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.

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.

I’ll be honest: I’ve yet to be really sold on AI laptops. The problem is, laptop makers like Apple, Samsung, HP, Microsoft, and more have been trying to convince us we need a device capable of local AI tasks by suggesting it can help us write emails (I can do that already) and generate images (a fun distraction initially, but I quickly lose interest – and there’s something about AI-generated images, videos, and music that gives me the ick).

It left me feeling as if even the best AI laptops are more of a gimmick used by companies just trying to get us to buy new devices, rather than something revolutionary.

However, after talking to Dr Liv Grant, a technology influencer, science podcaster, and ‘PhD Queen’, I’m actually excited about the implications of on-device AI in laptops, especially for students.

Dr Liv Grant recently ran a vibe coding workshop with Apple, where she showed students with no coding experience how they can create apps using MacBooks and local LLMs (Large Language Models, the tech that modern AI as we know it is based on) and spoke to me about the laptops she uses and recommends to students.

With the Back to School period approaching and Prime Day sales in full swing, students and their parents will be looking for the best student laptops to see them through college and university, so I was keen to get Dr Liv Grant's recommendation.

“I have a MacBook Neo,” she told me, “that’s great for people who are beginning to code. For someone who is learning online and branching into something less data-heavy, such as web developing, it’s a great choice.”

However, Dr Liv Grant explains, "while you can do extremely light cloud-based AI using the device, if someone is looking for the best Mac to use for on-device AI, my recommendation is the MacBook Pro, and if you’re looking for more of an entry device, it would be the MacBook Air.” She continues, “If you’re curious about coding and you already have a MacBook Neo you can begin your journey there, but you’d ideally need an Air or Pro.” 

The MacBook Neo is Apple’s most affordable MacBook, selling for $599 / £599 / AU$899. If you’re a student, there's an exclusive discount from the Apple Education store, which drops the price to $499 / £499. Despite the low price, it performs very well at day-to-day tasks, and thanks to the Apple A18 Pro chip that powers it, it can also handle on-device AI, though Apple would like to make clear that the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are better suited for coding and on device AI and LLM workflows.

The Apple A18 Pro features an NPU (Neural Processing Unit), which Apple calls the Neural Engine, and is the part of the chip that enables on-device artificial intelligence.

What’s on device AI?

Let’s back up a bit for a minute. You might be wondering what on-device AI means, and what makes it different from online AI chatbots such as ChatGPT.

ChatGPT, Claude and other popular AI chatbots are mainly cloud-based and accessed via the internet. On-device AI means that AI tasks such as image or text generation are performed on the device itself by the NPU using a local LLM.

You don’t need an AI-capable laptop or device to use cloud-based AI tools – all you need is an internet connection. However, devices that can run AI locally offer plenty of benefits, as Dr Liv Grant explained.

“With on-device AI, you don’t need internet connectivity. I’m always working on the go; especially when working at university, I’d work during my commute. The Wi-Fi on public transport can be awful, and it would interrupt my work.”

This is probably the most noticeable benefit for many people. If you’re doing important work that requires AI tools, using those tools locally on the device means that if you lose your internet connection, you can still keep working – and you won’t be in danger of losing your work.

Running those tasks locally has privacy and security benefits as well, as you’re not sharing data, files, or any other information with a remote third party, which is the case with cloud-based AI tools. For extremely sensitive data, or even personal things like using AI to help edit family photos, you should use on-device AI.

To ensure a laptop you’re considering buying is capable of on-device AI, you should check to see if it comes with an NPU (or Neural Engine if you’re looking at MacBooks).

The good news is that most modern chips from Intel, AMD, Qualcomm and Apple feature NPUs. Windows 11 laptops with these chips will most likely be labeled as ‘Copilot+ PCs’ – not the best name, but that’s Microsoft for you. Meanwhile, Apple products will be labeled as being ready for Apple Intelligence.

NPU performance is often measured in TOPS (Trillions of Operations Per Second). The higher the TOPS, the faster the NPU will complete AI tasks. Windows 11 laptops with an NPU of 40 TOPS or more can be labeled as a Copilot+ PC, for example.

This is why Dr Liv Grant suggests the MacBook Neo is best for less-intensive AI tasks, as its NPU is capable of around 35 TOPS, while it's also limited to 8GB of unified memory.

So, the MacBook Neo is fine for beginners, but if you have more ambitious plans that require on-device AI, you’ll want to go for a device with an NPU capable of higher TOPS and offering more RAM.

Light as air

Because of that, Dr Liv Grant uses a MacBook Air for the majority of her coding and AI work. It’s a great alternative due to its thin and light design (ideal for people who work while traveling) and its relatively affordable price (the 13-inch MacBook Air with M5 chip starts at $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799, and again, there’s a student discount that’ll knock $100/£100/AU$160 off the price if you qualify).

It's also far more capable when it comes to day-to-day tasks and on-device AI, thanks to its M5 chip and 16GB of unified memory to start.

While Apple doesn’t officially disclose the TOPS of its chips, we estimate that it’s around 133 TOPS – which, on paper, makes it around four times faster for AI. Combine that with the larger amount of faster unified memory, and the MacBook Air becomes an excellent mobile AI workstation. At Dr Liv Grant’s vibe coding workshop, the participants all used a MacBook Air.

The final tool in Dr Liv Grant’s MacBook arsenal is a MacBook Pro, which she primarily uses for content creation for her extremely popular Instagram and TikTok accounts.

"My everyday device is my MacBook Pro, because of the heaviness of my workflow. When I’m on the go, I use MacBook Air, which is what we used for the workshop at Apple," she told me.

For students (or anyone, for that matter)looking for a laptop that can handle complex AI tasks as well as demanding creative workloads, a MacBook Pro might be a wise investment, but it is a lot more expensive.

All about the vibe coding

So, what’s the importance of AI for students? While a lot of focus has been on how AI can help students research and study, Dr Liv Grant suggests vibe coding is where it can make the biggest difference, and not necessarily just for programming students.

“Vibe coding is where you use AI or a chatbot tool to help you write code,” explains Dr Liv Grant. “For example, I have an idea for an app to help content creators do a job – a few years ago I’d have had to learn the language, the syntax, the codebase from scratch. With vibe coding you can use AI to help you.”

As Dr Liv Grant is keen to stress, vibe coding isn’t a replacement for traditional coding, and she is familiar with many programming languages. Instead, it’s a tool that can help coders experiment and get creative while still being productive.

Dr Liv Grant’s mention of coding languages is an interesting one, as there’s a huge range of languages used. Web developers, for example, might use JavaScript, while someone making Windows 11 apps would use C#, and someone coding for Macs or iOS apps would likely use Swift. Being experienced with one coding language doesn’t mean you’ll be ‘fluent’ in others, and that’s where vibe coding can really help.

“Even if you know what you’re doing, everyone should use vibe coding,” Dr Liv Grant suggests.

