaim about 12GB of storage appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Apple is hiring an ‘iCup’ specialist to keep break-room coffee flowing
Apple is looking for someone to keep the coffee running across its Santa Clara Valley offices, under a job title that sounds more like a product codename than a facilities role.
The company posted a listing on September 28 for an “iCup Supply Specialist,” a full-time role in its Corporate Functions group based in Santa Clara, California. The posting says the hire will make sure employees have access to freshly brewed coffee in break rooms, and it opens with a line that has already circulated among Apple watchers: “At Apple, we take coffee seriously.”
As MacRumors’ Joe Rossignol reports, the specialist would work as a route operator, driving between sites to sanitize, clean, restock, and manage as many as 90 bean-to-cup machines. Day-to-day work includes refilling beans and supplies, cleaning food-contact surfaces, answering service calls, and coordinating with building managers. The role reports to an iCup Service Supervisor. MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris first flagged the listing over the weekend.
Pay is listed at $27.75 to $36.05 an hour. Minimum requirements include a high school diploma or equivalent, knowledge of safe food-handling practices, one to three years of route or delivery experience, similar time in customer service and warehouse or grocery work, a driver’s license with a clean record, and the ability to lift up to 50 pounds.
The “iCup” name is not new. Apple was already recruiting an “iCup Technician” by 2014, when TIME Magazine noted the internal coffee operation. More than a decade later, the team is still branded like a product line, even though the work is break-room logistics rather than a secret device.
The listing is on Apple’s jobs site for applicants who want the route.
MacDailyNews Take: For a second, we were worried the job was for the company softball team.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Apple is hiring an ‘iCup’ specialist to keep break-room coffee flowing appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Today is the 15th anniversary of Steve Jobs’ death
Today marks the 15th anniversary of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ death.
Jobs died at his Palo Alto, California home on October 5, 2011, due to complications from a relapse of his previously treated islet-cell pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. He died with his wife, children, and sisters at his side. His sister, writer Mona Simpson, described his passing: “Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times. Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them. Steve’s final words were: ‘Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.'” He then lost consciousness and passed away several hours later.
There’s lots of ways to be as a person, and some people express their deep appreciation in different ways, but one of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there.
And you never meet the people, you never shake their hands, you never hear their story or tell yours, but somehow, in the act of making something with a great deal of care and love, something is transmitted there.
And it’s a way of expressing to the rest of our species our deep appreciation. So, we need to be true to who we are and remember what’s really important to us. That’s what’s going to keep Apple, Apple: is if we keep us, us. — Steve Jobs
MacDailyNews Take: As always, we miss you, Steve!
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Shop The Apple Store at Amazon.
amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "macdailynews-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_design = "enhanced_links"; amzn_assoc_asins = "B0BDHTQDRZ"; amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "6bd19825f5f01d0e84be07a78be5849c";
The post Today is the 15th anniversary of Steve Jobs’ death appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Apple will replace a ‘small number’ of AT&T iPhone 18 Pro Max units after service-loss bug
Apple said it will replace a “small number” of iPhone 18 Pro Max phones on the AT&T network after a bug left some devices unable to connect to cellular service.
In a statement given to media outlets, the company said it had “identified an issue affecting a small number of iPhone 18 Pro Max users on the AT&T network that may cause a device to lose service and be unable to make calls.” Reports from affected customers describe phones that also cannot send or receive texts or use mobile data, leaving them usable mainly on Wi-Fi and, in some cases, stuck in SOS mode.
The problem is limited to the iPhone 18 Pro Max on AT&T. Apple said it has not seen the same failure on other iPhone models or on other carriers. The $1,299 handset had been on sale for about two weeks when the reports surfaced. Apple has not said how many devices are affected; MacRumors noted that thousands of users had posted complaints on Apple’s support forums and elsewhere, while the company continues to describe the group as small.
Software fixes will not restore phones that have already lost service. Apple released iOS 27.0.1 earlier in the week and began pushing an AT&T carrier settings update intended to stop the bug from hitting more devices. “These updates together are meant to help prevent this issue from occurring,” the company said. It urged all iPhone 18 Pro Max owners on AT&T to install the updates now. The carrier settings update is expected to download automatically over about 14 days; users can also trigger it manually by opening Settings, tapping General, then About.
