Apple News
Former Apple CFO Luca Maestri relinquishes corporate services duties as Ternus era begins
Apple is seeing another high-profile executive from the Tim Cook era scale back his remaining responsibilities, as former chief financial officer Luca Maestri has dropped his role overseeing corporate services.
Maestri, who handed the CFO title to Kevan Parekh at the end of 2024, had stayed on as a vice president running corporate services. That group covered information systems and technology, information security, and corporate real estate. According to Bloomberg News‘ Mark Gurman, Maestri stepped away from those duties in recent weeks. He remains on Apple’s payroll, but now has no operational responsibilities beyond teaching a class at Apple University. He visits the office about once a week and is winding down toward retirement.
The corporate services portfolio has shifted to current CFO Kevan Parekh. Maestri previously reported to Cook and does not report to new CEO John Ternus, who took over this week. Cook often kept departing senior leaders in reduced roles; it is unclear whether Ternus will follow the same practice.
Maestri’s earlier tenure as CFO also drew scrutiny over Apple’s artificial-intelligence pace. Reports have said that in 2023, after Cook approved a plan to roughly double the company’s GPU budget for AI work, Maestri reduced the increase to less than half of what had been requested and pushed the team to extract more efficiency from existing chips. Critics have argued that the more conservative spending left Apple with fewer modern accelerators than rivals and contributed to the company falling behind in the generative-AI race.
Apple has since ramped up AI investment under its Apple Intelligence initiative and a leadership transition that puts greater emphasis on the technology. Maestri’s latest step back marks one more change as Ternus begins reshaping the company’s senior ranks.
MacDailyNews Take: Hopefully Ternus will drop Cook’s milquetoast habit of keeping longtime executives known for poor, costly decisions on the payroll in low-responsibility jobs. Cut ’em loose and focus in the future, John!
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Apple TV adds more classic films – here’s the full list
Apple TV is once again expanding beyond its original programming with a new batch of licensed Hollywood movies that subscribers can stream at no extra cost. Fifteen titles joined the service on September 1, 2026, following a similar surprise drop in August.
The latest additions mix crowd-pleasers and prestige films. Among the comedies and crowd-pleasers are Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, School of Rock, Superbad, Easy A, Mamma Mia! The Movie, and Definitely, Maybe. More dramatic and awards-adjacent titles include The Social Network, Her, The Wolf of Wall Street, Zero Dark Thirty, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Troy, A League of Their Own, War of the Worlds, and The Informant!.
Here is the full list of newly added movies, in alphabetical order:
• A League of Their Own
• Definitely, Maybe
• Easy A
• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
• Her
• Mamma Mia! The Movie
• Master and Commander
• School of Rock
• Superbad
• The Informant!
• The Social Network
• The Wolf of Wall Street
• Troy
• War of the Worlds
• Zero Dark Thirty
Apple TV has historically leaned on originals such as Ted Lasso, Severance, and Shrinking. Licensed catalog titles were rare. Last month’s collection — films such as E.T., The Bourne Identity, The Sixth Sense, and A Beautiful Mind —s howed a shift. Most of those titles have already rotated off the free-with-subscription tier, though a few holdovers remain. The new September slate is expected to follow the same pattern: available for a limited window, then back to rental or purchase pricing.
Availability is strongest in the United States. Other regions may see a shorter list or none of the titles at all. In the Apple TV app, the films appear under a “Great Movies Available Now on Apple” row on the Home tab. If the app asks you to rent or buy, you are looking at the store catalog rather than the included-with-subscription collection.
Apple TV remains $14.99 a month in the U.S., or discounted as part of an Apple One bundle. New subscribers can still start with a free trial. Because these licensed windows tend to be short, anyone who wants to catch The Social Network, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, or The Wolf of Wall Street on the service should start soon. September also brings new Apple original films and series, so the catalog is growing on both the licensed and original sides at once.
MacDailyNews Take: 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 $12.99 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.
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Norman Reedus joins James Marsden in Apple TV action thriller series ‘Disavowed’
Norman Reedus is joining the series-regular cast of Apple TV’s upcoming action thriller “Disavowed.”