In her workshop, students with no coding background used MacBook Airs to create an app. “We made a pomodoro timer app using LLM studio, picked a vibe coding tool, and gave it three prompts.”

The AI tool would then give examples of code to use in the desired language. “With the first prompt,” explains Dr Liv Grant, “there were some errors, but those were easy to fix.” This is where a basic understanding of coding and syntax comes in, as Dr Grant used her coding experience to correct any mistakes in the AI-generated code.

The ease of vibe coding combined with more affordable laptops such as the MacBook Neo “opens up the world of coding to so many people – people in lower socioeconomic groups, students, anyone,” Dr Liv Grant told me. “It’s very exciting; students have so many ideas, and vibe coding helps those students realize those ideas without having to learn entire programming languages.

“Red Bull Basement recently ran a competition for people to pitch their ideas for an AI tool or app. All the entrants were using vibe coding. They didn’t have a background in coding.”

To me, that sounds both exciting and worrying. Exciting because it could mean that new (once-marginalized) voices, ideas, and products come to market. Someone who once might have had a great idea for an app, but never did anything with it as they were unable to code, could now rustle up a prototype with vibe coding.

Similarly, someone without a coding background who needs an app for a specific task could make their own rather than trying to find someone who would do it for them.

However, I’m also worried – could vibe coding mean an influx of slop apps? And what about programmers, will they be out of jobs? Is it even worth becoming a programming student?

“Yes,” says Dr Liv Grant when I ask her if people should still study to become programmers, “but maybe not in the depth we used to learn coding in. Learn basic syntax, how code works,” Dr Grant suggests. Those skills will prove essential to ensuring any vibe-coded project has a base level of quality. As for programming as a career? “It’s going to move more towards how good you are at interacting with AI and how good you are at prompting.”

I left our conversation with a newfound appreciation for how AI can help students, especially when it comes to vibe coding, and how that, combined with more affordable devices like the MacBook Neo (even considering its limitations), could make app developing much more accessible.

It’s certainly an interesting time, and if you or someone you know is considering getting a laptop to vibe code on, I’ve picked some of my top choices below. Make sure you also follow Dr Liv Grant on TikTok and Instagram for more fascinating insights into tech, science and Epigenetics.

If what we talked about here has got you interested in getting a MacBook for vibe coding (and more), then check out these fantastic MacBook Prime Day deals I've hand-picked below.

Prime Day MacBook deals

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.

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.

• Siri AI is getting a new gesture in iOS 27
• It’s taking over the well-established Notification Center gesture
• That breaks 15 years of muscle memory and may be hard to get used to

When Apple introduced Siri AI at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 8, it understandably wanted to make its AI-enhanced virtual assistant become a key part of people’s everyday lives. But in doing so, it looks like the company has taken a step that could annoy a significant portion of its user-base.

That’s because invoking Siri AI involves a new gesture: you swipe down from the top of your iPhone’s screen. Well, it’s new for Siri, as swiping down on your iOS display previously launched the Notification Center. That means users of the best iPhones could be left frustratingly confused after they update to iOS 27.

The iOS Notification Center is where you see and interact with all your alerts on your iPhone. Apple has used the swipe-down gesture for the Notification Center since 2011, meaning we’ve had 15 years of training to reinforce this gesture. Having Siri AI take over this swipe movement is going to take some getting used to, if it does indeed make it into the final version of iOS 27.

The Notification Center hasn’t been banished entirely — in iOS 27, you’ll be able to load it up by swiping downwards from the top-left corner of your display. Thankfully, that gesture isn’t used by any other iOS feature, so we’re not going to be left with a cascading set of muscle memory disruptions. But it’s still something that a lot of people won’t be familiar with.

The new order

While I understand Apple’s desire to make Siri AI as prominent as possible, I anticipate I’m going to make plenty of mistakes swiping in the wrong place until I get used to the new arrangement. After all, I’ve had an iPhone since the days of the iPhone 3GS, meaning I’ve gone through those full 15 years of swiping down to get the Notification Center. Undoing that kind of habit isn’t always easy.

As well as that, swiping down from the top-left corner is an entirely new action, as no other feature currently occupies that space. It’s not like I’ll be used to interacting with that side of the screen from past experience.

Still, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Apple, it’s that its gestures are incredibly intuitive and can be learned with very little effort. When the iPhone X came along in 2017 and changed not just one gesture but the entire way you used iOS, it only took me a day or two to feel entirely comfortable with the new arrangement. I’ve got my fingers crossed for similar good luck this time around.

And besides, if Siri AI proves to be even half as impressive as Apple implied at WWDC, I’ll be happy to have it in such a prominent place on my iPhone. The Notification Center isn’t going away — it’s just having to make way for the new kid on the block.

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.

• Passwords app in iOS 27 will automatically change weak and compromised passwords for you
• The feature improvement leans on Gemini-backed Apple Intelligence upgrade
• Apple shares fell 1.9% in the day following WWDC 2026

Apple is set to introduce a major improvement to its Passwords app in iOS 27, which will see the native password manager now be able to automatically change compromised passwords rather than just warning users about potential leaks.

The Passwords app already warned users of passwords that have appeared in a breach, or potentially weak passwords like reused login details, but the upcoming software also promises to fix them automatically.

By using AI, Apple promises to navigate password-change websites automatically, generate new passwords and update those credentials within the app, though it's worth noting it only works on eligible, supported platforms.

Apple Passwords app will soon automatically update passwords for you

Announced at the company's annual software keynote at WWDC 2026, Apple explained the system uses Apple Intelligence to complete the process – an underlying feature that also got an upgrade at the event.

Upcoming versions of Apple Intelligence, which process requests either on-device or securely via Private Cloud Compute, will be powered by new models that lean on Google's Gemini.

The upgrade will make changing passwords less of a chore, because physically changing them is often a source of friction for affected users.

However, minor improvements to the Passwords app generally reflect the entire WWDC experience, with Apple focusing on the three core pillars of platform improvements, trust and safety, and Apple Intelligence this year, ruling out any radical software changes.

Share prices have fallen around 1.9% since the announcement, reflecting broader disappointment around this year's software announcements.

Tim Cook has just brought down the curtain on his final WWDC as Apple CEO — and much of the keynote was devoted to fixing one of the few stains on his otherwise remarkable Apple legacy: Apple Intelligence.

Cook knows Apple didn’t get it right the first time. Now he’s gone all out to fix that with the new iOS 27 sporting a fully AI-powered Siri that acts more as a proper digital companion rather than just a voice assistant. In a way, WWDC 2026 was his swan song as he’s about to pass the reins of Apple over to its next CEO, John Ternus, on September 1.

The new Gemini-powered Siri AI is packed with new features: it can look and respond to whatever is on your screen and dig deeper into apps via Voice Control. It can bring in data from your calendar, emails, contacts and notes when writing responses.