Customers whose phones have already dropped service need a hardware replacement. Apple said those users should contact Apple Support or AT&T, or visit an Apple Store or AT&T store, to arrange a swap. Once a replacement is issued, the line has to be activated on the new handset.
MacDailyNews Note: For everyone else on AT&T with a working iPhone 18 Pro Max, the immediate step is to update. Owners of other iPhones, and iPhone 18 Pro Max users on other carriers, are not affected.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Apple will replace a ‘small number’ of AT&T iPhone 18 Pro Max units after service-loss bug appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Apple to tighten Mac prompts when AI agents seek full-disk access after Meta Muse complaints
Apple said Friday it will add clearer warnings and extra controls on Macs when AI agents request broad access to a user’s files, a change that follows complaints about Meta’s Muse agent and private messages, Reuters’ Stephen Nellis reports.
On iPhones and iPads, apps are sandboxed by default and cannot read data inside other apps. Macs are more open: a “Full Disk Access” setting lets programs such as backup tools see everything on the machine if the user agrees. Apple said some developers have used that permission in ways that could put people at risk, and that the danger will grow as AI agents become more capable and autonomous.
“Going forward, we will introduce additional controls to ensure that users who genuinely wish to grant an app this extraordinary level of access can only do so with very explicit user action,” Apple wrote in a developer post, according to Reuters’ Stephen Nellis. The company said it wants people to understand those risks before they hand over that level of access.
The move follows a column by Inc magazine’s Jason Aten, who said Meta’s Muse — an agent meant to handle tasks such as canceling unused subscriptions or negotiating better prices — had read private messages on his Mac even though he believed he had not turned on Full Disk Access. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone disputed that account, writing on X that Muse can read Apple Messages content only if a user enables both Full Disk Access and a Messages connector, and that the permission can be revoked at any time.
MacDailyNews Take: Meta Platforms is not to be trusted. Anyone who grants Full Disk Access on their Mac to Meta Platforms, of all companies, deserves whatever privacy or security disasters befall them.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Apple to tighten Mac prompts when AI agents seek full-disk access after Meta Muse complaints appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Apple Original Films celebrates ‘Matchbox The Movie’ in Mexico City
At the start of this month at Toreo Parque Central in Mexico City, Apple Original Films hosted a special screening for its highly anticipated action film “Matchbox The Movie,” premiering globally on Apple TV on Friday, October 9, 2026. Event attendees included stars John Cena, Jessica Biel, Sam Richardson, Teyonah Parris, and Arturo Castro.
Inspired by the iconic Mattel toys, “Matchbox The Movie” is an action-packed, globe-trotting adventure about a group of friends since childhood who have their lives upended when undercover CIA agent Sean (John Cena), their long-absent former leader, returns to their small town and unwittingly gets them embroiled in a frantic international pursuit to save the world.
An Apple Original Film hailing from Skydance Media and Mattel Films, “Matchbox The Movie” is directed and executive produced by Sam Hargrave and written by David Coggeshall. David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, and Don Granger produce for Skydance, and Robbie Brenner and Ynon Kreiz produce for Mattel Films. Jules Daly also serves as producer. Patrick Newall and Elizabeth Bassin serve as executive producers.
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 919 wins and 3,829 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.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple TV is available on the Apple TV app in over 100 countries and regions, on over 1 billion screens, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, popular smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO, TCL and others, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, and at tv.apple.com, for $14.99 per month with a seven-day free trial for new subscribers. For a limited time, customers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K or Mac can enjoy three months of Apple TV for free.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Apple Original Films celebrates ‘Matchbox The Movie’ in Mexico City appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Apple’s redesigned OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro said to be significantly lighter
Apple’s redesigned MacBook Pro will be significantly lighter than the current models, Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman reports, on top of the touchscreen and OLED display already expected.
In his Power On newsletter, Gurman says Apple has reengineered the interior, miniaturizing parts and rearranging components so the computer is much easier to carry. He does not give a new weight. The current 16-inch MacBook Pro weighs as much as about 4.7 to 4.8 pounds, compared with 3.3 pounds for the 15-inch MacBook Air, so a real cut on the larger Pro would be obvious in a bag.
The machines are the first MacBooks with a touch screen and the first MacBook Pros with OLED, which Gurman has previously described as tandem OLED. They are also expected to be thinner, swap the notch for a Dynamic Island, and use M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. Gurman says they are being tested with macOS 27.2, which is already in beta, and that he still expects Apple to introduce them in October or November.