The project, created by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (Iron Man, Uncharted), stars James Marsden as legendary CIA case officer Brad Griffin. Griffin is abruptly fired in the middle of a global hunt for an elusive assassin who killed his colleague. Disgraced and cut off from the intelligence world, he decides to pursue the $15 million federal bounty on the assassin’s head. Reedus’ character has not been revealed.
The series comes from Apple Studios. Marcum and Holloway executive produce alongside Tom Spezialy, Michelle MacLaren, Rebecca Hobbs, and Marsden. Blue Marble Pictures (Pachinko) produces, with Theresa Kang and Caroline Garity also serving as executive producers. MacLaren (The Morning Show, Breaking Bad) will direct the first two episodes and executive produce with Hobbs under her overall deal with Apple TV.
Reedus is best known for playing Daryl Dixon across 11 seasons of AMC’s The Walking Dead and the spinoff The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, which is set to conclude after its upcoming fourth season. He also starred as Murphy MacManus in The Boondock Saints and its sequel, and is in pre-production on a third installment as star and executive producer. Recent credits include Takashi Miike’s untitled Kyoto project; he next appears in Mark Heyman’s Pendulum.
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 $12.99 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.
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Perplexity brings hybrid compute to Mac, keeping sensitive AI work on device
Perplexity has launched Hybrid Compute for its Computer agent on Apple Silicon Macs, a system that splits a single task between frontier models in the cloud and compact models running locally so confidential files and personal data never have to leave the machine.
The idea is simple and, if it holds up in daily use, important: Computer still starts work in the cloud, where large models handle research, planning, and long-horizon reasoning. When a local classifier spots sensitive information — names, emails, account numbers, privileged files — the user is prompted to keep that slice of the job on the Mac, mask the details, or send it to the cloud anyway. Cloud and local pieces stay in the same workflow. The user does not have to restart the task or shuttle files between tools.
At launch, local options include Gemma 4 E4B, Qwen3.6 35B-A3B, and a Perplexity post-trained Qwen variant. Users pick the cloud orchestrator; Perplexity selects helper frontier models. Hybrid Compute is available today to Pro, Max, and Enterprise subscribers in the Perplexity Mac app on Apple silicon running macOS 15 or later, with 24GB of unified memory as the minimum and 32GB recommended. Setup is a one-click model download rather than a custom local-runtime stack.
The Mac does not have to be the device that starts the job. A prompt from iPhone or iPad can still kick off a session; if the Mac is on and running Perplexity, sensitive steps can execute there against local files and apps. That makes a always-on Mac mini a plausible private compute node for people who work from a phone most of the day.
Perplexity has been building toward this split for months. In June it described hybrid agentic inference as a way to optimize for accuracy, privacy, and token cost at once: keep financial records, health information, and personal files local; send only the work that truly needs a frontier model to the server. Portable Computer, a more local-first variant, already existed for users who want most of the stack on device and only escalate with permission. Hybrid Compute approaches the same problem from the other direction — cloud-first orchestration with an on-device privacy gate.
That gate is the linchpin. An on-device PII classifier, which Perplexity says it has open-sourced and trained with its Secure Intelligence Institute, inspects content before anything is transmitted. Credentials, payment numbers, and government IDs get the strictest treatment. For enterprises, admins can set organization-wide rules for what must stay local, what may be masked, and what requires approval, plus audit when data leaves a device. That is the pitch for law, finance, healthcare, and other regulated shops that want agentic tools without dumping client records into someone else’s cluster.
Competitors are chasing the same mix of on-device privacy and cloud intelligence. Perplexity’s claim is that it can start a job in the cloud, peel off the confidential pieces mid-task, and finish without losing context. For Mac users sitting on 24GB-plus Apple silicon — and for the new M5/M6 machines Apple just put on the table — that is now a shipping product rather than a Computex slide.
MacDailyNews Take: The use cases Perplexity and early reviewers walk through are familiar: an attorney updating a brief with client files that stay on the Mac while case-law research runs in the cloud; an analyst rebuilding a confidential model against public comps; a small-business owner starting pricing research from a phone while private price lists never leave the desktop. In each case the agent is only as useful as the data it can touch. Hybrid Compute is an attempt to let it touch private data without treating the cloud as the default home for that data.