Drag your finger down from the top of the iPhone and you enter a new ‘Search or Ask’ interface for Siri AI. From here you can launch apps, write text messages, add events to your calendar, search the web using AI and more. It all adds up to being able to use Siri as the phone interface in a way that wasn’t possible before.

The same is true for its use of AI in photo editing — while previously Apple seemed to show distaste for AI being used to alter photos in a way that looked real, now it has embraced it. You can now use generative AI to manipulate your photos, with features such as 'Extend', 'Enhance' and 'Reframe' that enable you to manipulate photos in a realistic way. Image Playground can now make realistic AI images.

And all these new, enhanced, AI features and Siri AI will work across all Apple’s operating systems, so everything is integrated for the Apple user that is fully invested in the Apple ecosystem.

Do people really want all these AI features?

While the initial launch of Apple Intelligence might have bombed, let’s not forget that Apple’s previous AI woes have done nothing to affect Apple’s bottom line. In April, Apple posted Q2 revenue of $111.2 billion, up 17 percent year over year. At the same time the iPhone achieved a revenue record, fueled by demand for the iPhone 17 lineup.

That’s simply outstanding, and shows that the company is still a massive revenue-generating machine. People still love iPhones despite Apple Intelligence, not because of it.

In a way, Apple’s push for stronger AI in its products is an odd one, because it’s clear that people will buy them regardless. But Apple’s big fear must be that if it doesn’t act on AI now then it will eventually start to be more than just an existential threat to its iPhone sales. It can’t afford to let competitors such as Google and Samsung get too far ahead.

If you ignore the Apple gloss for a minute and stop to think about it, the new fully-integrated and AI-powered Siri in iOS 27 is, in fact, nothing revolutionary. The ability to search using AI, write emails, ask questions, etc, are all things that you can already do in apps like Gemini, Claude and ChatGPT — they’re just being made more accessible.

The thing is, tiny changes in user experience can result in massive differences in how intuitive and easy to use a device feels. Apple knows this all too well, and it’s leveraging its decades-long expertise on phone design to produce an experience that will take what people already love about the iPhone and make it better, or so it hopes.

Embracing change

Of course, we won’t really know if Apple's second run at AI is a success until the features launch and we get to use them day in, day out, which will be when the next iPhone is due to be released in the fall. The only question left is, do we trust Apple to get this right?

As the healthy sales of the iPhone 17 show, it’s not that people are crying out for more AI features on their phone. And at times it feels like we’re all caught in this spiral of inevitability with AI: we have to have more of it because… we have to have more of it.

And as the growing backlash to Google turning search into an AI-first experience, or the negative reaction to graduation speakers extolling the virtues of AI show, people don’t necessarily like AI.

Apple's first attempt at AI faltered because it promised a future that wasn't ready. This time Apple looks far better prepared. But whether customers were asking for an AI-first iPhone is another question entirely. Apple seems to have decided that question no longer matters.

The only thing left to discover is whether users embrace the change, or simply learn to live with it.

• Apple is expected to launch an AI-powered version of Siri at WWDC today
• That could enable new features on the Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini
• Other Apple products have been postponed due to Siri’s long delay

Apple’s long-overdue Siri upgrade — which should see it level up with new artificial intelligence (AI) powers — is set to be unveiled at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) today. Not only could that give Siri a much-needed shot in the arm, it might also bring new features to a bunch of hardware products that have had to sit on the sidelines until Siri is ready.

That includes the Apple TV 4K and the HomePod mini, two devices that haven’t seen meaningful changes for years now. And I’m excited to see what new powers could be unlocked once they’re imbued with Apple Intelligence.

Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman — who broke the news that these devices have been held up while Apple finalizes its AI efforts — cautions that we shouldn’t expect much aside from new chips that are compatible with Apple Intelligence. But to me, that feels a little beside the point — the Apple Intelligence upgrades alone could be worth the wait.

That’s because the new version of Siri is expected to better understand your personal context and work within other apps running on your devices. For the HomePod mini, I’m hoping that might mean learning your listening habits and picking out more personalized selections on request.

And if you’re able to better control apps running on the Apple TV 4K using Siri and your voice, that might let you bypass the Siri Remote, which is still frustrating many years after it launched. Although Gurman did note that the remote might itself be “refreshed in some form,” he didn’t share what that would look like.

Further delays

Aside from new powers coming to the HomePod mini and Apple TV 4K, other products could get a dose of Siri medicine in the future, Gurman reports in his latest Power On newsletter. Yet he also adds that many of these products are still years away from arriving.

That includes a tabletop robot, which has been pushed back from 2026 or 2027 to 2028, and a smart home display that has seen its release date slip from the original 2024 target to late 2026 “at the earliest.” And Apple’s smart glasses have also been delayed from early 2027 to later in the year, Gurman claims. Despite the hardware being close to launch, these products have all been rescheduled because they rely on the new Siri software, Gurman explains.

So while the Siri upgrade coming to WWDC later today could finally lift the limitation that has delayed updates to the Apple TV 4K and the HomePod mini, Apple’s AI holdup still appears to be having a negative effect on some as-yet-unreleased devices hidden in its secret labs.

Still, the silver lining is undoubtedly what Siri could enable for existing Apple products — and we’re about to see exactly what the company has planned. While we might not get big improvements to the hardware of the Apple TV 4K and the HomePod mini, the software upgrade alone could be worth the wait.

Apple's opening WWDC 2026 keynote has been and gone, and boy, did we hear a lot about iOS 27, macOS 27 (or more specifically, macOS Golden Gate), and the rest of Apple's upcoming software upgrades.

Leading the charge were announcements surrounding Apple Intelligence and Siri AI, which will seemingly make your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch as capable as rival products from Google and Samsung from an AI perspective.

Siri, specifically, will be more conversational, detailed, and engaging, and will no longer hand off your query to third-party AI providers like ChatGPT (that is, if you ignore the fact that Siri AI is powered by Google's Gemini model).

Elsewhere, Apple announced a host of productivity, security, and creativity upgrades coming to devices across its portfolio — even the Apple Vision Pro got a mention — and many of its new software packages are available to try in beta.

Below, I've rounded up the key news from WWDC 2026, and stay tuned to TechRadar for more analysis as the dust settles on Apple's major announcements.