Touch is meant to sit alongside the keyboard and trackpad, not replace them. Software changes tied to the new display include controls that enlarge after a tap, menus that appear near the finger, and support for scrolling and pinch-to-zoom. The OLED models are expected to sit above the existing MacBook Pros and cost more.
MacDailyNews Take: Lighter is better!
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Apple’s redesigned OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro said to be significantly lighter appeared first on MacDailyNews.
New Apple CEO is far more involved in design than predecessor
Apple is not looking outside for a chief design officer. Chief executive John Ternus is doing the job himself, according to Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman.
In his Power On newsletter, Gurman reports that Ternus has immersed himself in the company’s industrial design and human interface teams since becoming CEO on September 1st. People familiar with the department say he works hands-on in the design studio several times a week, sometimes returning more than once in a single day. That is a sharp change from Tim Cook, who typically visited for about an hour once a month at most, Gurman writes.
Ternus already had some involvement with the studio as head of hardware engineering, because the two functions have to stay closely coordinated. His role has widened since he took the top job. Gurman describes him as having effectively chosen himself as the overall design leader, even though Apple has not formally named him chief design officer.
The two groups still have their own heads: Molly Anderson in industrial design and Steve Lemay in human interface design. Apple has not had a single executive over both functions since Jony Ive left in 2019. Ternus began overseeing design before he became CEO. After former chief operating officer Jeff Williams retired in 2025, the teams formally reported to Cook but, in practice, began answering to Ternus. During the April-to-September transition, the design leaders were effectively his only direct reports, Gurman reports.
The shift matches how Ternus is splitting the rest of the job. He is largely leaving finance to chief financial officer Kevan Parekh and the supply chain to chief operating officer Sabih Khan, and is spending product time with chief hardware officer Johny Srouji and hardware engineering leader Tom Marieb.
Gurman also recounts a conversation between Ternus and Cook in which Ternus was told to be himself rather than copy his predecessor. Cook had focused on the areas where he could create the most value for Apple — operations, sales, financial strategy, and the supply chain. Ternus, a hardware engineer, is putting his time into engineering and design instead.
MacDailyNews Take: It is so very nice to finally have a product guy back at Apple’s helm! It bodes very well for the company’s future after a decade and a half slog of iteration and financial engineering. We can’t wait to see what Ternus & Co. create!
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post New Apple CEO is far more involved in design than predecessor appeared first on MacDailyNews.
GrayKey maker claims tools can hold seized iPhones in unlockable state past Apple’s 72-hour reboot
Magnet Forensics, the company behind the GrayKey phone-unlocking tool used by law enforcement, says it can keep seized iPhones in a more accessible forensic state even after Apple’s inactivity reboot, according to a training video obtained by 404 Media.
The video, described as an educational tutorial made for law enforcement and dated early 2025, presents two products: a new device called GrayKey Preserve, and an Evidence Preservation Mode for existing GrayKey hardware. A Magnet employee in the video says both can “capture” an iPhone’s After First Unlock (AFU) state so that it survives a reboot or power loss. “Even if that device does reboot for any number of reasons, memory maintenance or the power is lost or whatever, the AFU state is not lost,” the employee says. “This is the true magic behind the GrayKey Preserve and the Evidence Preservation Mode function.” The same presentation calls the capability “an absolute game changer for iOS forensics.”
Apple added the inactivity reboot in iOS 18 and tightened it in iOS 18.1. If an iPhone is not unlocked for 72 hours, it restarts itself and returns to Before First Unlock (BFU). In BFU, class keys used to decrypt much of the user’s data stay locked inside the Secure Enclave until the passcode is entered again. Forensic tools generally extract far more from a device that is still AFU — unlocked at least once since the last boot — than from one that has rebooted into BFU. Law enforcement complained about the feature soon after it appeared, because seized phones often sit in evidence rooms or queues while agencies wait for a warrant or lab time.
Magnet’s claimed workaround is framed as preservation rather than immediate extraction. GrayKey Preserve is described as a field unit with no brute-force or full extraction capability of its own; its job is to hold the phone’s forensic state until a lab GrayKey can image it. Evidence Preservation Mode on standard GrayKey hardware is presented the same way: gain initial access, freeze the state, and wait for authorization before pulling data. The video also says the tools can stop time-based cleanup that would otherwise drop cached location data, recently deleted photos, and iMessages, and that after the initial connection they cut cellular, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi so the phone cannot be remotely wiped or updated.
