• Apple has ended a popular loophole used when buying an iPhone
• It previously let you get an unlocked iPhone on carrier finance
• The workaround still works when purchasing an iPad

For many years, there’s been something of an open secret among Apple fans who want to get a new, fully unlocked iPhone deal with affordable carrier financing. Now, though, Apple has ended this workaround, much to the dismay of the Apple userbase — but there’s better news if you’re thinking of getting an iPad on finance.

The iPhone loophole worked like this. While buying an iPhone on finance from a carrier usually meant it was locked to that provider, buying the same device straight from Apple’s website — even when using carrier financing — got you an unlocked phone.

This applied to both T-Mobile and Verizon contracts, although AT&T users were still locked to their carrier. It meant that you could get the benefit of a generous financing offer or trade-in deal without having to stick with one carrier until your device was paid off.

Now, Apple has changed its terms. In the Frequently Asked Questions section on any iPhone purchase page, Apple has inserted some new language: “If you choose to finance an iPhone through the AT&T Installment Plan, T-Mobile Equipment Installment Plan, or Verizon Device Payment Program, your iPhone will be locked to the carrier until paid in full.”

The change hasn’t gone down well with Apple users, who have been lamenting the more restrictive practices that are now in force. On Reddit, comments have ranged from “no idea why carrier locking is still legal,” while another posted commented that the situation is “sad, I was buying phones this way since 2022.”

This situation is not present in every country. Since December 2021 in the UK, regulators have prohibited mobile networks from selling new handsets that are locked to their network. Go to Apple’s UK online store and you won’t see the wording about an iPhone being locked or unlocked.

Better news for iPad buyers

If you’re still interested in getting an Apple device on finance, there’s another option, as Apple has just introduced a 36-month option when buying any of the best iPads equipped with Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity direct from Apple. This offer appears at checkout on Apple’s website and is available for the iPad, iPad mini, iPad Air and iPad Pro.

While Apple offers interest-free financing using Apple Card, that spreads the cost over 12 months. The 36-month option means your monthly repayments will be lower, although you also have to factor in the additional cost of cellular service and any extras like an activation fee.

Your current options are AT&T or Verizon. Interestingly, though, you won’t be locked to the carrier while the repayment period is ongoing, as Apple says “You can switch carriers when you purchase an iPad directly from Apple and choose carrier financing as your payment option.” That makes this iPad deal very similar to the recently shuttered iPhone workaround, and it’s unknown if or when Apple will end this loophole.

Aside from Apple, you can also buy an iPad with a 36-month financing plan from carriers. And as noted by AppleInsider, this sometimes involves bill credit or other offers that lower the cost of the iPad, meaning you could get a better deal by not going through Apple itself — although doing so likely means you’ll be locked into using that carrier, rather than being free to switch when buying from Apple. As ever with this sort of thing, shop around to see if you can get a bargain.

There has been a developer beta of iOS 27 for a while, but now it’s available in public beta, which both makes it slightly easier to get hold of and suggests it might be more stable than it was initially.

That said, this still isn’t finished software, so while stability may have improved, you’re still likely to encounter bugs and potentially unfinished features.

So this isn’t for everyone, and as a general rule we’d recommend running it only on a secondary handset. If in doubt, simply wait for the finished iOS 27 release, which we’re expecting in September.

But if you do have a spare phone lying around or want to take the jump with your main device, then the beta could be worth checking out, as it comes with loads of new and improved features — some of which we’ve looked at further down.

How to install the iOS 27 public beta on your iPhone

Before you start downloading and installing the iOS 27 public beta, make sure your iPhone is backed up, just to be on the safe side. We won’t detail that here because we’ve got a full guide covering how to back up your iPhone.

Once your data is safely backed up, the next step — if you haven’t run a beta before — is to sign up for Apple’s beta program. You can do this by heading to the Apple beta page and tapping ‘Sign up’, after which you’ll have to log into your Apple account to enroll. If you’re not sure whether you’ve already signed up for this or not, then instead press the ‘Sign in’ button on that page — if it doesn’t let you sign in, then sign up instead.

Once you’re registered, you can simply head to Settings > General > Software Update > Beta Updates on your phone, and tap ‘iOS 27 Public Beta’. There may be other betas listed too, but this is the one you want.

Then tap the back arrow at the top of the screen, and the page you were on before will now show the beta you selected, complete with notes on it and a download size. From there, just tap ‘Update Now’ to grab it, or ‘Update Overnight’ if you’d rather wait until you’re sleeping to put your phone temporarily out of action.

Then you just need to wait for it to install. Once it has, there’s plenty to check out, but below we’ve highlighted some of what you might want to try first.

3 things to try first

iOS 27 has an enormous number of features — so many in fact that we found 21 that Apple didn’t even have time to mention during its announcement. But below, you’ll find some of the biggest and best to start off with.

1. Siri’s AI overhaul

By far the biggest thing in iOS 27 is the long-awaited AI overhaul for Siri. There are many elements to this, but the main one is that Siri now works much like ChatGPT or other AI chatbots — you can have natural, back-and-forth conversations with it, and its responses aren’t just preset or based on basic web searches.

Siri can both search the web and interact with apps to get answers or carry out the tasks you need, and it now comes with a dedicated Siri app where you can find and pin previous conversations.

2. Improved photo editing

Photo editing has also gotten a lot better with iOS 27, allowing you to do things like reframe or extend photos after they’ve been taken, and remove larger objects than previously.

It makes the photo editing tools far more powerful and brings them more in line with those available on Pixel and Samsung phones.

3. New ‘Describe a Shortcut’ tool

Shortcuts has long been one of the most powerful apps that comes with your iPhone, but it can also feel a bit impenetrable. Now, though, it’s far simpler.

Rather than creating a shortcut or automation through various menus and complicated ‘if this then that’ rules, you can now simply use natural language to describe what you want.

So, for example, you could say “When I’m leaving work, message Pedro I’m on my way with my ETA,” and the app will automatically create an automation that does exactly this.

Having spent decades covering Apple, I understand and respect its efforts to maintain a shroud of secrecy over its product development. Reading this line in the blockbuster Apple vs OpenAI lawsuit, I can hear the voices of countless Apple execs and PR people who, rightly or not, feel deeply wronged by what it considered a trusted partner: "OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets."

Late last week, Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and, more specifically, a pair of key employees who, over the last two years, left Apple to join OpenAI's hardware business. The massive filing, which calls for a jury trial, accuses the pair of corporate espionage, essentially stealing a raft of trade secrets to help bolster OpenAI's still unrealized efforts to build AI hardware (it's currently working with Jony Ive to build what may eventually become a wearable device).

I've spent some time poring over the documents and, to be honest, the accusations are stunning and, if true, seem unaccountably brazen for people who spent years with the Cupertino tech giant.

From the inside out

Tang Yew Tan, who currently serves as OpenAI's Chief Hardware Officer, was at Apple for a quarter of a century and, according to his own LinkedIn profile, "Oversaw the design and development of iPhone and Apple Watch Product Design, Interconnects Design, Acoustics and Materials technology centers."

Chang Liu (whose LinkedIn handle is "changliu-apple") spent almost a decade as an iPhone Electrical Engineer.

Apple's NDA's that they hand to journalists like me are almost legendary (the first time I signed one, I swear my hands were shaking). I can only imagine the intensity of the Intellectual property agreements (IPAs) Apple says it asks employees to sign from time to time. The language is probably appropriately terrifying; it's hard to conceive of how Liu and Tan could ignore them, and yet, according to the lawsuit, that's exactly what the pair did both during their waning days at Apple and in the time after when they joined OpenAI.

OpenAI's only public response so far has been from its Director of Strategic Communications Drew Pusateri, who said on X, "We have no interest in other companies' trade secrets. We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere."

The company's co-founder and CEO Sam Altman also only obliquely referenced it on X when someone accused him of being afraid of Apple. He wrote, "I am not afraid of Apple, but I have tremendous respect for them. s-tier company." ("S-Tier" basically means "elite").

I won't ask you to read the full document and instead have cherry-picked the most eye-watering accusations:

A potentially sneaky exit

When Liu left Apple, he allegedly took his work laptop with him. If you've ever worked in a corporate environment, you know this is a no-no. Most companies will pursue you to the ends of the earth to retrieve that hardware and whatever corporate access and secrets it contains.

It gets worse

Lui apparently didn't shelve the old (we assume) MacBook. Instead, he, according to Apple, exploited a network vulnerability and used the system to access Apple network folders. If true, that's an incredibly bold move. Surely Liu would've known how Apple's internal forensics could discover what was accessed by whom and when.

Boasting

While allegedly downloading Apple's proprietary files (details on unreleased products, presentations, tech data, specs, and more), Liu may have messaged someone through the Apple-issued laptop, celebrating how he was pulling the wool over Apple's eyes with "LOL" and "so funny". Again, was Liu the most careless corporate spy ever? Who would boast when they know Apple would eventually stumble on these details?

Coaching recruits

Apple claims Liu was actually recruiting Apple employees and coaching them on how to gather data before leaving the company. He may have told them how to email themselves files before exiting Apple.

Now, I understand how some of your, say, personal data, can end up intertwined with corporate data and you may want to hold onto some of that. On the other hand, if you didn't keep a firm line between work and personal files, that's on you.

A real betrayal

Tang Yew Tan spent 25 years with Apple, and what he's being accused of has surely enraged and disappointed Apple. "Mr. Tan has been methodically using Apple’s confidential information to benefit OpenAI," claims Apple.

Like Lui and other Apple recruits, Tan may have emailed himself proprietary Apple info.

Using Apple codenames

Apple claims Tan is asking Apple recruits about upcoming projects using code names only Apple employees would know.

We have their OK

This one is kind of mind-blowing. Apple alleges that OpenAI has used Apple info to get a partner to apply a "specific trade-secret metal finishing technique," because they convinced the partner Apple was OK with them doing so.

Carry out

This last one might be the boldest move of all. Apple alleges that OpenAI instructed potential Apple recruits to bring everything from CAD files to actual prototypes or parts to OpenAI interviews.

That's a particularly stunning accusation, and again, just seems so reckless. What kind of corporate spies operate with this level of impunity?

Naturally, OpenAI will, at some point, respond properly to this lawsuit, perhaps with one of their own. Apple could also eventually settle this suit out of court. They've done so before with similar cases, though I don't think they were quite at this level.

Can they come back from this?

Whatever happens with this case, it's hard to imagine the Apple / OpenAI relationship, which is already somewhat fraught, survives.

For now, you can explicitly choose to use ChatGPT to handle requests in the new Siri in iOS 27 dev beta, and it's a key part of Image Playground and Visual Intelligence. Apple could pull those options and lean harder into its Google Gemini foundation Model partnership while this case works its way through the courts.

I don't think that will materially impact your iPhone experience, but the loss of direct access to those hundreds of millions of iPhone customers could hurt OpenAI, a company that, as Apple acknowledges, is trying to build its own hardware business.

Plus, if OpenAI loses, it could see a lot of the in-house hardware innovation potentially tied to Apple's work blocked from ever reaching consumer hands.

And, obviously, it'll be hard for the partnership to come back from this passage in the suit:

"Apple lacks visibility into what’s been happening behind closed doors at OpenAI, where such misconduct is normalized and exemplified by leadership. This much is clear, however: at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information."

• Mario Kart Tour will shut down on September 29
• Nintendo has confirmed that an offline mode is not planned for release
• Nintendo said "We sincerely thank the many players who have loved and supported the game since service began so long ago"

Nintendo has announced that the servers for Mario Kart Tour will be shut down later this year.

The company notified players in a new blog post, confirming that the mobile racing spin-off, which first launched in 2019 for iOS and Android, will cease operating on September 29 at 11PM PT / 2AM ET / 7AM BST.

"Service for the Mario Kart Tour game for smart devices will come to an end as of 11:00 p.m. Pacific on September 29," the post reads.

"We sincerely thank the many players who have loved and supported the game since service began so long ago. Thank you for playing Mario Kart Tour."

In the FAQ, Nintendo confirmed that "An offline version is not scheduled for release," meaning it's officially the end of the mobile Mario Kart game for now.

All automatic subscription renewals and new subscriptions to the Mario Kart Tour Gold Pass were stopped during the game's maintenance on July 7, in conjunction with the game's end-of-service time frame.

Mario Kart Tour was centered around a race seasons mode and featured online multiplayer that allowed players to compete in live races against others around the world.

The mobile game also featured tracks that were later added to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as part of the Nintendo Switch game's Booster Course Pack DLC.

Nintendo didn't offer a reason for the game's shutdown, although the company may be attempting to encourage more mobile players to make the jump to the recently released Mario Kart World.

The Apple AirTag is, for iPhone owners, one of the simplest trackers to use. Pairing couldn’t be easier, and once you do have it connected, it then lives in the Find My app. You can name it, give it an emoji and easily see where it is on a map.

I’ve had first-hand experience of just how valuable they can be after losing my keys on a late-night walk home (albeit after a fair few drinks). I was able to open the Find My app the next morning and see exactly where my keys and I had become separated. A short walk back to the scene of the crime and I was reunited.

And that’s with the original AirTag. The AirTag 2 comes with better features and while I wouldn’t recommend an upgrade if you already use the OG, the second-gen model can be a stress reliever. Right now, for Amazon Prime Day, you can get the Apple AirTag 2 with up to 21% off. It’s available as a single unit or a four-pack, with the latter offering arguably greater value.

• Follow our live coverage of the best Prime Day 2026 deals, many of which ship to New Zealand as well

As I mentioned, I own the first-generation AirTag, and it works a treat. The second-generation, launched at the start of 2026, offers some notable upgrades that make it even more findable.

Said upgrades include a second-generation ultra-wideband (UWB) chip that enables precise AirTag finding from up to 50% farther away than the previous tracker. You will, however, need an iPhone 15 or newer to take advantage of this feature. If you have an older iPhone, you’ll still get the new precision finding feature, but range is limited to around nine metres or 30 feet.

The other notable upgrade is a speaker that’s 50% louder than the previous version, which will help reunite you with items you may have lost around your home much easier.

Fortunately, Apple kept the battery the same. This means it’s user-replaceable, as it accepts a CR2032 battery. I’ve owned the first-gen trackers for almost three years, and I’ve only replaced the battery in the one I use most (on my house keys) twice. Other trackers that have laid dormant still have their first battery inside and I can see them on the Find My app.

As Apple tech goes, the AirTag 2 could be considered affordable even at full price, but thankfully these Prime Day discounts make them even more accessible.

And to make them even more useful, be sure to check out the various accessories available, including key rings, straps, wallets and more.

• A mistake meant an iPhone user sent ‘sensitive’ texts to the wrong person
• Their partner’s phone number was associated with the wrong device
• The error happened when their partner didn’t properly reset their iPhone

When you sell an old iPhone, do you really know that it’s been fully wiped and disconnected from all your accounts? Because if you don’t, the consequences could be terrible — as one unfortunate Redditor has just vividly demonstrated. This particular story should come as a warning to any iPhone user who is thinking of getting rid of their device.

The Reddit thread in question has the alarming headline of "I may have accidentally been texting a child instead of my boyfriend?" It includes screenshots that show a conversation with someone who claimed that “You have the wrong number. This is a child’s phone.”

Worse, the original poster confided that the messages erroneously sent to the child’s device included “sensitive pictures” and “sensitive messages.” “I am mortified,” they revealed.

It appears that this mix-up could be the result of the poster's partner not fully resetting their iPhone and disconnecting it from their Messages account — something Apple specifically advises you to do if you sell an iPhone and replace it with an Android device.

As a result, messages that were sent to their partner's number were directed to their old device, not their new one, resulting in the humiliating situation they described. And interestingly, this appears to be a problem explicitly linked to switching from an iPhone to an Android device.

Here’s what you can do

Luckily, there are a few ways to avoid falling into a similar situation yourself. And it’s important that you get it right. If you don’t, not only is the potential for embarrassment high, it could put your privacy and even your financial data at risk if you accidentally send it to the wrong person.

If you’re about to sell your old iPhone and replace it with an Android alternative, the first thing you’ll want to do is back up your device. This is so you’ve got a way to restore your iPhone if anything goes wrong. You can back up your phone to your computer, a Mac or a PC — just follow Apple’s instructions and you’ll be set.

The next step is to deregister iMessage. Ensure your SIM card is in your old iPhone and you’re connected to a cellular network, then open the Settings app and go to Apps > Messages. There, disable the toggle next to iMessage to turn it off. Finally, if you got rid of the iPhone before you could deregister iMessage, Apple has a special web page where you can carry out the process safely.

There are other steps you’ll need to consider. First, go to Apps > FaceTime in the Settings app and turn off the toggle next to FaceTime. If you’ve got an Apple Watch, it should be unpaired, and if you’re subscribed to AppleCare+, you’ll need to transfer that to your new device or cancel your coverage. Then, sign out of your Apple Account by navigating to Settings > [Your Name] > Sign Out.

Once all that’s complete, there are still a few steps you’ll need to do before your iPhone is fully reset (assuming you haven’t already disposed of it). Open the Settings app and head to General, scroll to the bottom, then tap Transfer or Reset iPhone > Erase All Content and Settings. Follow the on-screen prompts and your iPhone will be completely reset to factory settings.

Finally, the very last thing to do is to remove your old iPhone from your list of trusted devices in your Apple Account. Once that’s done, you’ll be safe to get rid of it.

Remember these tips when it comes time to move on from your old iPhone, especially if you’re going to replace it with an Android device. Otherwise, you could end up in the unfortunate position of sending texts to an unwitting recipient — along with all the potentially sensitive material those messages might contain.

• A user got bugged to verify their identity on their new iPhone
• They shouldn’t have needed to, as their local laws didn't require this
• The culprit was their iPhone, which was imported from the UK

Apple has just jacked up its prices across the board, and while the iPhone is safe for now, many users are wondering if it’s only a matter of time before Apple’s best iPhones feel the weight of price rises. If that sounds familiar, you might have snapped up a second-hand iPhone in a bid to get ahead of the game — but that could leave you falling foul of an annoying, unforeseen consequence.

That’s exactly what happened to Reddit user, who said that their new iPhone was forcing them to verify their age, despite the fact that they live in Bulgaria, an EU country where age verification is not required by law.

Understandably, they were reluctant to upload their ID documents, describing the process as a “huge privacy black hole.” But due to their refusal to do so, they were unable to access “certain types of content, social apps, GTA games and other things I paid for.” As they put it, “Content and privacy restrictions, scanning my chats, FaceTime calls and photos in gallery are forced upon me without my will and consent.”

The case seems to be a confusing one, as Bulgarian users are not subject to ID verification laws that mandate them to confirm their age before accessing certain apps and services. But there is one nearby country that does have laws like this, and it proved to be the key to unlocking the mystery.

Check the model number

The UK has enacted laws that necessitate users to verify their identities in order to access certain apps and services on their devices, with the stated aim of protecting children from online harms. But the regulations — specifically the Online Safety Act — has caused much controversy among privacy advocates and has resulted in a surge of angry users downloading the best VPNs to protect their identities and sidestep the requirements.

Back on Reddit, the age verification mystery was solved when the Redditor discovered where their iPhone originally came from. This is something you can find in the Settings app by going to General > About and looking in the Model Number section.

The iPhone's model was MFYP4QN/A and this contains several clues about its origin. For example, "MFYP4" refers to the iPhone 17 Pro Max in Deep Blue with 256GB of storage. The “QN” part of the code, meanwhile, relates to the regions where this model is sold: “Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, United Kingdom, Israel.”

In other words, although the Redditor bought their iPhone in Bulgaria, the device was likely imported from the UK. As a fellow Redditor noted, there is no official Apple presence in Bulgaria, making an import the probable answer. As they put it, “If it is a UK model, it will behave like a UK model” — which would explain why the device was asking the user to verify their identity, even though local Bulgarian laws did not require that to be done.

With different regions enforcing different privacy and age verification laws, the risk — as demonstrated on Reddit — is that you can buy a second-hand iPhone in a country that doesn’t compel you to confirm your identity, yet still get forced to do so by an imported iPhone. It’s all a bit of a mess.

If you’re thinking of buying a used iPhone and you’re at all able to check it in person, make sure you note down its model number first in the Settings app. As explained by The Apple Wiki, if the code contains the letters B, KN, QN, Z, ZD, ZF or ZM just before the forward slash — for example, MFYP4ZD/A — then it might be a UK device and therefore might act as if it is governed by UK laws, regardless of where you bought it. And that could have big consequences if you’re not prepared.

• iPhone Photography Awards 2026 winners announced, with top prize going to Robyn Jensen
• Their winning image of a volcano eruption was taken on an iPhone 15 Pro
• 12 other category winners announced, along with the varied iPhones used

The iPhone Photography Awards has announced its prize winners for 2026 — and the image that received the Grand Prix genuinely stopped me in my tracks.

Shot by Robyn Jensen from the Cayman Islands and submitted in the 'Nature' category, the winning image is a stunning low-light capture of a volcanic eruption in Yepocapa, Chimaltenango, Guatemala. Showing the moment a gout of ash erupts from the crater of the volcano, with red-hot trails cascading down around it, the image frames the moment of drama perfectly against a starlit night sky.

What's more, this image wasn't even shot on the latest iPhone, but was captured on a phone two generations old — the iPhone 15 Pro. I love how effectively it uses the phone's inherent qualities to its advantage; for instance, the smaller sensor of the iPhone 15 Pro, or any smartphone, is going to have a more limited dynamic range than a mirrorless or premium compact camera.

Robyn has made use of that, exposing for the brightest spot in the image — the lava and the light it's casting on the underside of the ash cloud — and allowing the rest to be shrouded in darkness. This heightens the impact of the image, sacrificing detail in the mountain for legibility of the key subject. But fortunately, we just about get those beautiful stars in the background.

