Apple

On January 25, 2026, Banjo-Kazooie: Recompiled launched for Windows, Mac, and Linux as a standalone native app. Not an emulated N64 game running inside a simulated console, but its own application, built with remappable controls, a second-stick camera option, and mod support (The Escapist, earlier this year). It's one entry in a growing scene that lets players play classic console games natively on Mac without touching an emulator.

A rubberized, soccer-ball-shaped tracker that costs as little as $14.99 now taps into the same crowdsourced Find My network that powers Apple's $29 AirTag. That's the pitch behind Ugreen's FineTrack 2, and on paper it reads like an easy win for anyone tired of paying Apple prices for a plastic disc with a chip inside. But "half the price" only holds true on sale days, and the real question buried under that marketing line is what a buyer actually gives up at either price point.

No iOS 27 developer beta 5 or iPadOS 27 beta 5 turns up in the reporting compiled for this piece. The newest confirmed build documented is developer beta 4, released July 20, which iClarified describes as continuing to refine both operating systems ahead of their fall launch.

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...

Jennifer Bailey, the Apple vice president who built and ran Apple Pay, Apple Wallet, and Apple Card, is retiring after 23 years at the company, AppleInsider reported today. Bloomberg broke the news first, and Apple's Eddy Cue confirmed the departure in a note to employees, according to AppleInsider. Bailey spent the last 12 years as vice president of Apple Pay and related services, a run that began when she joined Apple in 2003, per AppleInsider.

WhatsApp's in-chat search feature for iPhone would let users jump straight into a chat's search mode with a single tap, skipping the detour through chat info the app currently requires. The feature was discovered in WhatsApp beta for iOS 26.31.10.70 on TestFlight, but WhatsApp has not enabled it for beta testers and has not announced a release date.

New Apple TV and HomePod mini hardware is reportedly "nearly ready to launch," with September or October the likely window for both devices, according to MacRumors citing Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. That report puts a firmer shape on the HomePod mini 2 release date and features that have been circulating for months, but the hardware itself isn't really the story here.

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...

Wikipedia's iOS app picked up a new Home Screen widget yesterday that does exactly one thing: open a random Wikipedia article the moment someone taps it. The Wikipedia iOS random articles widget shipped in Monday's iPhone and iPad update, joining the trending, featured, and Picture of the Day widgets the app already offers, 9to5Mac reported.

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).

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).

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.

Apple confirmed this month that macOS 28 will no longer mount encrypted Mac OS Extended volumes. Unencrypted HFS+ drives are explicitly preserved and need no changes. The group with a real problem is smaller but specific: anyone running Time Machine to an encrypted HFS+ drive has no in-place migration path and will need to start a fresh backup chain before macOS 28 ships, according to Apple's support document.

Apple added one of CarPlay's most significant upgrades to iOS 27: users with supported vehicles will be able to browse and play videos directly from the infotainment screen, without selecting the video on their iPhone, once compatible cars and apps become available. The feature, called "video in car," got no keynote time at WWDC 2026. Apple discussed it in a developer session and has said little publicly since.

Volvo is pushing a software update over the air to more than two million vehicles already on the road, adding a native Apple Music app that runs directly in the car's own software without needing an active iPhone session for playback, Volvo Cars SG reported. The update covers eleven model lines dating back to model year 2020. Apple CarPlay remains available alongside the new app, and Volvo is adding a native option, not swapping one system for another.

A forged email header can make Apple's Mail app on Mac send a reply from the email address associated with your Apple Account, even when the message arrived through another account and you have never used Hide My Email.

Suno is marketing a workflow it calls the Suno iMessage song generator: screenshot a conversation, extract the text with your phone's built-in OCR, paste it into Suno, and get back a full song with vocals, lyrics, and instrumentation in about 60 seconds. The pitch leans hard on iMessage branding. The actual mechanic involves no Messages extension or official Apple integration of any kind.

Apple's Game Porting Toolkit 4 beta delivered a 66% frame rate jump in GTA V on the same M4 Pro MacBook Pro hardware, with no changes to the game itself, according to Macworld's testing today. That single benchmark captures something broader: the software layer translating Windows games on Mac has improved enough that Apple silicon can now show what it was always capable of delivering.

MOFT now offers three MagSafe-compatible wallets with Apple Find My support: a slim two-card wallet and stand, a two-card model with a taller tripod and camera remote, and a larger Field Wallet that holds up to eight cards.

WordPress released a native Apple TV app today that brings its long-running community video archive to the living room. The WordPress TV Apple TV app is free, requires no account, and opens immediately to thousands of talks, tutorials, and WordCamp session recordings from events held around the world. Reporting so far points to the app listing rather than a separate WordPress announcement, with 9to5Mac covering the launch today.