The recording does not explain the technical method. Security researcher Jiska Classen, who previously demonstrated the 72-hour reboot, has speculated that clock manipulation could be involved; that remains an outside hypothesis, not something shown in the video. Apple and Magnet Forensics did not respond to 404 Media’s requests for comment. The claims have not been independently verified in public technical analysis.
MacDailyNews Take: The report is the latest round in a long contest between Apple’s device encryption and commercial forensic tools sold mainly to police. GrayKey has for years been one of the better-known products for unlocking iPhones that are still AFU. Inactivity reboot was designed to shrink the window in which those tools work. If Magnet’s description holds, agencies that can attach a Preserve unit or enable Evidence Preservation Mode before the 72-hour timer fires could keep that window open while they wait on legal process — without the phone falling back to the harder BFU state on its own.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post GrayKey maker claims tools can hold seized iPhones in unlockable state past Apple’s 72-hour reboot appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Apple Original Films hosts ‘Tenzing’ red carpet premiere in London
Thursday evening at the Curzon Mayfair in London, Apple Original Films celebrated the premiere of “Tenzing,” the new feature from director Jennifer Peedom, starring Genden Phuntsok, Golden Globe winner Tom Hiddleston, Academy Award, Golden Globe and Actor Award nominee Willem Dafoe, Caitríona Balfe, and Thinley Lhamo. The compelling drama will debut in select cinemas on October 9, 2026, and premiere globally on Apple TV on Friday, October 16, 2026.
Attendees of the red carpet event included stars Genden Phuntsok, Tom Hiddleston, Willem Dafoe, Caitríona Balfe, and Thinley Lhamo, alongside director and producer Jennifer Peedom, writer and producer Luke Davies, producers Liz Watts, Emile Sherman, and Iain Canning, executive producer Simon Gillis, cinematographer Stefan Duscio, composer Rebekkah Karijord, and more.
Cinematographer Stefan Duscio, producer Emile Sherman, composer Rebekka Karijord, Caitríona Balfe, Genden Phuntsok, Jennifer Peedom, Thinley Lhamo, Willem Dafoe, Tom Hiddleston, Johnny Flynn, producer Liz Watts, writer and producer Luke Davies and producer Iain Canning attend the London premiere of Apple Original Films’ “Tenzing” at the Curzon Mayfair on October 1, 2026, in London.
Based on true events, “Tenzing” chronicles the little-known story of Tenzing Norgay (Phuntsok), a gifted Himalayan climber who, alongside New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary (Hiddleston), became the first to summit Mount Everest. Encouraged by his wife, Dawa (Lhamo), Tenzing finds an ally in expedition secretary Jill Henderson (Balfe). Together, they persuade Colonel John Hunt (Dafoe) that Tenzing belongs on the British climbing team, rather than merely serving it. Where Western climbers see “Everest” as something to be conquered, Tenzing reveres “Chomolungma” as the sacred mother goddess. What follows is an ascent defined as much by the tensions between backgrounds, classes and competing ambitions as by the perils of the mountain itself. But high above the world, empire, rank and aspiration fall away, leaving two outsiders bound by mutual respect and trust — and for Tenzing, the fulfillment of both a lifelong dream and a spiritual calling. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Peedom, “Tenzing” is a story of greatness that refuses to be diminished — and the love that makes it possible.
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 your 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 919 wins and 3,827 award nominations and counting, including multi-Emmy Award-winning and history-making comedies “Widow’s Bay,” “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.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple TV is available on the Apple TV app in over 100 countries and regions, on over 1 billion screens, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, popular smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO, TCL and others, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, and at tv.apple.com, for $14.99 per month with a seven-day free trial for new subscribers. For a limited time, customers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K or Mac can enjoy three months of Apple TV for free.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Apple Original Films hosts ‘Tenzing’ red carpet premiere in London appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Apple smart home hub said to arrive in Silver, Space Gray, Starlight, and Rose Pink
Apple’s long-rumored smart home hub is expected to launch in four finishes — Silver, Space Gray, Starlight, and Rose Pink — according to details shared by X user pdfu and covered by MacRumors’ Joe Rossignol.