Jump to the live updates here

WWDC 2026 — key news

• 17 things we learned at WWDC 2026 — Siri's getting a big AI makeover, Golden Gate is the next macOS, Liquid Glass is changing, and more
• 7 new iPhone features coming to your phone in iOS 27 — from the new Siri AI to big Liquid Glass upgrades
• Apple's new, AI-powered Siri is finally here — here are the biggest upgrades coming with Siri AI
• Apple just gave 'Siri AI' its biggest upgrade ever — whether iPhone users asked for it or not
• iOS 27 and Siri AI compatibility explained — confirmed device requirements for Apple's new software updates
• macOS 27 Golden Gate announced at WWDC 2026 — here's everything you need to know
• How to download the iOS 27 developer beta
• How to download the macOS 27 Golden Gate developer beta
• Apple quietly kills off support for Intel Macs and MacBooks
• Apple just quietly dropped 6 current-gen watches from supporting the upgrade, including Ultra and SE models — here is the full list
• AirPods are finally getting a custom EQ in iOS 27, this is not a drill!
• Siri AI’s new voice customization could have trumped Alexa+, but scant HomeOS updates stall the win for Apple

WWDC 2026 — how to re-watch

You can re-watch Apple's WWDC 2026 keynote via Apple’s YouTube page or via the embedded video above.

Live updates

Welcome to our WWDC 2026 live blog! Stick with us throughout the day for our pre-event coverage of Apple's big software showcase.

A look back at WWDCs past

What better way to count down to WWDC 2026 than with a visual look back at the WWDCs that came before? TechRadar's Mark Wilson has put together a visual retrospective of the 25 biggest moments from previous WWDCs, including the announcement of Mac OS X, Apple's switch from Power PC to Intel, and the launch of the iPhone 4.

TechRadar's editor-at-large, Lance Ulanoff, has touched down in California and— wait a minute, is that Apple CEO-to-be John Ternus? If you're reading this, Lance, let us know if he gave you any pre-show hints about what to expect from WWDC 2026.

More than just Siri

Of course, Siri 2.0 will be just one part of iOS 27, so what else are we hoping to see in Apple's next iPhone-focused software package?

Elsewhere on TechRadar, we've detailed 5 things we want iOS 27 to fix at WWDC 2026, from the iOS keyboard to Liquid Glass glitches.

What can Siri tell us about WWDC 2026?

If you were to ask Siri right now what to expect from WWDC 2026, you'd be met with a response that sums up the whole issue with Apple's voice assistant.

"Do you want me to use ChatGPT to answer that?" No surprises there.

If Apple can cut out the middle man and deliver a Siri that doesn't so explicitly rely on external AI to function, it'll be a win for everyone involved. TechRadar's editor-at-large, Lance Ulanoff, dug into this topic in a separate article over the weekend.

What to expect for iPad at WWDC 2026

Will we see new hardware at WWDC 2026, and more specifically, new iPads? Well, we can’t say for sure, but we do have a fairly good idea of what to expect (and not expect).

Sadly, the answer to that question is probably 'no' — for two reasons. The first is obvious — WWDC is Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, with the key word there being ‘developers’, meaning that the focus is on software, not hardware.

Second, in recent years, Apple has tended to unveil its new tablets either early in the year, or towards the end of the year. Mid-year launches are rare. And this year, we did indeed see an early-year launch, with the iPad Air (2026) landing back in March. That was only a few months ago, so it would seem odd for Apple to launch another model so soon.

Still, we're expecting to hear plenty from Apple regarding iPadOS 27 today — here's the full breakdown on what to expect for iPad at WWDC 2026.

As for how Siri 2.0 might actually work in iOS 27, rumors suggest Apple could roll out a dedicated chat app for its voice assistant, as well as integrate Siri into the Dynamic Island.

Specifically, when you activate Siri with a wake word or the side button, a Siri animation will reportedly appear in the Dynamic Island. Then, once you’ve asked it something, a transparent results card will be displayed. If you need to go deeper than those initial results, you can swipe on the card to bring up a chat interface that apparently looks similar to an iMessage chat.

Hopefully, we'll see this rumored Siri interface in action today at WWDC 2026.

Which Apple era do you belong in?

Are you a longtime Apple user? If so, which Apple era do you belong in? Take our quiz to find out.

Don't expect a Liquid Glass-level redesign

As for what we're expecting to see in iOS 27 besides a major Siri revamp, rumors suggest Apple could add the ability to use natural language to create shortcuts in the Shortcuts app, as well as a new ‘Create a Pass’ option for Apple Wallet.

Other leaks point to tweaks to the look of Apple’s controversial Liquid Glass interface, design changes for the Camera and Weather apps, and improvements to autocorrect.

Don't expect a Liquid Glass-level design overhaul this year, then, but as mentioned, we're expecting to see Apple make experience-improving tweaks to the iPhone's transparent UI.

It looks like TechRadar's editor-at-large, Lance Ulanoff, is waking up to a clear morning in Cupertino, California (by my calculations, the local time is 6am PT).

Hang on, here's an even better pic...

And we've had our first "Good morning!" from Tim Cook, too.

The Apple CEO just tweeted a video of himself — and friends of the company including Harrison Ford, Jimmy Fallon, and Whoopi Goldberg — saying those exact words. Might today be the last time we hear a Tim Cook "Good morning!" on an Apple stage? With John Ternus stepping into the role of Apple CEO in September, it's certainly possible.

Coming bright up

Let's take a look at the official event invite for WWDC 2026. The official tagline reads "Coming bright up," and Apple's developer website is awash with references to glowing light ("Glow all out" and "A glowing giveaway," for instance). You may remember that Apple added an edge-to-edge glow to Siri in iOS 18.1 — yes, almost two years ago — and we're pretty confident that this is what Apple is teasing again here (albeit for an updated, genuinely usable version of Siri).

One other thing that's worth mentioning: as much as we're expecting Apple to right the wrongs of Siri at WWDC 2026, rumors suggest the company will still add a 'beta' label to its new voice assistant, and there may even be a waitlist of some sort before you can actually try it. Apple did the same thing with the launch of Apple Intelligence in 2024, suggesting that Siri 2.0 might still not be a finished product (despite being much better than Siri as it exists now).

Lance has touched down in Apple Park, and things are looking 'bright'.

Annual 'Lance at WWDC' selfie just dropped:

What about MacOS?

Let's pivot to MacBook for a moment. With MacOS 27, Apple looks set to introduce a “slight redesign” to the Liquid Glass-based UI, bringing fixes for “shadows and transparency quirks,” according to Bloomberg's resident Apple expert Mark Gurman.

However, “Liquid Glass itself isn’t going away,” Gurman insists: “The goal is more of a cleanup and refinement effort aligned with the company’s wider push to polish its software this year.”

This fits with the design rumors we've heard about iOS 27 and iPadsOS 27, too — so, Siri notwithstanding, 2026 looks set to be a year of small tweaks, rather than big swings.

Media pass secured

Behold, the official Apple pins from WWDC 2026:

Lil’ Finder Guy is definitely the best of the four.

With less than two hours to go until kick-off, it looks like Lance is doing laps around Apple Par— oh no wait, he's just finding his seat.

Survey says... Siri!

Early results for our 'What are you most excited to see at WWDC 2026?' poll suggest Siri 2.0 is the most hotly anticipated announcement of the day, closely followed by iOS 27 more generally. That makes sense, since more people use iPhones than, say, iPads or MacBooks, and Apple hasn't been discreet about marketing today's event as a Siri-focused showcase.