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Apple CEO John Ternus will take the stage on September 9th, but a full live Jobs-style keynote is unlikely
Apple’s new CEO is expected to walk onto the Steve Jobs Theater floor eight days into the job. That is not the same thing as bringing back the old live keynote.
John Ternus officially became Apple’s CEO today. His first public test arrives almost immediately: the company’s “Surprise and shine” event on Wednesday, September 9, at 10 a.m. Pacific, live-streamed from Apple Park.
Fans have been asking the obvious question. After years of polished, pre-taped presentations, will Ternus restore the live, in-the-room keynote that defined Steve Jobs and, for a long stretch, Tim Cook?
The short answer: he is expected on stage. The long answer is that Apple has not announced a return to a fully live show.
Ternus has already appeared in product videos and on stage as hardware chief. That experience matters now that he is the face of the company.
What Apple has actually confirmed
Apple has confirmed the date, the venue, and the livestream. It has not confirmed the format of the presentation itself. Invitations went out with the tagline “Surprise and shine.” They name no presenter and no product.
Recent Apple events have followed a hybrid script: a small invited crowd at the Steve Jobs Theater, executives appearing in person for greetings, then a pre-recorded keynote on the big screen. Coverage of this year’s event still describes that same mix. Trusted Reviews put it plainly: Apple is expected to combine an in-person gathering with a prerecorded presentation, as it has in recent launches.
Why people think Ternus will still walk out
That hybrid format still leaves room for a live moment, and almost everyone covering the company expects Ternus to take it.
CNBC’s Apple reporters said investors and longtime watchers expect him on stage on September 9. Skipping it, they argued, would raise questions he does not want in his first month. The theater is small. The stream is not. Tens of millions of people watch these events. This is how a new CEO introduces himself.
That tracks with how Apple used WWDC in June. Cook hosted what was widely treated as his last major keynote as CEO. Ternus was on campus, mingling with attendees, and did not appear in the taped presentation. Hardware was not the story that day. It will be on September 9.
Why a full live return is a bigger leap than it sounds
Apple did not abandon live keynotes on a whim. The taped format gives the company control over demos, lighting, product shots, and timing. A foldable iPhone, if it arrives as expected, is a hinge-and-glass product. That is exactly the kind of device companies prefer to show in a controlled video rather than risk a live snag in front of the world.
A live keynote also changes the job. Jobs treated the stage as theater. Cook simply wasn’t good at it. Ternus is an engineer who spent 25 years inside hardware, not a showman by reputation. Appearing in person to open and close the event is a natural first step. Performing an hour of unrehearsed product theater is a different bet.W
What September 9 is actually for
The event is already loaded even without a format change. It is Ternus’s first major launch as CEO. It is expected to include iPhone 18 Pro models and, according to a wide range of reports, Apple’s first foldable iPhone. A rebuilt Siri is also in the mix after the WWDC preview. The standard iPhone 18 is widely expected to slip later, which would make this a premium-heavy fall show rather than the usual full-lineup dump.
The realistic headline for next week
Ternus will almost certainly step onto the floor of the Steve Jobs Theater. He will greet the room. He will be the person associated with whatever Apple unveils. It won;t be, on current evidence, a return to a live keynote.
MacDailyNews Take: From what we’ve already seen of Ternus on-stage, he could handle it:
If Apple flips back to the live format at the last minute, that will be news — and we’d love to see it, even if it risks mistakes, because it would be an important statement.
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Apple stock soars as John Ternus becomes CEO
John Ternus officially became chief executive of Apple on Tuesday, September 1, 2026, succeeding Tim Cook after a 15-year run of iterating Steve Jobs-era products that turned the company into one of the world’s most valuable businesses.
Ternus, previously senior vice president of hardware engineering, takes over a company with a market capitalization around $4.6 trillion. Apple shares, which closed Monday at $316.85, traded higher during Tuesday’s session, showing gains of roughly 2.5% (+$8.00, +2.52% as of 10:59:06 AM EDT) as investors digested the handoff and looked ahead to the fall product cycle.
