Apple

Some App Store apps now let you pay for an annual subscription in monthly installments instead of one upfront charge. Apple calls it "monthly subscriptions with a 12-month commitment," and it's easy to mistake for a flexible, cancel-anytime monthly plan.

iOS 27 lands as a free software update on Monday, September 14, Apple confirmed yesterday, and the biggest of the new iOS 27 features by far is Siri AI: a rebuilt assistant Apple says can read what's on your screen, dig through your messages and photos, and pull live answers from the web.

Apple's first foldable iPhone now has a price and a calendar. The iPhone Duo starts at $1,999 for 256GB, opens for preorder on October 16, and ships October 23 (MacRumors). Before that money changes hands, the real question for iPhone owners is whether the redesigned iOS 27 layout Apple built specifically for a folding display makes up for the hardware compromises that come with any first-generation foldable. The iPhone Duo software features shown off this week look more thought-out than the...

Apple now markets the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max as an intelligent personal hub, pairing AI capability with personal context and calling privacy and security core to the design. That's a confirmed claim from Apple's own announcement. It doesn't tell you which parts of that hub are working today, or whether they apply to the phone you already own.

NameDrop lets two iPhones, or an iPhone and Apple Watch, swap contact cards by holding the top edges close together and confirming a prompt that appears on both screens. It works by sharing contact information using AirDrop, and it's available now on any compatible iPhone running iOS 17.1 or later (Apple Support). This guide covers how to use NameDrop on iPhone step by step: which devices qualify, how to control exactly what gets shared, and what to check when the screen refuses to show up.

An Apple-commissioned Omdia study, based on 1,500 conversations with enterprise tech leaders and practitioners, found that 57% of enterprise AI models run under 10 billion parameters, small enough for a MacBook Air or entry-level MacBook Pro to handle. That number describes model size, not proof that most enterprise workloads are ready to leave the cloud. Concurrency, uptime, and integration requirements never entered the measurement. Still, it's the kind of stat fueling a real question for...

Apple Watch owners testing the watchOS 27 beta have found two features missing outright: a Digital Crown double-click shortcut and the Walkie-Talkie app. A third change reshuffles rather than removes, merging three separate Find My apps into one. These are the watchOS 27 changes reported so far in beta testing, and each one comes with a different level of certainty depending on which build was checked and when.

For years, every iMessage conversation looked the same: the standard plain Messages backdrop, no matter who you were talking to. That changed when Apple shipped iOS 26, which lets you swap that plain canvas for a photo, a solid color, an animated preset, or an AI-generated image. Learning how to change the background on iPhone Messages takes about thirty seconds once you know where to look, but the feature works differently than most people expect. It isn't a personal theme sitting quietly on...

Apple's Mail app in iOS 27 gets a rebuilt search engine, and this time it ranks results by relevance and intent rather than keywords and recency, according to MacRumors. It's the most direct fix yet for a complaint that, per Cult of Mac, has "been broken for years, and everyone knows it." The iOS 27 Mail app new features go beyond search, too, adding Siri tools that summarize and draft emails, plus one-tap links that push inbox information into Calendar, Maps, and Wallet.

The Apple smart home display release date has already slipped past two internal targets, and the latest word from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman only widens the window rather than narrowing it. Apple's first screen-equipped home device remains on track for a launch before the end of 2026, Gurman reported last week, per MacRumors. That's a looser timeframe than the September target cited in earlier coverage, and it lands in a different window than the October-to-early-2027 range Cult of Mac reported...

The Apple Maps Lake America update has started rolling out. As of September 1, Apple Maps began showing "Lake America" to U.S. users for the body of water traditionally known as Lake Ontario, after President Trump signed an executive order renaming it for U.S. federal use and, according to his interior secretary, personally asked Apple to make the switch.

Parallels recently announced Parallels Desktop 27, adding a Metal-based graphics driver that brings hardware-accelerated OpenGL 4.3 to Windows virtual machines on Apple silicon Macs. The company describes the capability as unique among Mac virtualization tools, though that comparison comes from Parallels itself rather than independent testing.

Apple released macOS Tahoe 26.6.1 on August 6, 2026, with a security advisory covering one Screen Sharing vulnerability. Apple identifies the flaw as CVE-2026-65400 and says an attacker on the network may be able to authenticate to Screen Sharing without valid credentials. The company addressed the authentication issue with improved state management.