X user pdfu reported on Thursday that Apple’s upcoming Home device may come in those four finishes. The leaker noted that the device’s Photo Face setup screen selects its preview art based on the hardware color the unit reports, and that the housing itself may appear in setup screens once device assets are available. Pdfu added that the same finishes had previously shown up in J490 setup code in the macOS 26.7 Release Candidate, which MacRumors had earlier described as “mystery colors.”
Rossignol wrote that the hub is planned for unveiling on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, as part of a broader set of smart home products that also includes a new HomePod mini and an Apple TV with faster chips aimed at Siri AI. Rossignol described the device as having a roughly 6-inch square display, offered in both tabletop and wall-mounted versions. The tabletop model is said to use a polished metal arm attached to a round metal base with perforated speaker holes, a layout compared to the 2002 iMac G4. A single FaceTime camera sits on the front, with microphones and speakers in the base.
Rossignol also noted that users can create a “Photo Face” on the hub, with Apple’s preview art corresponding to the device’s color — consistent with the setup behavior pdfu described. The same Photo Face feature is expected to reach StandBy on iPhone Duo and requires iCloud Photos; during setup, an iPhone can send a few full-resolution photos so the face can appear immediately while the rest download from iCloud.
MacDailyNews Take: Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman, cited by Rossignol, has described the hub’s iMac G4-style design and referred only to a standard gray aluminum finish, without mentioning Silver, Starlight, or Rose Pink. Rossignol pointed out that MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris had already found the same four colors in macOS 26.7 Release Candidate code in August, matching what pdfu later highlighted. The hub is expected to act as a central interface for HomeKit accessories, though Apple has not officially confirmed the colors, the October 13th timing, or final design details.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Apple smart home hub said to arrive in Silver, Space Gray, Starlight, and Rose Pink appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Apple ranks among Brussels’ most active corporate lobbyists, outpacing Europe’s industrial giants
Apple has built one of the largest corporate footprints in Brussels, meeting European Union policymakers more often than almost any European company and spending more on lobbying than three of the continent’s biggest industrial groups combined, according to an analysis by Financial Times.
Since the June 2024 European elections produced a new European Parliament and Commission leadership, Apple has held 257 meetings with senior Commission officials and members of the European Parliament, Financial Times found in a review of the EU transparency register and the meeting databases of both institutions. That places Cupertino second only to Google and its subsidiaries, which logged 302 meetings, and ahead of Amazon, with 239.
Google, Apple, and Amazon each recorded more meetings with officials at the European Parliament and the European Commission than any individual European company, Financial Times reported. Among European businesses, only France’s TotalEnergies, Germany’s Volkswagen, and the aerospace group Airbus appear in the top 20 organizations ranked by number of meetings.
The spending gap is just as stark. Apple spends €9 million a year on lobbying in the EU capital, FT said, while Meta spends more than €10 million. TotalEnergies, Volkswagen, and Airbus together spend up to €8.7 million. Apple’s declared budget alone exceeds the combined outlay of those three European industrials.
The access is concentrated on the digital rulebook that has defined Apple’s relationship with Brussels. FT reported that Google, Amazon, and Apple have discussed proposed cloud regulation and online safety rules for children. Google alone held 22 meetings on the EU’s so-called digital omnibus, a package that loosens parts of the AI framework, including by giving companies more leeway to train models on personal data. American companies have used their Brussels presence to push back against the bloc’s digital rules, an effort that has coincided with repeated tariff threats from American President Donald Trump over Europe’s drive for “tech sovereignty.”
Transparency groups argue the pattern raises questions about whose voice reaches policymakers. “We do need to ask hard questions of … the policymakers in charge because they seem to be giving more access to U.S. companies rather than to European ones,” Raphaël Kergueno of Transparency International told FT.
Apple and Amazon told FT that they engage with policymakers on topics that matter to their customers and their businesses. The numbers still underline how thoroughly American technology groups have embedded themselves in the EU capital: on meeting counts and declared spend, Apple now sits ahead of the European companies that once defined corporate influence in Brussels.
MacDailyNews Take: Ooh, a whole €9 million a year! How did Apple ever get that kind of cash? What a blockbuster exposé!
Seriously, you can’t blame Apple for trying some PITA mitigation, especially in the PITA capital of the world.