The transition was announced in April and approved unanimously by the board. Cook becomes executive chairman and will remain involved, particularly on government relations and Apple’s ties with the United States and China. Ternus also joins the board.
Ternus, 51, joined Apple’s product design team in 2001 after studying mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and a brief stint designing virtual-reality hardware. He rose through hardware engineering, becoming a vice president in 2013 and SVP in 2021. He oversaw work on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, AirPods, and Vision Pro, and played a central role in Apple’s shift to its own silicon.
Cook praised him as having “the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honor.” Ternus has said he wants to restore some of the product “magic” associated with Steve Jobs while pushing Apple further into artificial intelligence.
Apple is expected to show its first foldable iPhone and other devices at its September event, along with updates to Siri and other AI features that have lagged rivals. Analysts say hardware innovation and a clearer AI strategy will define his early tenure.
Markets had months to price in the change. The stock has risen about 37% since Cook announced he’d step down and sits not far from its summer highs. Whether Tuesday’s bounce holds will depend less on the title change itself than on what Ternus delivers in the coming product cycle and in Apple’s long-awaited AI response.
MacDailyNews Take: Today is a very happy day for Apple, full of promise!
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Apple enters its John Ternus era
Apple has entered a new chapter: John Ternus’s first day as CEO, succeeding Tim Cook after 15 years. The hardware veteran takes the helm of a $4.7 trillion company facing two sharp pressures — Apple’s still-unsettled place in AI and a global memory shortage that’s already pushing up device prices. His first major public test comes September 9th at the company’s special media event, expected to feature new iPhones and Apple Watches, as investors watch whether he can evolve Apple beyond his predecessor’s iterative playbook.
Ternus is tasked with convincing shareholders, employees and customers that he can lead the company into the future and that he’s not just doing what the old boss would do.
“What worked for Tim Cook is not going to be the same that works for John Ternus,” [Kathy Gersch, CEO of Kotter, a consulting firm focused on leadership changes and transitions], said in an interview. “The company is in a new environment. It’s going to have to keep evolving and competing.”
Ternus’ hardware expertise and his decades spent hiring engineering talent could be a boon for Apple as it enters a potentially new era of devices, said Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management.
“They went with a product person, and I think that’s important,” Munster said. In the next couple years, Munster said, Ternus needs to “light up recruiting and bring in awesome talent, because they still need to reinvent themselves.”
It’s a challenge Ternus has been pondering for years, and one he talked about with CNBC in 2023.
“From the very beginning, we’re thinking about how are all these pieces going to come together to make the best possible product for our customers,” he said.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple should always be run by a product person.
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Apple’s Vision Pro job cuts were broader than first reported
Apple’s recent Vision Pro layoffs reached further across the company than initially disclosed, according to Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman.
Last month, Gurman reported that Apple cut about 100 jobs from the Vision Products Group, largely by shutting down the headset’s gaming team and shrinking the unit that produces immersive video. Combined with reductions on Siri and related software teams, the changes affected more than 200 people. Apple said it was realigning teams to focus on new devices and AI, while creating some new roles and offering affected employees a chance to apply elsewhere.
Gurman now says the cuts also hit Vision Pro-related staff in other parts of Apple, including device security, audio engineering, Siri integration, testing, and visionOS. Because visionOS is expected to underpin upcoming smart glasses as well as the headset, the broader reductions affect shared software rather than Vision Pro hardware alone.
According to Gurman, the company has told employees that Vision Pro and visionOS are not going away. A redesigned successor, internally known as N224, is still not expected before late 2028. Near-term emphasis has shifted to AI wearables, including smart glasses code-named N50 that remain on track for next year. Those glasses are not expected to support the same immersive video or advanced gaming experiences as the current headset.