Robyn has also used the wider 24mm equivalent lens, resisting the temptation to zoom in with the telephoto, and doing this allows us to appreciate the moment in its fuller context, giving a sense of scale. Her exposure is a full second long, meaning either the phone was mounted to a support, or she was aided by the iPhone 15 Pro's excellent OIS (optical image stabilization). And the phone has pushed her ISO to 12,500, and still come away with a pretty clean shot. It's a superb image, and a deserving winner.

Right place, right time

Something I particularly love about the iPhone Awards is the sheer breadth of style and subject matter, and this couldn't be better illustrated than by the contrast between Robyn's image and the winner of the Gold award, an image submitted in the 'Children' category by Hungarian photographer Gellért Gombai. A beautiful grab shot of a precious summer moment, its interplay of light and shadow is heightened by the decision to convert to monochrome — and it was shot on an even older phone, the iPhone X released in 2017!

And this sense of breadth continues when you look at the Silver and Bronze winners (below) — even though they're both by American photographers and are both images of animals! Arnold Plotnick's street shot of a cat, Silver winner, has a feel of total serendipity, a perfectly framed moment well-spotted. Also note how again, the lower dynamic range from the iPhone actually helps the image, with the loss of detail in the cat's fur and the doorway shadow increasing the shot's contrast and impact.

Catherine Wang's Bronze winner, meanwhile, couldn't be more different. It's a meticulously set-up still life, with the elements of the watermelon, mug and parrot clearly having been arranged very precisely, and the end result looking like something from a gallery wall.

For me, almost all of the winning images exemplify one of the iPhone's strongest assets for photographers — it's the camera you always have on you. While there are exceptions, such as Catherine Wang's still-life, most of the images have the unmistakeable feel of grab shots, of a photographer who was at the right place at the right time, and had the means to make the most of it.

Images like the pattern of frost on a car, a pair of dogs peeking out of a window, a child preparing for a leap over a puddle. These aren't things you set up; they're moments you spot, and many of them are moments that anyone might have spotted.

I'm particularly galled by the fact that the Gold prize was won by a shot of a cat in the street. Do you have any idea how shots of cats in the street I have on my camera roll? Loads! And do you have any idea how many of them are as good as Arnold Plotnick's? None!

But my personal bitterness notwithstanding, the iPhone Photography Awards have produced a superb crop of images this year, and in doing so have provided some pertinent reminders of two of photography's most important lessons. First, you don't need the latest tech to make great images. Second, the best camera is always — always — the one you have on you.

You can see the full selection of images, including second and third place winners, at the iPhone Photography Awards website.

• A new report suggests foldable phone prices could rise by 18% this year
• That's in part due to the iPhone Ultra, which could launch at a very high price
• Samsung and other brands may well cash in on this market shift

2026 could be one of the biggest years for foldable phones yet, as the foldable iPhone Ultra looks set to finally arrive in September. But while that’s sure to excite anyone who’s been waiting for an Apple-made foldable, it could also come with some bad news for consumers.

You see, according to a recent Counterpoint Research report (via 9to5Mac), the average price of foldable phones could rise by as much as 18% this year, and that increase will in part be thanks to Apple’s upcoming model.

Specifically, the average price is predicted to rise to $1,485 (roughly £1,110 / AU$2,140), and that’s in part because the iPhone Ultra itself will probably cost significantly more than that, with a recent IDC report predicting that the phone could retail for as much as $2,500 (around £1,870 / AU$3,600) — and that might just be the starting price.

This being an iPhone, it’s sure to be popular and could therefore drive up the average price of foldable phones. But its impact might extend to other brands too, because a $2,500 foldable iPhone could make such prices more palatable when attached to phones from Samsung and other companies.

A welcome rival

With this in mind, it’s perhaps no surprise that a Samsung exec said last year that the Korean giant is “welcoming others to join this category,” in response to a question about the iPhone Ultra’s arrival.

Don’t be surprised, then, if future Samsung foldables cost more than current ones — and not just because of rising RAM prices and inflation, but also because of the Apple impact.

Still, this Counterpoint report has some good pricing news too, as while it predicts that book-style foldables will continue increasing in price, clamshell models are expected to fall in price on average, bringing them “closer to premium bar-type smartphone alternatives.”

So while book-style foldables might start feeling even further out of reach for a lot of buyers, clamshell models could become increasingly attainable.

For a company that prides itself on delivering polished, functioning hardware and software, Apple dropped the ball with its original AI-powered Clean Up tool.

Not only did this Apple Intelligence feature arrive almost a year after similar tools from Samsung and Google, but by all accounts, it was objectively worse at removing unwanted objects in images than those big-name rivals. We tested Clean Up against Galaxy AI last year, and found that the former “comes incredibly short of the mark when Samsung’s offering is capable of truly achieving what it sets out to do.” Ouch.

But Apple has promised to make things right in iOS 27. At WWDC 2026, the company announced that Clean Up will be faster and more capable in your iPhone’s next software update — and so I put that claim to the test by comparing Clean Up as it exists in iOS 26 against Clean Up as it exists in the iOS 27 developer beta (if you’re keen to try an early version of iOS 27 for yourself, here’s how to download the iOS 27 developer beta).

Before we dive into the image comparisons, an important note: Clean Up is better in iOS 27 because it’s capable of engaging Apple’s powerful Foundation models when needed. Say, for instance, you want to remove an obstruction from your face; your iPhone will employ a ‘High Quality’ version of Clean Up that taps into Apple’s own Private Cloud Compute servers to access these Foundation models. But it doesn’t do this all the time.

For small touch-up jobs, your iPhone employs a ‘Fast’ version of Clean Up that uses Apple's on-device AI models to complete your request, just as it does in iOS 26 (albeit not under this 'Fast' banner). This version is (surprise!) faster than the ‘High Quality’ alternative, but it's also not as effective at removing objects.

In iOS 27, your iPhone defaults to using an ‘Auto’ version of Clean Up that switches between ‘High Quality’ and ‘Fast’ depending on the edit request you’re making, but you can force your iPhone to use one or the other by selecting your chosen mode in a drop-down menu.

For this comparison, I stuck to ‘Auto’ to test how well my iPhone recognizes when (and when not) to use the more power-intensive ‘High Quality’ version of Clean Up — and because most people will use Clean Up in this default ‘Auto’ mode. I also wanted to see whether ‘Fast’ in iOS 27 — which my iPhone surely used for a few of the photos below — is more effective than it is in iOS 26.

I've added a separate section for comparing ‘Fast’ and ‘High Quality’ results in iOS 27, which is the starkest example of how much Apple's Clean Up tool has been improved.

And, of course, my results are based on the iOS 27 developer beta, not the finished version of iOS 27. There's every chance that Clean Up will be improved further once iOS 27 proper arrives later this year.

Photo comparisons

In this first example, iOS 26 leaves behind an unnatural smear in place of the dog, while iOS 27 adds a more detailed, natural-looking replacement. The latter looks more like a bush than grass — and the end of the dog's tail is still visible in both examples — but iOS 27 delivers the better overall result.

iOS 26 actually delivers the better result here, leaving behind a slightly less visible L-shape than iOS 27. I suspect this is an example of that 'Fast' version of Clean Up in action, and that if I manually selected 'High Quality', the iOS 27 version would be superior (see the 'Fast' vs 'High Quality' comparison at the bottom of the page to see what I mean). This comparison also proves that 'Fast' in iOS 27 doesn't always deliver superior results to Clean Up in iOS 26 (at least as far as the developer beta goes).

Again, I'd say iOS 26 delivers the better result in this example — focus on the llama's erased head in both photos to see what I mean.

This is the first example in which I'm convinced my iOS 27-enabled iPhone switched from 'Fast' to 'High Quality'. When asking Clean Up to remove the long strands of hair over my left eye, the iOS 26 version completely botches the job, adding random ugly smears and not actually removing anything. The iOS 27 version, meanwhile, serves up a genuinely impressive result. It's not completely devoid of fakery, but it's certainly the more usable of the two results.

Now you see him, now you don't. At first glance, both iOS 26 and iOS 27 appear to do a similarly OK job at removing Bad Bunny from the roof of La Casita, but if you look closely, iOS 26 doesn't recognize that there are stairs behind him. The iOS 27 result isn't that much better, but it's the objectively superior of the two.

Another slim win for iOS 27 here. Neither version of Clean Up completely removes the dog's shadow, but iOS 27 makes a slightly better go of it than iOS 26.

In this example, the iOS 27 result is the much better of the two. Not only does iOS 26 leave behind a smeary cloud, but it also adds a random shape and (badly) generates an extra helping of mountain in the background. None of these mistakes are visible in the iOS 27 result.

iOS 27 wins again here, but not by much. The dark splodges left behind in the iOS 26 result are a tad more visible than those in the iOS 27 result, and I'd be more comfortable passing the latter off as reality.

This is probably the most challenging request of the bunch. I'm sitting on a backless bench while pedalling a piece of urban gym equipment, and I asked Clean Up to remove me, but keep everything else intact. iOS 26 fails miserably, and while iOS 27 doesn't totally succeed either — it leaves my right foot behind and removes the end of the bench entirely — it does do a better job of replacing what it removes with real-looking imagery.

Fast vs High Quality in iOS 27

Here's an example of the different results you can achieve by manually selecting the 'Fast' and 'High Quality' versions of Clean Up in iOS 27.

As you can see, the difference is huge. The 'Fast' result is a total mess, while the 'High Quality' result is genuinely real-looking. The latter isn't perfect — it's changed the menu art, for instance, and reduced the menu count from two to one — but I suspect that's because a portion of the menu was caught in the circle I drew around the coffee cup (and for that reason, I hope Apple reduces the thickness of the Clean Up line when iOS 27 releases in full later this year).

First impressions

In all but three of the comparisons, the iOS 27 developer beta version of Clean Up delivered the better result; however, it's clear that, when your iPhone opts for the 'Fast' version of the feature, the gulf in quality is not dramatic. In fact, in some examples, the iOS 26 result is better — so it's probably best to think of 'Fast' Clean Up and iOS 26 Clean Up as the same tool.

It's a different story for the 'High Quality' version of Clean Up in the iOS 27 developer beta, which delivered vastly superior results to Clean Up in iOS 26 when my iPhone auto-selected that option, or when I manually enabled it (as in the coffee cup example).

This proves beyond doubt that Apple has improved Clean Up in iOS 27 as it exists right now — but unless users manually select this 'High Quality' option (or always request complex edits that trigger its automatic use), the difference in Clean Up's capabilities may not be all that noticeable.

Again, though, I've been careful to specify that these iOS 27 results are from the developer beta — Apple will likely further tweak Clean Up between now and iOS 27's September release, so I expect the tool to get even better.

• Reddit users have complained of a worrying storage ‘bug’ in iOS
• This sees the System Data category eat up huge amounts of storage
• Fortunately, there are several ways to fix this problem

iPhone storage often comes at a premium — after all, it’s not like you can open up any of the best iPhones and add more space after you’ve bought one. That’s why it can be frustrating to see a massive chunk of your storage taken up by your iPhone’s “System Data” category, and especially worrying if this number seems to keep creeping up. Luckily, there are a few solutions you can try to put things right.

This problem was recently illustrated on Reddit, where user TakenToTheRiver posted a screenshot showing that 86.96GB of their iPhone’s storage was taken up by the System Data category. Worse, they only had 128GB of total space, meaning a whopping 68% of their iPhone’s internal storage had already been gobbled up.

As they put it, “This is not something the average iPhone user should have to deal with.” They added that this “bug,” as they called it, “has persisted for years, and we shouldn’t have to work around it ourselves.” It’s also something we’ve seen elsewhere — such as in the Maps app — so it’s not an isolated issue.

They were also far from the only person struggling with System Data on their iPhone or iPad. User laszlotuss had lost 100.62GB, while for DanscoRed that figure stood at 150.56GB. Clearly, something was amiss.

How to reclaim storage space

Luckily, there are one or two ways you can get back precious space eaten up by your iPhone’s System Data category. They might take a little work, but they’re worth it if you’re worried about filling up your device.

Different approaches have worked for different iPhone users. For some, simply backing up their iPhone (either to iCloud or to your computer), resetting it, then restoring from the backup has done the trick.

A similar tip was provided by jg61600, who said (via machine translation), “Back up your entire iPhone in iCloud, and then restore it to DFU mode if you’re going to remove all the cache you have.” DFU mode restores your firmware to working order and installs a fresh copy of iOS, which could help with runaway System Data.

This backup-and-restore method was exactly the one that helped the most when we investigated Apple Maps taking up too much storage space, so it should have a good chance of success. However, it’s quite a drastic technique, so you might want to try one of the other ideas below first.

For instance, another successful technique has been opening the iPhone's Settings app, going to Apps > App Store, then scrolling down and enabling Offload Unused Apps. This uninstalls apps you haven’t used for a while (but keeps your documents and data intact), which Dapper_Contest_5695 said “seemed to fix the extra system storage issue” for them.

Finally, EffectiveEquivalent shared another potential solution: clear the caches for your web browser and podcast app. They also “deleted a game that had an extra download once in the app.” They added: “I suspect the latter will trip up most people.”

Seeing your iPhone’s storage space slowly diminish without knowing how to stop it can be an exasperating experience, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do about it. Try the ideas that have worked for us and others above and you might be able to reclaim lost storage and put an end to the misery.

Amazon Prime Day started in Australia ends tonight, and we've seen some good Apple deals show up this year. While there were no worthwhile iPhone or MacBook discounts, we saw record-low prices on AirPods and Apple Watches.

Sadly most of these good discounts ended during the weekend, so even before the sale finished. In the last hours of Prime Day, there aren't too many good Apple deals, but below are what we still have.

Of course, not every Apple discount is worth buying, especially if a deal only applies to one colour, one size or a product that has been cheaper before. So we’re focusing on the Apple deals that are genuinely good after comparing to Apple’s official pricing and what else is available at Amazon or elsewhere.

Quick links to the best Apple deals on Amazon

These direct links are the fastest way to check the main Apple categories on Amazon before delving into the individual deals below.

• Amazon Prime Day: shop the main Prime Day sale
• Apple at Amazon: browse Apple deals in one place
• AirPods deals: check the best AirPods prices
• iPad deals: shop iPad offers at Amazon
• Apple Watch deals: see the best Apple Watch prices
• iPhone deals: check current iPhone deals
• Apple accessories: browse AirTags, chargers, cables and more
• MacBook price checks: find MacBook restocks and price drops

Best Amazon Prime Day Apple deals

These are our favourite Amazon Prime Day Apple deals. We’ve split them by product type so you can easily compare deals on AirPods, iPad, Apple Watch, iPhone, accessories and MacBooks.

If you don't see any products in a particular category, check back later as we'll be working hard every day to find more deals.

Best AirPods Prime Day deals

AirPods are usually one of the easier Apple products to find discounted at Amazon. The cheapest option here is the open-fit AirPods 4, while AirPods Pro are the better choice if you want noise cancelling, while AirPods Max are great for anyone who wants over-ear headphones.

Unfortunately allmost all the best AirPod deals have sold out, but you can check out everything remaining on Amazon here.

Best iPad Prime Day deals

iPad deals can be tricky because Amazon often only discounts specific storage sizes or colours, and the deals tend to change rapidly. Sadly iPads also just got hit by Apple's price rises, so the base cost has gone up.

We think the standard iPad is the best fit for casual use, though the iPad Air is worth the extra cost, whereas the iPad Pro is aimed at those who really need the better screen and higher performance.

If you don't see any iPad deals below, don't worry, we'll add more as soon as we can. In the meantime, there are some discounted iPad accessories worth checking out.

Best Apple Watch Prime Day deals

Apple Watch deals are worth watching if you use an iPhone and want fitness tracking, notifications and health features without paying Apple’s normal price.

Case size, colour and band choice can change the price, so if comparing options under the one listing, double check the exact model selected before buying.

Best iPhone Prime Day deals

iPhone deals are often harder to judge than AirPods or iPad deals because Amazon discounts often apply to one colour or storage size.

Best Apple accessories Prime Day deals

Apple accessories usually aren't the deals people are most excited about, but they are useful add-ons if the price is right. AirTags, chargers, cables and Mac desk gear are also the kinds of Apple products Amazon tends to discount more often than iPhones or MacBooks.

Best MacBook Prime Day deals

MacBook deals are hard to find at Amazon right now. We’re still doing our best to rustle up any discounts because MacBooks are one of the Apple products we are all excited about during Prime Day. Especially after the recent Apple price hikes that bumped up the base cost by as much as 17%.

Amazon Prime Day Apple deals 2026: key information

Amazon Prime Day Apple deals: shopping tips

Prime Day can be a good time to buy Apple gear, but it’s also often hard to navigate. Amazon can show large percentage discounts from old prices, and Apple products often get small price cuts that only apply to one colour, size or storage option. So we created some steps that can help you work out whether an Apple Prime Day deal is worth buying.

1. Check Apple’s official price first

Start with the current price on the Apple website. That gives you a clean comparison point before you look at Amazon’s claimed discount. It matters more than usual this year because Apple recently raised Australian prices on a number of products, including Macs and iPads.

2. Look at price history, not just the discount badge

It's easy to get pulled in by a big percentage saving, but the current price is what matters. For Amazon deals, camelcamelcamel.com can show whether today’s price is actually low or just lower than an old list price.

It is also worth searching OzBargain.com.au to see whether the same product has been cheaper before and how other shoppers rated past discounts. If the deal still looks good after those checks, you can buy with confidence.

3. Figure out what features you actually need

A discount on an iPad Pro or MacBook Pro can look tempting, but the best Prime Day deal is not always the product with the largest saving. If you mainly want a tablet for streaming, browsing, note-taking and video calls, a standard iPad or iPad Air may be the better-value buy.

The same logic applies across Apple’s range. If you're buying a laptop, think about whether you really need a MacBook Pro or whether a MacBook Air is the better choice. If you're buying a phone, decide whether camera quality, storage, battery life or price matters most before jumping on a deal just because it has a big discount.

4. Be flexible on colour, storage and case size

Apple deals at Amazon often apply to one specific version of a product. That might mean one AirPods model, one iPad storage size, one Apple Watch case size or one iPhone colour. Check the exact model before you buy, and make sure the cheaper version is actually the one you want.

5. Check whether the price needs Prime

Many Prime Day deals need an active Amazon Prime membership. Some early deals are available to everyone, but others only show the lowest price once you're signed in with Prime. Also check the delivery estimate, especially if the product is coming from overseas or has limited stock.

6. Don't assume MacBooks will be the best category

AirPods, Apple Watch, iPad and Apple accessories are usually easier to find discounted at Amazon. MacBook deals can happen, but they are hard to find right now, and some listings have long delivery dates or limited stock. If you see a MacBook discount, compare it with Apple’s current price and check whether the saving is enough to justify buying now.

There's no understating the influence of Jony Ive – the man responsible for designing so many iconic Apple products – in changing the way that manufacturers approached consumer and business electronics.

Modern design

Ive, Apple's former chief design officer, first publicized this way of thinking during the introduction to iOS 7 at WWDC 2013.

The operating system was widely lauded at the time for revolutionizing the structure of the iPhone's layout – ditching the skeuomorphic approach (where digital objects deliberately mimicked real-world counterparts).

Instead, the new iOS 7 introduced a sleeker and flatter design as well as crisp typography, alongside a visual parallax in which a 3D effect allowed the background to subtly shift and tilt behind app icons as you moved the device. This came alongside a host of functional additions including the Control Center and AirDrop.

Setting trends

At the core of Ive's approach was to perform something of a magic trick: making technology – an inherently complex area – appear simple to the unsuspecting.

To exude simplicity, Ive believed, you first had to understand how to wield and package powerful and complex technology in a way that doesn't overwhelm the user. Mastering chaos and complexity, in this way, is about being so on top of it that you can then disguise it.

Such was the success of Ive's entire approach to design at Apple that a long list of manufacturers have long strived to mimic not just the hardware, but software layout too. This is despite Ive having moved on in 2022.

A recent example is the introduction of the Dynamic Island – an interactive pill that sits atop the iPhone screen. Phone makers like Xiaomi have integrated similar features into their latest devices with HyperOS. The introduction of Liquid Glass in 2025 is also something that Android-based developers are borrowing.

• Apple has added refurbished iPhone 16e models to its online store
• Savings range from $180 to $220 compared to the device’s MSRP
• Apple’s refurbishment process is known to be very thorough

Apple’s recent price hikes have sparked dismay among consumers, with huge rises making their presence known across the board. Fortunately, none of the best iPhones have been affected yet, and Apple has just given people an excellent option to nab a great phone and save cash at the same time.

Specifically, Apple just added the iPhone 16e to its online store for refurbished products. Considering there’s widespread speculation that Apple will raise iPhone prices this September, this could be your best opportunity to get a solid iPhone at an affordable price for some time.

The entry-level iPhone 16e with 128GB of storage is priced at $419 on Apple’s US online store, marking a saving of $180 on the iPhone 16e’s original $599 listing price. You can upgrade to 256GB of storage for $509 (saving $190) or 512GB for $679, which is a discount of $220.

Every refurbished iPhone 16e on Apple’s website is available unlocked and with both black and white color options. That means there are six different varieties to choose from, in addition to a wide range of other renewed iPhones across the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 lines.

A ‘like new’ device

You might be thinking that you can find a second-hand iPhone 16e for less than Apple is charging on its refurbished website, and that’s almost certainly true. But there are a few things to bear in mind about Apple’s refurbishing process that you’ll want to know.