To see the current results of our poll, simply cast your vote below.

Apple Park is starting to fill up.

A reminder that today's event is due to start at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST (or 3am AEST on June 9), and you can tune in via the video link at the top of the page.

Here's what the TechRadar team is most excited to see at today's event:

Marc McLaren, Global Editor in Chief: I'm excited to see how Apple reclaims the narrative around AI. There are very few areas of tech where it's ever been so far behind its rivals and ended up looking a little out of touch, so if it has big things in store on this front, that's massive news. And if it doesn't… well, that's massive news too.

Jacob Krol, US Managing Editor, News: I'm really keen to see new Siri come to fruition after two years, but also how Apple positions it as helpful for everyday folks, and the features it decides to spotlight (will they be the same as originally promised?). It'll also be interesting to see whether Gemini or Google gets even a very tiny mention (I doubt it), and how Apple describes generative edit features for Photos.

Mark Wilson, UK Managing Editor, News: I’m looking forward to the new ‘Siri’ mode in the Camera app — I’ve been getting tired of Android getting all the cool visual search tricks like proper ‘Circle to Search’. And that sounds genuinely useful, assuming it’s not all smoke and mirrors again.

Matt Hanson, Managing Editor, Core Tech: I'd like Liquid Glass to look nicer in macOS 27.

Matt Evans, Senior Fitness & Wearables Editor: I'm excited to see how Tim Cook handles the baton-passing to John Ternus

Tim Coleman, Cameras Editor: More pics of Lance shaking hands with important people.

I'm with you there, Tim.

Interestingly, both the Apple Developer Portal and Apple Store website are still operating as normal, with just over half an hour to go until WWDC 2026 kicks off. Apple typically closes both sites for maintenance ahead of keynotes like WWDC, so we're expecting them to shutter imminently.

In other words, if you want to buy an iPhone from Apple directly, you've probably got about 30 seconds to do so...

We're ready and waiting (it looks like there are still some seats available, guys).

We're just about 30 minutes away from the start of WWDC 26, and I'm curious whether we'll see John Ternus join Tim Cook and Craig Federighi on stage at Apple Park before the pre-recorded presentation begins.

Typically, the latter two appear in front of the big screen at Apple Park to offer a few words before the event video kicks off, but considering Ternus was out mingling with attendees last night — including TechRadar's own Editor-at-Large Lance Ulanoff — it feels like perfect timing for the CEO-to-be to step into this emcee role.

Either way, we'll find out soon enough.

If you're wondering what Apple might call macOS 27, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman isn't convinced that Big Bear, Redwood, or Tiburon are the chosen monikers.

And just like that, Apple's beta page is down, teasing "We'll be back."

10 minutes to go. There's no music on Apple's live stream yet — at this point during Google I/O 2026, Google was torturing us with some AI-generated EDM — but the silence has got me wondering whether we'll see some sort of skit featuring Craig Federighi to kick things off.

The 'number of people in the waiting room' ticker is steadily heading north. It's now at 90,000...

The Apple stewards are wrangling the last few attendees...

Here's a quick prediction/hope/dream from TechRadar's Managing Editor, Social & Engagement, Josie Watson:

"I'm betting on this finally being the year Apple gets its act together and delivers a competitive smart home service. With competition hotting up from Google Home and Alexa, a newly bolstered Siri with widgets and better Shortcuts could be the missing ingredient. Except that'll probably mean we need all-new, more powerful HomePods, too..."

And we're off! There's the music...

Tim Cook walks onto the Apple Park green to Harry Styles' "Ready, Stready, Go!"

Was that the last "Good morning!" we'll ever hear from Tim Cook...

Confirmation that we'll be hearing about Siri today... surprise!

Craig Federighi teases upcoming announcements regarding platform improvements, trust and safety, and Apple Intelligence and Siri.

Side note: Federighi's hair really is magnificent, isn't it?

The first big reveal of the day: macOS 27 is... macOS Golden Gate!

Here's Stacey Ford to talk about upcoming macOS upgrades. She says Apple has made macOS "faster, smoother, and even easier to use."

Can yo count all the upgrades in the image above?

Liquid Glass will now diffuse content behind it much more effectively, and Apple is adding a new slider in Settings to adjust Liquid Glass. It's about time.

Every window on macOS will now have the same corner radius, and Apple has also added Liquid Glass effects to app icons.

I mean, that does look pretty cool actually.

Some more eye-catching stats: iPhone and iPad apps will launch up to 30% faster, new photos will appear 70% faster, photos will transfer over AirDrop 80% faster, and file browsing is up to 5x faster. Impressive stuff.

Hang on, did Apple just say... iPhone 11?!

iOS 27 will be available on every iPhone since Apple's 2019 flagship, which matches the minimum software requirements of iOS 26.

Finally, Search is getting some much-needed TLC.

Apple has rebuilt Search from the ground up; iOS 27 and macOS 27 will index your entire data library, so you can better search for photos and emails. Huzzah!

In case you missed it during that feature announcement flurry, iOS 27 will add a status slider for iMessages.

We're moving swiftly on to the Trust & Safety portion of Apple's briefing.

Starting this year, parents will be able to create upgraded Child accounts in iOS. They'll be able to approve which apps their children can download, which websites they can view, who their children can talk to, and how long they can spend on their iPhone or iPad.

In iOS 27, Time Allowances work like Screen Time limits, but are informed by paediatric research, and can be amended to suit different times of day.

Craig Federighi: "We're giving parents powerful, easy-to-use tools to help manage what kids can see and who they can talk to." This is good stuff from Apple.

And here we go with the AI portion of today's keynote.

"Today, we're taking a big step forward with Apple Intelligence."

Gemini mentioned!

Apple has acknowledged its partnership with Google; Gemini models will underpin Apple's upcoming Apple Intelligence features.

Apple believes that companies already investing heavily in AI should "turn the potential of advanced technology into helpful and intuitive products for everyone."

Is that a spot of shade-throwing?

Apple announces Siri AI.

"We've rebuilt Siri with powerful AI at the core," the company says. "Siri is a profoundly more capable assistant, and it's more conversational."

There's a dedicated Siri app, and it'll live predominantly within your iPhone's Dynamic Island.

Apple is showing off its new Siri AI platform by having a conversation about an upcoming Suki Waterhouse gig. This new voice assistant is contextually aware and capable of analysing what's appearing on your iPhone screen at any given time.

Essentially, Siri AI will reduce the need to jump between apps manually. It can search through core iPhone apps like Photos, Maps, and Mail to better answer your query.

Incidentally, Apple is also launching new Siri voices — you'll be able to adjust pace and expressivity based on your preferences.

An important side note there: these Siri AI upgrades extend to CarPlay and AirPods.

