Apple News
Apple’s global hit series ‘Widow’s Bay’ lands season two renewal
Recently hailed as “better than Martha’s Vineyard,” Widow’s Bay is open for another season. Today, Apple TV announced a season two renewal for the acclaimed, fan-favorite series led by Emmy Award-winning star and executive producer Matthew Rhys, and hailing from creator and executive producer Katie Dippold and Emmy Award-winning executive producer and director Hiro Murai.
Additionally, Apple TV announced a new, multiyear overall deal with Dippold.
The news arrives ahead of the highly anticipated season one finale, premiering Wednesday, June 17 on Apple TV.
Since its global debut, “Widow’s Bay” quickly rose to Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and has earned praise as “the year’s best new show,” “the show of the summer,” “one of the brightest surprises on streaming right now,” “unlike anything on TV” and a “perfectly executed,” “absolute gem of a TV show.”
“From the moment audiences arrived in Widow’s Bay, they’ve been hooked on every eerie mystery, unexpected laugh and cursed secret that Katie, Hiro, Matthew and the entire team have created,” said Matt Cherniss, head of programming, Apple TV. “It’s become one of those shows everyone’s talking about, and we’re thrilled to see audiences continue to embrace it. We can’t wait to return for another season.”
“Season two is about how everything is great on the island and there’s nothing to worry about,” said creator, showrunner and executive producer Katie Dippold.
In “Widow’s Bay,” something lurks beneath the surface. Mayor Tom Loftis (Rhys) is desperate to revive his struggling community. There’s no Wi-Fi, spotty cellular reception and he must contend with superstitious locals who believe their island is cursed. He wants these people to respect him. They don’t. They think he is soft and cowardly. And he is. But Loftis is determined to build a better future for his teenage son and turn the island into a tourist destination. Miraculously, he succeeds: tourists are finally coming. Unfortunately, the locals were right. After decades of calm, the old stories that seemed too ludicrous to be true start happening again.
Blending genuine horror with character-driven comedy, “Widow’s Bay” stars Rhys alongside Kate O’Flynn, Stephen Root, Kingston Rumi Southwick, Kevin Carroll and Dale Dickey. The supporting cast includes K Callan and Emmy Award winner Jeff Hiller.
Hailing from Apple Studios, “Widow’s Bay” is created, showrun and executive produced by Dippold. Murai executive produces through his banner Chum Films alongside Carver Karaszewski, Claudia Shin and Rhys. Murai directed five episodes in the first season, with the other episodes in the season directed by Ti West, Sam Donovan and Andrew DeYoung.
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 843 wins and 3,565 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 Take: Well deserved!
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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Beyond AI, Apple’s macOS 27 Golden Gate includes several subtle-but-helpful improvements
In his latest hands-on with the macOS 27 Golden Gate beta, Ars Technica’s Andrew Cunningham steps away from the heavy AI focus of WWDC 2026 to highlight five thoughtful platform improvements and one lingering wish. From refined Liquid Glass controls and smarter window design to better external display support and useful menu bar tweaks, Golden Gate delivers subtle but welcome fit-and-finish upgrades that address real user feedback.
Andrew Cunningham for Ars Technica:
Apple doesn’t retreat from Liquid Glass in macOS Golden Gate, but it does tone down the effect in a few places while reverting to a more Big Sur-ish design in a couple of crucial areas.
The most prominent tweak is the slider in the Appearance settings that gives users fine-grained control over Liquid Glass’ opacity. This replaces the binary “Clear/Tinted” toggle that Apple added in the macOS 26.1 release, and it has been added to the macOS setup flow so users can choose what they want when they upgrade their operating system or get a new Mac.
Liquid Glass’ baseline appearance has been improved a bit, too, even for people who push that slider all the way to the left for maximum glassiness…
Golden Gate also removes most of the little SF Symbols glyphs from next to menu items.
Golden Gate makes a couple of changes to improve the Mac’s support for external displays. Most concretely, it’s adding native support for 5K ultrawide displays… Apple also says Macs will do a better job of remembering how windows were positioned on multi-monitor displays, useful for laptop owners who regularly dock and undock their systems to one or more external displays.
MacDailyNews Take: There’s a bunch more hallelujah! moments, often with screenshots, in the highly recommended full article here.
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Apple co-founder Ronald Wayne doesn’t regret selling his stake for $800, even though it’d be worth $400 billion today
Ronald Wayne once owned 10% of Apple. Today, that stake would be worth roughly $400 billion. Instead, he sold it for $800.
It’s the kind of decision routinely labeled one of the worst business mistakes in history — especially now that Apple is valued at around $4 trillion. But Wayne, now 91, doesn’t see it that way.
“My success has never been defined by money,” he wrote in a recent statement to Fortune. “It’s been defined by acting with clarity, integrity, and sound judgment, given what I actually knew at the time.”
Wayne’s situation was different from that of his younger partners. At 41, he was the “adult in the room,” he said, with a house, a car and personal savings he couldn’t afford to lose. If the business failed, he feared creditors would pursue his personal assets to cover losses. For him, the downside risk was potentially devastating.
So just 12 days after signing the founding agreement, Wayne sold his 10% stake for $800. He later accepted an additional $1,500 to fully relinquish any future claims.
With the benefit of hindsight, it looks like a catastrophic financial mistake. But based on the information available at the time, it was a calculated decision to limit risk, not chase an uncertain payoff.
MacDailyNews Take: Ron is a unique individual. Not sure we’d have lasted 50 seconds, much less 50 years and counting, trying to live with the consequence of that decision.
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Stephen King praises Apple TV crime series ‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’
Stephen King is praising another new Apple TV series. The legendary author is among the many viewers who have enjoyed the streamer’s ten-episode comedic horror series “Widow’s Bay,” in which each installment plays like its own self-contained movie while still dropping hints about the larger story.
Apple TV is on a strong run overall, with recent originals like “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” and “Star City” also gaining traction.
In a new post on X, King singled out the ten-episode crime drama “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed.”
ScreenRant:
The seminal scribe called the series “very entertaining”, though he takes issue with some “goofy plot holes.” He concludes by underlining the lead character’s occupation, noting, “Copy-editors are an unused fictional resource. Who’s a better detective than a good copy-editor?”
Created by David J. Rosen, “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed”” stars Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany as Paula, a divorced mother who feels a sort of passive dissatisfaction with her life. She finds joy in her conversations with younger camboy Trevor (13 Reasons Why alum Brandon Flynn). But things take a turn one evening when she witnesses Trevor being attacked on camera during one of those conversations.