A device bought from Apple’s refurbished website will almost certainly be in a better state than anything you can get elsewhere. Apple inspects each refurbished device and replaces any defective parts with genuine replacements. It then gives the device a clean and packages it up in an original box with all cables and accessories. This isn’t just some used iPhone covered in bumps and bruises that you can pick up on eBay, and nor is it a refurbished device fitted with non-genuine replacement components.

All that means that the device you get from Apple is essentially like new. I would know — I bought my MacBook Pro with M1 Pro chip from Apple’s refurbished website. When it arrived, it was essentially indistinguishable from a new device, with the only giveaway being that its battery had registered about five cycles — which is still practically nothing.

Similarly, my TechRadar colleague Thomas Deehan snapped up a refurbished iPhone 16 from Giffgaff and described it as “almost identical to one that could be bought brand new via the Apple Store.” He added: “I honestly wondered if I hadn’t just been sent a completely new iPhone by mistake.”

So, if you’re in the market for an iPhone and want to avoid the risk of price rises later this year, a refurbished iPhone 16e could do the trick nicely. Now that Apple is selling this model on its own website, you’ve got an extra choice of where to get one from. But wherever you buy one, a serious discount could be yours to enjoy before the new normal of higher prices sets in.

• AI is forcing Apple to deliver security updates more often
• iOS 26.5.2 is part of Apple's new update strategy
• More updates mean better protection against AI-powered cyberattacks

It seems that the number of ways AI is changing the world is increasing. The requirement for more RAM to run new AI features in Apple products is already being blamed for the recent price increase in Apple products, as well as for the current high price of RAM itself.

Now, according to a recent Reuters report, AI is also to blame for the number of iOS and macOS updates we'll need to install. The bad news is that it's going up, all because of the threat posed by the latest AI models and their potential to aid cyberattacks.

Instead of waiting for the next scheduled operating system update for the latest round of security fixes to arrive, Apple is now delivering individual security updates ahead of the next iOS and macOS 26.6 update.

iOS 26.5.2 is here now

If you look in Settings > General > Software Update on your iPhone, you'll see that iOS 26.5.2 is waiting for you now, unless your iPhone already installed it overnight.

The description for the update reads, rather vaguely: "This update provides security fixes for your iPhone," but it's the dangers posed by AI that are driving this update, so make sure you install it promptly.

Details of the security updates for all Apple operating systems are available on the Apple Security Updates page.

Malicious hacking tools

The Reuters article states that the urgency of the update is due to the risk that AI now poses to Apple devices.

"The company told Reuters on Monday it was adapting to the reality that, given the ability of artificial intelligence to speed the development of malicious hacking tools, it needed to reduce the time between when updates were first made public and when they were put into customers' hands."

It looks increasingly likely that this will become the new normal for security updates, and companies like Apple won't be able to rely on bundling the latest security fixes into the next scheduled operating system update. Stand-alone security patches delivered whenever they're needed are something we're all going to have to get used to.

While it might be annoying to keep updating our tech gadgets more often, it's a small price to pay for better security in the AI era. We'll just have to get used to software updates being less about new features and more about staying ahead of increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks.

A few weeks ago, Reuters reported that India's Tata Electronics, one of Apple's largest iPhone production facilities, suffered a serious data breach compromising 200,000 files and 630 gigabytes of data. Apple wasn't the only target — Tesla data was snapped up, too — but the apparent fruits of that illicit labor resulted in one very large iPhone 18 Pro leak.

We have no confirmation that the videos of a silver iPhone 18 Pro undergoing drop tests are real, but the detail in the online post that the videos come from a Tata leak lends credence to their veracity.

Some called it the biggest leak since Gizmodo and the iPhone 4. As others have noted — and I agree — it's really not on that level. After all, the iPhone 4 that someone found in a California bar was a fully functioning model. For all we know, the alleged iPhone 18 Pro shown in the video is just a dummy model or a chassis with no internal components.

It's what comes next, though, that has me concerned and I'm sure worries Apple too.

A trickle could become a flow

As of this moment, the data from the breach, which Tata Electronics confirmed, is on the Dark Web. This is a part of the internet hidden from the public web; it's not searchable by Google or even your favorite AI chatbot. Only people who know how to traverse the dank space, usually using a Tor browser, can search the treasure trove of information from Tesla and Apple.

According to Reuters, a group called World Leaks had started posting data from the breach on the Dark Web and it included "several purported Apple files and folders, some titled 'com.apple.factorydata', and documents referring to 'material specification'."

What appears to be happening is that hackers (and maybe others on the Dark Web who know where to find these files and how to dig into them) are just starting to unearth critical data from Apple (and Tesla). It stands to reason, then, that the videos we've seen are not the end of the leaks but just the beginning.

Why not Ultra?

With the launch of the iPhone 18 lineup likely just a few months away (most expect it to happen in the first half of September), Apple is well past the point of design and specification. It's working with manufacturing partners like Tata Electronics to assemble the phones (and maybe test them) and prepare them for shipping. Once Apple unveils all its new handsets, including perhaps the new iPhone Ultra foldable, it will be just a few weeks before they start shipping to customers. Apple must build millions of handsets now in order to prepare for typical demand.

As for what we might see next, that's anyone's guess. Obviously, this leak put Apple on high alert. It may be playing the whack-a-mole game of stamping out the spread of this leak, and is surely it's working with Tata to ensure another breach doesn't happen. But there's not much Apple can do to police the Dark Web. It can't break down the door of the Internet and demand those files back.

Hackers and other interested parties will dig through those folders and files, looking for other tidbits to post — I'm sure they've already been scouring them for any indication of a folding device. Tata, though, may not have been tasked with building that completely new and all-important device. This is just conjecture, but for that flexible handset, Apple could've turned to its oldest and most trusted iPhone manufacturing partner in China, Foxconn.

I know, why do that when the US is pushing for manufacturing outside China (and in the US, if it can get it)? My thinking is that the Ultra folding iPhone will be more expensive and probably not as appealing as a mass-market phone and will therefore sell in far lower quantities. In that case, Apple leaves that with Foxconn and still hands at least a third of the iPhone 18 assembly duties to Tata.

If that's the case, then future leaks will revolve around everything but the new foldable... if Apple is lucky.

Mark my words, though, I really don't think this is the last major leak we'll see in the run-up to Apple's big iPhone 18 launch.

• A leaked video shows an iPhone 18 Pro being drop-tested
• If it's real, then this is a massive leak to occur so far from launch
• But the internet is mostly expressing mild disappointment at the design of the phone

There have been many iPhone leaks over the years, but undoubtedly the biggest concerned the iPhone 4, when a prototype unit of that device was left in a bar and subsequently purchased by Gizmodo. Now, it seems there might have been another big iPhone leak, and while it’s not quite as significant as that 2010 equivalent, it’s potentially not far off.

A video is circulating online that purportedly shows an iPhone 18 Pro undergoing a drop test, though the posts showing it seem to be getting rapidly deleted — it's unclear whether this is for legal reasons or because it's fake.

Still, at the time of writing, this video is still live in a post from @TechKard, among others. You can see a device that looks a lot like an iPhone 17 Pro in silver being dropped onto a surface, and coming out of that scenario more or less unscathed from what we can tell — though it doesn’t appear to be getting dropped from a particularly high height.

A muted response

If this is legit, then it’s footage of a real unreleased iPhone months before launch, so that’s a big deal. But online reactions have been muted, with most posters simply expressing mild disappointment that the design isn’t being updated.

On Reddit, for example, posts include “looks just like the 17 pro lol,” “is this not just a 17?,” and “that's a nice looking iPhone 17.01 you got there.” Some posts also note that this device looks a bit thicker than the iPhone 17 Pro, but it appears as though the video might be slightly stretched, so the actual handset may not be any thicker.

Regardless, the overall reaction seems to be a collective shrug, which is rather different from the excitement generated by the aforementioned iPhone 4 leak.

That said, there’s some reason to doubt this leak. Reuters reports that various iPhone 18 Pro details and images have been shared on the dark web, so that much is probably true, and it’s assumed that this video is part of that leak. But the earliest posting we found of it came from an X account masquerading as famed leaker Evan Blass, but which in fact has nothing to do with him, casting doubts on its credibility.

Still, whether this is an authentic leak or not, we’re not expecting there to be too many visual differences with this year’s iPhones, as Apple is rumored to be overhauling the phones next year instead for their 20th anniversary.

At WWDC, Apple finally unveiled the long-delayed, genuinely rebuilt version of Siri — a more context-aware assistant that can understand what’s on your screen, use your personal data across apps, respond more naturally, and work both inside iOS/macOS and as a standalone Siri AI app.

The prospect of having a more intelligent Siri to talk to is hugely exciting, but there were plenty of other smaller announcements made at the recent Worldwide Developers Conference that got overshadowed by the big Siri AI reveal.

In fact, I might actually be more excited about these features than the new Siri. Here’s what I’m looking forward to most:

1. AI-powered Safari tab organization

If you’re anything like me, your Safari browser is a shocking mess of tabs. I try to close them, but they seem to breed like rabbits whenever I’ve been using Safari for more than 10 seconds. In macOS Golden Gate, Safari can use Apple Intelligence to group your open tabs into relevant topics without you having to do anything.

So, if you’re planning a trip, all your open tabs related to that topic will be pulled together into a single group. “Topics” is the word Apple uses to describe this organization. In the case of your holiday, it would likely pick a name for the topic — probably the destination — and all the open tabs would then be accessible from within that topic.

2. Natural-language Shortcuts

Shortcuts already exist in macOS, and they’re awesome. Shortcuts in macOS let you automate repeated actions on your Mac, either with a click, a keyboard shortcut, Siri, the menu bar, Finder, the Share Sheet, or sometimes from inside apps. You can use them to resize images, extract text from PDFs, create calendar events or reminders, and much more.

They can, however, be a little tricky to create. That’s going to change with the new version of Apple’s software. macOS Golden Gate is going to use Apple Intelligence to make creating shortcuts easier. Instead of building fiddly automations manually, you can simply describe what you want using natural language and Shortcuts will build it for you.

3. Improved Photos editing

Clean Up, Extend, and Reframe are coming to Photos to make editing pictures on your iPhone a whole lot easier, thanks to Apple’s on-device AI models, which can enhance your photos in ways that wouldn’t be possible without AI.

First, Clean Up is already part of Photos and is useful for removing distractions, but it’s getting a big upgrade in the next OS. The old version could get tripped up by busy backgrounds and complex textures, but the new version is much more adaptable and works on old photos and photos not taken on an iPhone.

Next, Extend is a way to add more background to any photo, or adjust its aspect ratio. Apple Intelligence simply fills in the new areas after the fact.

Finally, Reframe looks like a very powerful way of improving your photos. It uses Apple’s on-device AI model so you can change the angle a photo was taken at — just drag your finger around on the image in real time to change the angle the camera was pointing in. It looks a little bit like magic, and it’s very cool.

4. AirPods custom EQ

This may look like a small feature for AirPods owners, but it’s a big quality-of-life win, especially if you’ve ever wished that AirPods had more personal sound control, so you can adjust the sound to your tastes, not Apple’s.

So what does it do? Well, you’re able to adjust bass, mids, and treble, although it doesn’t give you exact frequencies or a numerical scale showing how much you’re affecting them. The good news is that older models like the AirPods Pro 2 will support Custom EQ, as well as the newer AirPods Pro 3 and AirPods 4.

5. Smarter parental controls

I don’t know if these features are “smarter” or simply “less confusing,” but I’m all in. Having tried to set up parental controls before for my children on iPhones, I’m in favor of anything that makes the process less tortuous.

Features like the new Ask to Browse, where a child can ask if they can look at a particular website before you grant permission, sound like they’re just making everything easier for the parent to set up. Ask to Buy is another feature that sounds self-explanatory, and exactly what busy parents need. Time Allowances for entertainment, games, and social media also look great and give a handy starting point for concerned parents.

These aren't the AI features you're looking for

A lot of the new features I’m looking forward to here use AI, but they are benefit-first features rather than another excuse to use AI for something nobody actually wants. Siri AI may well be a great step forward for the next generation of Apple devices, but there are plenty of other ways that AI is going to benefit Apple users too — and some of them might turn out to be more useful in everyday life than talking to Siri.

Apps are the lifeblood of smartphones, and with so many to choose from, we inevitably each have our favorites. As such, the apps I'm about to suggest might not be essential for everyone, but they are for me — and you never know, you might just fall in love with them too.

These are five of the iPhone apps I use most throughout my day, so they essentially define how I use my phone. For the most part, they’re also apps that I actively enjoy spending time in.

So, if they sound interesting to you, then they’re worth a download — especially as they all have free versions.

1. StoryGraph

For a long time, Goodreads was my go-to app for logging what I’m reading, making lists of what I want to read, and finding new books, but recently I’ve largely switched over to StoryGraph.

It's a very similar concept to Goodreads but with an arguably more attractive, modern interface, and without the baggage of it being owned by Amazon — a brand I’m trying to interact with less.

But on top of that, StoryGraph also has far more stats and book details built into it, showing you things like the pace of a book, how plot-driven it is, whether it has strong character development, and more, all based on what readers have said.

You can also see how many books and pages you’ve read, how many books of each genre, what moods your books most commonly feature, how your reading has changed over time, and more. So, if you like stats, there’s a lot to dig into here.

Some features are hidden behind a StoryGraph Plus subscription, but the majority of the app is available for free.

2. Letterboxd

Unlike StoryGraph, Letterboxd is something I’ve been using for a very long time, and it’s a similar idea but for movies — so just as StoryGraph is an alternative to the bigger name Goodreads, Letterboxd is an alternative to IMDb.

But it’s more social and community-driven than IMDb, with user reviews very much being front and center of the Letterboxd experience. And as with StoryGraph, there is a wealth of stats available (though some of these are hidden behind a paywall).

You can see how many films you’ve watched, how many hours you’ve spent watching, the number of directors and countries you’ve watched films from, your most watched genres, your highest rated films from each decade, your most watched themes, and many, many other things.

Plus, of course, you can make lists, view lists created by other users, add films to your watchlist, and even rent movies — including sometimes films that aren’t available anywhere else.

3. Pocket Casts

Podcasts are the soundtrack to much of my day, and Pocket Casts is my player of choice. I won’t pretend this is the only great podcast app, but if you’re unhappy with your current player, then it’s well worth giving this one a try.

Pocket Casts has been around for a long time, and it’s gradually gotten better and better, to the point where now, I can’t think of much that could improve it.

It has an attractive interface with good discovery tools, the option to sort podcasts into folders, both dark and light themes, playlist support, the option to change the speed, boost the volume, and trim the silence, a sleep timer, videos (where available), and more.

Plus, Pocket Casts works not just on iPhone but also on Android, Apple Watch, Mac, Windows, the web, and Sonos; it also supports CarPlay, Chromecast, and AirPlay, so you can listen to your podcasts just about anywhere.

4. Proton VPN

VPNs have always been advisable from a privacy perspective, but never more so than now, when countries like the UK are increasingly requiring you to hand over identification to access large parts of the internet — often outsourcing the data collection to companies that may or may not be responsible with it.

So, VPNs are one way to avoid that risk, but they also have other benefits beyond security and general privacy, such as letting you access streaming platforms that might either not operate in your region or have a different selection of content elsewhere.

As for why I’m recommending Proton VPN in particular, I’m a big fan of Proton in general and also use some of their other services. They take privacy more seriously than some VPN companies, and their VPN has over 17,000 servers in over 120 countries, so it’s a good, reliable service, and I don’t notice significant speed drops when connected to Proton VPN either.

That said, there are plenty of other great VPN providers to consider (check out our best VPNs guide for our full list of recommendations), so while I stand by Proton VPN, my suggestion is more just to make use of VPNs in general.

5. Google Photos

Yes, Apple has its own Photos app built into iPhones, and it’s not bad. But for me, Google Photos is the superior option.

Part of that is because it works across various operating systems, so if I ever switch back to Android, I’ll still have ready access to all my photos. But even if you’re a lifelong Apple user, there are still advantages to Google Photos.

While both apps have a decent search function for finding photos through keywords, Google Photos does this best in my experience, and it comes with far more free cloud storage. So, if you want to back up a lot of photos, then Google’s offering is the clear winner there.

Ultimately, I find myself using both apps, but it’s Google Photos that I’m more passionate about — and that I’ll take with me to non-Apple devices.

The iPhone will go down in history as one of the most iconic technologies that any business has introduced to the world. But not everybody, including Microsoft's former CEO Steve Ballmer, thought it would be a hit.

Disrupting the market

Steve Jobs' iconic presentation revealing the iPhone in January 2007 had an air of magic around it, capturing the attention of plenty of commentators and technologists.

But there were also plenty queuing up to label it a fad that would never take off. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO at the time, was among them.

In an interview with USA Today, a grinning Ballmer laid into the new device, criticizing its expensive pricing and the lack of a physical keyboard. This is a feature that Microsoft supported with its Windows Mobile operating system that it licensed to third-party developers like Motorola, which itself was selling a $99 Motorola Q – something that Ballmer considered a much better business alternative.

The iPhone marches on

To be fair to Ballmer, he did say in the same interview that the iPhone could end up selling really well. But he certainly failed to catch onto its appeal not only as a popular device but one that businesses would embrace.

Businesses appreciate the intuitive mobile device management (MDM) system backing iPhone in the workplace and the interoperability between Apple devices is something many also find useful. That's not to say Android devices aren't suitable for businesses — but Apple indeed tops the rankings for the highest number of shipments among enterprises.

Ballmer has since conceded that he made the wrong call – and it just goes to show how tricky predicting the future could be.

We now know with more certainty than before that your next iPhone, especially if it's a more affordable model, will probably be more expensive come September.

Allow me to walk you back through my reasoning.

At approximately 8:30AM ET (that's 10:30PM AEST) the RAM crisis reached Apple shores in the form of price hikes across multiple product categories, including MacBooks, Macs, iPads, and HomePods.

It was inevitable and, as Apple told us, the culprit is clear: "The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage."

It's the component crunch we've seen repeated over and over again. Everything from the latest gaming rigs to storage and memory is getting more expensive.

And it's only going to get worse.

"We are not at the bottom and will take more time to climb out," wrote Creative Strategies Founder and longtime analyst Tim Bajarin when I asked him via email if this marked a tipping point for our RAM crisis travails. It did feel like Apple held off as long as possible, and I think Bajarin concurs, "Apple had no choice," he wrote to me.

No RAM crisis end in sight

Not only does Bajarin see the issue continuing, but he thinks it could drag on for years. As he wrote in his recent Forbes column, with just a few major memory factories already "maxed out" and those under construction years away from coming online, "I see this memory squeeze at the least lasting another two years," he told me via email.

This aligns, by the way, with reports we've seen elsewhere from those who run these memory plants.

"We expect tight conditions to persist beyond calendar 2027 as a result of AI-driven demand across all segments coupled with structural supply constraints," said Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra in a recent earnings report.

We've all been wondering if and when the RAM crisis would affect iPhone prices, and while the fresh price hikes miss out iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods, Apple's comment on why it raised the prices now, makes it clear that they're probablly not done: "We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today’s increases for iPad and Mac."

Did you pick up the key phrase? "need to begin raising prices". Apple didn't say, "we've raised the prices," and instead opened the door to further hikes.

Those price increases might come to the full lineups in affected product categories, but I believe that this issue will affect the anticipated iPhone 18 launch in September.

But wait. It gets worse.

An affordability crisis

Bajarin says the price/performance trajectory we've seen for decades (more and faster/better tech for lower prices) is, with this component crisis reversing itself, making it harder to build affordable devices, or rather devices at affordable prices, because one of the key components is exponentially more expensive than ever. We already have some evidence of this with Nothing cancelling its affordable model in response to RAM crisis.

This means that those who usually buy the iPhone Pro, iPhone Pro Max, and iPhone Air might easily absorb higher prices because they can probably already afford them.

It's with base models like the anticipated iPhone 18 where a dramatic increase could push the phone out of reach. This will, by the way, affect Android phones too (see Nothing, above), especially, Bajarin notes, those affordable handsets sold around the world.

You see, they all source their memory from the same handful of suppliers. It's all in shorter supply and more expensive.

In the end, if any of us thought Apple could hold out indefinitely and show the industry a way around this AI-led RAM crisis (the AI boom isn't slowing down, and its demands on energy, water, and memory will probably only increase), they were mistaken. Apple isn't magic, RAM doesn't grow on trees, and we're in for a very rough couple of years.

A look at all the Apple price hikes

I’m under no illusions that John Ternus’ Apple will be the exactly same as it has been under Tim Cook. Initially though, there will be few, if any, changes. Ternus is not an outsider with wild anti-Apple ideas intended to wake a sleeping giant. He's been here for decades, through all the major releases that made Apple, well, Apple. Claims that he's arriving in September to revive Apple's design excellence are, if not off base, then just wrong-headed.

First of all, the argument presupposes that there is something fundamentally lacking in Apple's Industrial design: Jony Ive was obviously lighting in a bottle, and current design lead Molly Anderson is a pale, albeit also British, imitation. (Granted, Anderson has not been in the position that long, taking over from Evans Hankey, who left in 2023.)

But accepting that presumption is to ignore all the beautifully designed products that have arrived under Cook's leadership, with and without Ive, and also often under the watchful eyes of Ternus.

Remember the Pro — oh

But since Ive's skills as a designer are so vaunted, let's start with a failure. Perhaps you remember the Mac Pro. No, not the cheese-grater design unveiled in 2023. While that had its detractors, it was miles above the trashcan design unveiled in 2013.