I'm not seeing much here that's downright groundbreaking versus comparable assistants like Gemini, but it does seem as if Apple has caught up to the competition with Siri AI.

Here's a look at Siri AI on macOS. Rather than being embedded in the Dynamic Island (which doesn't exist on MacBooks), it'll form part of Spotlight. You can expand Siri queries into dedicated macOS windows, and a new Siri field will appear when right-clicking on files.

We're now getting a look at the dedicated Siri app, which will store your (private) conversational history across your devices. In typical Apple fashion, you can start chatting to Siri on iPhone, move to iPad, and finish the conversation on Mac.

Siri mode in the iPhone's camera app looks like the Visual Intelligence feature that was promised two years ago. Touch the shutter button to let Siri see what you see, and you'll be able to ask contextual questions about your surroundings.

Automatic Proofreading! That's a useful new Apple Intelligence feature. Essentially, you won't have to take action when your iPhone, iPad, or Mac highlights a writing error.

Here's another look at that Siri assistant pop-up on Mac:

Oh, this is nice. Apple Intelligence can automatically organize your Safari tabs into categories.

I hope TechRadar's Global Editor in Chief, Marc McLaren, is watching...

Here's a major Passwords app update: now, you can automatically update eligible accounts to strong passwords, saving you the hassle of changing those passwords manually. Apple Intelligence will also go ahead and re-sign you into accounts with those changed passwords.

Ooo, this is good too: if you're on a phone call and are asked for details regarding a booking or reservation (say, if you're speaking to an airline regarding a flight), Apple Intelligence will surface those details into the phone call interface, so you don't have to navigate away from the call. If it works, that's huge.

Apple is now revealing a big Shortcuts app upgrade that we were hoping and praying for.

Essentially, you can now build Shortcuts with natural language prompts, so you don't have to wade through the complex process of building Shortcuts yourself.

Again, if it works, this could be huge for the accessibility of the feature, which launched way back in 2018.

In iOS 27, Image Playground really feels like what it should have been when it first launched.

For starters, you can now make an image in pretty much any style, including much more realistic ones. It's also being integrated across nearly all platforms, and you can make images in pretty much any size. We'll need to see how it stacks up, but this Apple Intelligence launch feature now looks genuinely usable.

An important note there: Siri AI won't be available in the EU on iOS and iPadOS. That's a lot of customers.

Behold, the (very) big list of Apple Intelligence features coming to iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS Golden Gate:

It's interesting that we haven't heard from (or even seen!) CEO-to-be John Ternus during this WWDC 2026 keynote. He is a hardware man, I suppose.

iOS 27, iPad OS 27, macOS Golden Gate, and the rest of Apple's next major software packages will arrive in Fall this year — for those new to this, that means 'in September, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro.'

And that's a wrap on Apple's opening keynote for WWDC 2026.

Stay tuned for our breakdown of all the announcements, and I'm working on a handy 'key announcements' list as I type this, so you don't have to wade through my previous 100 posts.

The WWDC 2026 compatibility conundrum

I've just published an explainer on the device requirements for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and Siri AI. To enjoy the full version of the latter — specifically, features like expressive voices and more advanced dictation — you'll need to own an iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, or an iPhone Air.

Frustratingly for many, Siri AI also won't be available in the European Union (EU) or China at launch.

Here's Apple's statement on the matter: "Unfortunately, due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Apple will not be able to ship Siri AI in the European Union with the release of iOS 27 and iPadOS 27. Over the past several months, EU regulators did not accept any of Apple’s proposed solutions to bring Siri AI to the EU while safely supporting other virtual assistants."

Yikes.

• The main focus of WWDC will be on Siri and other major AI updates
• iOS 27 could introduce changes designed for the iPhone Fold
• Apple may preview a new Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini

When Tim Cook delivered his first WWDC opening speech back in 2012, Siri kicked things off with a joke: "How many developers does it take to change a light bulb? None, that’s a hardware problem."

If Apple opens this year's keynote with Siri again, let's hope it has some fresh material because the Apple Intelligence features it originally promised for iOS 26.4 are now expected to arrive with iOS 27, making this WWDC a crucial moment for Apple's AI ambitions.

Of course, given the broader transition underway at Apple, the stakes are even higher for this year's WWDC to truly deliver. With John Ternus set to take over on September 1, which is also around the same time Apple is expected to unveil its first foldable iPhone, iOS 27 will need to do more than simply add AI features.

As usual, we're also expecting various updates to be announced for iPadOS 27, macOS 27, tvOS 27, watchOS 27, and visionOS 27. And while WWDC is traditionally a software-focused event, there are rumors of a new Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini, both of which could receive an early preview ahead of a potential launch later this year.

There's also the possibility (like we joked about on the TechRadar podcast below) that Cook pulls a scene straight from The Wolf of Wall Street and announces he's not leaving after all. That would certainly be one more thing...

A smarter Siri

Apple's WWDC 2026 invite strongly hints at major Siri AI upgrades, which is no big surprise given that many of us have been waiting months for the more personal, AI-powered Siri first showcased last year.

At this point, it's almost a given that Siri will get the glow-up we've been waiting for, making it smarter and more useful across a range of applications. Based on reports from Bloomberg's Apple tipster Mark Gurman, we're also expecting Siri to get chatbot-like capabilities and a dedicated app with iOS 27. It's rumored to largely live within the Dynamic Island at the top of your iPhone.

If those speculations prove accurate, that would put Siri front and center of everything you do on your device, making this the biggest announcement we're expecting to hear next week, especially since Apple seemingly threw in the towel on Apple Intelligence by inking a deal with Google to let Siri run on Gemini.

In fact, this upcoming WWDC may be Apple's last chance to fix Siri and deliver the AI we were promised — no pressure then, Cook.

New Apple Intelligence features

Aside from the rumored upgrades Apple Intelligence will bring to Siri, like the ability to keep track of tasks, see what you're looking at on your phone, and work across all your apps, there's also been talk of several other new AI features planned to be added across Apple's operating systems.

Gurman, again, has been the main source for these tips, most recently suggesting that the image-generating capabilities of Apple Intelligence will be "getting a big boost this year". That suggests a big update is planned for the Photos app, which could also include new AI-powered image editing features.

Earlier this year, Gurman also noted that Apple's Writing Tools feature could get an AI boost to help users with spelling and grammar, as well as with building Shortcuts with AI by letting users more easily create automations across their iPhone, iPad, and Mac using conversational prompts.

An iOS 27 tune-up

Numerous Apple apps are reportedly primed for big changes with the arrival of iOS 27. From the Camera and Weather apps to Safari and Wallet, Gurman has suggested there could be several major upgrades.

Underpinning many of the changes will be the new AI feature, Visual Intelligence, which will be deployed across core iOS apps to enable more 'agentic' automations on your phone.