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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Apple’s first touchscreen MacBook ‘100% confirmed’ by prominent leaker
In a bold statement, prolific leaker Instant Digital has declared that Apple’s first touchscreen MacBook is now “100% confirmed.” The claim, shared via Weibo this morning, comes from a source with a solid track record on Apple supply chain intel.
For years, Apple resisted adding touchscreens to its Mac lineup. Steve Jobs famously dismissed vertical touch surfaces back in 2010 due to arm fatigue, and as recently as 2021, Apple’s hardware engineering leadership called the Mac “totally optimized for indirect input.” But times have changed — and the rumors have grown too consistent to ignore.
The Road to Touchscreen Macs
This isn’t the first we’ve heard about touchscreen MacBooks. Reports date back to at least early 2023, when Mark Gurman suggested an OLED MacBook Pro could be the pioneer. Timelines slipped, but momentum has built steadily:
• Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted touchscreen OLED MacBook Pro models entering mass production in late 2026.
• Gurman has repeatedly confirmed the plan for 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with touch support, targeting late 2026 or early 2027 (though memory chip shortages could push it).
• The new models are expected to carry M6 Pro and M6 Max chips, a thinner design, OLED displays, Dynamic Island (replacing the notch), and possibly “MacBook Ultra” branding.
Apple isn’t turning the Mac into an iPad clone. According to reports, the touchscreen will be “touch-friendly, not touch-first”—you’ll still have the trackpad and keyboard as primary inputs, with touch as an optional, interchangeable way to interact. macOS 27’s enhanced Sidecar features (allowing direct touch on iPad-mirrored Mac interfaces) hint at broader touch optimizations coming to the OS.
Will It Change Everything?
Reaction online is mixed. Some users are excited about the flexibility — quick scrolling, annotations, or gestures without leaving the keyboard. Others dread fingerprints on that beautiful display and see it as unnecessary when an iPad already exists for touch tasks.
Apple’s shift makes sense in a world where hybrid work and creative tools blur lines between laptops and tablets. But success will depend on execution: Will the touchscreen feel premium and responsive enough to justify the change? Will macOS evolve without compromising the precision mouse-and-keyboard users love?
The first touchscreen MacBook Pro (or Ultra) is still likely 6–18 months away, so there’s time for more details to emerge. In the meantime, this leaker’s “100% confirmed” claim adds serious weight to what was once a distant rumor.
MacDailyNews Take: Nobody touches our MacBook Pro displays, not even us!
We’re perfectly fine with using mice and trackpads, so we’ll continue to keep our Mac displays free of greasy fingerprints, even if we end up with touchscreen Macs.
Who really wants to smear their fingers all over their MacBook Pro’s display?
Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical. After an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. – Steve Jobs
For many years, every MacBook Pro has offered a built-in multi-touch-capable Force Touch trackpad.
Does it make more sense to be smearing your fingers around on your notebook’s screen or on a spacious trackpad that’s designed specifically and solely to be touched? … The iPhone’s screen has to be touched; that’s all it has available. A MacBook’s screen does not have to be touched in order to offer Multi-Touch. — MacDailyNews, March 26, 2009
I think anything can be forced to converge. The problem is that products are about tradeoffs, and you begin to make tradeoffs to the point where what you have left at the end of the day doesn’t please anyone. You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user. – Apple CEO Tim Cook, remarking on the idea of a converged Mac and iPad, April 25, 2012
We really feel that the ergonomics of using a Mac are that your hands are rested on a surface, and that lifting your arm up to poke a screen is a pretty fatiguing thing to do. I don’t think we’ve looked at any of the other guys to date and said, how fast can we get there? — Apple SVP Craig Federighi, June 5, 2018
[Y]ou get this in-between thing, and in-between things are never as good as the individual things themselves. We believe the best personal computer is a Mac, and we want to keep going down that path. And we think the best tablet computing device is an iPad, and we’ll go down that path.
iPad benefits because we assume that you need to be able to do most everything with touch, and we don’t have to trade off on that experience. Mac assumes you want to do most everything with a keyboard and mouse input. We don’t have to trade off on that path. You can look at some of the other products that will try to go halfway between the two. They end up just compromising experiences. That’s not good. – Apple SVP Phil Schiller, November 13, 2019
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Tried Apple’s Siri AI – and it actually works!
After a rocky first attempt at AI-powered Siri, Apple’s latest upgrade in iOS 27 delivers on basic but useful tasks: pulling context from emails and calendars, adding events from screenshots or flyers, diagnosing garden problems, and handling follow-up requests reliably.
Hands-on testing shows it’s still fairly basic compared to Google’s Gemini, but for longtime Siri skeptics, the simple fact that “it actually works” marks a meaningful step forward in rebuilding trust.
Allison Johnson for The Verge:
After stumbling through its first launch of an AI-imbued Siri, Apple is trying again. The newly upgraded Siri AI can chat with you about what might be killing the roses in your yard, put together a shopping list for the hardware store, and set a reminder to lay down some compost in that flower bed. It can reference information in your email and calendar to make its recommendations or provide an actually helpful answer to the question: “When should I leave for the airport?” And yes, it can even add a list of events from an email to your calendar. I tried all of these scenarios out for myself and I saw it happen. AI Siri is for real this time.
Siri AI working well depends a lot on the AI understanding context. So far, it’s doing pretty well. I asked it when I needed to return some camera gear I rented for WWDC, and it found the information from a calendar event I’d made and in an email (it’s due back Friday, for the record). Likewise, prompting it with something like “add these events to my calendar” will consistently trigger it to reference the information on my screen. So far, so good.
I couldn’t get Siri to engage in any shenanigans — I didn’t exactly stress test it, but the guardrails were strong enough to return a curt “I can’t help you with that” to a shady prompt. Fair.
The new Siri handled my follow-up requests well, too. I asked it to recommend a garden center “near home” and it came up with a good suggestion. It also created a new reminder list with some checklist items for my garden rehab project and added a calendar event, all from a single prompt. Pretty basic stuff, but this is Siri. The fact that it works at all is a step forward that’s been years in the making.
MacDailyNews Take: Siri AI so far is a foundation – a strong base upon which to build – and it does just work!