It was the ultimate expression (at least in PC terms) of Ive's "form meets function" obsession. The internal structure was sort of a triangle of boards that seemed perfectly wrong for a squat, circular enclosure. Ive's fingerprints were all over the impractical system, one that Craig Federighi later admitted to me (during a mea culpa meeting on the Pro) had boxed Apple into a thermal corner. It was hard to upgrade and was roundly rejected by pro system users.

Ive was also responsible for the Apple Pencil. With it, his penchant for skeuomorphism extended from app design into the physical world. The Apple Pencil fully resembled a white plastic version of a real, pencil, and to accommodate that, it had, under a custom cover, a hidden Lightning charging plug. You even needed a special adaptor to charge it. Later, wirelessly charging Apple Pencils, which I think Ive also designed, fixed this mess.

Naturally, Ive's hits far outweighed his misses, and many big ones came during the Cook-Ive collaboration period, including the iPad Air, the Apple Watch, and AirPods (which started awkwardly but gradually improved).

The more divisive Apple Vision Pro was likely designed under Hankey and Anderson's watchful eye. I do think it's a pleasant intersection between the needs of extremely high-end innovation and aesthetic appeal. Goggles will be goggles, after all.

Even iPhone design has remained, if not excellent, interesting.

The iPhone is still beautiful...discuss

When Apple introduced the first iPhone in 2007, there really was no other handset quite like it. Apple set the bar and, over the years, every other manufacturer followed. It became harder and harder for Apple to differentiate its metal and glass slab from its competitors. The ever-larger camera arrays have provided a sort of design challenge and an opportunity at the same time. Hankey and Anderson, at least, came up with a giant island that's quite recognizable from a distance. And let's not discount color. The orange was a stroke of genius and the new MacBook Neo's playful Blush and Citrus colors are lively, proving Anderson knows how to marry form with expression.

Ternus' role as hardware lead means he's been seeing these designs for years. My sense in sitting down with him after the launch of the iPhone Air is that he is intimately involved with the process of shoving all that technology into ever-thinner, but shockingly strong frames. He gets that you need to marry engineering skills with industrial design to get a durable and usable product that's still attractive.

When I think about what Ternus will do when he finally takes over in September, I am reminded of relay race runners. Cook continues to pace around the track while slowly holding out the baton behind him. Ternus is nearby, running just behind Cook with one hand outstretched. Neither man will stop. The handoff will happen in a few months, with everything still in motion.

The process of finishing the rumored iPhone Ultra (the folding phone) continues as we speak, and Ternus is not going to suddenly pull a Steve Jobs and throw the design into a fish tank, to see if bubbles rise, thus proving they could make it smaller. He won't demand that all plastic be replaced with glass, or even that one more color be added to the mix.

When, as the recent Bloomberg report claims, Ternus said of Apple's design history and appeal to customers, "We’re going to make sure that stays the case,” he's not talking about making huge changes to achieve that goal.

Ternus will stay the course and support Anderson. He may hire more design support and, down the line, Ternus will look for his signature initiative or product; he will want to have his own iPhone or iPod. But that's a natural inclination for any incoming CEO. Job one, though, is staying the course, shepherding the in-the-pipeline products to market and ensuring that Apple remains Apple.

I think Ternus knows exactly how to do that.

A smartphone can be a major investment — especially if you’re shopping for one of the best phones around — so it’s important to be sure that the device you’re buying isn’t just good for now, but good for many years to come.

Software support is a key factor in determining how long a phone will last, and in recent years, manufacturers have been committing to much longer product support windows than they used to. But not all phones get the same amount of support, and indeed some older phones will be approaching their final update in 2026.

So, below, we’ve detailed how long phones from Apple, Samsung, Google, and Motorola will continue to receive updates.

To keep things simple, we've focused on major brands with US availability, but if you have a recent high-end phone from the likes of Honor, Oppo, or Xiaomi, it will likely be in line for between five and six years of updates from its launch date. Older and lower-end models tend to be in the two-to-three-year range.

Apple iPhones

Apple never used to commit to a specific support window for its phones, but that changed in 2024, when new UK regulations required brands to outline a minimum support window. As a result, Apple now promises a minimum of five years — but this only applies to security updates, not the kinds of iOS updates that add new software features. And five years is a minimum, with Apple often going beyond that number anyway.

All of which is to say we can’t be certain when iPhones will get their final update, but typically, they’re supported for between five and seven years.

So, the list below is our best guess for how many years of updates each currently supported iPhone model has left.

• iPhone 17 series — 4-6 years (last update in 2030, 2031, or 2032)
• iPhone Air — 4-6 years (last update in 2030, 2031, or 2032)
• iPhone 16 series — 3-5 years (last update in 2029, 2030 or 2031)
• iPhone 15 series — 2-4 years (last update in 2028, 2029, or 2030)
• iPhone 14 series — 1-3 years (last update in 2027, 2028, or 2029)
• iPhone SE (2022) — 1-3 years (last update in 2027, 2028, or 2029)
• iPhone 13 series — 0-2 years (last update in 2026, 2027, or 2028)
• iPhone 12 series — 0-2 years (last update in 2026, 2027, or 2028)
• iPhone 11 series — final update will probably be this year with iOS 27
• iPhone SE (2020) — final update will probably be this year with iOS 27

Samsung Galaxy phones

Samsung offers as much as seven years of support for some of its recent phones, but older and lower-end handsets get fewer updates, so how long your phone will be updated for can be quite variable depending on the model.

• Samsung Galaxy S26 series — 7 years (last update in 2033)
• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 — 6 years (last update in 2032)
• Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 — 6 years (last update in 2032)
• Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold — 6 years (last update in 2032)
• Samsung Galaxy S25 series — 6 years (last update in 2032)
• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 — 5 years (last update in 2031)
• Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 — 5 years (last update in 2031)
• Samsung Galaxy S24 series — 5 years (last update in 2031)
• Samsung Galaxy A57 — 6 years (last update in 2032)
• Samsung Galaxy A56 — 5 years (last update in 2031)
• Samsung Galaxy A36 — 5 years (last update in 2031)
• Samsung Galaxy A26 — 5 years (last update in 2031)
• Samsung Galaxy A17 — 5 years (last update in 2031)
• Samsung Galaxy A17 — 4 years (last update in 2030)
• Samsung Galaxy A55 — 1 year (last update in 2027, security patches until 2029)
• Samsung Galaxy A35 — 1 year (last update in 2027, security patches until 2029)
• Samsung Galaxy M35 — 1 year (last update in 2027, security patches until 2029)
• Samsung Galaxy A25 — 1 year (last update in 2027, security patches until 2028)
• Samsung Galaxy A54 — final Android update this year (2026), final security patch in 2028
• Samsung Galaxy A34 — final Android update this year (2026), final security patch in 2028
• Samsung Galaxy S23 series — final Android update this year (2026), final security patch in 2028
• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 — final Android update this year (2026), final security patch in 2028
• Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 — final Android update this year (2026), final security patch in 2028
• Samsung Galaxy M54 — final Android update this year (2026), final security patch in 2028

Google Pixel phones

Google has committed to supporting all handsets from the Pixel 8 onwards for seven years, while phones from the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 lines get five years of support.

Note that, as a-series models launch later than their mainline siblings, they technically get supported for longer. But depending on when major new Android versions launch, they may not get additional significant updates.

• Google Pixel 10a — 7 years (last update in early 2033)
• Google Pixel 10 series (excluding 10a) — 6 years (last update in late 2032)
• Google Pixel 9a — 6 years (last update in early 2032)
• Google Pixel 9 series (excluding 9a) — 5 years (last update in late 2031)
• Google Pixel 8a — 5 years (last update in early 2031)
• Google Pixel 8 series (excluding 8a) — 4 years (last update in late 2030)
• Google Pixel Fold — 2 years (last update in mid-2028)
• Google Pixel 7a — 2 years (last update in mid-2028)
• Google Pixel 7 series (excluding 7a) — 1 year (last update in late 2027)
• Google Pixel 6a — 1 year (last update in mid-2027)
• Google Pixel 6 series (excluding 6a) — final update this year (2026)

Motorola phones

Motorola’s update commitments feel quite messy and inconsistent, with some phones getting more or fewer updates than you might expect, but you’ll find an overview of the currently supported handsets below.

• Motorola Signature — 7 years (last update in early 2033)
• Motorola Edge 70 series — 3 years (last update in 2029, security patches until 2031)
• Motorola Edge 60 Neo — 3 years (last update in 2029, security patches until 2031)
• Motorola Edge 50 Neo — 3 years (last update in 2029)
• Motorola Razr 70 / Razr 2026 series — 2 years (last update in 2028, security patches until 2030)
• Motorola Edge 60 series (excluding Neo) — 2 years (last update in 2028, security patches until 2029)
• Moto G75 — 2 years (last update in 2028, security patches until 2030)
• Motorola Razr 60 / Razr 2025 series — 1 year (last update in 2027, security patches until 2029)
• Motorola Edge 50 Pro — final Android update this year (2026), final security patch in 2028
• Motorola Edge 50 Fusion — final Android update this year (2026), final security patch in 2028
• Motorola Edge 50 Ultra — final Android update this year (2026), final security patch in 2028
• Motorola Razr 50 / Razr 2024 series — final Android update this year (2026), final security patch in 2028
• Moto G86 — final Android update this year (2026), final security patch in 2029
• Moto G56 — final Android update this year (2026), final security patch in 2029

Full disclosure: I am writing this before Amazon Prime Day. If the iPhone Air is not currently on sale in your region, then you should only pay its $999 / £999 / AU$1,799 asking price if a) you have a bottomless supply of cash or b) you simply must own Apple’s most beautiful iPhone (and make no mistake: the iPhone Air is Apple’s most beautiful iPhone).

But I will eat my hat if there aren't any meaningful deals on the iPhone Air by the time you read this. It's already been discounted by as much as 30% in both the UK and Australia this year, and as such, I have a hunch that Amazon will run similar deals during its annual Prime Day sale (if you’re in the US, look out for carrier-based offers on Apple’s best iPhones).

• Browse the full Amazon Prime Day sale

If you can snag the iPhone Air for around 20% less than its retail price this week, I’m utterly convinced that it’s the best-value phone purchase you could make right now — for two reasons.

Firstly, you will not find a nicer-looking — and nicer-feeling — phone than the iPhone Air without spending silly money on one of the best foldable phones. The Air measures just 5.64mm at its thinnest point and is some 41g lighter than the iPhone 17 Pro, despite boasting a larger 6.5-inch display.

You might not think you care about having a thin and light phone — I also didn’t to begin with — but trust me: once you start using a device of such svelte proportions, you won’t want to go back to a regular-sized phone.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a recent picture of me with a group of tech content creators showing off our current phones of choice:

All four of us test the best phones for a living, and all four of us settled on Apple's super slim iPhone as our personal handset of choice.

The second reason why a discounted iPhone Air is the best-value phone purchase you can make right now is less obvious. Not only is this Apple’s most beautiful iPhone, but it’s also its most powerful: like the iPhone 17 Pro, the Air boasts an A19 Pro chipset and 12GB of RAM.

Now, I don’t usually highlight chipsets as a reason to buy phones — the iPhone 17e’s A19 chipset, for instance, is plenty fast enough for most people — but the iPhone Air's A19 Pro chipset and 12GB of RAM combination has suddenly become more significant than most people realize.

Here's an extract from a recent article in which I explain why the iPhone Air is future-proofed in a way that only the iPhone 17 Pro can match:

At WWDC 2026, Apple announced its all-singing, all-dancing Siri AI assistant, which will soon be available on all Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhones (read: the iPhone 15 Pro and upwards) as part of iOS 27. But only three iPhones will get the very best version of Siri AI — and the iPhone Air is among that number.

Specifically, only the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air will get Siri voice customization and more advanced systemwide dictation, because only these phones run on Apple’s AFM Core Advanced model and 12GB of RAM.

Admittedly, these two features aren’t reason enough to buy a top-end iPhone — the former gives you the ability to customize the expressiveness and pace of Siri’s voice, while the latter makes Siri more effective at converting speech into accurate text — but I would bet my (non-existent) house that Apple locks several additional, more significant features behind this AFM Core Advanced paywall in future versions of iOS.

In other words, like the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, the iPhone Air will soon support more software features than any other iPhone — and the gap between model capabilities will only grow wider as more hardware-exclusive features are announced.

I genuinely believe this under-the-radar feature makes the iPhone Air almost worth its regular $999 / £999 / AU$1,799 asking price, but if you can pick it up for significantly cheaper than that during Prime Day, it’s a bona fide bargain.

Online safety — and in particular, the online safety of children — has emerged as a hot topic of debate in recent months.

The UK is following Australia’s lead in banning social media for under-16s, while Big Tech companies including Apple and Google have committed to giving parents more safety tools to better protect their children from smartphone-related harm.

Apple, for its part, dedicated a sizeable portion of its WWDC 2026 presentation to the new Child Account features it’s introducing in iOS 27, but are these changes — which include more granular parental control and app-specific screen time limits — enough to satisfy increasingly safety-concerned governments? The answer, at least for now, appears to be ‘no’.

On the same day as Apple’s WWDC 2026 keynote, the UK government gave major tech firms a three-month ultimatum to “implement technical solutions on smartphones and tablets to detect and block nude images for children,” lest they face fines and legislative action forcing them to do so.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer referenced Apple and Google by name as the biggest bearers of responsibility on this “horrific issue”, adding that “nothing is off the table” in terms of sanctions: “As a last resort, we are exploring criminal liability for tech bosses who fail to comply.” Yikes.

Starmer also cited British AI company SafeToNet — whose HarmBlock software blocks all nude content on supported smartphones at the operating system (OS) level — as proof that the government’s demands are possible to implement at a technological level.

TechRadar spoke exclusively to Richard Pursey, founder and CEO of SafeToNet, to understand where Big Tech companies like Apple are still falling short when it comes to child safety — and how they can address the vulnerabilities in their respective approaches to this complex issue.

The questions in this interview have been edited for clarity.

TechRadar (TR): Apple dedicated a sizeable portion of its WWDC 2026 keynote to demonstrating its new child safety features. Does this suggest Big Tech companies are waking up to the dangers of smartphone use among children?

Richard Pursey (RP): All advancements from Big Tech in online child safety are welcome. At SafeToNet, we've never believed in one silver bullet, because protecting children online requires a collaborative approach where the online safety ecosystem must work together. This includes legislators, big tech, and cyber safety specialists like SafeToNet.

What Apple announced at WWDC 2026 was genuine progress: mandatory child accounts, parental approval before new app downloads or website [visits], and an expansion of its Communication Safety detection to cover violent and graphic content alongside nudity. All of that matters, and parents should switch it on.

But the protection still lives where Apple chooses to build it — inside its own apps, like iMessage and FaceTime — and depends on individual app developers like Meta, TikTok, etc. choosing to build similar protections into theirs. And there’s the rub. The tech platforms have been given years to sort this issue out, and they’ve failed. I don’t see why they will start now. As welcome as Apple’s announcements are, they don’t get to where the harm is happening — on platforms where users can see, film and share harmful content.

Ann Thai, Apple’s Senior Director of Marketplace Platforms and Technologies, said at WWDC 2026, “It’s developers who play an important role in assuring kids get age-appropriate experiences in apps”. She further continues, “…we believe every app has the same responsibility.” And [she] cited Apple’s resources to help developers build this functionality into their apps. The reliance on every app platform, every messaging app, every chat room, [and] every gaming platform to build solutions themselves is a huge risk to every child's safety. We can’t afford to leave any gaps, as we all know that the bad actors will find them and exploit them.

That's precisely the gap that the UK government called out on June 8, giving every device manufacturer three months to define how they will close it.

It's also the gap HarmBlock was built to close: one safeguarding layer that runs across the entire device. One that is application agnostic and which even works on E2EE environments. HarmBlock is designed to prevent the seeing, filming, and sharing of sexual content across the entire device, including livestream and the camera. The government further stated that all of this must be delivered without threatening users’ privacy, which is where HarmBlock is so powerful. It runs on the device, in real-time, without collecting or transmitting any user data.

TR: Is it too late — or even possible — for Big Tech companies to implement these changes?

RP: It's not too late, but we can’t be timid in our approach. The UK Government has been bold, and it must not soften or concede. HarmBlock is absolute proof that it is possible to make every smartphone and tablet (laptops too — even though they are out of the initial UK Government scope) safe out of the box.

Technology like ours is tamper-proof; it cannot be deleted or circumvented. This must become the standard. We used to drive cars without seat belts. Nobody in their right mind would do that now. So, we need to push ahead with confidence and make every device in the hands of a child safe to use. We can do that, and we can do it now.

TR: Apple's Communication Safety feature uses on-device AI to determine if a photo or video appears to contain nudity and blocks that content accordingly. As you noted, Apple announced that it's expanding this functionality to include gore and violent content. Could you clarify how HarmBlock still differs from Apple's approach?

RP: HarmBlock is universal. It runs across every device and across the entirety of that device. It isn’t selective like Apple. It is agnostic and protects across the entire ecosystem — not just the apps a manufacturer happens to control. HarmBlock stops problems like sextortion in its tracks because it works in the camera of any application — not just the Apple native camera. I don’t know of a single parent who doesn’t want that.

TR: Regarding the UK government’s new demands surrounding the detection of sexually explicit images, how does Apple’s current approach fall short of those demands?

RP: There's still a clear gap. Apple has confirmed it can block explicit content within its own messaging ecosystem, but it puts the responsibility on every other app to build that same protection into its own environment, and there's currently no way for a parent to check whether any given app has actually done that. The camera also remains unprotected, meaning content can be created.

With a HarmBlock-enabled device, you don't have to check. It just works the moment the device is switched on. You'll see our sapling symbol in the status bar, and that's confirmation that nude-based protection is active across the entire device, not buried somewhere inside one app's settings. Children cannot circumvent or disable it. Parents shouldn't have to dig through every app their child has installed just to know their child is safe. SafeToNet makes the entire device safe out of the box. No onboarding, no confusing user flows. It just works.

TR: Are there plans to make HarmBlock AI available on additional devices, beyond the HMD Fuse?

RP: Yes, and that is happening as we speak. More OEMs are turning to SafeToNet, including chipset manufacturers, and we plan to make some major announcements in that area very soon.

We believe we are setting the gold standard for on-device safety. If it isn’t HarmBlock-enabled, then it isn’t safe. We are being chosen due to the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of our software, and, crucially, because we are independent. We are specialists in this area and have been safeguarding children for over 14 years. This is our area of expertise

HarmBlock detects harm faster than the blink of an eye, which is how it works in livestream. Manufacturers like that we don’t intrude on the user’s experience of their device or their apps. We are chosen because we balance safety with privacy. We don’t know of anyone else who does that.

If SafeToNet is in talks with chipset manufacturers, it figures that HarmBlock will become a key selling point of more phones soon — and hopefully on models available outside the UK, too.

Might the company also be in direct communication with Big Tech firms like Apple and Google over the issue of child safety? “I can't deny or confirm,” SafeToNet’s Co-Founder, Sharon Pursey, told TechRadar for a separate article, which suggests Richard's vision for a true a “collaborative approach” might soon be realized.

In any case, if you’re mulling over which smartphone to buy your child right now, we recently researched the best phones for kids so you don’t have to. Our comprehensive guide explains the difference between smartphones, dumbphones, and hybrid devices, and features recommendations for different parental needs.

We've reached out to Apple for its response to the UK government's demands and will update this article if we hear back.

• 2027 could be Apple's "biggest product year" ever
• This is according to Apple watcher Mark Gurman
• Potential new devices include the iPhone 20 Pro series, the iPhone Ultra 2, the iPhone Air 2, Apple glasses, and more

2026 is set to be a big year for Apple, especially as we’re likely to see the company’s first foldable phone in the form of the iPhone Ultra. But next year could be even bigger; in fact, it could be Apple’s “biggest product year” ever.

That’s according to reputable Apple tipster Mark Gurman, speaking to TBPN (via 9to5Mac), and he went on to mention much of what’s (probably) coming in 2027.

We’ve listed those rumored devices and other possibilities below, which, combined, certainly could make for a massive year.

1. iPhone 18

The iPhone 18 could be one of the first devices we see from Apple next year; it's rumored to be getting a launch in or around March. That would be a break from tradition for Apple, as previously, mainline iPhones have landed in September, but this year, we might just see the iPhone 18 Pro series and the iPhone Ultra in September.

In any case, the iPhone 18 will likely have a new A20 chipset, with leaks suggesting it might be boosted to 12GB of RAM to help with AI.

It could also have a new 24MP front-facing camera and a smaller Dynamic Island than the iPhone 17, but it might also have a simplified Camera Control, which could lack a capacitive sensor. That might help keep costs down.

2. iPhone 18e

The iPhone 18e will probably land alongside the iPhone 18 and is likely to be next year's cheapest iPhone model.

This device could have a smaller display than the iPhone 18 and just 8GB of RAM from what we’ve heard so far, but it might still have an A20 chipset, which could be the main upgrade over its predecessor.

3. iPhone Air 2

Now we’re getting to one of the more exciting 2027 devices, as Apple is also reportedly going to launch a successor to the iPhone Air next year. This might also land in March, and reports suggest it could have a second rear camera and better battery life — fixing two of the biggest issues with the original.

4. iPhone 20 Pro series

The iPhone 20 Pro and iPhone 20 Pro Max will also probably land next year. That’s right, 20, not 19, with Apple reportedly skipping 19 so the naming of the new models lines up with the iPhone’s 20th anniversary.

And it’s not just the name that’s getting special attention — these could be Apple’s most exciting phones in years; they're rumored to have a new design, potentially with solid-state buttons and a quad-curved screen.