Granola Apple Watch App Explained: Features, Privacy Gaps, and Timing

For years, Apple Notes was a one-way street. Text went in and mostly stayed there, with no built-in way to hand a note back out in a format other writing tools could actually read. iOS 26 changes that by building native, two-way Markdown support into Notes, and this guide walks through how to import and export Markdown in Apple Notes on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Continuity isn't one setting tucked into a menu. iOS, iPadOS, and macOS bundle nearly a dozen distinct tools under that name, everything from AirDrop and Handoff to lesser-known features like Continuity Sketch and Instant Hotspot (Apple Support, earlier this year). Knowing how to use Apple Continuity well means matching the right feature to the right task, not switching everything on and hoping it sorts itself out.

The most useful iOS 27 HomeKit changes have nothing to do with new hardware. Apple is adding several HomeKit Secure Video features powered by Apple Intelligence: plain-language descriptions of what your cameras recorded, natural-language search across that footage, and a single notification that merges scattered door and motion alerts instead of firing them off one by one (MacRumors; 9to5Mac).

iOS 27 splits Apple's Clean Up tool into three processing modes: Auto, Fast, and High Quality, and picking the right one is the difference between an edit that holds up and one that looks obviously doctored. This guide covers how to use Clean Up in iOS 27 Photos to remove unwanted objects from iPhone photos, including which mode to trust and when to override it. Hands-on tests from Macworld and TechRadar show High Quality producing noticeably more convincing results than Fast in complex...

Apple quietly previewed a way to switch one phone number between two iPhones at WWDC 2026, but it left the mechanics largely unexplained. What sounded at first like a small continuity feature now looks more substantial: one iPhone can serve as the main device, a second can act as its companion, and the same phone number can move between them without repeatedly transferring the primary eSIM.

An iPhone that keeps losing charge during CarPlay usually gets blamed on the car first: a bad port, a cheap cable, a head unit that can't keep up. Before touching any of that, plug the iPhone into a wall charger with a known-good, compatible cable and see if it charges normally on its own. That single test won't rule out every car-specific variable, but it's the fastest way to tell whether the problem starts with the phone before spending an evening swapping cables in the driver's seat.

Notability's calendar meeting recording feature launched on August 25, letting Mac and Windows users start a recording by tapping directly on a calendar event. Tap the event, and Notability opens a note ready for input while recording begins, according to 9to5Mac.

Apple Watch GPS vs GPS + Cellular comes down to one question: can the watch stay connected without your iPhone anywhere nearby? For the same model and case configuration, the GPS and GPS + Cellular versions share the same exterior design, size, screen, and core health and fitness features (iPhoneLife, 2023; Engadget). The GPS + Cellular version adds one extra capability: connecting to a mobile network on its own, so it can make calls, send texts, stream music, and receive notifications with no...

Open the Health app on your iPhone and there's a feature tucked inside that can hand a paramedic someone's blood type, list their allergies, and name who to call when they can't answer for themselves. It only works, though, if someone filled it in before the emergency happened. This guide walks through how to set up Medical ID and emergency contacts on iPhone: building the medical profile, adding contacts, deciding what to expose on the Lock Screen, configuring Emergency SOS without triggering...

Apple is drawing a hardware line in tvOS 27 for the first time in four years, cutting two older Apple TV models out of the update entirely (TechRadar, 2 months ago). But knowing whether your box makes the cut is only half the story. The more useful question, especially if you own one of the tvOS 27 compatible Apple TV models, is whether upgrading right now would actually get you anything.

A Shortcuts setup can get close to sending photos in iMessage with one tap.

iOS 27's Shared Albums update fixes a problem baked into the feature for years: shared photos and videos will no longer get compressed the moment they leave a personal library. The tradeoff is that new Shared Albums now count against the owner's iCloud storage, according to MacRumors and Trusted Reviews, reversing a setup that let people share thousands of images without touching their plan. The change is rolling out now, with iOS 27 in public beta ahead of a full release expected alongside new...

A newer iPhone can text emergency services from a trailhead with zero bars, but that capability isn't something you switch on in advance. It becomes available when you're off-grid and a normal call or text to emergency services can't connect, as long as you're outdoors with a clear view of the sky and using an iPhone 14 or later.

Apple's next few years in the smart home are starting to take shape, at least according to people briefed on the company's internal plans. The Apple smart home product roadmap now being reported includes refreshed Apple TV and HomePod mini hardware, a first-ever room-by-room display hub, and Apple's first self-made security camera and doorbell (9to5Mac, 2 days ago). Apple has not publicly announced any of it in the reporting cited here.