Of course, there's also the possibility that we get our first glimpse of how iOS 27 might support an iPhone Fold, which was speculated to launch in September but might be delayed until next year if the latest round of reports are true. It's expected to run on iOS 27, despite some considering it to support iPadOS 27.

There could also be some good news for those with non-Apple devices, as Gurman has reported that iOS 27 might relax its streaming protocols to be more open to third-party apps. That could mean that you might have the option to set, say, Google Cast as your default setting for broadcasting video and audio.

OS 27-wide changes

Considering that iOS 27 is rumored to be a much more scaled-back overhaul than what we got last year, many of us — just like MacRumors has reported — are expecting an update more along the lines of the Mac OS X Snow Leopard, which, if you recall, was solely focused on improving performance.

If that's true, it could mean we hear less about new features and more about underlying quality improvements that support the integration of Apple Intelligence across Apple's ecosystem.

One of the more minor improvements we're expecting is to Liquid Glass, which could get a new system-wide slider to adjust the opacity strength, although we likely won't see any major design changes.

Gurman has also hinted at new AirPods features, suggesting that Apple will "revamp" the controls and settings of its wireless earbuds to be "more functional, better organized and more streamlined" — but don't expect a new dedicated app like the Apple Watch has (it's more likely Siri will get a standalone app instead).

A new Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini

Even though WWDC is primarily a software-focused event, there's the possibility that we could see a preview of the rumored new Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini before they potentially launch later this year.

There have been rumors circling of a new Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini launching since last year, and with Gurman confirming that both are "nearly ready to go" in his newsletter on Sunday, it would make sense to showcase a revamped Siri running on new devices.

Less likely, but still possible, is the chance that we get an update about Apple's upcoming desktop lineup, including the M5 Mac mini, the M5 Ultra Mac Studio and M5 iMacs, which have been delayed due to production challenges and global supply chain shortages.

Which rumored WWDC 2026 announcement are you most hopeful to see? Let us know by voting in the poll below or leaving a comment. We'll be covering the keynote in a live blog, so make sure to check back in with us for more.

• Apple’s Siri assistant is due a sizeable upgrade this summer
• Apple has unveiled AI features for its Voice Control accessibility tool
• This could hint at agentic powers coming to Siri in iOS 27

Apple is widely expected to relaunch Siri at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 8, powering up the virtual assistant with long-overdue artificial intelligence (AI) smarts. We don’t know exactly how all of those new features will work yet, but Apple might have just given us a fascinating demo that hints at potential agentic capabilities for Apple’s devices.

That clue came as part of Apple’s recent round-up of new accessibility features powered by Apple Intelligence. Apple described the announcement as a “preview,” which suggests the features might arrive as part of iOS 27 later this year.

While Apple revealed many upcoming features, one has caught the eye more than the others. It’s called Voice Control, and as the name suggests, it lets you operate your Apple device simply by speaking to it. This feature itself isn’t new, and previously, you had to be quite specific, remembering the exact name or location of the on-screen element you wanted to control.

But with Apple Intelligence soon to be part of the equation, everything will change. As Apple explained, Voice Control will be empowered by natural language, making it “more intuitive than ever.” The iOS 27 update will allow for more flexibility with how you use Voice Control: saying things like “tap the guide about best restaurants” or “tap the purple folder” will work where they wouldn’t have done before. And that could have a massive impact on Siri.

The original promise of Apple Intelligence

Right now, Siri feels pretty limited in what it can do, especially when you compare it to some of the best AI agents that can carry out tasks on your behalf. But if Apple’s accessibility preview is anything to go by, that might change soon.

Imagine being able to tell Siri exactly what you want without having to worry about using the exact terms and phrases that it understands, then seeing Siri go off and complete those jobs for you. It’s the original promise of Apple Intelligence when it was unveiled back in 2024, when Apple told us that Siri will be able to learn your personal context, work within apps and understand what’s on your screen. None of those capabilities are here yet, but as the Voice Control upgrade implies, they could be just around the corner.

We’ll know for sure when WWDC kicks off on June 8, but I’ve got a good feeling about what’s to come. If Apple’s accessibility news piece is anything to go by, we might finally get the AI-powered Siri we were promised almost two years ago.

• Apple has sent out invites for WWDC, kicking off on June 8 with a keynote
• ‘Coming Bright Up’ tagline strongly hints at major Siri AI upgrades
• Expect the AI-powered Siri and Apple Intelligence to headline the event

While we’ve known Apple’s WWDC 2026 was set for the second week of June, we’ve been waiting for the Cupertino-based tech giant to formally announce its opening keynote, among other events, and give us our first tease at what’s coming in the form of an invite.

Most importantly, Apple has confirmed that its WWDC 2026 keynote will kick off at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET / 6 pm BST on June 8, 2026 (3 am AEST, June 9, 2026). This will likely be a pre-recorded special event, like we’ve seen from Apple in the past, but media, creators, developers, and other guests will watch it on a big outdoor screen at Apple Park.

It’s also expected to be Tim Cook’s last event as Apple CEO, with John Ternus taking over on September 1, 2026. In classic Apple fashion, the event will be livestreamed, and TechRadar will, of course, be live-blogging it.

And from the invite itself, I think it’s fair to say that Apple thinks WWDC will be pretty bright this year. Unlike past Apple events, there’s no tagline on the invite itself, but on the developer webpage, it reads “Coming Bright Up.” The invite itself features “WWDC 26” in a silver font with some shading, wrapped in a brightly glowing circle.

That circle could hint at a few things — Apple might have decked out its circular campus with glowing, bright LEDs, and the Special Event is taking place at Apple Park for guests, but it’s more likely hinting at features. It’s essentially two glowing circles — one exterior and one interior — and I’d bet it’s a tease for Apple Intelligence and potentially a glow around Siri, maybe even a new design.

I asked TechRadar’s Editor-at-Large, Lance Ulanoff, and he hinted it might be Siri within the Dynamic Island — and while we won’t know until Apple makes it official, it’s no coincidence that both of our minds went to Siri and how it might be integrated across the next generation of all of Apple’s platforms.

Apple has made it no secret that WWDC 26 will likely be the kickoff and formal update around Apple Intelligence and the more personal, AI-powered Siri, which has been delayed for many months. It was first teased and announced at WWDC 2024, and since then, it has never shipped, was rumored to be delayed, and then was formally pushed back by Apple.

Since then, CEO Tim Cook and other executives, including incoming CEO John Ternus, currently SVP of Hardware, and Greg Joswiak, SVP of Marketing, have all hinted that work is going well. Apple has also partnered with Google to use Gemini’s foundational models to help power its next-gen Apple Intelligence, and likely the new Siri.

Rumors have also heated up, teasing how the new Siri will work, how it will impact a range of applications, and how it represents the next leap for Apple Intelligence.