“Here’s the thing: When you ask Siri AI a wide variety of questions and pose commands that the current Siri simply cannot handle, Siri AI just works. In beta. It’s already lightyears better than plain Jane Siri and it’ll only get better!” – MacDailyNews, June 10, 2026
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Apple drops support for watchOS 27 on original Apple Watch Ultra, SE 2, and several other models
Apple just announced watchOS 27, and it’s delivering a wakeup call for many owners of older Apple Watch models. The upcoming update will only run on the Apple Watch SE 3, Series 9–11, Ultra 2, and Ultra 3 — leaving the original 2022 Ultra, SE 2, and earlier Series models without the new redesigned app grid, upgraded Siri, and other features.
Even Apple’s premium rugged flagship from just a few years ago gets only three major OS updates before being cut off, highlighting the company’s increasingly aggressive hardware cutoff strategy. If you own one of the unsupported watches, this fall’s update means no new software features — though basic functionality will continue.
Sam Byford for Fast Company:
The first Apple Watch Ultra came out in 2022, so it will have received only three operating system upgrades over the course of its entire life cycle. And this wasn’t a throwaway product — it was Apple’s first significant expansion of the Watch lineup, coming with an all-new design and a $799 price tag. Mine is still going strong; I wasn’t particularly tempted to upgrade to the Ultra 2 or 3.
But now Apple is rendering it obsolete. WatchOS 27 is a fairly significant update, bringing a redesigned app grid and the new version of Siri, and it won’t be coming to the Ultra.
The reason is almost certainly the chip. The original Ultra used Apple’s S8 system-in-package, which actually used the exact same CPU as the S7 and S6 before it. In other words, the Ultra launched with a two-year-old chip.
That wasn’t much of a problem at the time, and really, it hasn’t been much of a problem today… But when the Apple Watch Ultra 2 arrived in 2023 alongside the Series 9, the two new watches did bring a meaningful silicon jump. Their S9 chip included a faster GPU, a new Neural Engine, and support for features like on-device Siri processing and a system-level gesture invoked by double-tapping your thumb and finger together.
Given that the Apple Watch Series 9 is also receiving watchOS 27, it would seem that Apple is using that chip transition to mark a line in the sand and move forward with a new generation of hardware and software.
MacDailyNews Take: Time to upgrade! Apple Watch Ultra turns four years old on September 23rd – an eon in tech time.
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Apple TV unveils first look at season six of hit drama ‘Slow Horses’
On Thursday, Apple TV revealed a first look at season six of “Slow Horses,” the Emmy Award and BAFTA TV Award-winning spy drama starring Academy Award winner Sir Gary Oldman, who has been honored with Golden Globe, Emmy Award, Actor Award and BAFTA TV Award nominations for his outstanding performance in the series. The highly anticipated six-episode sixth season will premiere globally on Wednesday, September 16, 2026 with the first episode, followed by one episode weekly until October 21, 2026.
“Slow Horses” is a darkly humorous espionage drama that follows a dysfunctional team of British intelligence agents who serve in a dumping ground department of MI5 known unaffectionately as Slough House. Oldman stars as Jackson Lamb, the brilliant but cantankerous leader of the spies who end up in Slough House due to their career-ending mistakes and who frequently find themselves blundering around the smoke and mirrors of the espionage world.
Season six sees the Slow Horses on the run as Diana Taverner embroils them all in a fatally high-stakes game of retaliation and revenge.
The ensemble cast includes Academy Award nominee Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmy Award nominee Jack Lowden, Saskia Reeves, BAFTA TV Award nominee Christopher Chung, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Rosalind Eleazar, Joanna Scanlan, BAFTA Award nominee Samuel West, Ruth Bradley, Tom Brooke, Academy Award nominee Jonathan Pryce and Hugo Weaving, alongside new addition, BAFTA TV Award winner Lenny Rush.
“Slow Horses” has been celebrated as “undoubtedly the best spy series on television,” a “truly epic espionage thriller” that is “utterly brilliant” and just “so damn good.” All five seasons of “Slow Horses” hold a Certified Fresh score, with two seasons receiving a rare, perfect 100 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, and the series continues to receive global accolades from critics and fans alike.
The series is produced for Apple TV by See-Saw Films, with Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta, Julian Stevens, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Adam Randall, Gail Mutrux, Douglas Urbanski and Oldman serving as executive producers. Season six is adapted for television by co-executive producer Gaby Chiappe, with Randall returning to direct. The complete first five seasons of “Slow Horses” are now streaming on Apple TV.
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 843 wins and 3,565 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 Take: It’s perfect that Gary Oldman is still wearing the same shirt as Jackson Lamb in the Season 6 teaser — the exact one he’s had on since Season 1.
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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Investors are misreading Apple’s latest AI announcement. Apple got it right this time.
Despite lukewarm initial reviews calling Apple’s latest AI announcements uninspired and derivative, the company’s pragmatic approach to enhancing Siri and Apple Intelligence may prove more effective than critics realize. With iPhone sales already surging 23% in the first half of fiscal 2026, Apple’s focus on reliable, privacy-first features—rather than flashy AI “for the sake of AI”—could be exactly what’s needed to sustain momentum and drive the stock higher.
This piece from Barron’s explores why investors may be misreading the reset, arguing that Apple’s measured strategy positions it well for long-term gains.
[I]n his final Worldwide Developers Conference as CEO, Tim Cook was copying what Steve Jobs did when he left the stage in 2011: bequeathing his successor with a basic foundation for the next generation of the “Apple experience.” It isn’t meant to be groundbreaking.
After failing three times to make an Apple cloud service that was up to the company’s standards, Steve Jobs took the stage at the 2011 WWDC for what would be his last keynote address before he died. While announcing iCloud, Jobs joked about the three previous failures: iTools, .Mac, and MobleMe. “Now you might ask, ‘Why should I believe them? They’re the ones that brought me MobileMe,’” he said to raucous laughter and applause.
No one’s laughing anymore. Today, iCloud is the glue for Apple’s ecosystem…
With Monday’s announcement, Cook and team have put Apple Intelligence on the iCloud path. The company is offering a free set of basic services that protect user privacy. It will improve from here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote on Tuesday:
“Apple’s iPhone and Mac both show that personalized AI isn’t yet important enough to negatively affect sales – not even close – so Munster is correct that Apple has time, although we’d peg it at about a year, given the rate that AI is improving. Siri AI in beta form is still Siri AI in users’ hand this year and that’s more than good enough for now. The beta being used by hundreds of millions of users will provide much opportunity for Apple to fine tune the product. By this time next year, we’ll all be wondering how we ever lived without Siri AI.”