The moves follow the June departure of Paul Meade, who led Vision Pro and smart glasses work before leaving for OpenAI. People inside the Vision organization have spent months urging new CEO John Ternus to keep investing in the platform even as sales lag, Gurman reports. Colleagues who have discussed the headset with Ternus say he was skeptical from the start that a bulky, expensive enclosed device could reach a mass market. He is still said to support the glasses project, but Gurman reports he would consider walking away from head-worn devices as a category if they fail to catch on.
Apple has described the changes as limited and tied to evolving product priorities. Vision Pro launched in 2024 as the company’s spatial-computing flagship but never became a high-volume product, constrained by price and form factor. In-house immersive videos can cost millions to produce and have not proven cost-effective given relatively small active use. Apple now plans fewer internal productions and more third-party content.
MacDailyNews Take: Vision Pro should never have shipped in its initial or present form and it never would have shipped under Steve Jobs or, it sounds like, under John Ternus.
[This] is exactly what you’d expect to occur when a product is released too early to average users… Apple Vision Pro is a devkit for developers, not for average users, and should have been released as a devkit for developers. – MacDailyNews, March 26, 2024
There are a lot of people inside and outside of Apple who think the company should have waited on the Vision Pro, but it’s fairly easy today to see why Tim Cook released this beta (alpha?) devkit: He likely knew last year, or had a strong inkling, that Project Titan was a goner and there wasn’t much excitement in Apple’s pipeline. He’d need something to point to as “innovation” while he continued on his seemingly unending quest to iterate and monetize products invented by Steve Jobs’ Apple (a very different place) while continuing Apple’s retail store buildout. He also needed something to energize developers and, who knows, they might come up with a killer visionOS app while Apple toils on the long road to real lightweight spatial computing glasses and beyond.
More importantly, Apple last year had already come to the sad realization that they’d missed the generative artificial intelligence revolution and would need a distraction while they feverishly scrambled to catch up (the fruits of which — alongside what sound like disappointing partnerships which hopefully, somehow, preserve user privacy — we’ll hopefully begin to see at WWDC this June).
You have to feel for Cook. After a decade plus of being able to iterate and monetize Jobs’ inspired products and services and continue adding retail stores around the world to spectacular effect, and being lauded for it, he now finds himself in a place that requires actual vision to be able to see which path to take. And he’s not the guy. Even the guy who put him in the position knew it.
Tim’s not a product person, per se. – Steve Jobs
See also:
• Contrary to popular belief, Steve Jobs knew about Apple Watch – February 13, 2023
• Work on Apple Vision Pro began under Steve Jobs – August 23, 2023
Beyond the fact that Cook can’t even execute a compelling live keynote address, his big send off, the “Apple Car,” [the idea of which was also germinated under Jobs] fizzled in ignominious failure.
See also:
• Scrapped Apple Car ‘a massive disappointment that will alter the course of the company’s history, perhaps for decades to come’ – Gurman – March 11, 2024
• Apple employees referred to doomed Apple Car project as ‘The Titanic Disaster’ – February 29, 2024
So, despite myriad misgivings and protestations inside Apple, Cook pulled the trigger early on the Vision Pro. He had to have something to point to that would buy him some time. Even Apple’s rubber-stamping board of lackeys would wake up and start asking questions otherwise.
While Cook is hemming and hawing when faced with shareholders (virtually, of course, never again in person for as long as Cook remains), Apple is currently in scramble mode trying to catch up to rivals in generative AI, a technology the company seems to have completely missed while focusing instead on the not-ready-for-primetime Apple Vision Pro, visionOS, its now-canceled decade-long multi-billion-dollar electric vehicle boondoggle, replacing leather in iPhone cases and Apple Watch bands with overpriced junk in a quest to “save the planet,” forcing employees to endure a constant barrage of time-wasting zero-productivity DEI sessions, and myriad other various and sundry “initiatives” which Cook deems of import. – MacDailyNews, February 28, 2024
When you lose your visionary CEO and replace him with a caretaker CEO, this is the type of aimless, late, bureaucratic dithering that ensues. – MacDailyNews, November 21, 2017
Thankfully, blessedly, today is finally a Brand New Day for Apple!
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Apple updates Leadership page as John Ternus becomes CEO
Apple has updated their Leadership page as John Ternus becomes the company’s eighth CEO.