It’s also possible that the iPhone 20 Pro will have an all-glass design, and it could have an under-display selfie camera (though that feature might be ready in time for the iPhone 18 Pro).

Whatever the case, the gist from rumors is that Apple plans to go all out with the iPhone 20 Pro series, so it should be worth the wait — although these phones probably won’t land until September 2027.

5. iPhone Ultra 2

The iPhone Ultra 2 could also land in September 2027, but it’s hard to know what, exactly, to expect from this device, considering the first model hasn’t even launched yet.

However, this foldable phone is likely to be more powerful than the original iPhone Ultra, and Apple may well make other upgrades too, like improving the cameras or making it slimmer.

6. AirPods with cameras

As well as phones, Apple will also surely release other products next year, including, perhaps, AirPods with cameras, which are rumored for late 2027.

These would reportedly work similarly to smart glasses, with the cameras allowing Siri to see what you do, so you can get information about whatever you’re looking at.

7. Apple glasses

We might also see smart glasses from Apple next year, with these likely being similar to current smart glasses from other brands.

That means cameras in the frames for taking photos and videos, being able to speak to Siri to get information about what you’re looking at, and being able to listen to music and podcasts through the glasses, as well as probably being able to take phone calls through a linked iPhone.

Gurman reckons these are another product that we’ll see in late 2027, so there’s probably a little while to wait yet.

8. Other possibilities

Gurman specifically mentioned all the products above, but we’re likely to see other devices next year too, including new Apple Watches, new iPads, new Macs, and even a smart display with a swiveling robotic arm.

So, even if most (and not all) of these things arrive, 2027 could well be Apple’s biggest product year yet.

I’m sorry to keep banging on about the iPhone Air, but WWDC 2026 provided an unexpected boost to the appeal of Apple’s super slim iPhone.

Now, irrespective of what I’m about to explain, $999 / £999 / AU$1,799 is still a lot of money to spend on a device that has only one camera and so-so battery life. But the iPhone Air’s combination of an A19 Pro chipset and 12GB of RAM has suddenly become more significant than most people realize.

You see, at WWDC 2026, Apple announced its all-singing, all-dancing Siri AI assistant, which will soon be available on all Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhones as part of iOS 27. But only three iPhones will get the very best version of Siri AI — and the iPhone Air is among that number.

Specifically, only the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air will get Siri voice customization and more advanced systemwide dictation, because only these phones run on Apple’s AFM Core Advanced model and 12GB of RAM.

Admittedly, these two features alone aren’t reason enough to buy a top-end iPhone — the former gives you the ability to customize the expressiveness and pace of Siri’s voice, while the latter makes Siri more effective at converting speech into accurate text — but I would bet my (non-existent) house that Apple locks several additional, more significant features behind this AFM Core Advanced paywall in future versions of iOS.

Indeed, we’ve already seen this segmentation start to happen with the move from Apple Intelligence in its original form to Apple Intelligence as it exists in iOS 27. Anyone who bought an iPhone “built for Apple Intelligence” can access all of the AI features revealed at the software’s announcement in 2024 — Apple has covered its back, legally speaking — but the iOS 27 version of Apple Intelligence (let’s call it Apple Intelligence 2.0) contains a handful of features that only iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air users can access.

At the moment, these features are limited to those two relatively minor tools mentioned above — but who’s to say what hardware-specific features Apple will introduce with Apple Intelligence 3.0 and iOS 28? I noted as much in a separate feature explaining the significance of Apple’s AFM Core Advanced model:

In classic marketing fashion, Apple’s small print on the matter leaves the door ajar for more features to be made exclusive to the AFM Core Advanced model: “Apple’s most powerful on-device model and the features it enables, like expressive voices and more advanced dictation, are available on…,” reads the company’s Siri AI press release. ‘Like’ is the operative word there — more hardware-exclusive features are surely coming down the line, ones which require more compute power than Apple’s base AFM Core model can provide.

In other words, like the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, the iPhone Air will soon support more software features than any other iPhone — and the gap between model capabilities will only grow wider as more hardware-exclusive features are announced.

Maybe, for you, the promise of upcoming features still isn’t enough to justify the Air’s sizable price tag and lack of hardware in other areas — but finally, Apple's super slim iPhone boasts more than just looks.

• The iPhone Air 2 will reportedly have a second rear camera and better battery life
• This latest report echoes previous ones in saying that it will launch in 'spring' 2027
• Apple fans broadly seem keen on a device that has these upgrades, but also point to the single speaker and lack of a telephoto camera as issues

The iPhone Air is one of the more interesting devices Apple has launched in recent years, but it’s also one of the more compromised, with its slim design leaving little room for some other components. Somehow, though, it seems Apple might have found the space for them in the iPhone Air 2.

According to Apple tipster Mark Gurman, writing for Bloomberg (via 9to5Mac), the iPhone Air 2 will have a second camera on the back, fixing arguably the biggest flaw of its predecessor, which has just a single lens. This second camera is said to be an ultra-wide one, and the phone will also apparently have improved battery life, fixing another flaw with the original. Though Gurman adds that “it’s unclear if that will come from a larger battery, which may be impractical in the Air’s compact chassis, or efficiency gains.”

If Apple really does address these two issues, then the iPhone Air 2 could be a much bigger hit than its predecessor, and reactions to this news are largely positive, with a 9to5Mac commenter saying “instant purchase”, while over on Reddit, there are replies like “day 1 buy for me”, and “what I do miss is the ultra-wide lens. Add that, and we’re golden.”

These aren't the only issues

That said, some Redditors have pointed out other issues with the original iPhone Air that they want to see addressed instead of — or as well as — those upgrades listed above. Chief among these qualms is the Air's single speaker, but a significant number of replies are also asking for a telephoto camera instead of an ultra-wide.

It's possible that Apple is opting to add an ultra-wide lens to the iPhone Air 2 instead of a telephoto lens for reasons of physical ease, but it's more likely an intentional decision to maintain differentiation between the Air and Pro lines.

So, even if this report is accurate, the iPhone Air 2 might not please everyone. But then there are limits to what you can fit in a thin chassis — those who want dual speakers, a telephoto camera, and a big battery might have to sacrifice some slimness and buy the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro Max instead.

If you do like the sound of this rumored iPhone Air 2, though, you’ll probably have to wait until next year for it, with this report also reiterating previous claims that it will launch in the “spring” — so likely between March and May.

Which is your most wished-for iPhone Air 2 upgrade? Let us know in the poll below.

You probably know how much mobile data you pay for every month, but do you know how much you actually use? I suppose, in this day and age, that’s like asking if you know how many liters of water you drink every month (“No, but I know it’s a lot”).

Mobile data usage has skyrocketed in recent years due to a variety of factors (not least the advent of autoplay features in social media apps such as TikTok). Analysis from Ericsson suggests the amount of data transferred over cellular data networks has increased more than sevenfold since 2020, with the monthly average now standing at 25GB per device in both the US and Western Europe.

But while it’s true that most of us are using more mobile data than ever, these numbers don’t quite paint the full picture — they embolden mobile operators to sell oversized data plans, and, in all likelihood, you’re paying for more data than you actually need.

That 25GB figure is skewed by smartphone users who rarely, if ever, touch Wi-Fi. We all stream HD video over 5G and occasionally set up mobile hotspots for our laptops, but some people do these things near-constantly (yes, really), using upwards of 100GB per month and disproportionately affecting the monthly average.

By contrast, Ofcom’s Communications Market Report 2025 suggests the average person in the UK uses 10.6GB of data per month, while Statista puts the equivalent US figure at between 5 and 15GB, which aligns with Ofcom’s findings. All three numbers are significantly lower than the 25GB figure quoted by Ericsson, suggesting they account for those disproportionately high usage cases (there are, of course, disproportionately low usage cases to consider too).

Unlimited mobile data plans are a popular choice among users who don’t want to be charged per gigabyte or exceed a monthly limit, but as above, these plans are rarely better options — financially speaking — than the cheaper, fixed-capacity data plans they sit above.

“Mobile operators and MVNOs [Mobile Virtual Network Operators] face higher network costs as data usage increases, which is why plans with larger allowances typically cost more,” Christian Banhans, UK Managing Director at mobile operator spusu, exclusively tells TechRadar. “However, many customers only use a fraction of their monthly data, meaning they may be paying for more than they actually need.”

“The main reason customers use less data than their allowance is psychological, as they want to avoid running out, so they often choose plans with more data than they need,” Banhans continues. “Providers also face fixed costs for each plan, alongside the costs of (often unlimited) minutes and texts. In our experience, the difference in underlying costs is relatively small compared with the pricing difference between plans.”

“Larger plans often have a lower cost per gigabyte, making them appear better value even when much of the data goes unused. This is where the gap between what customers pay for and what they use tends to be greatest.”

How to check your data usage

Banhans notes that there are several ways consumers can avoid paying for more data than they need. “The first is to sync your phone’s internal data counter to the billing cycle and track how much data you need per month, or download a standalone application to do that.”

To check your data usage on your iPhone, go to Settings, Cellular (or Mobile Service), then scroll down to the Mobile Data menu. The Current Period displayed here reflects your data usage since the last time your Mobile Data Usage Statistics were reset, which will probably be some time ago. To align that figure with your specific monthly billing cycle, you’ll want to scroll down to the bottom of the page and tap Reset Statistics on the same day each month that your billing cycle resets. You can set up a recurring Reminder to help you remember to do this.

A more straightforward solution, though, is to track your data usage through your network provider's official app — which will already be aligned with your monthly billing cycle — or use a third-party data tracking app like My Data Manager and Data Remaining.

On Samsung phones, the process is simpler. If you go to Settings, Connections, then Data Usage, you’ll see your data usage displayed in a monthly format by default. To manually align the dates to your monthly billing cycle, tap Billing cycle and data warning, then Start billing cycle on.

To see your monthly data usage on Pixel phones, go to Settings, Network & internet, then SIMs. You can choose which date you’d like your data usage stats to be reset under App data usage cycle. The process is similar for most other Android phones.

How to choose the right data plan

If, using the above methods, you find that you’re paying for more data than you actually use, you’ll want to choose a data plan that better fits your needs.

I suggest choosing a data allowance that sits a gigabyte or two above your monthly average, unless the provider in question makes it easy (and affordable) to add more data to the plan as and when needed. “It’s also important to account for occasional high-usage months, as well as factors such as Wi-Fi access and travel habits, when choosing the right allowance,” Banhans adds.

Some network providers allow you to ‘rollover’ unused data so it can be used in another month, but this shouldn’t be seen as a reason to choose a data allowance that far exceeds your real-world monthly average: “While rollover data is often presented as a solution to unused data allowances, the extra data frequently goes unused and eventually expires unless a customer’s usage varies significantly from month to month.”

In some cases, unused rollover data can be converted into money off new plans or device contracts, but these savings are often laughably small compared to the money you’ll have overspent on accruing that rollover data in the first place.

So, in summary, while unlimited and large-capacity data plans are attractive options for many people, network providers rely on consumer ignorance to sell these often excessive packages. If you put in the small amount of work required to determine your actual monthly data usage — using the methods outlined in this article — you could save hundreds over the course of a year.

• PopSockets unveils its thinnest iPhone MagSafe grip yet
• It's 2.6mm thick
• Comes in 12 colors and is available exclusively at the Apple Store — for now

Every gadget has an origin story, but PopSocket's Low-Pro iPhone grip might be special. Unveiled today in the Apple store, it's an idea as old as the PopSockets brand, but one that waited almost a decade, until the original grip had become a smartphone industry icon, adorning the backs of hundreds of millions of phones.

PopSockets makes a wide range of grip styles, and some, like the Kick-Out & Grip, are pretty low profile, but nothing is quite like the 2.6 mm-thick Low-Pro, which PopSockets ' VP of Marketing Lisa Li calls "a labor of love."

The idea for the Low Pro traces back to the first few months of PopSockets when Founder and CEO David Barnett was already percolating ideas for an ultra-thin grip. But to understand that notion, you need to know why and how Barnett developed the PopSocket grip in the first place.

Blame it on the wired headphones

A former University of Colorado Philosophy professor, Barnett had headphones he frequently used with his iPhone, which got tangled in his pocket. As a solution, he purchased a pair of large coat buttons and glued them to the back of his iPhone 3G (I saw it, it's real). Then he wrapped the headphone cord around them.

Problem solved. That spark of ingenuity ignited a little flame of innovation: Barnett realized he could do more with his phone cable holder and envisioned an attachable and collapsible pair of grips. He even taught himself CAD and created a 3D print of a 2.1mm-thick disk. The print was a bit of a failure in that it didn't expand and was basically a stiff disc he now sometimes carried with him.

Even as Barnett started to hand out early grip prototypes to his students and they started using them as grips, Barnett couldn't shake the notion that it could be thinner. He told a friend about his idea:

"He was visibly upset, and he scolded me. I still remember that he was basically yelling at me in this coffee shop. He said, ' You would be a complete idiot to turn your attention and start developing a new product when you're sitting on something that could be a big hit here.'"

Barnet took his advice to heart, shelved the ultra-thin idea, and grew the PopSockets into a popular brand and, for some, an indispensable smartphone accessory.

Those darn skinny jeans

He also never let go of the idea, and as he talked to customers over the years, he noticed an odd trend with potential male users who said that while the product looked cool, they wouldn't use it because it would get stuck in their pockets.

"That's funny...what are they talking about? I slip it into my pocket. I just put my hand over it like this [and] I slip it into my pocket," said Barnett, who added that he'd never gotten one of his PopSocket grips stuck in his pockets.

Still, Barnett and company soon realized that there might be a market opportunity if they returned to that ultra-thin idea, a grip so low profile that it barely has any edges — and would never get stuck in a pocket.

Getting there, though, would not be easy. Stripping a few millimeters off their current thinnest design, arguably the PopSockets Kick-Out & Grip stand (6mm), would require re-engineering an OG component: the two-step expansion accordion section between the base on the button: it's the place where you slide your fingers to grip the...er...grip.

The result is a PopSocket grip that feels unlike any that's come before it. Instead of a satisfying two-step pop-up to snap into place, the Low-Pro grip has one action, and when it's open, the button sort of hovers or wiggles atop what honestly looks like a very flimsy rubber platform. It isn't even a single piece of material that's attached to the thin base that sits inside an equally thin steel ring. Like PopSocket grips before it, the ring and base are attached by a hinge. Instead of the button swinging out as a kickstand, the metal ring does that work, opening to virtually any degree.

Barnett assured me, by the way, that the $39.99 PopSocket Low-Pro is stronger than it looks.

To conduct a tensile test, the PopSockets team glued the base to a phone and then pulled on the button. It held up to 30-lbs pressure. In the real world, the magnet would give way off a MagSafe iPhone back before the Low-Pro tore in half.

They also opened and closed the Low-Pro 100,000 times without issue.

The new grip is so thin that MagSafe charges can still work through it, though charging speeds may be diminished. The magnetized face is strong enough to hold tight onto other magnetic surfaces, which means you could mount your iPhone on a metal cabinet or your metal fridge.

All about the iPhone — for now

Unlike the classic PopSockets, which are platform-agnostic and used to attach to phones and phone cases with a sticky base, the Low-Pro is designed for MagSafe and, therefore, the iPhone. In fact, the PopSockets Low-Pro grip launches exclusively on the Apple Store today with six colors, arrives in Best Buy and Target on July 12, and at all other retailers on July 29. By then, it should be available in 12 colors.

It's a relatively big swing for PopSockets to take a familiar and loved design and basically toss it out (at least for the Low-Pro) to bring in new customers who demand thinness at all costs, but Barnett has faced tough critics before, and it seems he's eventually won them over.

When Barnett shared the prototype for his very first grip with his wife, she told him, "It was the stupidest thing she'd ever seen, and that nobody was going to ever buy one," he recalled.

A decade later, he gave her a preview of the Low-Pro. "Her reaction," Barnett said, "was that it's the best invention since the credit card. She said everyone's going to buy this thing."

• Apple has explained why Siri's AI overhaul has taken so long
• Initially, the company built an "iterative" version on top of the existing Siri, but this didn't deliver on Apple's vision
• So instead Siri was then rebuilt from the ground up

Siri’s AI overhaul is finally set to arrive later this year, long after it was initially promised — but Apple has now shed some light on what, exactly, took so long.

In a post-WWDC talk attended by 9to5Mac and TechRadar, Mike Rockwell — the Apple executive who took leadership of the Siri team last year — explained that, back in 2025, the company managed to build a working version of Siri AI “that was sort of incremental on top of the original Siri” but that “we didn’t feel it was really delivering on the vision and the experience that we wanted to do.”

As a result, the team then “rebuilt Siri from the ground up, literally, tore it to the ground,” with the end result being “a profoundly more capable Siri.”

A necessary shift in strategy

So, in other words, it sounds like Apple pivoted away from an initial plan of adding to the existing Siri after realizing this wouldn’t cut it with expectant fans, and then started work on the lengthy job of completely rebuilding its digital assistant.

Whether this is a satisfying explanation is debatable — it could be argued that a company with as much talent and experience as Apple should have already known what would be necessary to build a true AI assistant, especially when there were plenty of rival models the company could look to for inspiration.

But it does at least go some way to explaining why this whole endeavor has taken quite so long. And while Apple’s initial goal of delivering an incremental upgrade might have been shortsighted, the ultimate decision to abandon that and rebuild Siri from the ground up was probably the right one, given how impressive the competition is in this space.

• Siri's AI overhaul is currently free, but a reputable source predicts that Apple will add a subscription eventually
• This will probably lock off advanced features like conversational responses and image generation, while basics remain free
• Before that, Apple will probably want to improve its AI model and convince people that it's worth using

Perhaps one of the biggest surprises of WWDC 2026 was that Apple didn't announce any subscription plans for its long-awaited Siri AI overhaul. Rival services like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude hide their best models and features behind a paywall, but Apple isn't following that trend just yet — however, this generosity might not last forever.

Reputable Apple tipster Mark Gurman has argued in his latest Bloomberg newsletter (via PhoneArena) that a subscription fee probably will be coming to Siri — but not yet, and not for everything.

Gurman predicts that Apple will keep all the previously existing Siri features free, along with its new on-device personal context capabilities for searching through messages and calendar entries, but that he thinks "we'll see a separate subscription at some point" for things like conversational responses and image generation.

A likely future

Sadly, this does seem to be the most likely path for Apple to follow, since these AI features are set to cost the company a lot of money. Apple is paying Google roughly $1 billion a year for access to Gemini technology, and there will be steep additional costs in having hundreds of millions of people running complex tasks on the company’s AI systems too. Apple isn’t in the habit of losing money, and so it figures that the company could look to subscriptions to recoup those additional costs.

And as Gurman points out, there are already signs of that future arriving, as iCloud+ subscribers currently get more daily access to Siri’s most advanced features (specifically, they get a higher daily usage limit).

Whether any future Siri subscription would purely be sold separately or be bundled into certain iCloud+ or Apple One tiers remains to be seen, but some form of paid access appears highly likely.

The bigger question, though, is when Apple might introduce a subscription. Presumably, it hasn’t done so yet because the AI Siri is still in beta, and because early impressions suggest it’s not yet as capable as rival services. Plus, Apple will need to win back users who may have given up on Siri long ago and subscribed to rival services. As Gurman notes, "Apple is still at a place where it needs to prove to consumers that its AI technology is worth using, let alone worth paying for."

So, it will take time for the new Siri to catch up, both in capabilities and popularity. But if and when it does — which Gurman predicts could happen within the next 12 months — there’s a strong chance users will have to start paying to access some of its features.

It's too early to draw firm conclusions about Apple's take on AI in the iOS 27 Dev beta, but I have been busy trying out new features, including the Apple Intelligence image-altering tools in Photos: specifically, Spatial Reframing and Extend.

I've already had some fun with both, and was immediately impressed with their raw power. To generatively alter your images, Apple uses a powerful private-compute cloud-based diffusion model built, in part, with Google. It's unlike any AI Apple has ever presented before, and, as I've written, it opens Apple up to a lot of questions about whether it still prizes image truth over aesthetics.

I'm not here, though, to critique these tools. After all, this is the developer beta, and some tools and features will likely change quite a bit before they arrive fully baked on, we expect, the iPhone 18 in September.

Still, this platform update marks the beginning of Apple's journey as a card-carrying AI citizen, fully capable of standing alongside OpenAI and partner Google. Siri can talk and pay attention, Image Playground can generate images from whole cloth, and Photos can alter and extend photos with a gesture.

Having spent time with Spatial Reframing and Extend, I remain somewhat startled at just how far Apple is taking the AI image-altering strategy. Spatial reframing, for instance, lets you turn photo subjects to see elements the camera never saw or captured.

Seeing beyond the edge

I've had more fun with Extend, though, not necessarily because I plan on filling in the lost information in my photos, but thanks to how Apple's image-generation tools guess at what was never captured in the first place.

The thing about a tool like Extend is that, if you're using your own photos, you already know what was cropped out. Perhaps you chose that framing, but as Apple noted in its keynote, it can be difficult to frame a portrait-mode photo in a landscape frame. Sometimes you need those extra bits.

Apple's approach for the moment appears to be "let guesswork be your guide." It doesn't know what's missing, but Apple Intelligence can use its smarts to read the rest of the image and fill in the blanks.

To see how this early version is doing, I took a bunch of photos of things and places, doing both a tight and a wide shot. In other words, I shot what was really there, and then cropped in to see just a smaller section. The goal: how close could Photo's Extend tool come to filling in the blanks?

Considering what it had to work with, Photo Extend did a pretty good job, though a couple of the results were unintentionally comical.