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Apple’s AI could usher in a historic upgrade cycle, and Wall Street is missing it – Morgan Stanley
Following Apple’s WWDC keynote, shares dipped as investors seemed underwhelmed by the new AI announcements, including an upgraded Siri. However, Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring argues the market is missing the bigger picture: Apple’s AI requires significantly more powerful hardware (such as at least 12GB of unified memory), leaving roughly 1.3 billion existing iPhones unable to run the full suite of features.
This hardware gap, combined with emerging “killer apps,” is poised to accelerate upgrades and faster monetization than expected—potentially reframing Apple as a clear AI winner and driving substantial upside for the stock.
The latest artificial-intelligence updates unveiled by the company weren’t enough to satisfy investors. But the negative market reaction is missing a massive opportunity looming on the horizon, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring.
Christine Ji for MarketWatch:
Apple’s revamped Siri could trigger a major upgrade cycle as users ditch their old iPhones for more powerful hardware, Woodring wrote in a Tuesday note. He maintained his overweight rating and increased his price target to $360 from $330.
Morgan Stanley estimated that 1.3 billion iPhones in circulation don’t have the necessary hardware to run the updated Siri. Approximately 850 million iPhones can’t run Apple Intelligence at all. The main constraint is memory, as the AI-powered Siri will require at least 12 gigabytes of unified memory to support advanced queries.
This sets the stage for a massive hardware upgrade cycle and an earlier-than-expected monetization opportunity. “With less backwards compatibility and clearer use cases, we see WWDC as a net positive,” Woodring wrote.
Beyond Siri, Apple’s Image Playground and Image Editing “are clear ‘killer apps’ that appear miles improved” from previous versions, according to Woodring. Users can now generate images using natural language. They can also use the “Clean Up” tool and spatial reframing capabilities to fix up pictures even if they were a bit too late to capture the perfect shot.
“We were especially impressed with the photo editing tools, which we expect will be heavily trafficked, and which are Apple’s clearest near-term Services monetization opportunity,” Woodring wrote. These features are only available for limited usage on current iPhones due to computing constraints, which will provide Apple with a powerful new monetization lever.
“Image generation, photo editing and app intents will all be impacted by rate limits, forcing upgrades to iCloud (and potentially new iCloud tiers/pricing) as soon as this fall,” Woodring wrote. He said the new Apple Intelligence features could drive over 10% services growth and mid-teens product growth in 2027.
MacDailyNews Take: Yup.
Apple has begun to monetize Apple Intelligence. This will be a very good thing for iCloud+ subscribers, Apple, and – when the market finally figures it out – AAPL investors. – MacDailyNews, June 9, 2026
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Apple’s iPhone momentum shines bright: 19.7% YoY production surge positions it for market leadership amid industry headwinds
In a quarter where the broader smartphone industry grappled with softening demand and rising component costs, Apple’s iPhone has once again demonstrated its enduring strength and appeal. According to TrendForce’s latest report, global smartphone production dipped 1.7% year-over-year to approximately 284 million units in Q1 2026. Yet Apple stood out as a clear winner, producing around 60.2 million units—a robust 19.7% increase from the same period last year.
This impressive growth was fueled by strong ramp-up production for the latest iPhone models, complemented by the successful launch of the iPhone 17e. The results underscore Apple’s ability to maintain consumer excitement and drive demand even in a cautious market environment.
Why Apple Is Thriving While Others Adjust
Unlike many competitors entering a margin-protection mode, Apple’s premium positioning and robust ecosystem allow it to absorb higher memory costs without sacrificing profitability. TrendForce highlights that Apple is uniquely positioned to prioritize market share expansion during this downturn, setting the stage for long-term gains in both hardware sales and its highly profitable services and software revenue streams.
While brands heavily exposed to mid-range and entry-level segments face mounting pressure from memory price inflation, Apple’s focus on premium devices gives it significant pricing power and customer loyalty. This strategic advantage enables Apple to navigate supply chain challenges more effectively and continue investing in innovation that keeps iPhone users coming back.
A Bright Future for iPhone
As the industry braces for a potentially sharper decline in Q2 and forecasts a 16.2% YoY drop in full-year 2026 production, Apple’s resilience shines through. The company’s ability to grow against the trend reflects the timeless appeal of the iPhone: seamless user experience, cutting-edge technology, and a powerful ecosystem that delivers unmatched value.
For consumers, this means continued access to groundbreaking iPhone innovations, reliable software updates, and an ecosystem designed to enhance daily life. Apple’s strong Q1 performance isn’t just good news for the company — it signals confidence in the premium smartphone segment and reinforces why millions worldwide choose iPhone year after year.
MacDailyNews Take: The iPhone remains a beacon of excellence, proving once again that quality, innovation, and customer focus are the ultimate drivers of success.
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Apple quietly axes long-neglected Walkie-Talkie app from Apple Watch in watchOS 27 beta
Apple has made a low-key but notable change in the first developer beta of watchOS 27: the Walkie-Talkie app is gone.
Introduced back in 2018 with watchOS 5, Walkie-Talkie offered a push-to-talk experience that let Apple Watch owners send instant voice messages to contacts over Wi-Fi or cellular. It leveraged FaceTime’s infrastructure for long-distance communication without needing to pull out an iPhone — essentially turning your wrist into a modern walkie-talkie. At launch, it felt like one of those fun, forward-looking features that could become a daily staple for families, outdoor enthusiasts, or quick team check-ins.
But reality never quite matched the hype. After a major security vulnerability shortly after release forced Apple to disable the feature entirely (a bug that potentially allowed unauthorized eavesdropping), the app returned in watchOS 5.3. Yet Apple never gave it meaningful updates or improvements over the next eight years. It lingered in the background, occasionally useful, but often plagued by connectivity issues, and rarely if ever highlighted in keynotes or marketing.
In watchOS 27 beta 1, the app has vanished completely from both the app list and Control Center, with no option for users to reinstall it. Apple hasn’t issued an official statement, leaving the removal open to interpretation. Given the feature’s minimal maintenance history, this looks more like a deliberate retirement than a beta glitch. There’s still a slim chance it could return before the final release, but the trend points toward a quiet sunset.
Why This Matters
• For users: Families who relied on it for home communication (e.g., calling kids upstairs) or anyone who enjoyed the hands-free, instant voice connection will need to find alternatives like standard calls, Messages voice notes, or third-party apps.