The full list of Apple CEOs in chronological order is:
• Michael Scott (1977–1981)
• Mike Markkula (1981–1983)
• John Sculley (1983–1993)
• Michael Spindler (1993–1996)
• Gil Amelio (1996–1997)
• Steve Jobs (1997–2011)
• Tim Cook (2011–September 1, 2026)
• John Ternus (September 1, 2026–present)
John Ternus is the CEO of Apple and serves on its board of directors.
John joined Apple’s product design team in 2001 and became a vice president of Hardware Engineering in 2013. He joined the executive team in 2021 as senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. Throughout his tenure at Apple, John has overseen hardware engineering work on a variety of groundbreaking products and was instrumental in the introduction of multiple new product lines, including iPad and AirPods, as well as many generations of products across iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch.
John has led much of the company’s focus in areas like reliability and durability, introducing new techniques that have made Apple products remarkably resilient. He has also driven much of Apple’s innovation in materials and hardware design that have reduced the carbon footprint of its products, including the creation of a new recycled aluminum compound that has been introduced across multiple product lines, the use of 3D-printed titanium in Apple Watch Ultra, and advancements in reparability that have increased the life spans of several Apple products.
Prior to Apple, John worked as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
MacDailyNews Take: This is an important day for Apple, whose fifteen-year, iterative slumber may have finally ended!
Of note is the emphasis on durability and reliability in John’s bio. Apple products do last a long time and they do hold their value much better than do rival products. Expect Apple to emphasize this as the worldwide memory crunch causes higher prices.
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Apple accuses OpenAI of destroying evidence as trade-secrets fight intensifies
Apple ratcheted up its lawsuit against OpenAI on Monday, telling a federal judge that the ChatGPT maker is destroying evidence while a former iPhone engineer used a confidential Apple circuit schematic in his new job.
In a court brief filed in support of expedited discovery, Apple said OpenAI is actively destroying crucial evidence in the Northern District of California case, which accuses the AI company, hardware chief Tang Yew Tan, former Apple engineer Chang Liu, and io Products of misappropriating hardware trade secrets. Apple also alleged that Liu “not only downloaded a confidential Apple circuit schematic but also used it in his work” at OpenAI.
The filing comes as Apple presses for early document production, forensic imaging of devices and accounts, and depositions of key witnesses. OpenAI has sought to dismiss the suit and has opposed Apple’s request for a fast-track discovery schedule and a preliminary injunction that would bar defendants from using or disclosing alleged Apple secrets while the case proceeds.
Apple sued in July, claiming a pattern of theft after OpenAI hired hundreds of former Apple employees and acquired Jony Ive’s hardware startup io. The complaint centers on Liu, an eight-year Apple senior systems electrical engineer who left in January 2026, and Tan, a 24-year Apple veteran who led iPhone and Watch product design and is now OpenAI’s chief hardware officer. Apple says Liu kept an Apple-issued laptop, exploited residual network access and an authentication bug, and downloaded dozens of confidential files—engineering presentations, specs for unreleased products, and manufacturing details for main logic boards—while already working for OpenAI. Tan, Apple alleges, used internal Apple project names in interviews and encouraged recruits to bring parts, prototypes, and supplier information.
OpenAI has denied the claims, calling the lawsuit careless and “oddly personal,” and saying it has no interest in Apple’s trade secrets. It has published messages it says show Apple employees contacting Liu after he left and asking for technical help, and it argues Apple delayed raising the core allegations for months.
As Bloomberg News’ Chris Welch and other reporters covering the Silicon Valley hardware race have noted, the case sits at the collision of two of tech’s most closely watched product efforts: Apple’s next devices under new CEO John Ternus and OpenAI’s push into consumer hardware after buying io. A hearing on Apple’s expedited-discovery motion is scheduled for Oct. 1 before Judge Edward Davila, though the court could rule sooner. Both companies declined additional comment beyond prior statements.
MacDailyNews Take: If you have nothing to hide, you don’t need a shredder. If your first device depends on Apple’s trade secrets, you definitely don’t want the schematics on your laptops.