One other thing I learned is that the Extend tool in the current version of iOS 27 Dev Beta will not extend, for instance, body parts. I took a photo of my hand, cropping out a few fingers, but no matter what I did, the app wouldn't extend the frame to fill in the rest of my hand. This is actually good news; I had worries about ending up with six fingers.

I'm also learning that Extend likes order. It seems almost allergic to clutter, so whatever it does generate is usually clean, orderly, and has as few elements as possible.

Below are some examples of real wide shots alongside the more tightly framed ones, where I let Apple Intelligence Extend do its thing. If you hadn't seen the originals, you might never know that significant portions of the images were generated by AI.

For the majority of these images, I took one photo for which I stepped back enough to capture more of the scene, then I took a second, tighter photo. I applied Extend to the latter image, and then compared Apple Intelligence's guesswork to reality. You can see the original, unextended photo in the center.

Extending the frame and stretching reality

This is the only image where I took just one photo and extended it with Apple Intelligence's latest Photo tools. This is a dev beta, so I won't offer much criticism, but some might take issue with the Empire State Building redesign.

The home office

On the left, you can see my home office as it is. The orchid is a plant I've nurtured for years (I even fully replanted it almost 18 months ago). Extend's gift is that it tries to leave original reality alone, but the more information you ask it to fill in, the wilder the flights of fancy.

I love, for instance, that my closet now has three doors, and I have been staring at the glass door on the right for hours. What is that? Why did Extend add it? No matter; it's early days, and these generative skills are impressive.

Foliage

I think Extend already has a solid grasp of how plants and trees work, and shows off that knowledge here. The extended tree looks quite realistic. As for the sky, it now has a rather dramatic, almost beatific look. My shed got an odd redesign.

Guitar on the wall

The guitar work shows off a little of Extend's penchant for cleanliness and order. The suggestion of a lampshade is turned into a perfectly round, brightly colored tube, and, based on the two visible supports, it might no longer be a lampshade.

The blinds also got a bit of a cleanup. As for my guitar, it looks essentially the same. In other words, Extend appears to be, even in Dev Beta form, ensuring that the image's original subject remains — even if extended a bit — essentially untouched.

Office shelf

Something as busy as my office shelf can present challenges for any generative system — so many objects, so many options.

I took a picture (at left) of the actual shelf, and you can see the second, tighter photo in the center, and then the extended image on the right.

It makes sense that in the extended photo, Extend chose order over my clutter, but the best part is the transformation of the USS Enterprise into a quasi-jetliner. I think a couple of book titles also got a rewrite.

Backyard furniture

Extend did a nice job of decluttering my backyard space. I noticed that when Extend detects a cube-shaped object (in this case, my fire pit), it will just turn it into a featureless box, instead of trying too hard to guess.

Jetliner

I was impressed with how effectively Extend completed the jetliner. Notice, though, how once again it assumes order where, in truth, there's chaos.

There you have it — some fun, early experiments with Apple Intelligence's newest and most powerful image generation tools. That it does so well at the dev stage is especially encouraging, since Apple still has months to refine it.

Ultimately, I don't think people will push Extend as far as I have. They may only use it to recenter a subject, adding just a few inches to one side or another, or to extend a solid background or even an evening sky, efforts that won't detract from or alter the subject.

How do you think you'll use these new Apple Intelligence Photo tools? Let me know in the comments below.

• More hints around a folding iPhone have appeared
• iOS apps are being updated for a bigger screen size
• Apple is also telling developers to plan for larger displays

Rumors of an 'iPhone Fold' have been swirling for years, but it looks very much like 2026 will be the year when Apple finally launches a foldable phone — and a lot of the most recent hints in this direction are coming from Apple itself.

As spotted by MacRumors, more native iOS apps are being updated to include a landscape mode option, so they'll adjust when you rotate your iPhone (and fit nicely on the large screen of a foldable iPhone when it's opened out too).

The updated apps include Apple Music, Reminders, Weather, Home, Podcasts, Fitness, Health, Shortcuts, Find My, Voice Memos, and the Apple Watch app, so this is clearly a concerted and deliberate effort by Apple developers.

These landscape orientation modes aren't just the standard layout turned on its side, either. There are left-aligned sidebars in many of the apps to make it easier to get around these apps when they're in landscape mode or on a bigger screen.

Developer alert

Landscape modes aren't the only hint we've had about an upcoming iPhone Fold, either. As spotted by Vadim Yuryev, in one of the presentations posted online as part of WWDC 2026, Apple's Cindy Barrett encouraged developers to code for different screen sizes.

"You're designing for a dynamic range of sizes and aspect ratios," Barrett said while showing off some of the changes Apple has made under the hood with iOS 27 — another indication that iPhone apps need to be more flexible now.

So, even while Apple hasn't actually acknowledged that a foldable iPhone is on the way, it looks as though the rumors are true: the device is indeed launching around September time, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro.

And while we've been referring to it as the iPhone Fold here, those in the know are suggesting that it's going to be called the iPhone Ultra, a naming scheme that Apple has used with its products in the past.

WWDC 2026 was all about software, with new versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and more unveiled. But while hardware didn’t take center stage, it was present in the background, with Apple hinting at (and in some cases all-but-confirming) its long-rumored foldable phone, believed to be called the iPhone Ultra.

These clues came in announcements, software changes, and even buried deep in code, and combined, they strongly point to the iPhone Ultra not just being in the works, but probably launching soon.

So, below, we’ve detailed the various WWDC clues that hint at the iPhone Ultra’s existence.

1. Mentions of a foldable phone in iOS 27 beta code

Perhaps the most telling sign of the iPhone Ultra's existence can be found within iOS 27 itself, as code within the first beta found by Sam Henri Gold contains mentions of “foldState” and “angleDegrees.”

Both of these references seem like they’d only be relevant to foldable devices, and since the mentions are in an iOS beta, they evidently concern an iPhone, specifically.

This code also isn’t present in iOS 26, so it’s been newly added, suggesting that checking for fold states will be relevant before the launch of iOS 28. That in turn means we’ll probably see the iPhone Ultra before too long — with most leaks pointing to September.

2. A check for how many screens a device has

The same source has also found a check in the iOS 27 developer beta for how many built-in displays a device has.

Since this is iPhone software and no iPhone currently has more than one screen, this is another obvious hint that a multi-screen device — such as a foldable phone — is on the way.

3. Resizable iPhone Mirroring

At WWDC 2026, Apple debuted the ability to resize the iPhone Mirroring window on Mac, allowing you to make it bigger and more like an iPad display — or more like a large foldable screen.

Now, this could just be about making your iPhone’s display appear bigger and more readable on a large desktop screen, but displaying it in a larger size would also be necessary for the iPhone Ultra, which will probably be able to switch between a phone-sized cover screen and a near tablet-sized foldable display. As such, this feature feels like it’s laying the groundwork for Apple’s foldable phone.

4. Resizable apps and developer encouragement

As well as being able to resize your iPhone screen when mirroring it on a Mac, Apple is also making it easier for developers to resize apps to support a variety of display sizes, which similarly seems to hint that new screen sizes are coming.

And the company is making a real push for developers to embrace this change, encouraging them during WWDC’s Platforms State of the Union to allow their apps to support "a dynamic range of sizes and aspect ratios," rather than designing apps to work just for specific devices or screen sizes.

5. Larger widgets

Finally, iOS 27 is adding larger 4x6 widgets, which can fill up an entire iPhone home screen. While some people will probably find this useful on existing iPhones, these widgets are likely to be more beneficial on the iPhone Ultra, where a widget that size would probably fill just around half of the foldable screen.

So, while not as obvious a hint as some of the above ones, this too feels like a feature that’s been designed with larger — and perhaps foldable — iPhone screens in mind.

iOS 27 and WWDC 2026 are very much the talk of the tech town right now, and I’m sure their implications will continue to be discussed for quite some time (somehow, Apple’s Liquid Glass aesthetic is still a topic of debate 12 months after its announcement).

Apple paid particular attention to child safety at WWDC 2026, announcing new features for Screen Time that aim to give parents more control over their child's iPhone-using habits. However, as a longtime Apple fan, I’m surprised to admit that I’m far more taken with the screen time-reducing approach of Android 17 and Pause Point.

In theory, Screen Time is a good idea. The ability to set timers on apps makes sense, and giving parents more granular control over their child's phone activity feels like a natural extension of that offering, even if existing bugs threaten to unravel Apple's good intentions.

The problem is, adults need their screen time checked too, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve set a time limit for Instagram, continuously ignored it, and then removed the restriction completely. Now, with an iPhone 16 in hand, I have no Screen Time limits set up whatsoever.

For me, Screen Time is just too easy to bypass. The concept works best when you’re setting it up for someone else (like your child), as you hold the keys to unrestricted access, but trying to apply those restrictions to yourself feels moot when you’re in the driver’s seat. Unless you change your behaviour in how you interact with your phone and the apps therein, the cycle is doomed to repeat itself.

I used to get irritated with myself if I wasted a good 30 minutes doomscrolling over nothing, but now that I’m a dad, I’m suddenly aware of the fact that my daughter, being delightfully inquisitive, is now watching my every move. This is a habit that I do not want her to pick up. To that end, I think that Google’s Pause Point, which is set to appear in the next big Android update, can fix my mindset.

Why Pause Point feels so important

For those not in the know, Pause Point takes a different approach to smartphone use, instead acting as a barrier that pops up any time you want to access an app that’s known for being a time sink. When it appears, users are encouraged to take 10 seconds to partake in a breathing exercise and to consider why they feel the need to use the app in the first place.

As someone who took up meditation and mindful breathing during the pandemic via the Calm app, I know firsthand how helpful this practice can be in centring yourself in moments when you’re on autopilot and your instinct is to just open up your phone and scroll aimlessly as a means of passing the time.

If, after the moment of reflection, you recognize that there is a genuine need to open the app in question (maybe you need to respond to a message from a friend), then Pause Point lets you set a quick timer so that you don’t get too sucked in. Much like with Screen Time, I’m less enthusiastic about this particular aspect of Pause Point, but what really gives the feature a leg up is how it steers you to use a more fulfilling app.

In one of the images shared by Google at The Android Show 2026, Pause Point is shown to suggest alternative apps like Play Books and Mellow Mindspace. It’s such a simple concept, but it’s a great reminder of how, under the right circumstances, our smartphones can be conduits to learning and self-improvement.

Apple’s next steps and other mindful tech

Apple is already halfway there in the fight to promote more mindful smartphone use, as it has one of the best reading apps in the game: Apple News.

My subscription to Apple News+ and the ability to get lost in tons of great magazines filled with thought-provoking articles are two of the reasons why I’ve stayed with iPhone for so long, and I utilize a massive Apple News widget on my homescreen to try and catch my attention before social media does.

If Apple could bring about its own version of Pause Point, then, in tandem with the revamped Screen Time app, it could have one of the best systems out there when it comes to promoting healthier habits among its users. I just hope that, unlike the much-rumored iPhone Ultra foldable, this isn’t something we have to wait years for.

As a side note, even with all of these guardrails set up, it’s still worth having periods of separation from your smartphone during the day, and I have a few other devices on my person that help to keep those breaks intact.

My go-to device here is the Kindle Paperwhite, as there really isn’t a better antidote to the digital world than getting lost in a good book. The device’s E Ink display is far easier on the eyes than the blue-light-emitting screens of our phones, tablets and laptops.

On the productivity front, the reMarkable Paper Pro Move is perfect for parsing through ideas or writing out your to-do list without getting distracted by the usual barrage of incoming notifications. This miniature digital notebook also uses an E Ink display, but it brilliantly recreates the feeling of using pen and paper, with the modern convenience of having your doodles saved digitally so that you can access them at any time.

If you want to go one step further, here’s how one member of the TechRadar Pro team managed to construct a virtually ‘distraction-free’ work-from-home setup.

It's been a busy week for Apple fans, keeping track of all the news that came out of WWDC 2026 this year. Although there was a lot of new info on MacOS Golden Gate, iOS 27, new child safety tools, and more, the bulk of Tim Cook's last presentation was devoted to Siri AI.

Apple's first truly smart AI assistant was on full display, using natural language and working across the Apple ecosystem. But users in the EU were shocked when Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, mentioned during the presentation that EU iPhone and iPad users wouldn't get Siri AI, at least for now.

"Siri AI will not be available initially in the EU on iOS and iPad OS. We're working hard to find a path forward to preserve our users' privacy and security."

Federighi's unusually forward statement about regulations for a conference like this, without any indication of when Siri AI would arrive in the EU, sparked a lot of concern. So, what's going on? Read on, and watch our TikTok embedded below to understand exactly what's up regarding the Siri AI delay.

Watch our explainer on the issue here:

What is the Digital Markets Act?

The Digital Markets Act, or DMA, is the piece of EU legislation getting in the way of EU iPhone and iPad users accessing Siri AI in its current form. The DMA, brought into force in May 2023, is an anti-monopoly and pro-interoperability law designed to ensure major tech companies such as Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon, and others don't restrict the growth or usage of other platforms, and allow users more choice when selecting online services and deciding who can access their data.

The DMA says, "A small number of large undertakings providing core platform services have emerged with considerable economic power that could qualify them to be designated as gatekeepers pursuant to this Regulation.

"The combination of those features of gatekeeper is likely to lead, in many cases, to serious imbalances in bargaining power and, consequently, to unfair practices and conditions for business users, as well as for end users of core platform services provided by gatekeepers, to the detriment of prices, quality, fair competition, choice, and innovation in the digital sector."

Essentially, the EU doesn't want companies like Apple or Google to lock users into a solitary ecosystem that only works with proprietary technology, leading to a monopoly.

The problem with Siri AI

In a world in which we grow increasingly distrustful of AI, Apple seems to have designed Siri AI with security and privacy in mind. Siri AI works across Apple's operating systems, using its Private Cloud Compute technology to act as a private 'on-device AI' while retaining the advantages of a cloud-based system. Apple claims that complying with the EU's interoperability laws will result in cracking open access to Private Cloud Compute to third-party AIs, leading to a breakdown of that trust Apple is trying to build.

In a press release, Apple says, "Siri AI is private by design and deeply integrated across Apple’s platforms using on-device processing and Private Cloud Compute, which extends the privacy and security of iPhone into the cloud.

"However, under EU regulators’ extreme interpretation of the DMA, Apple would have to give any virtual assistant direct access to users’ private data — and the ability to directly control other installed applications — as soon as Siri AI is made available in the EU, without the essential protections necessary to keep users and their data safe.

"According to EU regulators, the DMA requires Apple to give any AI system nearly unlimited access to a user’s device, as well as the ability to act on that access autonomously without a user’s ongoing visibility and control. That includes the ability to read and send messages, make purchases, access files, and execute actions across any app."

Strong language there from Apple. The EU wants a level playing field, which means opening up operating system-level access to other AI companies, which Apple is obviously loathe to do. So, who's in the right?

Have your say — who's right?

You can vote in our poll above to have your say, and we'll publish the end results next week, but it's safe to say the debate is already fierce. Our TikTok above has hundreds of comments, and there are strong feelings on both sides of the aisle.

Pro-Apple users are saying that the EU is sacrificing their privacy, and there is already plenty of choice: just don't buy Apple devices if you don't want to use Siri AI.

One user said, "The European Commission is in the wrong here. I get that they want others to have the same access to make it fair, but we’re not talking about giving access to small European businesses, we’re talking about massive American corporations like Meta, Google, Musk’s X, Anthropic, OpenAI, etc."

Another said, "People already have a choice. If you like Apple's ecosystem, you get Apple products. It's that simple. If you want more 'freedom' then you get literally anything else." A third wrote, "I chose Apple because the other players have proven time and again they don’t care about privacy".

However, there were just as many pro-EU comments in the threads as pro-Apple ones. One person wrote, "The only thing Apple should provide is a means to allow another service to access my data, and prohibit the use if no permission is granted. Interoperability."

Another said, "Apple should adjust to laws of the region they are selling to if they want to be relevant there. simple as that." A third wrote, "100% in the EU camp here. I want to be able to choose my AI provider on my iPhone. I don’t want Gemini. I don’t trust Google."

This isn't the first time Apple has balked at the Digital Markets Act, releasing a similar statement last year regarding delays to features like Live Translation. At this moment in time, we don't know how things are going to play out. However, we want to hear more from you. Vote in our poll above and comment below, and we'll publish your thoughts next week.

• The Met Police are calling on tech firms to make stolen phones harder to reset
• They're working with Apple on this, and have already seen phone theft in London reduced by 18% compared to the previous year
• Apple enabling Stolen Device Protection by default has likely made a big difference, and there's evidence of another anti-theft tool in the works too

Smartphones are a major target for thieves. After all, they’re likely the most valuable device most people carry around with them, and their value increases further once thieves export them to countries like China, where devices without local government restrictions are highly sought after. But the UK's Met Police is working with Apple to make smartphones significantly less desirable to thieves.

As reported by the BBC, the Met Police are urging tech firms to make stolen phones harder to reset and reuse, and they’re working with Apple to achieve this. Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley emphasized the strategy, stating: "If stolen phones cannot be reactivated, their value collapses, and so does the incentive to steal them."

And progress is supposedly already being made on that front, with Apple being said to have “cracked” the engineering problem that previously allowed thieves to factory reset devices using illicit software.

It’s unclear whether Apple has made changes behind the scenes, but one thing it definitely has done is enable Stolen Device Protection by default in iOS 26.4. With this feature enabled, there’s a delay before things like passwords can be changed when the phone isn’t in a familiar location like a user’s home. The idea is that a user will then have time to get to another device and mark their phone as lost or stolen before the thieves can gain access.

A big drop already

As a result, Sir Mark claims that "the vast majority of phones" stolen in recent weeks in London have not been factory reset.

But even before this software update, there was progress being made, with the Met reporting that 14,000 fewer phones were stolen in London between June 2025 and May 2026, which is a drop of 18% compared to the previous year.

This won’t purely be down to Apple’s work, as the Met have also done things like using e-bikes, drones, and live facial recognition to combat theft in recent months. But it’s all making a difference.

And Apple looks set to employ another thief-thwarting technology soon, as there’s evidence in iOS code of an upcoming feature that would use an iPhone’s sensors to detect when it has likely been stolen, and then automatically lock it. It’s a feature that sounds a lot like Theft Detection Lock on Android — and indeed the Met noted that Google and Samsung are also working to combat phone theft.

So, while we're never “going to get down to zero crime,” as Sir Mark noted, “this is going to make a massive difference.”

• Apple execs Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak have explained how the company's approach to AI is different from rivals'
• This includes Siri AI not being interested in "sycophancy" or being a "romantic partner"
• They also highlight how Siri AI doesn't require you to be a "prompt expert" but does respect your privacy

It’s been a long wait, but Apple’s AI vision is almost here. The company's overhauled Siri voice assistant, Siri AI, is a key component of iOS 27, which is due out later this year, and is currently in beta. But if Apple is to be believed, Siri AI won’t just be a ChatGPT or Gemini clone with Siri’s voice.

In an interview with Mostly Human — via MacRumors — Apple’s software engineering chief Craig Federighi and marketing chief Greg Joswiak discussed the company’s approach to AI and highlighted three ways that the new Siri is different from competing chatbots.

The most eye-catching statements relate to how Siri AI communicates with you, and specifically that it won’t act as an AI boyfriend or girlfriend for anyone. Federighi argued that “if you use many of the existing chatbots, they're really focused on engagement to a large degree. And sycophancy, right? They kind of want to pull you in. They might encourage you to reveal things about yourself, and then use that as a basis to establish a connection.”

While not naming names, this is a clear dig at AI rivals like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok, which do, to varying degrees, allow for this odd relationship-building. Indeed, we’ve heard of people falling in love with ChatGPT, using chatbots as therapists, and, even more alarmingly, that as much as 26% of Gen Z have dated an AI.

With Siri, though, apparently none of this will be possible, with Federighi going on to say that “the way that we have designed Siri, Siri really wants to say 'Listen, that's not what I'm here for, right? I'm here to help you. I can help you get things done. I can help you learn about the world.' But if you try to engage Siri as a romantic partner, Siri's not up for that. Siri's 100% not into that.”

Simple, useful, and preserves your privacy

That’s not the only way in which Siri apparently differs, though — or the only subtle dig Apple makes here about rival platforms.

Another is in Joswiak’s claim that he doesn’t want iPhone users to have to become "prompt experts" — which seems like a dig at the need to design complex prompts to maximize the potential of other AIs.

He added that “we don't do AI for AI's sake. 'Hey, look at us, we're doing AI.' It's 'How does AI make everything better?' And that makes our products better, our features better.” Which is perhaps not so much a response to ChatGPT and Gemini as to the fact that AI is increasingly being inserted into almost every piece of software we use, whether it’s truly beneficial or not.

And while some other AIs can gather an alarming amount of data about you and share that with their parent companies — even going so far, in Gemini’s case, as to not let you save conversation histories if you don’t consent to Google employees potentially viewing your chats and using them to train models — Apple claims to be taking a privacy-first approach.

On that point, Federighi said, “I think it's a challenging thing for a lot of people to understand the distinction between what your iPhone knows and what, say, Apple as a company knows. Your iPhone is yours, right? Your data is yours, and it stays on your phone, and [under] your control, and Siri is using it for you. Apple doesn't get to know any of this stuff, and that is very different [from what] I think most players in the space [are doing], and I think super important.”

So, while Siri is certainly late to the AI party, it could have some real advantages over rival services, though it remains to be seen how good — and how true to these principles — it will be in practice.

Child accounts for Apple devices aren’t new, but at WWDC 2026, Apple made a big push into child safety, announcing various new and redesigned features that parents can make use of to keep their kids safe.

But these features don’t come at the expense of flexibility, as parents will be able to customize their child’s experience and access according to their needs and preferences.