• For Apple: This reflects a broader strategy of pruning underused or hard-to-maintain features to focus engineering resources on higher-priority areas like health monitoring, smarter Siri, and new Apple Intelligence capabilities.
• The bigger picture: watchOS 27, expected to launch publicly in the fall alongside new Apple Watch models, continues Apple’s pattern of evolving the platform—sometimes by adding exciting features and sometimes by letting older ones fade away.
MacDailyNews Take: Public beta testing for watchOS 27 is slated for July, so more clarity could emerge then. In the meantime, if you’re on the developer beta and miss Walkie-Talkie, you can contact Apple here: apple.com/feedback/
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Morgan Stanley boosts Apple price target to $360 after WWDC 2026; sees 51% upside as AI narrative takes center stage
In the wake of Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2026), Wall Street sentiment toward the tech giant is getting another meaningful lift. Morgan Stanley’s Eric Woodring this week maintained his Outperform (Buy) rating while raising both his base-case and bull-case price targets.
Woodring increased his base price target from previous levels to $360 per share. His new bull-case target sits at $440, which implies approximately 51% upside from current trading levels. The move reflects growing conviction that Apple’s latest software and AI announcements could mark a pivotal turning point for the company’s growth trajectory.
Why WWDC 2026 Matters
Apple’s developer events have historically served as more than just software showcases—they often redefine how investors perceive the company’s long-term platform strength. This year’s conference appears to have delivered on the AI front in ways that resonated strongly with Woodring and his team.
“This event has the chance to reframe Apple as an AI winner,” Woodring noted in his research note.
The comment is particularly notable coming from a firm known for its rigorous, fundamentals-driven analysis. For years, skeptics have questioned whether Apple could keep pace with more aggressive AI-first competitors like Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia. Woodring’s updated targets suggest he believes Apple’s integrated hardware-software approach, combined with new AI capabilities unveiled at WWDC, positions the company to close that perceived gap—or even pull ahead in consumer-facing AI experiences.
The Numbers Behind the Optimism
• New Base Target: $360
• New Bull Target: $440
• Implied Bull-Case Upside: ~51%
• Rating: Outperform (Buy)
These targets reflect expectations of stronger services revenue growth, improved iPhone replacement cycles driven by AI features, and expanding margins from Apple Intelligence ecosystem lock-in.
Apple shares have already shown resilience in 2026 amid a volatile macro environment and shifting AI narratives. The stock’s performance has lagged some of its Big Tech peers over the past 12–18 months as investors rotated heavily into pure-play AI infrastructure names. However, WWDC events have a strong track record of catalyzing multi-quarter rallies when the messaging around new platforms lands effectively.
Woodring’s note adds to a growing chorus of bullish voices on Wall Street who see Apple’s vast installed base, privacy-focused AI strategy, and ability to monetize AI through services as underappreciated advantages.
Investor Takeaway
For long-term Apple shareholders, the message from Morgan Stanley is clear: patience and continued ecosystem investment may be rewarded as the company transitions from being viewed primarily as a premium hardware maker to a leader in personal AI.
While risks remain, including execution on AI timelines, regulatory scrutiny, and competitive intensity, the raised price targets underscore a belief that Apple’s moat remains wide and is potentially widening in the AI era.
MacDailyNews Take: As always, investors should conduct their own due diligence, but Eric Woodring’s updated stance provides another data point that Apple’s AI inflection may finally be arriving in earnest.
Here’s the thing: When you ask Siri AI a wide variety of questions and pose commands that the current Siri simply cannot handle, Siri AI just works. In beta. It’s already lightyears better than plain Jane Siri and it’ll only get better!
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Apple accelerates app development with new intelligence frameworks and advanced tools in Xcode 27
Apple this week introduced new intelligence capabilities, expanded productivity features in Xcode 27, and platform improvements that make apps faster, more adaptive, and easier to build.
“Developers are at the heart of the Apple ecosystem, and our goal is to provide them with the best possible tools and technologies to build the future,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations, in a statement. “With new intelligence frameworks and agentic coding in Xcode 27, developers have the tools they need to focus on what they do best: bringing their incredible ideas to life.”
New intelligence capabilities, expanded productivity features in Xcode, and platform improvements make apps faster, more adaptive, and easier to build.
Intelligence Frameworks
With the latest enhancements to Apple Intelligence and the introduction of Siri AI, developers can make their apps’ content and capabilities more discoverable and accessible across the system. Updates to the App Intents framework enable developers to connect their apps to Siri AI capabilities like personal context understanding, app actions, and onscreen awareness to help their users get more done.
New intelligence frameworks allow developers to build AI features into their apps more easily and flexibly, tapping into powerful models from Apple and others. Building on the Foundation Models framework introduced last year, developers gain new options to integrate AI into their apps. The framework now serves as a single native Swift API that supports more powerful on-device models with image input, support for server models, and the ability to build custom skills.
Using this API, developers can tap into the next generation of Apple Foundation Models, which were custom-built in collaboration with Google and its Gemini models to deliver integrated experiences across Apple platforms. To ensure developing with large language models is as accessible as possible for those just getting started with AI, developers enrolled in the App Store Small Business Program with fewer than 2 million total first-time App Store downloads can access the next generation of Apple Foundation Models running on Private Cloud Compute at no cloud API cost. Developers can also easily leverage models of their choice, like Claude and Gemini, or those from any other provider that implements the new language model protocol. To help developers create adaptive AI experiences more easily and flexibly, the framework also introduces capabilities like Dynamic Profiles, enabling developers to update how models interact with their apps on the fly.
For developers who want to bring their own custom models into their app, Core AI is a brand-new framework designed to be the best way to run models on device. Core AI provides an architecture optimized for the unified memory and Neural Engine of Apple silicon, allowing developers to deploy full-scale LLMs locally.
Xcode 27 and Agentic Coding
Xcode is the best place to build for Apple platforms, and the best place to code with agents. Xcode 27 takes the next big step in agentic coding. This year’s release brings the full power of today’s best models and agents from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI directly into a developer’s workflow. Conversations with coding agents feature interactive planning, multiturn Q&A, and a canvas that can render Markdown and display code changes and previews right alongside.
Xcode 27 gives coding agents the tools to validate their own work, so they can run autonomously for longer.