Judge Davila gets this in October. Until then, OpenAI can keep insisting it’s all a misunderstanding. Apple is simply asking the court to look before the hard drives get “accidentally” wiped.
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Apple seeds eighth betas of macOS 27, iOS 27, iPadOS 27, tvOS 27, and watchOS 27
Apple on Monday released the eighth developer betas of macOS 27, iOS 27, iPadOS 27, tvOS 27, and watchOS 27, continuing the final stretch of testing before the software is expected to ship to the public in September.
The new builds arrive one week after the seventh developer betas, which went out on August 24. At this point in the cycle, Apple is typically focused on bug fixes, performance, and stability rather than large new user-facing features. Release candidates are widely expected after Apple’s September hardware event.
Build numbers
• iOS 27 beta 8: 24A5430a (replacing 24A5424a)
• iPadOS 27 beta 8: 24A5430a (replacing 24A5424a)
• macOS 27 beta 8: 26A5425a (replacing 26A5421a)
• watchOS 27 beta 8: 24R5360a (replacing 24R5358a)
Apple also issued matching eighth betas for tvOS 27 and visionOS 27.
macOS 27 continues under the Golden Gate name. It is the first macOS release limited to Apple silicon Macs.
How to install
Registered developers can install the updates over the air:
• iPhone and iPad: Settings → General → Software Update → Beta Updates, then choose the iOS 27 or iPadOS 27 Developer Beta.
• Mac: System Settings → General → Software Update.
• Apple Watch: Use the Watch app on a paired iPhone. The watch should be on the charger, on Wi-Fi, and at least 50 percent charged.
Full restore images are also available from the Apple Developer site. Public beta testers usually receive corresponding public builds shortly after the developer drop.
What these releases are building toward
The “27” operating systems were first shown at WWDC 2026 on June 8, with developer beta 1 following the same day. Public betas began in mid-July. The official fall releases are expected alongside new iPhones and other hardware.
Headline features across the platforms include:
Siri AI. Apple’s rebuilt assistant is the centerpiece. It is designed as a more conversational chatbot with general world knowledge, personal context from apps such as Messages and Mail, and on-screen awareness. iOS 27 also adds a standalone Siri app for conversation history, systemwide Write with Siri, and Visual Intelligence relocated into the Camera app with a Siri mode. On Apple Watch, Siri AI requires a paired iPhone that supports Apple Intelligence (iPhone 15 Pro and later).
Apple Intelligence elsewhere. New AI features land in Photos, Safari, Shortcuts, Wallet, and Passwords. On the Mac, Spotlight and Shortcuts pick up deeper Siri AI integration, including natural-language shortcut creation.
Liquid Glass refinements. After last year’s more aggressive glass look, Apple has improved legibility and added a transparency slider so users can dial the effect from glassy to more opaque. macOS 27 also revisits window chrome, including traffic-light controls and more consistent corner radii.
Performance. Apple has emphasized faster app launches, quicker keyboard appearance, snappier AirDrop, better Wi-Fi/cellular handoff, and improvements that are noticeable even on older supported iPhones. watchOS 27 includes battery optimizations, an updated Find My experience with Precision Finding, Workout Buddy improvements that work without a nearby iPhone, and a Dynamic app grid with Siri suggestions.
Some capabilities remain limited by region or regulation. Earlier in the cycle, Siri AI features were reported as blocked for EU developers under Digital Markets Act rules, and certain Apple Intelligence features have been unavailable in China while Apple works through local requirements.
What to expect next
Ninth-week betas this late in the summer are often the last regular developer drops before release candidates. Those RCs frequently appear after Apple’s September event, when the company also tends to reveal any remaining watch faces, health features, or hardware-tied software that was held back from earlier betas.
The finished versions of iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27 Golden Gate, watchOS 27, tvOS 27, and visionOS 27 are still expected for the public this fall.
MacDailyNews Note: As always, beta software can be unstable. A backup is strongly recommended before installing.
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Apple veteran Phil Schiller steps down from App Store and product events
Apple’s Phil Schiller, one of the company’s most visible executives spanning the Steve Jobs and Tim Cook eras, has stepped down from running the App Store and Apple’s product events, according to Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman.