By the way, TotalEnergies, Volkswagen, and Airbus are large, but they aren’t platform companies whose entire European business model is being rewritten in real time by the DMA, DSA, App Store rules, cloud proposals, and child-safety bills.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Apple ranks among Brussels’ most active corporate lobbyists, outpacing Europe’s industrial giants appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 to gain Siri Recap and Live Rewind soon
Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 will pick up two Audio Intelligence features later this year: Siri Recap and Live Rewind, according to 9to5Mac’s Ryan Christoffel.
The watches are already on sale. Both additions are tied to Siri AI in watchOS 27 and are limited to the new models.
Siri Recap is meant to keep ambient notes on conversations through the day and turn them into high-level Apple Intelligence summaries users can check later. Apple’s description, cited by Christoffel, says the point is to help people stay present and still jog their memory afterward. Summaries auto-delete after seven days unless the user saves them.
Live Rewind is narrower. A double-press of the Digital Crown surfaces a text snippet of what was said in the last 15 seconds, so a missed or unfamiliar line can be checked on the wrist. From there, the user can ask Siri about the snippet or save it in the Siri app.
Christoffel writes that Siri Recap was not an obvious request, but could be useful if those protections hold up, while Live Rewind looks more limited outside accessibility use until it ships in final form.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple has published privacy details for both features in a support document on the Watches’ Audio Intelligence tools here.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 to gain Siri Recap and Live Rewind soon appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Fake Zoom installer tries to trick Mac users into installing hidden malware
A new Mac threat is hiding inside something that looks like a normal Zoom installer, according to security researchers at Jamf Threat Labs.
The file opens as a disk named Zoom and looks like the usual Mac installer: an app icon on the left, a shortcut to the Applications folder on the right. The catch is a set of instructions printed on the background of that window. They tell the user to open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security, click Open Anyway, and enter an administrator password.
Those steps are how the attack gets past Apple’s Gatekeeper, which would otherwise block the file because it is not properly signed by a trusted developer. Once the user follows the instructions, a fake password prompt appears. The installer checks the password against the Mac account and keeps asking until it is correct. A window then says Zoom is downloading, even though researchers did not see a real Zoom install complete in the samples they tested.
The password is used on the machine to launch a hidden second program that Jamf is calling CloudSyncD. It works on both Apple silicon and Intel Macs. After it starts, it sends basic details about the computer to the attacker and checks back every few seconds for new instructions. Those instructions can include more software for the attacker to run later.
Jamf first spotted an unfinished version of CloudSyncD on September 15th. Within two days, later samples were talking to live servers, a sign the operation had moved past testing. In the versions researchers examined, the malware did not set itself to restart after a reboot, and it did not appear to steal browser passwords or wallet data on its own. The immediate goal is quiet access to the Mac.
MacDailyNews Take: The safest defense is also the simplest. Download Zoom, and other apps, only from the Mac App Store or the developer’s own site. If an installer tells you to click Open Anyway and type your password, close it.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Fake Zoom installer tries to trick Mac users into installing hidden malware appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Get Ready for iPhone Duo starts October 12th, ahead of October 16th pre-orders
Apple is opening its “Get Ready” checkout path for the iPhone Duo on Monday, October 12th, giving buyers several days to lock in a configuration before pre-orders begin at 5 a.m. Pacific Time on Friday, October 16th.
The iPhone Duo, Apple’s first foldable iPhone, was unveiled on September 9th. Opened, it is the company’s thinnest iPhone, with a 7.6-inch inner Super Retina XDR display that has a nano-texture finish and a 5.4-inch outer display. It comes in Star White and Night Sky, uses a polished grade 5 titanium frame, and starts at $1,999 in the U.S. for 256GB, with 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB options. Availability begins Friday, October 23, in more than 70 countries and regions, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, China, Japan, India, and Germany, with a second wave of 28 additional markets on October 30.
“Get Ready,” available through the Apple Store online and in the Apple Store app, is meant to shorten the final order step when demand is expected to be high and early stock limited. On October 12th, shoppers can select color and storage, confirm carrier status, add accessories such as the $79 iPhone Duo Case or the $129 iPhone Duo Folio with Kickstand, choose AppleCare+, enter a trade-in, and set payment and shipping details. When pre-orders open on October 16th, the remaining step is largely confirmation.
A few practical checks help the process:
• Confirm that the payment method is current and that the billing address matches the card.
• Make sure the shipping address is the one you actually want used.