Xcode 27 also gives coding agents the tools to validate their own work, so they can run autonomously for longer, such as writing and running tests, trying ideas in isolation with Playgrounds, checking visual changes with previews, and interacting with the simulator in the new Device Hub.
With plug-ins, developers can extend Xcode with custom skills, bring in the tools they use every day through the Model Context Protocol, and connect any agent compatible with the Agent Client Protocol. GitHub and Figma are the first to offer seamless installation between their tools and Xcode.
In addition to coding intelligence, Xcode 27 delivers improvements across the board. The application is now Apple silicon only, 30 percent smaller, and delivers faster performance and a simpler setup process. It’s also more personalizable than ever, with a fully customizable toolbar and a new theme system that spans colors across the entire editor.
Xcode Cloud is now up to 2x faster, with new support for apps that use Metal and for visionOS builds, all powered by Apple silicon.
Refined Design and UI Frameworks
Liquid Glass provides a unified visual design that makes apps more expressive and instantly familiar across Apple platforms. This year, the design continues to evolve, with improvements to legibility, customizability, and consistency. A new transparency slider in Settings allows users to personalize their visual experience by adjusting the appearance to their preference, while the design also seamlessly adapts to a variety of accessibility settings users may choose.
SwiftUI is designed to handle the complexities of layout, animation, and platform integration so developers can focus on what makes their app unique. This year, SwiftUI makes apps more responsive without requiring developers to change their code through more efficient state initialization and faster layout rendering. Developers can now write less custom code using new reorderable containers, and the new Spatial Preview framework allows 3D models from Mac apps to be viewed spatially when streamed to Apple Vision Pro.
Swift unifies full-stack development, providing the speed, expressiveness, and memory safety developers need to build everything from full-featured mobile apps and embedded firmware to platforms beyond the Apple ecosystem. It prioritizes usability and an intuitive syntax, allowing developers to easily iterate on their ideas while the compiler catches mistakes along the way. Building on this foundation, Swift 6.4 is designed to make everyday tasks feel effortless. It streamlines the daily developer experience by introducing targeted warning suppression, simplified availability attributes like “anyAppleOS,” and improved compiler diagnostics.
Tools and Resources for Games
For game and spatial developers, new tools and resources will make it easier to bring high-quality titles to Apple platforms and deliver seamless experiences to players.
• Managed Background Assets reduce game install sizes by introducing intelligent, localized delivery. The system now automatically identifies a player’s preferred language and only downloads the specific asset packs required for that language, falling back to the closest match if necessary. Additionally, a new Steam Asset Converter streamlines the process of adapting PC games for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and visionOS.
• Game Porting Toolkit 4 accelerates the development of Mac games by introducing open source skills for use with agents, equipping them with Apple-specific best practices for Metal development and dramatically cutting the time it takes to bring games to Apple platforms.
• Official Unity plug-ins bring native Apple integration to one of the most popular game engines. Developers now have access to Apple-provided plug-ins for StoreKit and Background Assets, allowing them to natively implement In-App Purchases across all Apple platforms within their existing Unity workflow.
• Reality Composer Pro 3 allows developers to build complete spatial experiences in a single tool. With new Live Previews combined with Mac Virtual Display, developers can now see the results of their edits immediately as they make them.
MacDailyNews Note: Developer betas for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, tvOS 27, visionOS 27, and Xcode 27 are available at developer.apple.com now.
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Apple TV debuts trailer for ‘Camp Snoopy’ season two, premiering globally Friday, June 26th
Apple TV has unveiled the trailer for season two of “Camp Snoopy,” premiering globally on Friday, June 26. In season two, Snoopy and the Beagle Scouts are looking forward to carefree time in the majestic landscape of Camp Spring Lake. Along with Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang, join Snoopy and the birds as they hike, swim and leap their way through another round of fun and adventure in the Great Outdoors, searching for the elusive hedge toad, building towering sandcastles and debating the merits of hot dogs versus hamburgers.
Produced for Apple TV by Peanuts and WildBrain, the series is based on the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz and is directed by Rob Boutilier. Executive producers are Paige Braddock, Chris Bracco, Boutilier, Josh Scherba, Stephanie Betts and Logan McPherson.
Apple TV is the exclusive streaming home for all things Peanuts, including the classic Peanuts library, as well as more new original Peanuts series and specials, through an expanded partnership with WildBrain, Peanuts Worldwide and Lee Mendelson Film Productions until 2030. Apple has been home to the Peanuts classic library since 2020, alongside multiple original programming collaborations starting in 2018, and is currently in production with WildBrain and Peanuts on a brand-new animated feature film starring Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang. In the upcoming feature “Snoopy Unleashed,” Snoopy runs away from home, and Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang go on an emotional journey to the vibrant Big City as they search for Snoopy and discover that real friendship means loving each other just as they are.
Apple TV’s award-winning original Peanuts series also include the Emmy and Annie Award-nominated “Snoopy in Space” and “The Snoopy Show” as well as new original specials under the Snoopy Presents banner including Emmy Award-nominated programs “It’s the Small Things, Charlie Brown,” “Lucy’s School,” “To Mom (and Dad), With Love,” “One-of-a-Kind Marcie,” “Welcome Home, Franklin,” the Annie Award-nominated “For Auld Lang Syne” and “A Summer Musical.” Apple TV also features two Emmy Award-winning original Peanuts documentaries, “Who Are You Charlie Brown?” and “Peanuts in Space: Secrets of Apollo 10,” and classic anthology titles including “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,” “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” “It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown” and “Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown,” among many others.
The exciting slate of recent offerings for kids and families on Apple TV also features “My Brother the Minotaur,” from Academy Award-nominated animation studio Cartoon Saloon and award-winning children’s media company Dog Ears; “Wonder Pets: In the City,” from Emmy Award winner Jennifer Oxley and produced by Nickelodeon Animation; animated adventure trilogy “WondLa,” based on the New York Times bestselling book series “The Search for WondLa” by Tony DiTerlizzi; highly anticipated kids and family series “Yo Gabba GabbaLand!,” inspired by the hit, Emmy Award-nominated cultural phenomenon “Yo Gabba Gabba!”; season two of Emmy Award-winning “Shape Island,” based on the internationally bestselling picture books from Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen; animated fantasy adventure series “The Sisters Grimm,” based on Michael Buckley’s New York Times bestselling book series; the music-driven animated comedy series “BE@RBRICK” from DreamWorks Animation; “Goldie,” inspired by Emily Brundige’s award-winning 2019 short film of the same name, and many more.