Apple expanded support for its Apple Account Card in Wallet last week, adding Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Malta to the list of countries where the feature works (MacRumors). It's a small update to a feature that's been rolling out gradually since 2022 (MacRumors), but it's a good excuse to answer a question a lot of iPhone owners have been quietly Googling: what is an Apple Account Card, and is it something you need?

Tucked inside CarPlay's Accessibility menu are three tools: Voice Control, Sound Recognition, and a set of display adjustments covering text size, boldness, and color. These count among the hidden Apple CarPlay features that go unused simply because accessibility submenus rarely get opened without a specific reason to check them. None of them is a universal upgrade. Each solves a specific kind of friction for a specific kind of driver, and figuring out which one applies to you is the actual...

TechCrunch's hands-on verdict on the rebuilt Siri AI is blunt: the assistant finally works the way Apple promised, though the review reads more like relief than excitement, closer to a bug fix than a breakthrough (TechCrunch's hands-on review). Scientific American frames the wait differently, noting that Apple has promised, and repeatedly delayed, this more proactive Siri for two years (Scientific American). Whichever framing feels right comes down to something more basic than opinion: can you...

Pocket Casts does not currently support Apple TV. That is the last documented position from the company, stated on its support page two and a half years ago, with a note that support may come in the future. Nothing in the app's current App Store listing changes that picture. What has changed is the platform Pocket Casts would be entering: Apple announced last month that it is rebuilding Apple Podcasts on tvOS from scratch, adding video playback, optional 4K creator support, and in-show episode...

Apple CarPlay not working is rarely about a bad cable or spotty Wi-Fi, not at first anyway. The real diagnostic starting point is simpler: figure out whether the connection is wired or wireless, because the checks that follow are different for each (MacObserver, last year).

Apple didn't quietly bolt on a new financing tier this week. It shut down the iPhone Upgrade Program and iPhone Payments in the United States and replaced both with the Apple Upgrade program, a Klarna-backed lease that now spans iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac (Apple Newsroom, this week). Leases start at $17.99 a month for iPhone and run 12 to 36 months depending on device category, sold through Apple's own retail and online channels in partnership with buy-now-pay-later provider Klarna...

WhatsApp is rolling out a new settings panel that lets a subset of Mac beta testers set their own WhatsApp beta for Mac update schedule, picking between two release channels instead of taking whatever build the company pushes automatically, according to WABetaInfo and Hardware Upgrade this week.

The Apple Intelligence subscription cost for Home app camera features now has a specific number attached to it: $9.99 a month, tied to Apple's 2TB iCloud+ plan. That figure comes from beta release notes for macOS 27, the update Apple calls Golden Gate internally, which confirm that AI-powered camera tools require the top iCloud+ tier even though the features themselves run on iPhone and iPad (MacRumors; MacRumors).

Rivian's chief software officer has a blunt answer for anyone still shopping for Apple CarPlay in an electric truck: the debate itself, he argues, no longer matters. That's a striking claim from a company whose own buyers once ranked CarPlay as their single most-requested feature, according to The Verge, two months ago.

Apple Watch Series 12 doesn't wait for "Hey Siri" before it starts paying attention. Sound Recognition listens continuously for sirens, alarms, doorbells, and crying babies, flagging them with on-device intelligence even when the wearer's iPhone isn't nearby. Live Rewind goes further: a double press of the Digital Crown surfaces the previous 15 seconds of nearby conversation as a text snippet, without anyone having to ask for it in the moment.

Apple seeded tvOS 27 RC, build 24J360, to developers and public beta testers yesterday, and the update is now available through Software Update on enrolled compatible Apple TVs (MacRumors, yesterday; iClarified, yesterday). If you're trying to figure out how to install tvOS 27 RC, the requirement comes first: it runs on Apple TV 4K (2nd generation, 2021) or newer, and it does not run on the Apple TV HD (2015) or the original Apple TV 4K (2017) (iThinkDiff, 2 weeks ago; iClarified, yesterday).

AppleCare One Family launches in the US on Sept. 14 for $49.99 a month, giving households a new way to protect all eligible Apple devices across a Family Sharing group of up to six people. Unlike AppleCare One Individual, which starts at $19.99 for three devices and adds $5.99 for each additional product, Family keeps the same monthly price as more eligible devices are added, according to Apple's current AppleCare details.