News and Updates about Apple

Apple's rumored smart home display, unofficially called the Apple Home Hub, is reportedly being tested inside employees' homes right now, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says an unveiling could come as soon as next month, according to MacRumors.

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 Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 reached store shelves on Friday, September 18, but the feature drawing the most scrutiny didn't arrive with them. Siri Recap, the new opt-in conversation summarizer, arrives in beta later this year with no confirmed date attached, The Next Web reported. Once enabled, it's designed to listen to conversations throughout the day and quietly summarize them, and Apple says the raw audio behind those summaries is inaccessible to the operating systems, apps, the user,...

watchOS 27 removes the Apple Watch double-click Digital Crown shortcut that used to jump straight back to whatever app you'd just been using. 9to5Mac reports the change on Series 11, Ultra 3, and SE 3, while MacStories documents the same beta behavior: a double-click now triggers the exact same result as a single click, opening the new Dynamic App Grid instead of the old App Switcher. This is watchOS 27 beta behavior, not something confirmed for whatever Apple ships in the eventual public...

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...

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.

watchOS 27's new Siri app can save and continue chats for the first time, but Apple Watch doesn't hand you an obvious way to pick a thread back up. There's no button, no swipe prompt, nothing that mirrors how the iPhone, iPad, and Mac versions handle it, according to 9to5Mac. A workaround exists and it works, but whether any of it applies to your Watch and iPhone pairing depends on a stack of eligibility rules Apple has only partly documented.

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.

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...

Apple has given Siri a dedicated Mac app for the first time, with its own icon in the Dock.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

The Apple Health app redesign does something the app has never really done before: it tells you what to do with your numbers instead of just displaying them. A daily 0-10 readiness score arrives with a plain-language verdict like "Recover" or "Go For It," and a new "Health Age" metric compares your body's tracked stats against your actual age. Apple unveiled both as part of a broader health and fitness push tied to Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4.

iOS 27 lets an iPhone tap into GymKit-equipped gym machines for the first time, with AirPods Pro 3 supplying the heart-rate data an Apple Watch would normally provide (Engadget, yesterday). That's the shift behind iOS 27 GymKit iPhone and AirPods compatibility: the phone becomes a second way to connect to equipment that could already talk to a Watch. It doesn't add GymKit to treadmills that never had it, and as of this testing, iOS 27 remains in beta; Apple hasn't said when GymKit on iPhone...

Apple is reportedly building a new smart home hub: a HomePod-style speaker paired with a roughly 7-inch display, running a new operating system built on tvOS, alongside refreshed Apple TV and HomePod hardware.

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...

Searches for iOS 27 MagSafe Wallet designs are mixing together two different kinds of Wallet news.

A red badge has planted itself on the Settings app for some iPhone owners, tied to a prompt that reads "Activate iCloud Storage," and it won't clear no matter how many times it gets tapped. The odd part: the alert is showing up on devices where iCloud+ or Apple One storage is already active.

Plug into CarPlay for a quick errand run, and you might unplug later to find your phone has shed more charge than the trip seemed to justify. Apple forums and Reddit threads are full of the same complaint: CarPlay eats through battery faster than people expect. That's not a fringe annoyance, either, since CarPlay now works with more than 800 vehicle models.

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.

AT&T iPhone Handoff support remains unconfirmed.

Apple released macOS 27 Golden Gate on Sept. 14, 2026, as a free update for eligible Macs, calling it a stability, performance, and compatibility release recommended for all macOS 27 users. The headline macOS 27 Golden Gate features center on Siri: Siri AI now lives inside Spotlight for conversational search, while a separate Siri AI app handles saved conversations synced through iCloud.

Apple spent part of the iPhone Duo unveiling drawing a sharp contrast with rival foldables, including the awkward black space that can surround apps not designed for larger folding screens. But Apple's first foldable won't make that problem disappear overnight. As 9to5Google noted after the Sept. 9 unveiling, older iPhone apps can face a similar limitation when opened on Duo's 7.6-inch inner display.

Code buried inside HomePod Software 27 shows Apple has been quietly laying groundwork for Siri AI on HomePod, according to a leak that surfaced yesterday. Apple has not announced the feature, and it is not active on any HomePod currently in homes. The leak, spotted by code sleuth pdfu and reported by 9to5Mac and MacRumors, gives the clearest hint yet that Apple's smarter assistant is headed for its smart speakers, but it also raises a harder question for anyone with a HomePod already on a...

Apple confirmed this week that Apple Podcasts Subscriptions video is coming, letting creators lock subscriber-exclusive episodes, ad-free video, early access, and bonus content behind the same paywall they already use for premium audio, across more than 170 countries and regions (9to5Mac, reported this week). The move would end an audio-only run that's lasted since Apple Podcasts Subscriptions launched in 2021, even though free video has already been playing in the app since March, when Apple...

Apple shipped watchOS 27 on Sept. 14, and the update removes a familiar Apple Watch multitasking shortcut.

The most useful iOS 27 HomeKit changes have little to do with new hardware. Apple added several HomeKit Secure Video features powered by Apple Intelligence: plain-language descriptions of recorded activity, natural-language search across camera clips and a single notification that can combine related activity instead of sending separate alerts one after another.

Apple's macOS 27 Golden Gate doesn't dramatically redesign Photos, but it delivers one of the app's broadest feature updates in years. The changes span generative AI editing, upgraded Shared Albums, new organization tools, and improvements to slideshows and search.

tvOS 27 adds a Settings control that can block a household member from launching specific apps, according to release-note wording 9to5Mac reported Monday. That's the extent of what tvOS 27 Apple TV profiles app controls are confirmed to do right now. Apple's cited release notes don't specify whether the restriction is tied to a single profile, whether it applies only to child-type profiles, or whether a passcode protects the setting once it's turned on.

Mac owners running macOS 27 "Golden Gate" are watching Apple Intelligence eat into their free storage well beyond the figures Apple lists in its own documentation, according to iThinkDiff, which compiled owner and tester storage readings last week. Reported figures range from about 14GB to over 30GB, against Apple's stated maximums of 8GB to 14GB. The gap in macOS 27 Apple Intelligence storage usage shows up in both pre-release beta and Release Candidate builds and in reports from Macs running...

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's iOS 27 update landed this week, but plenty of iPhone owners are opening Settings and finding the same old Siri staring back at them. That's not a bug. Siri AI, the overhauled assistant Apple began promising back in June, does not activate automatically with iOS 27.

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.