Award-winning all-ages offerings now streaming globally on Apple TV also include the BAFTA Award and Emmy Award-winning live-action animated hybrid special “The Velveteen Rabbit,” BAFTA Award and Humanitas Prize-winning “El Deafo,” BAFTA Award-winning “Lovely Little Farm,” “Duck & Goose,” “Get Rolling With Otis,” Spin Master Entertainment’s “Sago Mini Friends,” “Frog and Toad,” based on the Caldecott and Newbery Honor-winning books, Annie Award-nominated “Not a Box,” GLAAD Media Award-nominated “Pinecone & Pony,” The Jim Henson Company’s Emmy Award-winning “Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock,” “Harriet the Spy” and “Slumberkins,” Sesame Workshop’s “Helpsters,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt, HITRECORD and Bento Box Entertainment’s “Wolfboy and the Everything Factory,” Jack McBrayer and Angela C. Santomero’s Emmy Award-nominated “Hello, Jack! The Kindness Show,” and Peabody and Emmy Award-winning series “Stillwater” from Gaumont and Scholastic Entertainment. Live-action offerings include “Me,” an elevated cinematic coming-of-age story from Barry L. Levy, Bonnie Hunt’s DGA and WGA Award-nominated “Amber Brown,” DGA Award-winning “Best Foot Forward,” “Surfside Girls,” WGA Award-winning “Life By Ella,” Sesame Workshop and Sinking Ship’s Emmy Award-winning “Ghostwriter,” Emmy Award and Environmental Media Association Award winning “Jane” and Scholastic’s “Puppy Place.” “Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth,” the Emmy Award-winning television event based on the New York Times bestselling book and TIME Best Book of the Year by Oliver Jeffers is also featured.
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 843 wins and 3,565 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 $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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Apple TV debuts trailer for fifth season of critically acclaimed comedy ‘Trying’
Apple TV on Tuesday unveiled the trailer for the fifth season of acclaimed comedy series “Trying,” starring and executive produced by BAFTA Award nominee Esther Smith and Actor Award nominee Rafe Spall. The eight-episode comedy will make its global return to Apple TV with its first episode on Wednesday, July 8th, followed by one episode weekly through Wednesday, August 26th.
Season five finds Nikki (Smith) and Jason (Spall) dealing with the consequences of Princess (Scarlett Rayner) and Tyler’s (Cooper Turner) biological mother, Kat (Charlotte Riley), turning up at their doorstep, and the whirlwind of chaos she brings into their settled family life.
The ensemble cast also includes BAFTA Award winner Darren Boyd (“Down Cemetery Road”), BAFTA Award nominee Siân Brooke (“Blue Lights”), Actor Award nominee Celia Imrie (“The Thursday Murder Club”), BAFTA Award nominee Phil Davis (“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”), BAFTA Award winner Gbemisola Ikumelo (“Black Ops”) and Actor Award nominee Colin Morgan (“Belfast”).
Since its global debut, “Trying” has been hailed as a “feel-good,” “poignant” and “addictive” comedy that is one of Apple TV’s “sweetest treats.” The series has achieved a 96 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, as fans applaud “standout performers,” “brilliant details” and the “heartwarming, critically acclaimed” series that “provides refreshing journeys we don’t often see on television.”
“Trying” is created, written and executive produced by Andy Wolton, and executive produced by BAFTA Award nominees Josh Cole and Sam Pinnell alongside International Emmy Award winner Chris Sussman, Smith and Spall. The series is produced by BBC Studios.
This season’s soundtrack is helmed by Ivor Novello Award-winning Dublin-born artist and producer Orla Gartland, with original songs set to debut each episode. Gartland’s upcoming new single, “At The End Of The Day,” is also featured in the season five trailer. She follows Guy Garvey, Maisie Peters, Bear’s Den and BEKA, who wrote and performed the soundtracks for “Trying” seasons one, two, three and four, respectively.
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 843 wins and 3,565 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 Take: We very highly recommend “Trying,” a very underrated series.
The cast is uniformly top-notch, notably Scarlett Rayner, who is already an excellent young actress in her role as “Princess.” If you haven’t yet seen “Trying,” there are four full seasons waiting for you on Apple TV with a fifth on the way!
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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Apple Photos finally gets a proper slideshow maker in iOS 27 – customizable, exportable, and long overdue
Apple announced a significant upgrade to its Photos app on Monday, introducing a dedicated slideshow maker that lets users turn any selection of photos and videos into polished, shareable presentations. After years of relying on limited native options or third-party tools, this feels like a welcome return to form for longtime Apple users.
What’s New in the Photos Slideshow Feature
According to the announcement, the updated Photos app now allows you to:
• Select any set of photos and videos from your library and instantly play them as a slideshow.
• Customize the experience with precise controls for slide duration, transition styles, and background music.
• Save as a video — New in iOS 27, users can now export the entire slideshow directly to their Photos library as a video file for easy playback, sharing, or archiving.
This goes beyond the more basic slideshow options available in earlier versions of iOS (such as iOS 18 and 19), giving users greater flexibility and permanence. While previous iterations often felt like an afterthought, this version positions slideshows as a first-class creative tool.
Broader Photos App Improvements
The slideshow maker is just one highlight from today’s announcements. Apple is also rolling out several other welcome enhancements to the Photos ecosystem:
• The ability to save individual frames from videos as standalone, still photos.
• More flexible and intuitive album organization tools.
• Emoji reactions and a “recent activity” view inside Shared Albums.
• Full-resolution access to photos and videos in Shared Albums, removing previous compression limits.
• New automatically generated smart collections, including “Captured by Me” and “Identity Documents.”
• Drastically improved, context-aware search results for people and pets.
These changes, combined with the broader Apple Intelligence-powered editing tools (such as Spatial Reframing, enhanced Cleanup, and Extend) unveiled alongside them, signal a strong focus on making Photos a more powerful, creative hub.
Why This Matters (and Why Users’ Reactions Are Mixed)
Longtime Apple users have been quick to point out that robust slideshow features existed in legacy apps like iPhoto and Aperture over a decade ago. Comments on developer and enthusiast forums reflect a predictable mix of excitement and eye-rolling: “iPhoto had this over 20 years ago,” one user noted. Others are already hoping for deeper ecosystem integration, such as the ability to export these custom slideshows directly to an Apple TV to use as screensavers.