• Generate a trade-in estimate in advance. Apple generally requires the old device to be received within 14 days of delivery of the new phone (15 days in Canada) for the quoted value to hold; that clock starts after the Duo arrives, not before.
• In the U.S., monthly options include standard installment pricing from about $83.29 over 24 months, or Apple Upgrade leasing through Klarna starting as low as $57.99 per month on a 24-month term for eligible customers.
The device is eSIM-only worldwide. Apple has said both displays support ProMotion and high outdoor brightness, with battery life rated up to 31 hours of video playback on the inner screen or 44 hours on the outer screen. Apple Pencil (USB-C) support on both displays is planned later in 2026.
Buyers who complete “Get Ready” on October 12th will still need to finish the order when pre-orders open on October 16th; the earlier step does not reserve inventory. Stores and carrier availability will vary by market once sales begin on October 23rd.
MacDailyNews Take: If ever there was a time to get ready to put in an Apple product pre-order as quickly as possible, iPhone Duo is it!
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Get Ready for iPhone Duo starts October 12th, ahead of October 16th pre-orders appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Some iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max users report earpiece crackling and pops; likely a software issue
Some owners of Apple’s new iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are reporting an intermittent crackling, ticking, or popping sound from the earpiece speaker, according to reporting by MacRumors’ Juli Clover.
Complaints have surfaced on the MacRumors forums and on Reddit. Users describe the noise as a crackle, a faint tick or pop, or random clicking. Many point to the earpiece rather than the bottom speaker. Both the iPhone 18 Pro and the larger Pro Max appear to be affected, though the issue does not seem to hit every unit.
The sound is not limited to one activity. Some people hear it consistently. Others notice it while using apps, scrolling websites, receiving notifications, when the keyboard appears, or during cellular calls. On affected phones, toggling Airplane Mode on and off, or changing screen brightness quickly, can also trigger it.
Apple released iOS 27.0.1 on September 28 to address a separate bug that could restart iPhone 18 Pro models when Face ID authentication fails. The release notes did not mention a speaker fix, and early feedback cited by Clover indicates the update has not resolved the crackling. Some buyers who returned an affected phone received a replacement with the same behavior.
What is causing the noise is still unclear. If it turns out to be a software issue, a later iOS update could address it. Apple has not publicly commented on the reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Likely a software issue: On October 3, 2017, Apple’s iOS 11.0.2 fixed a bug that made some iPhone 8 and 8 Plus earpieces produce a faint, high-pitched static or crackling noise during calls.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Some iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max users report earpiece crackling and pops; likely a software issue appeared first on MacDailyNews.
Apple TV debuts trailer for ‘Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook,’ premiering November 6th
Apple TV on Thursday released the trailer for its new culinary docuseries “Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook,” premiering globally on November 6, 2026. The eight-episode series follows Nora Lum, aka Awkwafina, on a cross-country culinary road trip as she attempts to revive her family’s beloved Chinese restaurant.
Her family ran Lum’s, the iconic Cantonese restaurant in Flushing, New York. Nora inherited the family legacy. The cooking skills? Those still need work. Nora admits, “I can’t cook. Like, at all.” With help from acclaimed chefs, celebrated restaurateurs and her family, she sets out to build her kitchen skills, explore contemporary Asian American cuisine and reimagine Lum’s legacy for a new generation.
Along the way, Nora takes a crash course at the Culinary Institute of America, hits the road for Texas barbecue with Jimmy O. Yang, and learns from culinary icons Roy Choi and Martin Yan. In Hawai‘i, she explores the tiki culture that inspired her grandma’s restaurant, before taking on the challenges of serving at a restaurant in Los Angeles’ Chinatown. It all builds toward one high-stakes opening night and the toughest VIP diner of all: her grandma.
“Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook” is produced for Apple TV by Twofour and is executive produced by Nora Lum, David Brindley, Itay Reiss and Caroline Davies. This is the second collaboration between Twofour and Apple TV, following the celebrated, Emmy Award-nominated travel series “The Reluctant Traveler With Eugene Levy,” starring Emmy Award winner Eugene Levy.
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 919 wins and 3,827 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.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple TV is available on the Apple TV app in over 100 countries and regions, on over 1 billion screens, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, popular smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO, TCL and others, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, and at tv.apple.com, for $14.99 per month with a seven-day free trial for new subscribers. For a limited time, customers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K or Mac can enjoy three months of Apple TV for free.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post Apple TV debuts trailer for ‘Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook,’ premiering November 6th appeared first on MacDailyNews.