The 66-year-old, who left the senior vice president of marketing role in 2020 and became an Apple Fellow, made the change in recent days, people familiar with the matter told Gurman. Schiller will remain at Apple as a Fellow and work on unspecified initiatives. Company employees view the move as a significant step toward an eventual retirement.
Schiller first joined Apple in 1987, left in 1993, and returned in 1997 when Jobs came back. He was a central figure in launches of the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, and later oversaw App Store policy through years of regulatory pressure, including Europe’s Digital Markets Act. In 2020, Apple said he would keep leading the App Store and events after handing marketing to Greg Joswiak. As recently as 2024, he was still reported to be working nearly 80 hours a week.
Responsibility for the App Store is moving to the services organization led by Eddy Cue, who previously oversaw the store until 2015. Day-to-day operations, including app distribution, third-party marketplaces, and Apple Arcade, will be handled by Carson Oliver. Ann Thai, who has worked on distribution tools and alternative marketplaces, will report to Oliver. Leadership of product events is going to Nola Weinstein, Schiller’s deputy since 2023, who will report to communications vice president Kristin Huguet Quayle.
The shift comes on Tim Cook’s last day as CEO and as John Ternus prepares to take over, with Cook becoming executive chairman. The App Store remains a major services business, widely estimated to generate more than $30 billion a year. Weinstein’s team is preparing for Apple’s September 9th event, expected to include a foldable iPhone and updated Apple Watch models.
MacDailyNews Take: The only constant is change,
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Apple tests ceramic Watch cases, always-on heart tracking, and a foldable iPhone pencil
Apple is preparing incremental updates to the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 for its September 9th event, while internally experimenting with a shorter Apple Pencil for its first foldable iPhone — an accessory that is unlikely to ship with the phone.
According to Bloomberg News‘ Mark Gurman, neither the Series 12 nor the Ultra 4 is expected to receive a major design overhaul versus last year’s Series 11 and Ultra 3. Touch ID is not expected this cycle. What Apple has tested is a return of ceramic cases for the Series 12, in both white and dark gray finishes reminiscent of the high-end Series 3 from 2017. New band colors and configurations are also in the works.
The more meaningful work is inside the watch. After multiple years on essentially the same silicon, the new models are expected to get a faster chip — likely an S11 or similar — along with health and fitness upgrades. One feature in testing would let the heart-rate sensor collect data continuously throughout the day rather than in periodic snapshots. Apple is also reworking its Health and Fitness apps so they surface wellness metrics in a style closer to dedicated trackers such as Whoop and Oura.
A broader Apple Watch redesign is still planned, but not for this generation. This year’s watches are framed as a modest step: more speed, richer all-day health data, and a premium ceramic option, not a new silhouette.
The foldable iPhone, expected to debut at the same September event and often referred to internally as iPhone Ultra, prompted a more unusual experiment. Apple prototyped, tested, and considered selling a dedicated Apple Pencil sized for the device. The stylus was stubbier than iPad Pencils to match the shorter height of the folded phone. Like current Pencils, it was designed to snap magnetically to the side for storage and charging.
That side mount is part of why the accessory is not expected to launch next month. A Pencil parked along the tall edge gets in the way when the phone is opened — including the many times a user has no intention of drawing. The other problem is the display itself. Foldable panels use a softer top layer than conventional glass; a hard stylus tip can leave visible marks similar to a fingernail.
Steve Jobs famously dismissed phone styluses when the original iPhone launched. Apple later built a highly refined Pencil for iPad. For the first folding iPhone, the company got far enough to weigh a companion stylus, then appears to have concluded the engineering and product-fit problems outweigh the benefit — at least for day one.
MacDailyNews Take: The September 9th event is still expected to center on iPhone 18 Pro models and the foldable, with Series 12 and Ultra 4 as the wearable counterparts. Buyers looking for a ceramic Watch or continuous heart-rate logging may find those in the new hardware and software. Buyers hoping the foldable arrives with a pocket-sized Pencil should plan on fingers for now.
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