Still, the ability to natively save custom slideshows as standard video files is a genuine step forward, especially for users who want to quickly create memorable recaps of vacations, family events, or milestones without needing to open a dedicated video editor.
Availability
The new features are expected to arrive with iOS 27, macOS 27 (Golden Gate), and related operating system updates later in 2026. Developer betas are rolling out this week following today’s announcements at WWDC, with a public release scheduled for the fall.
MacDailyNews Take: If you’ve been frustrated by the lack of easy, customizable slideshow tools in recent years, this update should feel refreshing. It’s not revolutionary, but for many users it’s exactly what Apple’s Photos app has been missing.
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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
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iCloud+ subscribers gain higher daily limits for Apple Intelligence features like image generation
Apple is introducing daily usage limits on certain advanced Apple Intelligence capabilities in iOS 27, particularly those that depend on powerful cloud-based server models. However, iCloud+ subscribers will receive significantly higher allowances compared to users on the free tier, making premium storage plans more appealing for heavy AI users.
The limits primarily affect compute-intensive tasks such as AI image generation, which relies on Apple’s server infrastructure rather than on-device processing. This approach helps manage demand while ensuring reliable performance across millions of users.
Apple directly addressed the new policy in its recent announcements: “Some Apple Intelligence features, including image generation, have daily usage limits because they rely on powerful server models. Increased access is available with most iCloud+ subscription plans, which also include Apple Intelligence support for compatible Home cameras.”
This means that while basic access to these features will be available to everyone with a compatible device, iCloud+ subscribers on most paid tiers (likely excluding the entry-level $0.99/month plan) will enjoy expanded daily quotas. Apple One bundle subscribers are also expected to qualify for the higher limits.
In addition to the boosted AI usage, iCloud+ subscribers will receive enhanced Home app features, including improved support for HomeKit Secure Video on compatible cameras.
This move reflects Apple’s strategy to differentiate its subscription services as Apple Intelligence evolves. Users who rely heavily on generative tools may find upgrading to iCloud+ worthwhile not just for extra storage, but for a more unrestricted AI experience.
The changes are part of the broader iOS 27 rollout, with more details expected as the beta program progresses and the software launches later this year.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple has begun to monetize Apple Intelligence. This will be a very good thing for iCloud+ subscribers, Apple, and – when the market finally figures it out – AAPL investors.
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New Apple Foundation Models contain ‘none’ of Google’s Gemini Assistant
Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering, held a post-keynote press briefing on Monday (reported by 9to5Mac) alongside AI VP Amar Subramanya, Siri lead Mike Rockwell, and software VP Sebastien Marineau-Mes. The group walked through the development of the third-generation AFM family and how it powers Apple Intelligence.
“The amount of Google Assistant we use is none,” Federighi said, emphasizing that Apple relies on none of the Gemini models Google deploys to its customers, none of Google’s client-side code, and no Google Search infrastructure as its knowledge backbone.
Of course, we don’t have the Gemini app as our app. In fact, none of that client code is part of how we run on iOS. For these models, we use none of the models that Google deploys to their customers, nor do we use the infrastructure and means by which they deploy models to their customers. And then, when it comes to the knowledge base, we of course don’t use Google Search or anything like that as the foundation of our system. — Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering
Hartley Charlton for MacRumors:
Subramanya outlined the new AFM family, which spans two on-device models and three server-side models. The on-device tier consists of AFM Core, a next-generation dense architecture model, and AFM Core Advanced, which uses a sparse architecture and is natively multimodal.
Subramanya said AFM Core Advanced is “unlike any on-device model we’ve run before,” enabling new features including invitation and expressive voices without any cloud requests. On the server side, AFM Cloud handles latency-optimized Private Cloud Compute requests, while AFM Cloud Image powers image generation and editing features including spatial reframing.
The key detail on the Google collaboration came in Subramanya’s description of how these four models were trained. “All of these are custom built for Apple Silicon, trained using proprietary data with reinforcement learning and refined using outputs from Gemini frontier models,” he said, making clear that Google’s contribution was distillation-based, not a wholesale adoption of Gemini.
The fifth and most capable model, AFM Cloud Pro, is designed for agentic tool use and complex reasoning tasks, with quality that Subramanya said is “similar to Gemini frontier models.” This model marks a departure from Apple’s standard Private Cloud Compute setup.
To run it, Apple worked with both Google and Nvidia to extend its private cloud infrastructure to Nvidia GPUs hosted in Google’s cloud. Marineau-Mes said Apple wanted to use Nvidia’s latest chips but required them to be configured so they couldn’t read the contents of Apple’s servers. A recent Nvidia technology called “ambiguous confidential compute” provided the solution.
MacDailyNews Note: Read more in the full article here and also see our own article posted yesterday: Apple’s Siri AI is not ‘Google Gemini with Apple branding’; here’s how it really works.
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Apple’s iOS 27 just dropped major clues about its long-awaited foldable iPhone
Apple is no longer hiding its foldable plans. The latest beta code in iOS 27 is packed with explicit references to folding hardware and software optimizations designed for larger, flexible displays — offering the strongest public signal yet that a foldable iPhone is nearly here.
According to Bloomberg News’ Mark Gurman, the device — widely expected to be a book-style foldable — is on track for a September 2026 launch alongside the iPhone 18 Pro lineup. It’s projected to start at around $2,000, positioning it as Apple’s most premium iPhone ever and a direct challenger to Samsung’s foldables.
What the Code Reveals
Developers digging into iOS 27 have spotted strings and frameworks hinting at:
• Dynamic app resizing and multitasking tailored for foldable form factors
• iPad-like interfaces when unfolded (sidebars, split-screen apps)
• New gestures and continuity features optimized for a device that can flip between phone and mini-tablet modes
This isn’t just speculation: Apple is actively building the software foundation now so the hardware feels polished from day one.
For years, Apple has watched the foldable market from the sidelines. With iOS 27, the company appears ready to leap in with its signature blend of refined hardware and thoughtful software. A ~7.8-inch inner display when open could finally bring true productivity to the iPhone without compromising its pocketable roots.
MacDailyNews Take: The foldable iPhone isn’t coming next year, it’s coming this September — less than 3 months away. And iOS 27 is already laying the groundwork for what could be Apple’s most exciting hardware leap in nearly two decades!
Stay tuned. The era of the folding iPhone is officially in beta.
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The post Apple’s iOS 27 just dropped major clues about its long-awaited foldable iPhone appeared first on MacDailyNews.