After a mid-shoot showrunner swap, Apple TV’s ‘Brothers’ arrives as a charisma vehicle with mixed reviews
Apple TV’s “Brothers” is the result of a production that lost its original showrunner with most of the season already in the can. That it’s still watchable and enjoyable to watch is a testament to the charisma of its two leads Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.
McConaughey and Harrelson play fictionalized versions of themselves: longtime friends whose bond frays when Harrelson’s family camps at McConaughey’s Austin ranch and McConaughey’s mother, Ma Mac (Holland Taylor), lets slip that the two men might actually be brothers. A possible McConaughey run for governor of Texas runs alongside the family chaos. Apple’s official trailer, posted August 25, leans hard into that “based on a true rumor” pitch:
The series was announced in 2023 with David West Read (Schitt’s Creek, The Big Door Prize) as writer and showrunner. In June 2025, with eight of a then-ordered 10 episodes already shot in Austin, production paused and the cast was sent home. Deadline and Variety reported that Read had left over creative differences about how to end the season. Lee Eisenberg — an Apple regular via Lessons in Chemistry, Little America, and WeCrashed, and a co-creator of Jury Duty — was in talks to take over the final episodes and likely reshoots. No public date was given for when he formally signed or when cameras rolled again.
The version that premiered is eight episodes, not 10. Both men still share creator credit with the stars; Eisenberg is the credited showrunner. Apple’s August press release lists the series as produced by Paramount Television Studios, with Eisenberg, McConaughey, and Harrelson among the executive producers, alongside Natalie Sandy, Read, Trish Hofmann, Bill Bost, Jason Winer, David Finkel, Brett Baer, and Jeremy Plager. The ensemble includes Natalie Martinez, Brittany Ishibashi, Lisa Gilroy, and the younger regulars Nolan Almeida, Ella Grace Helton, Noah Carganilla, Highdee Kuan, and Oona Yaffe. The first two episodes dropped September 23rd, with the rest weekly through November 4th.
Critics noticed the seams. On Rotten Tomatoes, Season 1 sits around 62% from 39 reviews — mixed, and soft for a pairing last seen together leading True Detective.
Daniel Fienberg at The Hollywood Reporter called it “good for a couple of chuckles, little more,” arguing the scripts would have looked thin on mid-’90s TGIF and that the stars’ chemistry is what keeps it watchable. Alison Herman at Variety wrote that the comic chemistry never turns the premise into a real show, with side plots sagging and the season drifting into schemes of the week. Vulture’s take was similar: a pedestrian comedy, more interesting as a meta curiosity — and as a brochure for McConaughey’s charisma — than as comedy. IGN scored it 5/10, “mediocre,” and “scattershot.” The New York Post called it self-indulgent and aimless. ScreenRant went to 3/10 and ranked the collaboration closer to Surfer, Dude than True Detective.
Warmer reviews do exist. Empire called it an amiable caper propped up by overqualified leads that only needed to be a hangout show. SEAT42F gave it an 8/10. Common Sense Media went 4/5, partly because separating fact from fiction is half the fun. TV Guide scored it 5.8 and said it improves as it goes, with Gilroy’s campaign manager a scene-stealer. Several reviews explicitly tie the uneven tone to the Read-to-Eisenberg handoff.
Audience reaction has split the same way: some viewers treat the caricatures as the point, others as a waste of the cast. The season finale is still weeks out, so the score can move. For now, “Brothers” reads as what the June 2025 pause suggested it might become — a star-driven comedy finished by a second showrunner, carried by two famous friends, and only intermittently sure of what kind of show it is.
MacDailyNews Take: Hey, after just two episodes, we like it!
MacDailyNews Note: Apple TV is available on the Apple TV app in over 100 countries and regions, on over 1 billion screens, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, popular smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO, TCL and others, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, and at tv.apple.com, for $14.99 per month with a seven-day free trial for new subscribers. For a limited time, customers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K or Mac can enjoy three months of Apple TV for free.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
The post After a mid-shoot showrunner swap, Apple TV’s ‘Brothers’ arrives as a charisma vehicle with mixed reviews appeared first on MacDailyNews.