These features and improvements will be rolling out with iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 later this year, and we’ve detailed them below.

1. Ask to Browse

Apple had already solved the problem of kids downloading apps and making in-app purchases with the Ask to Buy feature, which requires parental approval for any of that. But now, the company is adding a similar tool for the internet called Ask to Browse.

With this, if you choose to enable it, your child will have to get parental permission before browsing new sites in Safari. So, rather than simply blocking unsuitable content, you can go a step further and only grant permission for specific sites.

2. Allowed apps

When you first set up a child account, you’ll be able to customize exactly which pre-installed apps the child will have access to.

You’ll be able to either choose specific individual apps, what Apple considers “essentials”, or a recommended set. Then, if they ever want to access others, they’ll need parental permission first.

This essentially extends the Ask to Buy feature to apps that are already on the phone, giving you total control.

3. Controlled communication

Apple is also making it easier for parents to control who their kids can talk to over Messages, FaceTime, and through the Phone app, with a requirement for kids to ask permission before talking to anyone new.

Plus, Communication Safety — a tool that already blurs nudity when detected in Messages and FaceTime calls — will soon also block gore and violent content when it’s detected in shared images and videos.

4. Time Allowances

With Time Allowances, parents will be able to set time limits for specific types of apps, such as ‘entertainment’, ‘games’, and ‘social media’, with different allowances for each category. And the feature also includes guidance based on expert research to help give suggestions on how long the limits should be set to according to a child’s age.

Additionally, you'll be able to set daily schedules to restrict the apps a child has access to at certain times of the day.

5. A Screen Time redesign

The Screen Time interface is also being redesigned so that it will provide an at-a-glance overview of how much time a child is spending on their device and which apps are being used most.

From Screen Time, you’ll also be able to make adjustments to app access with a tap, making managing and adjusting screen time limits easier.

We've published a deep dive into Apple's new Screen Time redesign elsewhere on TechRadar, if you're interested in learning more.

I admit, I was confounded by Apple’s 20-minute Child Safety feature detour during its all-important WWDC 2026 keynote. After all, it’s a set of features that have warranted, at best, a passing mention at previous events. This year, though, Apple bombarded us with a cavalcade of existing, upgraded, and entirely new tools (we've rounded up five of the biggest new Apple child account features elsewhere on TechRadar).

The intention, it seemed, was to prove it’s dead serious about protecting your children from not just online threats but the very real danger of too much digital access.

While Apple hasn’t directly addressed why it went so hard, it is clear to me at least that it’s in tune with changing moods toward our digital experience, especially as it pertains to children. Studies show that excessive screen time is potentially damaging to cognitive development and behavior. A direct causal relation between social media use and teen mental health is harder to establish, though it's difficult to ignore the dual rise in social media and mental health issues. Overall, parents know that digital use — too much of it; the wrong kind — is a potential issue for their kids, and now they're actively looking for ways to manage it.

Perhaps Apple was right to devote so much time to this set of features. Still, I’m not sure it did anyone any favors with the overwhelming and slightly haphazard way it was all discussed.

I recognized many of the tools as already existing, but they were all slightly altered and enhanced. It wouldn’t be until later that I would learn exactly what was new and the crucial change Apple made to help get ahead of wily kids and teens who always know how to game the system.

So, to start from the bottom, it’s worth mentioning that Apple rewrote Screen Time’s entire architecture. Even how it works with iCloud is different (updated infrastructure).

This matters because, as you might’ve read elsewhere, crafty teens figured out how to game previous versions of the old Screentime Time Allowance and schedule controls. They did so by messing with the device’s clock. This trick apparently could extend screen limits significantly.

Apple, no doubt, is a student of all these teen screen time hacks, and the controls appear more robust. Re-architecture is likely aimed at those kinds of hacks, and if, for instance, your child learns the PIN code to authorize access to, say, a website or for a message chat, the system now automatically alerts the parent that the PIN code was used on one of the children’s devices.

A process of simplification and enrichment

Apple’s goal here was not only to strengthen the tools but also to ease the application. New devices can, in roughly six minutes (we timed it), guide a parent through the comprehensive parental control setup — I’ve seen it in action and it is impressive. You’ll make a fair number of decisions along the way, but it all appears sensible.

The ease is also because this is merely a starting point for managing your child’s digital learning experience (most of the presets are, it seems, in line with some guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics).

Over time, parents can and probably will dig into the now (when iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 ship this fall) voluminous settings that, for example, not only allow parents to block nudity but gore and violent images (though it’s not clear if it can do anything for words that describe such acts) across messages, AirDrops, and even communication in FaceTime.

In the case of violence and gore, if the content is detected, the communication is, for younger users, blocked (a parent could enter their PIN to see what triggered the action). While the system won't always send an alert to the parent, it can automatically end communication if it detects illicit content.

App and Web Sites under control

Developers don't just set their own age brackets for apps: each one goes through a rigorous questionnaire with answers mapping to specific age ranges. As for what happens when apps and games are upgraded and how Apple prevents non-age-appropriate content from seeping in, it uses another test to confirm that the existing age range still applies.

In addition to approving apps that your child can download, even those that are age-approved, parents will have control over which websites kids can visit. Every request shows up on the parent’s device, where they can investigate and then allow or deny.

Similar controls also exist for messages. If anyone who is not pre-approved or in the Family group tries to message your child, the child can ask for permission, and you’ll again get the approval notice. At this point, you can add that person to the approved list, and then they’ll be able to freely message.

Your groups

One of the big updates is in how the system manages time allowances, with new groupings and certain classes of apps, like phone and messages, always open in case of emergencies. You can even create your own app groups and add and remove apps.

So much of this is about tailoring the control to your child and your own family’s rules and restrictions. No family is alike, and so no two Child Safety and Screen Time settings necessarily need to be alike.

The setup walkthrough happens on new devices, so when it comes time to upgrade to iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, parents might first need to check which older devices still support the new software. If the systems don’t, the granular control might not be consistent.

Unfortunately, the Child Safety system can’t tailor the settings after a period of learning how you and your family use the devices. Though it seems you could use the new Describe a Shortcut to build a shortcut that watches usage insights and then changes settings based on those learnings.

Overall, I wouldn't say Screen time is now unrecognizable from its previous iteration. Still, the interface does feel somewhat cleaner and better organized, which I think is important because parents who dig into this are not interested in learning new tech management skills; they just need help protecting their kids from bad apps, websites, people, and their children's own sometimes too-intense screen habits.

Apple spending so much time rebuilding and enriching Child Safety and Screen Time and then talking about it during WWDC 2026 may have a dual effect. It could improve the lives of those who upgrade, but it might also open the eyes of parents who have been struggling to manage their kids’ digital lives without knowing there’s at least a partial solution already in their hands.

I was in charge of live-blogging WWDC 2026 earlier this week, and keeping up with Apple’s device requirements for iOS 27, Apple Intelligence, and Siri AI felt like a job for someone with a photographic memory.

All three software packages have different entry criteria (and that’s to say nothing of iPadOS 27 and macOS Golden Gate), so after the show, I published an iOS 27 and Siri AI compatibility explainer, which will tell you whether your iPhone can support Apple’s upcoming iOS features.

I’m not going to repeat all those device requirements here, but a big point of confusion has been the exclusivity of Apple’s "most powerful on-device model", known officially as Apple Foundation Models (AFM) Core Advanced. Only three iPhones — the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air — have enough RAM (12GB) to access this model and, therefore, the very best version of Siri AI. But what does that mean, exactly?

According to Apple's press release on Siri AI, the two features exclusive to AFM Core Advanced are voice customization and more advanced systemwide dictation.

The former gives you the ability to customize the expressiveness and pace of Siri’s voice — anyone with access to Siri AI can still choose from a set number of Siri voices, but you’ll need an iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air to make Siri speak faster, slower, and with more or less enthusiasm.

The second feature — more advanced systemwide dictation — is arguably the more significant. It essentially means those top-end iPhones are more effective at converting speech into accurate text than older or less advanced iPhones. This updated dictation engine "automatically handles capitalization, punctuation, and formatting as [you] speak," Apple says, meaning you can "speak naturally and trust that [your] words will appear clearly, accurately, and as intended".

To be clear, this doesn’t mean that if you own, say, an iPhone 15 Pro, your Siri will be incapable of converting speech into text. Yes, Siri has been awful at doing just that in the past — anyone who’s tried to send a message using CarPlay will know what I'm talking about — but my understanding is that Siri AI, in being an entirely new version of Siri, will bring improved dictation at a foundational level (i.e. to all compatible iPhones).

But for those who rely on dictation to send messages or navigate their iPhone hands-free, the difference in dictation capabilities between the best iPhones and older models may be more consequential.

The capability gap will get bigger

At this point, it’s not entirely clear whether Apple’s AFM Core Advanced model will also result in noticeably faster query resolution for the iPhones equipped with it. Dictation is not the same as interpretation — Apple has only said that these iPhones will be better at the former, not the latter.

But given that AFM Core Advanced is a 20-billion-parameter model that only exists on iPhones with 12GB of RAM, it figures that these iPhones will be able to perform AI tasks more quickly than those equipped with Apple’s 3-billion-parameter AFM Core model and only 8GB of RAM.

Incidentally, more RAM also facilitates faster app loading and more seamless switching between apps, though the differences between iPhones on those fronts are already negligible (the iPhone 15 Pro feels just as fast to navigate as the iPhone Air, for instance). What's more, iOS 27 is making app loading and switching faster for all compatible iPhones, so having more or less RAM isn't a cause for concern outside of AI.

At the moment, then, it looks like owners of the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air are simply getting a more customizable Siri, and one more capable of converting speech into text.

That’s not ideal for iPhone 16 Pro or iPhone 17 users who thought they were buying a phone “built for Apple Intelligence” — lawyers at the ready! — but these iPhones are capable of running all the Apple Intelligence features revealed at the software’s announcement in 2024 (so, actually, put down your pitchforks).

Of course, in classic marketing fashion, Apple’s small print on the matter leaves the door ajar for more features to be made exclusive to the AFM Core Advanced model: “Apple’s most powerful on-device model and the features it enables, like expressive voices and more advanced dictation, are available on…,” reads the press release. ‘Like’ is the operative word there — more hardware-exclusive features are surely coming down the line, ones which require more compute power than Apple’s base AFM Core model can provide.

But for the moment, I do think the furore is a little overblown. If you own an Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone, you’re getting all but two of the features announced at WWDC 2026.

• Apple delivered exactly what users wanted at WWDC 2026
• Almost half of 1,500+ TechRadar readers wanted more AI features
• iPadOS, watchOS and visionOS all saw marginal updates

Now that Apple's annual developer keynote has wrapped and we've digested all the major updates from WWDC 2026, did Tim Cook deliver what users actually wanted to see? Based on 1,529 responses to a poll we ran last week, the answer is a resounding 'yes'.

Nearly half of the TechRadar readers who voted in our 'What we expect to see at WWDC 2026' poll (see some of the results below) told us that artificial intelligence (AI) — to be clear, I mean machine learning, not the sentient kind — was the number one update they most wanted.

Combining the results of the poll across our articles and social media profiles (680 readers cast their vote via our WhatsApp channel), we found that 47% were most excited for a new AI-powered Siri and various Apple Intelligence upgrades.

Of course, given that many of us had already been waiting for Siri to get an AI boost since 2024, a lot of the rumors leading up to the keynote strongly suggested that this was the year that Apple would finally deliver, making the announcement largely expected but no less fulfilling.

After such a long wait, many were pleased that most of the 75-minute-long keynote was dedicated to unveiling new AI tools being rolled out to its ecosystem. Most of these updates are coming to iPhone users, which is great news for the 42% of readers who most wanted to see new upgrades in iOS 27.

From the new Siri AI to a Liquid Glass fix that finally lets you adjust the opacity, we've rounded up our favorite new iPhone features coming to your phone in iOS 27, and it's a notable list of handy tools. Of the several new features we've highlighted, let us know which new iOS 27 update you're most looking forward to trying out when the software launches in September by voting in the poll below.

What were you least excited to see at WWDC?

Leading up to WWDC 2026, TechRadar readers confirmed to us that they were least interested in hearing about what updates were planned for iPad, Apple Watch and Vision Pro devices, with all three seeing under 8% in votes from our pre-show barometer poll.

Outside of the integration of AI and the latest updates coming to iPhones, it appears there just wasn't as much appetite for the rest of the brand's product lineup. It seems like Apple already knew this too, because it didn't waste any valuable time focusing on the minor software enhancements it's made to these platforms.

Instead, it was macOS 27 that saw the biggest refresh outside of the iPhone, with the rollout of macOS Golden Gate, which is getting most of the main features coming to iOS 27, including the Liquid Glass adjuster, better Search, improved parental controls, Siri AI, and the new AI image generator app, Image Playground.

All in all, Apple largely delivered on exactly what most of our readers wanted to see. Tim Cook finally made good on overdue promises and didn't drag out his last WWDC with minor watch face updates and niche spatial computing features that most of us can't use. Did Apple do enough this WWDC? Let us know in the comments below.

The opening keynote to Apple’s 2026 Worldwide Developer Conference has wrapped, and saying there’s a lot to unpack would be an understatement. Apple unveiled a brand new Siri experience, demonstrated more Apple Intelligence features, and even walked us through minor refinements we can expect to see across the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro, and Apple Watch.

The announcements were primarily focused on AI features, of course, but Apple spent a few minutes walking us through a complete redesign of the parental controls across all its devices.

As a father of three — ages 14, 16, and 18 — I have been hoping for changes and improvements to Screen Time for well over 10 years now.

Screen Time upgrades are coming

There’s an entirely new sign-up experience for setting up a new device, specifically designed to create a child account. Apple will then take the age of the child and fine-tune the device’s safeguards and offer a curated list of apps based on that age. A child account is required for kids under 13, and is optional for kids aged 13-18.

Safeguards include blocking adult websites, age-restricting access to age-appropriate content, and enforcing age-based restrictions regarding apps the child can install on their device.

I got especially excited when I saw that kids will be able to send website requests, much like the download requests they can send now.

When my kids were younger, we tried limiting their contact list to something we could manage, but as their friend circle grew and they exchanged more and more contact information, managing it became incredibly frustrating and difficult. With this update, set to be released this fall to everyone and out now as a developer beta, the child can send a request to communicate with a new contact.

There are several more features Apple is adding, such as adding bonus time in apps, along with a complete redesign of the Screen Time interface, which is very exciting and should make it easy to get a sense of in-the-moment settings, usage, and limits at a quick glance.

With bonus time, I'll no longer have to approve multiple time requests or edit limits with the intention of reverting them back the next day, but I’d ultimately forget.

It could all be for nothing, however

I hope parents take full advantage of all the additions and changes — but here’s the kicker: if Apple didn’t fix the underlying bugs in Screen Time that often allowed kids to get around the limits, all of it’s for nothing.

I’ve been playing whack-a-mole with my kids and them getting around Screen Time for years.

Just last week, I noticed my son had an increase in the amount of time he was spending in the Settings app on his iPhone. I’m not talking about going from nothing to five minutes. I’m talking about how he was spending anywhere from four to 16 hours in the Settings app.

Something was up, but I couldn’t quite figure it out. The usage limits I’d set for games and social media, along with his bedtime when his device effectively locks down, hadn’t been changed, but somehow he was in the Settings app all night long.

After a few days of this happening and his denying any knowledge of why it was happening, I did some Googling and discovered that when someone changes the date and time on their device, the Settings app often registers that change as app usage.

Why change his date and time? Because it tricks Screen Time into resetting his usage limits.

This was just the latest hiccup in my adventure with trying to keep my kids safe while also letting them be social.

Don’t even get me started on the years of pulling my hair out as Screen Time would randomly shut itself off or temporarily stop working for days at a time after an iOS update. And, of course, my kids would never say a word. I can’t blame them.

At one point, after months of accusing my son of figuring out some sort of hack to circumvent limits, Apple released a software update that explicitly addressed the exact bug. And boy, did I owe him a giant apology.

I’ve stuck with Screen Time because any third-party parental controls require a subscription and installing profiles on your kids’ phones — giving the company full access to your child’s activities, which has never sat right with me.

I’m hopeful Apple got the new Screen Time right for the next generation of young kids who are getting their first iPhones and iPads, but years of experience tell me not to bet against kids figuring out workarounds to pretty much anything in life, especially tech.

We have emailed Apple to ask if it’s harder to work around these, and will update when and if we hear back.

Schrödinger sock. That's how I describe the child's foot apparel that was not visible but brought to photo-realistic life by Apple Intelligence running on iOS 27 Dev Beta. The sock exists in the liminal space between assumption and reality. Only generative AI can make it real, even if the child in the photo was never wearing his other sock. Such is the power of the upcoming update to Apple's iOS and other platforms, and of the up-to-now relatively disappointing Apple Intelligence: Apple takes on Artificial Intelligence so carefully applied that it seemed woefully behind the competition.

But that was before.

Today, after its unveiling on Monday at WWDC 2026, we have the new Apple Intelligence and its powerful image-altering and creation tools that are the product of powerful off-device models built in cooperation with Google, or rather, that incorporate Google's generative models but apply them with Apple flair.

In the demo I saw, designed to show off the power of Apple Intelligence's new and enhanced Image Editing tools, we looked at the more powerful clean up that can do something Apple has never tried before in image editing: create something biological out of nothing, or at least infer the existence of something human we clearly cannot see. In this case, a child's socked foot. In the image (which I sadly cannot share here, but there are other examples above), the boy is seated on the floor, with one leg partially obscured by a large stuffed bear.

As before, we can trace over such distractions like a chair and the bear, and then tap Clean Up to remove them. Removal is something Apple Intelligence is already quite good at, but replacing large image parts or creating what should be there was really not part of Apple's generative image editing strategy. Now it is.

Like magic, we could see the rest of the child's leg and his other socked foot. No matter that this small boy might not have been wearing a sock on that foot, it got the same sock. As I said, we'll never know if that sock ever truly existed, but in the mind's eye of Apple Intelligence, it does.

Reframing the story

The other tools similarly stretch the bounds of memory and reality. Spatial reframing is a wild Apple Intelligence tool that applies a sort of 3D model to the image, letting you subtly rotate the subject and background this way and that to better frame your image. You can even grab and shift the subject a little bit. I watched them do this with an image of a woman sitting on the grass. I must admit that the final result did look better, and I guess no one will remember the less perfectly composed photos. At least you can always go back to the original, imperfect image to remember how things truly were.

Perhaps the best and least drastic of these generative image alteration features is the new expansion tool that, like AI tools in, say, Adobe Firefly, lets you basically extend the background in a photo to make it a better fit for a certain frame or wallpaper. It's something I could see myself using quite a bit, especially because it leaves the subjects alone.

Create something new

Yes, friends, we are officially entering uncharted Apple territory. For a company that prides itself on photographic excellence with one of the best cameras, sensors, and image pipelines in the business, it is now fully in bed with photorealistic imagination creation.

In one demo I saw, a young man wanted to create a flyer to promote a, I think, a bake sale for his friend, Phil. As before, Image Playground lets you choose seed photos and subjects from your Photos library, but where the old app would stick to basically comic book renderings of these subjects, the new app, with new Gemini-infused models backing it (they all live on Apple's Private Cloud compute), happily creates photorealistic images.

It's now a powerful tool, and I watched as we selected the subject (Phil) and described him piping a cake and with a bowl of fruit nearby. Soon, our buddy Phil appeared on screen looking very much like a master baker. No matter if the guy ever baked a cake in his life, let alone decorated one. He was doing it here. There's nothing real about this image, and while Apple likes to talk about maintaining the essence of our photos in the Apple Intelligence-powered Photo editing tools, this other land will create full-scale image narratives from whole cloth.

Yes, there is some sonic dissonance here.

Even so, Image Playground is now a vastly more powerful tool. After we gave Phil his fake bakery skills, we decided that the bowl of berries we requested for the image was not the right kind of berries. No matter, we simply used the Apple Pencil to select the berry bowl and then asked the app to switch it to blueberries. We also asked for a cupcake tower because Phil's baker bonifides were not quite strong enough.

The result was photorealistic perfection.

This is what you wanted, right? We all said Apple was behind. Now it's pulling even with the rest of the generative image world. It's progress, though I'm not sure to what end.

As artificial intelligence (AI) worms its way further and further into our daily lives, one increasingly popular way to edit photos is to use AI to help adjust your images in ways that would normally be impossible after the fact.

Yet this is also a deeply contentious subject among photographers, as it blurs the lines between reality and fiction. If you can go back in time to shoot an image from a different angle, for example, why not just go the whole hog and drum up something entirely artificial?

Apple has decided to enter this swirling storm with the iOS 27 updates it showed off at WWDC 2026, and one feature in particular has piqued my interest.

Apple calls it Spatial Reframing. The idea is that you can load up a photo whose composition is not quite to your liking, then use AI to adjust its angle and framing to get the result you wish you’d captured the first time around.

Instead of messing up a once-in-a-lifetime moment or taking multiple photos in the hope that one is right, you just need to shoot once and edit later if necessary. Not only might that help improve my images, but it could also free up storage space on my devices and in the cloud. It could be just what I’ve been needing to take my iPhone photography up a notch.

Ending a bad old habit

Here’s how Spatial Reframing works. When you tap the Edit button on an image in the Photos app, there’s a new Tools button on the right-hand side. Tap it, then select Reframe. Once Apple Intelligence has analyzed your picture, you can touch and drag it to adjust its framing and perspective. The feature also lets you zoom in and out and will generatively infill content where needed.

There are other AI image-editing tools in iOS 27 too, including improved Clean Up capabilities and an Extend option that can generate additional content around your subject to expand the photo’s dimensions.