Every Mac includes Preview, Apple's app for opening PDFs and images. Double-click a supported file, and it will usually open without another download, subscription, or setup process.

DuckDuckGo's browser now blocks most YouTube video ads on iPhone and Mac, with the feature switched on automatically for users running the latest version. No extensions, no configuration required. The catch: DuckDuckGo YouTube ad blocking on iPhone and Mac only applies when YouTube is open inside DuckDuckGo's browser, not through the standalone YouTube app, as Engadget noted this week.

The Strava Events tab went live yesterday, letting users search for nearby races, group runs, rides, and club meetups inside the app, then move toward a training plan through the app's Runna integration. Strava says the tab connects race discovery with Runna-powered training plans, per the company's press release, timed to what it calls peak running season.

For the first time, Roblox is bringing game creation into its mobile app. A new feature called Build, a dedicated creation tab inside the existing iPhone and iPad app, lets anyone type a text prompt and generate a basic playable game without writing a line of code, according to the Roblox newsroom today. The Roblox game creation feature on iPhone and iPad enters public alpha on July 28, initially limited to New Zealand.

Reviewed by: Y. Garcia

WhatsApp has started rolling out its Liquid Glass redesign to the Mac app, making Mac the last major Apple platform to receive the update. The translucent visual overhaul is the obvious draw, but the changes with the most practical effect on daily use are structural: a privacy gap that left sensitive chats exposed on shared Macs is being closed, and navigation that required too much guesswork has been rebuilt from scratch.

Code changes found in Apple's Wallet backend suggest that Apple Car Key support for GWM Tank vehicles may be in development, MacRumors reported last week. None of Great Wall Motor's four current Tank models, the 300, 400, 500, or 700, support the feature today, MacObserver reported last week.

A feature years in the making crossed a concrete threshold this week: WhatsApp usernames are now active for a select group of users on both iOS and Android, marking the first live phase of the rollout. For those users, two people can connect on WhatsApp without either one ever seeing the other's phone number. That is a meaningful shift in how identity works at the moment of first contact, and India's government is already trying to stop its rollout in the country.

iOS 27 will push receipt-scanning, itemized bill splitting directly into Apple Wallet and Messages, turning Apple Cash into the settlement layer for group dining tabs. Announced at WWDC 2026 last month, the feature identifies the receipt's line items, lets each participant select what they ordered, and calculates what that person owes before they pay the payer with Apple Cash. The wider iOS 27 release is expected this September.

Apple raised the price of Apple Music today, and in doing so, made Apple One a slightly better deal for the people already on the fence about it. That's not how price hikes are supposed to work, but the arithmetic is clear. Whether Apple One is worth it in 2026 depends almost entirely on which services a subscriber would pay for anyway, and today's pricing moves shifted exactly where that break-even line falls.

iOS 27 adds something Wallet has never had in fourteen years: the ability to build your own pass. Tap the "+" button you use to add credit cards or pass emails, and a new "Create a Pass" option appears alongside the existing options. It lets you digitize a paper ticket, membership card, or loyalty pass directly from your iPhone, with no developer account, no Pass Type ID, and no certificate signing required (Michael Tsai, May 2026). This guide walks you through how to use Create a Pass in Apple...

This fall, Apple's home ecosystem could finally catch up to the AI era its iPhones, iPads, and Macs already occupy, or it could wait another year. The difference comes down to one piece of software. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported two months ago that the next Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini have been finished and running on employee devices at Apple's Cupertino campus for months. The Apple smart home hub rumors stretch back even further: the Home Hub, internally coded J490, missed a spring 2025...

After a month of daily use, MacStories described a visual-identification task that would have taken 20 to 30 seconds in ChatGPT but took roughly five seconds in Siri AI. The difference was workflow friction: Siri mode was built directly into the Camera app, eliminating the steps of taking a photo, opening ChatGPT, and uploading the image.

By the end of this guide, your Mac will be running macOS Tahoe. What you recover beyond the operating system depends on one thing: whether you have a Time Machine backup made before the Golden Gate beta was installed. This guide covers all three realistic scenarios for getting back to stable ground.

The iOS 27 Siri developer beta can sometimes summarize a webpage you're reading in Safari or a video you're watching in YouTube. Paste either URL directly into Siri, and it will refuse. That contrast, documented by 9to5Mac two weeks ago, points to something more specific than a half-finished feature. Apple is drawing a deliberate line between fetching content from the web and reading content already on screen, and the Siri third-party apps developer beta makes that line visible for the first...

Reports suggest the MLB app may be adding a real-time scores widget for iPhone and iPad, which would put live scores on the Home Screen without requiring an open app or active tracking session. No official MLB announcement has confirmed the feature, its full behavior, or when it might roll out. What the app's existing infrastructure makes clear is that such a widget would serve most fans well, and create a specific problem for one group that MLB has already gone out of its way to protect.