Those new tools look interesting, but it’s Spatial Reframing that could be the most useful of the bunch for me.

You see, I’m one of those people who are never entirely satisfied with the images they capture. Whenever I line up my iPhone to take a photo, I end up snapping several from different angles, just in case I look back later and decide my original framing was off.

As you can imagine, this fills up my storage space fast and makes sorting through my pictures a chore. I don’t want to miss a moment thanks to poor composition, but I also don’t like the burden it puts on me and my storage. Not to mention the extra cost of needing a more capacious iCloud library to accommodate everything.

But with Spatial Reframing, I might finally be able to let go of that bad old habit and just settle for a single shot at a time, content in the knowledge that I can go back later and reframe my photos if anything appears to be off. That’s the kind of AI boost I can get behind.

A controversial move

That said, Spatial Reframing certainly isn’t without its critics. AppleInsider, for example, said it has the potential to create “nightmare fuel” and isn’t quite ready for prime time.

YouTuber Mrwhosetheboss, meanwhile, had his own reservations, saying: “You’ve already got a perfectly fine photo there of your two real children. Why would you turn that into a fake AI image that never happened just to make the angle more aesthetic?”

And I can understand why some people are reluctant to embrace any kind of AI intrusion into photography. Apple seemed to be aware of that at WWDC 2026, promising that it has a “deep respect for the craft of photography” and that its tools would “help photographers enhance their images in ways that respect the original moment.”

But how true is that when you’re changing an image into something it never was in the first place? Removing small distracting aspects from a photo is one thing — after all, photographers already do this by taking multiple snaps and combining them into one, obliterating pesky crowds and photobombers in one fell swoop — but reshooting a picture from an angle that you were never standing at might feel like it’s leaning too far into artificiality for a lot of people.

Me? I don’t mind it so much because my goal isn’t to pass off my images as something they’re not. I’m not about to use AI to edit an image and then enter it into a competition or present myself as a more competent photographer than I actually am.

Instead, I want to use this tool to help cut down on unnecessary images and ensure my pictures come out the way I intended, even if I didn’t notice a small error in the original composition.

Sure, Spatial Reframing is not going to revolutionize my skills overnight. But if it can prevent me from feeling the need to waste time taking image after image throughout the day — and save me money on iCloud+ storage upgrades in the process — then that’s good enough for me.

I come here to celebrate Apple delivering. It's not overshooting the mark with the new Siri AI, which it unveiled at WWDC 2026, but it is finally delivering on the promises it made at WWDC 2024.

Sure, it's beta (again), and there's a wait list (again), but I've now seen it at work, in person, in live and potentially unpredictable demos. Siri AI, as it's now called, works across platforms, and it has the potential to change how you use your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

While I waited for my access to the new Siri on my iPhone 17 Pro, I visited one of the countless rooms in Apple's massive Apple Park headquarters, where I round-robined through a series of stations at which I could see Siri AI in action on iOS 27 Dev Beta, iPadOS 27 Dev Beta, and macOS Golden Gate Dev Beta. This is all a work in progress.

I'll admit that while I was probably most interested in the new Siri on the iPhone, I was most surprised by how it works on the iPad. On every platform, this smarter, more aware, and more personable Siri looks different than before. It's bigger, brighter, floatier (I made that a word), and it has a new sense of confidence.

On the iPad, you can summon Siri with your voice, but you can also swipe down from the top of the screen, and a sort of black teardrop will form until it releases from the top of the screen and is displayed as the small Siri AI window. It's a nice, classy touch.

Of course, you can type into Siri, and I watched as we searched for top PGA golfers, and I noticed how anxious new Siri was to get to work, auto-filling answers before we'd even finished our query. Since it initially had just 'Top PGA Golfers', it quickly spit out Jack Nicklaus before refining on the fly to more contemporary players like Scottie Scheffler.

I also noticed during this process a new 'working' iconography that looks unlike any previous form of Apple's 'Please wait for an answer' spinner. Sometimes Siri AI seems whip-fast; other times, you can watch that icon spin as it works. There's no obvious sense of, "Oh, it's heading out to the Private Cloud Compute for that."

I watched here and on other platforms as Siri AI effortlessly kept context, without demanding a restate or telling us it couldn't answer that, and "did we want to check the web?" or "Use ChatGPT?" In fact, ChatGPT appears to have been almost fully deprecated here. It does not show up as an option, though I believe you can still request it.

As we dug in on Scheffler's career, Apple was quick to show me how Siri AI always shows its sources. I appreciate the care.

The little Siri AI window that appears in a session can be easily expanded, and then you're suddenly in the new Siri app. Apple takes a slightly different approach here than, say, Gemini or ChatGPT: the chat window is familiar-looking, but the conversation history is card-based, with almost headlines for your query topic, and either a brief summary or image. I did not see an option for a tighter list form, which I might prefer.

iPhone, meet the new Siri

On the iPhone 17 Pro Max, we summoned Siri with a long press of the power button, which launched that new, large, almost alien spaceship-like floating blob. I say 'floating' because throughout the demo I noticed that Apple had made the effort to put very subtle shading under the new Siri interface so that it looks like it's floating just above the screen. It's a neat little effect.

Siri AI's superpower is not that it's smarter or more chatty (in fact, Siri will steer you away from conversations that might be better had with humans or, say, mental health support professionals); it's that it understands you through the data on your phone.

This is where the fulfillment of a promise comes in. Siri AI really does appear to know the contents of your phone in a way that could be truly helpful. Its needle-in-the-haystack approach means that, if you have a thread of memory about a bit of data, something someone mentioned to you in an email or message, Siri can dig it out for you.

In the demo I saw, we asked about a "podcast our sister recommended recently," and Siri searched across first-party apps (developers will have to build hooks into Siri AI in future versions of their apps) and pulled up a casual mention of a Sherlock Holmes podcast in Messages. Again, once we had that detail, we only had to say, "Play it," and Siri launched the podcast app.

The obvious benefit is the end of endless searching and then backing out and finding the right app. I could imagine a lot of your daily interactions with your iPhone getting done through Siri AI. Of course, much of this will depend on developers of apps like WhatsApp, Gmail, and others building in those Siri connections.

Still, the power here is exciting. Taking someone's lengthy emails full of useful but disorganized details and turning them into, say, a useful Camping Gear list in Notes is a significant leap from the current and endlessly disappointing "Sorry, I can't do that" Siri.

Over the course of my demo, I watched as Siri pulled up random references relating to queries about travel and meteor showers. It's sort of a de-randomizer. Like all good AI, Siri AI can see the patterns in your endless reams of data, and make sense of it.

I also got a look at Siri in the Camera app. That's right, it now has a menu item right next to 'Photo,' and once launched it works a bit like Visual Intelligence. Choosing it does mean that Siri can 'see what you see,' which may or may not comfort you, but if you're wondering what you're looking at or, say, want Siri to help you make a choice, it's ready. I did notice that the Camera app takes a photo of whatever Siri is analyzing.

At one point, we mispoke in the demo, but Siri sussed out the proper prompt and results without any intervention from us. Kind of impressive.

In a demo where it helped me decide which book to read next, I listened as Siri's new 'expressive' voice told me why I should read Blindsight next. I noticed, though, that the new voice sounded a bit odd. I don't know if the emotion sounded forced or missing, but I'm assuming this is an element that's still being tweaked in iOS 27 Dev Beta.

Spotlight on the Mac

Most of my Mac demo revolved around how Siri AI transforms Spotlight, the Mac's system-wide search engine. You can, it turns out, still use it to launch apps like Preview, but the new interface almost compels you to go further with the words, 'Search or Ask'.

Ask basically transforms Spotlight into a generative search box where almost any general knowledge question is welcomed. We asked about the Hawaiian islands for families. If the system deems the question as 'complex,' it will default to Siri and Apple's world Knowledge Engine. That's right, even though the new Siri is using, in part, Gemini Foundation models, Apple is not using Google's Search knowledge graph.

Once you launch a search, you're inside Siri, and you can keep that window open while you multitask on other desktop chores.

In Apple Intelligence, you select text and right-click to access AI-powered writing tools, but the new Siri is embedded in more subtle ways that still give you full access to its new power. We selected a bunch of text in Notes and, while we could still have Siri rewrite it, Writing Tools-style, we can also use this as a launch point to weave together other Apple first-party app capabilities. In this case, we asked it to use the notes to draft a structured email in Mail.

Again, this is a pair of first-party Apple apps working together, and Apple is well aware that your email client may not be Apple's Mail.

Overall, it's still just a glimpse of what Siri AI can do, but I find it a promising one, especially for beta software. The plumbing clearly works, and if you allow it, Siri can finally see across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac to understand you and your needs. It's been a long time coming, but I think Apple finally got this right.

• References to a foldable phone have been found in iOS 27 beta code
• These references weren't present in iOS 26
• They strongly suggest both that a foldable phone is in the works and that it will be launching soon

The long-rumored iPhone Ultra could be the most exciting iPhone of the year, as this is set to be Apple’s first foldable phone. And if there was any doubt that it’s coming soon, that’s largely been put to rest by some code found in the first iOS 27 beta.

As spotted by Sam Henri Gold (via 9to5Mac), some code in the iOS 27 developer beta mentions “foldState” and “angleDegrees”. The first of those seems like an obvious reference to a foldable phone, and the second presumably refers to the different angles you could have the screen open at — so, again, a clear hint that a foldable phone is coming soon.

If that wasn’t enough, they also found a check for the total number of built-in displays, which would be completely unnecessary if a foldable device isn’t on the way, since the answer would always be one with a conventional phone.

Probably launching this year

Not only are these clear signs of an Apple-made foldable phone being in the works, but they strongly suggest it’s coming soon — likely in time for the finished launch of iOS 27 in September, especially as 9to5Mac has verified that iOS 26 didn’t have any of these references.

So, while it’s always possible the iPhone Ultra will be delayed, right now, it looks like Apple plans to launch it this year — just like most recent release date leaks have suggested.

In which case, you can probably expect it to land alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max in September, with the base iPhone 18 and the iPhone 18e reportedly not launching until early next year.

When Apple talks about how it used Google's Gemini foundation models to build the all-new Siri, without using the Gemini app, it can start to sound like semantics. But a deep dive with the team that built the Siri we were promised almost two years ago quickly disabuses you of that notion.

"This is the amount of the Google assistant we use, which is none," said Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, on Monday, just hours after Apple finally unveiled the Siri we'd been promised two years ago during Monday's WWDC 2026 Keynote.

Wearing his trademark tight blue dress shirt, Federighi sat alongside Sebastien Marineau, VP Software at Apple, Amar Subramanya, VP, AI, at Apple, and Apple's VP of engineering, Mike Rockwell, on the small Developer Center stage, a relatively intimate setting compared to the vast outdoor Keynote venue situated just outside the vast Apple Park ring.

It was in this darkened hall, with outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook and his successor, John Ternus, looking on from front-row seats, that Federighi and company dug into the thorny architectural details of building a more personable, contextual, and deeply integrated Siri that spans the Apple ecosystem. They were, in a way, celebrating the late delivery of a promise but also reckoning with the reality of what the tumultuous past 24 months have wrought.

From a macro level, Siri is now a vast and complex system that includes one very powerful local, multi-model model and a series of even more powerful cloud-based ones that all live in some versions of Apple's Private Compute Cloud.

The models feature names like AFM Core, AFM Cloud Pro, and ADM Cloud Images. "Every model is a significant leap based on quality and operation compared to previous generation models," said Subramanya.

I was inclined to agree after seeing demos both during the architecture talk and later during one-on-one demos. Think of Siri AI and the Siri App as Siri unleashed.

Siri reborn

It has, it appears, full knowledge of your first-party Apple app capabilities and can quickly make the leap from a query in one app to the contextual information sucked right out of, say, Messages. It appears to know that the image of a month's worth of planned soccer games you just opened on your desktop is a schedule that it can add to your calendar.

It sees images on the desktop and through the camera. It remembers the context of a conversation and uses a more convincing voice to guide you through the most complex tasks. In a word, this Siri seems smart.

But Apple would not have gotten here without Google, and, it turns out, Nvidia.

Just how involved was Google? Apple makes no secret of its use of Google Gemini foundation models, but the scope of its involvement was thrown into stark relief by a schematic Federigi used to explain the inner workings of Siri's architecture.

A model collaboration

As you can see, there are boxes for all the new models and system components; all of them are color-coded, but with just two different colors: solid blue for Apple's own builds, and a sort of mix of blue and white for Apple and Google co-developed models. Every single model is co-developed. Apple's solo work is largely in what sits over all of this.

Here's how Apple explained the clockwork to us. The system starts with, naturally, speech recognition, which produces the query text. After that, it's the job of the all-important System Orchestrator to build a prompt and send it to the foundation models. It's also at this stage that Apple's system decides if the query will be handled within the large, 20 billion parameter AFM Core Advanced model (up from 3 billion on the current Siri model) or be sent to Apple's Private Cloud compute and one of the larger models, which includes AFM Cloud, AFM Cloud Pro, and ADM Cloud (for a diffiusion model for image generation).

A smarter way of parsing parameters

One of the big innovations here, and why Apple can have such a vastly large model on your iPhone, is in how it handles parameters. Normally, because each query can have many different requests and require a variety of parameters, all those parameters are loaded into memory at once to meet the demands. It's a huge strain on memory and battery life and, with 20 billion parameters on Apple's AFM Core Advanced model, simply not practical. So they built something called a "scarce model."

"Unlike the server models, what core advance does is it looks at the entire request, chooses the right set of parameters, and then locks them in for the entire request. And so you're not having to reload parameters with every token and this dramatically cuts down the cost of loading these parameters," said Subramanya.

Even though these models are co-built with the latest Gemini models and will be updated with future Google Foundation Model work, at no point in that pathway is Google Gemini taking the wheel.

Instead, Apple took the same approach it's taken for most of its innovation partnerships. It identifies the best-in-class component or technology and then has the partner build a bespoke version. In this case, the collaboration is, perhaps, richer, since Apple is co-building these models, but its interest in Google's AI capabilities stops short of the app client.

The customer experience is and should feel completely Apple.

Apple, Google and Nvidia, perfect together

The back end, or cloud side, is a far more collaborative effort than you might expect from Apple. For a company that's built its name on privacy and security, it's been forced to work with third-party partners to wrench their cloud offerings into secure spaces that satisfy both Apple and its customers' demands and expectations of privacy.

The idea of Private Cloud Compute (PCC), originally introduced with Apple Intelligence in 2024, is a cloud space big enough to accommodate models too large for on-device computation, while also replicating the privacy structure found on local devices. That's easier to do when you control all the servers, but in the new world of Siri AI, Apple has opened up PCC to Google and a new Apple Intelligence partner, Nvidia.

To run far more powerful models like AFM Cloud Pro, Apple needed "the latest technology from NVIDIA, and so we set out to extend private cloud compute to third-party cloud," explained Subramanya.

Nvidia was already working on something it called confidential compute, but it didn't meet Apple's stringent PCC criteria. "We set out to design this with Google as a collaboration," said Subramany. The solution comprises, in part, Nvidia GPUs and redundant security components from Intel and Google.

The moment of truth

In essence, Apple's Private Cloud Compute now lives on Nvidia and Google servers, but Apple execs insist, "Apple devices can only talk to software signed by Apple," meaning that if these systems do not have software signed and verified by Apple, Siri won't connect with them.

This is unquestionably a vastly different Siri than the one you might be using on your iPhone 17 Pro today, but it's also quite similar to what Apple demonstrated but did not deliver in 2024 or 2025. Federighi and company didn't rehash all the hurdles and false starts of the past 24 months, but VP of Engineering Mike Rockwell did offer a rare glimpse into what was clearly a pivotal moment.

"Last year, we had actually built a first version of this that was sort of incremental on top of the original Siri...and we had it working, but we didn't feel it was really delivering on the vision and the experience that we wanted to do, and so we also had a design which required much more extensive changes. And we decided to go with that. And so we went back, and we rebuilt Siri from the ground up," said Rockwell.

What's not clear from this is if this was the moment Apple realized it couldn't go it alone, it needed Google and its powerful Gemini models to fulfill its vision, but without somehow letting the Gemini experience take over.

Siri AI is that successful melding of Apple's original vision for artificial intelligence with, perhaps, the best generative models in the business. And like all the best consumer software experiences, you don't have to know how the sausage is made, just that it works exactly as Apple promised and you want it to.

iOS 27 has been officially revealed — and if you're an iPhone owner, that means there's a very long list of software treats heading your way.

The final version of iOS 27 won't actually be released until September, but an early developer beta is available to download now and a public beta will likely follow in July.

But what exactly do you have to look forward to? I've been using iPhones since the 3GS (yes, I'm that old) and below are the seven biggest iOS 27 features that I'm looking forward to taking for a spin.

1. A new Siri AI

Yes, it's finally happening. Two years after Apple originally announced a more personalized version of Siri, a next-gen assistant called Siri AI is finally coming — well, as long as you live outside the EU and have a very recent iPhone.

Siri AI appears to be the conversational assistant we hoped to see back in 2024. Based on Apple's new Foundation Models (which were built with Google), it understands your "personal context" — so can answer questions by pulling information from across your messages, emails, photos, and more.

It'll also be available in a dedicated Siri AI app, which lets you go back to old conversations that it remembers, and you can also use iCloud to sync your conversations privately across devices. A Siri mode in the Camera app will also boost the iPhone's visual search — for example, letting you get nutritional info about your hastily-concocted dinner.

Unfortunately for those in the EU (which doesn't include the UK), Apple has said that Siri AI won't be available there due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). But for the rest of us, it looks like iOS 27's biggest upgrade — the only downside is you'll need an iPhone 15 or newer to use it (and an iPhone 17 Pro or iPhone Air to use the version with expressive voices and more advanced dictation).

2. Liquid Glass finally gets a slider

If you're not a huge fan of Liquid Glass on iOS 26, we have good news — Apple has admitted that its critics had a point and has given us an opacity slider to adjust the effect to our liking.

The new slider will let you tweak how, well, glassy the effect is in areas like tabs and menus. Apple says it can go from "ultra clear" to "fully tinted" (which basically removes the effect).

Liquid Glass will also now apparently do a much better job of diffusing any content that's behind the effect, which should be a boon for readability.

3. The Passwords app can change your passwords for you

Here's a smaller iOS 27 update that could be one of its sleeper hits — the Passwords app will now be able to change weak or compromised passwords for you.

The app currently tells you if any of your passwords have been leaked or appeared in known security incidents. But rather than fixing those passwords manually, in iOS 27 you can tell the Passwords app to automatically change and update them to something that's strong and secure.

Apple says the feature will let you update the passwords on "eligible accounts", so it remains to be seen how wide that support is, but it certainly sounds like a potential time-saver.

4. Apple Photos gets new editing tricks

Apple Photos has slowly been catching up with Google's photo editing trickery on Android — and iOS 27 will see it take another solid step forward with three features that you'll find in its 'Tools' section (above).

The first, Clean Up, already exists but is apparently getting a "big upgrade" that will help you remove distractions in a more realistic way. As its name suggests, the 'Extend' tool also lets you expand your photo in the same way as Photoshop, using generative AI to fill in the details.

Lastly, there's an even more fancy tool called 'Spatial Reframing', which uses on-device spatial models to help you tweak the perspective. It's a bit like 'Spatial Scenes' from iOS 26, which let you convert 2D photos into 3D, only you get to save the perspective change into your photo.

In a slight dig at Google, Alok Deshpande (Apple's Director of Camera and Photos Software Engineering) said: "At Apple, we have a deep respect for the craft of photography, and so our goal for bringing AI into the Photos app is to help photographers enhance their photos in ways that respect the original moment". Touché, Apple.

5. Speed improvements

If you've been frustrated with how sluggish iOS 26 feels on your iPhone, particularly if you're on an older model, then iOS 27 could improve things.

According to Apple, iOS 27 will feel much snappier than its predecessor thanks to range of bug fixes and performance boosts. It claims that app launches will be up to 30% faster, AirDrop transfers will be 80% quicker, and loading new snaps in Photos will be 70% faster.

These boosts, and others across Wi-Fi and cellular connections, will likely vary depending on which model you're running (iOS 27 compatibility goes back to the iPhone SE (2020) and iPhone 11 series), but it's promising news for those on older devices.

6. A Screen Time overhaul

Apple's built-in parental controls on the iPhone, called Screen Time, are still a work in progress, but fortunately they're getting a big facelift in iOS 27.

In Safari, a new 'Ask to Browse' feature means kids need to ask their parents when they want to browser a new website. Stronger 'Communication Safety' features in the Screen Time settings also blur content that might contain nudity, gore or violent content.

Lastly, 'Time Allowances' gives parents a suggested starting point for the maximum time their child is allowed on certain apps or categories of apps like 'Entertainment' and 'Games', based on their age. There's no doubt Apple had one eye on EU and UK regulators with its new Screen Time boosts, but they certainly look useful for parents.

7. Shortcuts gets an AI upgrade

Shortcuts is one of those apps is loved by a few, but it too confusing for truly mass adoption. Well, iOS 27 might finally change that thanks to a new Apple Intelligence upgrade that lets you describe the shortcut you want using natural language. We've settled on called this 'vibe-cutting'.

Rather than adjusting all your inputs and variables manually, you can type something like "when I'm leaving work message Pedro I'm on my way with my ETA" and the Shortcuts app will automatically pull together all the apps and system actions you need.

Even Apple admitted that the current Shortcuts system in iOS 26 "can feel, well, complicated". So this promises to be a pretty big step forward — and is one we've wanted to see for quite a while.