Either way, it’s highly expected that WWDC 2026 will be the launch point for Apple’s next-generation Siri, which will hopefully deliver on some of the original promises from 2024 and level them up to catch up with the likes of Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT. Privacy and Apple’s Private Cloud Compute will likely remain a key focus, and we’ll see how it's integrated with other updates.

Beyond Siri, you can expect the next generation of all of Apple’s platforms, including iOS, watchOS, macOS, iPadOS, tvOS, homeOS, and visionOS, which should all jump from 26 to 27 as Apple continues with its new naming convention.

We’ll have lots more to unpack in the next few weeks before the event, and then on June 8 at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET / 6 pm BST (3 am AEST, June 9), TechRadar will be the place to be for our live coverage of Apple’s Special Event and our analysis in the hours, days, and weeks afterward.

In the meantime, vote in our poll below to let us know what you’re most excited for at WWDC 2026, and feel free to comment below with what you’re hoping to see.

• Apple Intelligence may let you choose which AI models power its features
• iPhones using Apple Intelligence will be open to third-party systems like Google and Anthropic instead of relying on a single default
• It will mean the end of OpenAI's exclusive role in Apple Intelligence

Apple is going to give you a choice of AI models to power the Apple Intelligence features rolling out to its devices instead of just sticking to a single default, according to a report in Bloomberg News.

Allowing users to select from multiple third-party models is a major departure from Apple's usual strategy of tightly controlled experiences. It's more reminiscent of how Android and other operating systems have functioned than the closely guarded Apple Store options.

The options are called Extensions and are coming to iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 this fall. The Extensions will offer a choice of AI models for writing, image generation, and even voice conversations. Instead of one assistant responding to every request, the system could route queries to different providers depending on a user's preferences. It's part of Apple's larger plans for revamped AI features, including a suite of new tools for Photos and a complete redesign of Siri.

Platform over product

Apple has reportedly already tested integrations with systems from Google and Anthropic. Those partnerships would sit alongside Apple’s models, which will still run features built into the device.

No single company leads in every aspect of AI, as the plan tacitly acknowledges. Allowing outside models to plug into its ecosystem means Apple can offer more advanced AI tools without needing to build each one itself, something the company has struggled to do at the pace of its new partners.

It enables Apple to keep pace with rapid developments across the industry while maintaining control over how those tools are presented. And for those companies, Apple’s ecosystem offers scale that is difficult to match elsewhere. Even a limited integration could bring a large audience to alternative models, accelerating competition within the space.

The extra decisions of AI models will likely appeal to those who want some flexibility in their AI options. On the other hand, some people like Apple because the company promotes the idea that all of its features have been curated so that you automatically get the best option. It removes the streamlined simplicity of Apple's operating systems, which is a major draw for some customers.

ChatGPT dethroned

Notably, Apple's plan means that OpenAI, whose ChatGPT system currently serves as the primary external AI option for Apple devices, will lose its exclusive position. That exclusivity has been valuable for OpenAI, but the new strategy means ChatGPT will simply be one choice among many.

Of course, Apple's reduced control means users might not be able to assume that everything the AI tools produce has been approved by the company. Apple will have to make it clear it isn't responsible for content generated by third-party AI models even as it points users to compatible AI apps within the App Store.

A lot of companies take their cues from Apple’s design decisions. This call suggests that in the current phase of AI, control may matter less than access. By making its devices a place where different models can coexist, Apple is betting that flexibility will be more valuable than exclusivity.

• Apple has lost a class action lawsuit to the tune of $250 million
• The case relates to delayed Apple Intelligence features affecting Siri
• If you’re eligible, you could get up to $95 per device

It’s disappointing enough that Apple’s much hyped Apple Intelligence overhaul has been beset by delays, leaving its Siri virtual assistant feeling rather toothless. But some users complained that they felt tricked into buying an iPhone that arrived without any of the promoted features available — and they’ve just won a massive payout from Apple.

That’s because settlement details for a class action lawsuit involving Apple have just emerged, and the final figure stands at $250 million. If you’re eligible for compensation from the mammoth fine, you could be due up to $95 per device.

At the time, the case claimed that Apple had promoted “AI capabilities that did not exist at the time, do not exist now, and will not exist for two or more years.” It also alleged that Apple’s Siri advertisements “saturated the internet, television, and other airwaves to cultivate a clear and reasonable consumer expectation that these transformative features would be available upon the iPhone's release.”

Apple first settled the case in December 2025, but the details of the compensation have only just emerged. Affected users are due $25 per device, but that could rise to $95 per device if the number of claims ends up being low.

In order to be eligible, you need to have purchased an Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone between June 10, 2024, and March 29, 2025. That includes the iPhone 16 range, the iPhone 15 Pro, and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. You must also have purchased your iPhone in the United States.

If you want to make a claim, you’ll need to submit proof that you bought a qualifying device. That could include a serial number, Apple Account information, and a cell phone number. Apple will start inviting claims within 45 days of May 5, 2026.

A costly situation

Back at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2024, Apple showcased its artificial intelligence (AI) system — dubbed Apple Intelligence — and explained how it would revolutionize all of the best iPhones. Planned features included better contextual awareness and the ability to act within other apps, among other things. And importantly, Apple included these improvements in its marketing materials for the iPhone 16 series that arrived later that year.

To some users, those ads and marketing pitches implied that buying one of these phones would get you the promised Apple Intelligence upgrades. Yet Apple has had to push back many of these features, leaving its phones without several of the most advanced weapons in the Apple Intelligence arsenal.

That has proven to be very costly indeed to the company, and not just in financial terms, as Apple Intelligence is widely seen to be lagging behind rivals like ChatGPT and Gemini. The delayed Siri features are expected to arrive in iOS 27, which will debut at WWDC on June 8, and TechRadar’s own Lance Ulanoff believes that will be Apple’s last chance to make up lost ground against its competitors.

In a statement to 9to5Mac, Apple remained in a defiant mood, saying: “Since the launch of Apple Intelligence, we have introduced dozens of features across many languages that are integrated across Apple’s platforms, relevant to what users do every day, and built with privacy protections at every step. These include Visual Intelligence, Live Translation, Writing Tools, Genmoji, Clean Up and many more.

“Apple has reached a settlement to resolve claims related to the availability of two additional features, the company continued. “We resolved this matter to stay focused on doing what we do best, delivering the most innovative products and services to our users.”

But Apple will need to do more than just talk when WWDC rolls around, as users already seem to be abandoning Apple Intelligence. If it doesn’t deliver on its Siri promises, a $250 million lawsuit could be the least of its worries.

• Perplexity’s CEO says the iPhone remains strong in an AI-dominated world
• That’s because it has unique strengths when it comes to AI
• It also has other aspects that aren’t affected by AI at all

It's no secret that Apple has been struggling with its AI efforts and questions have been raised over how chatbots and large language models (LLMs) could impact the devices that make up so much of its business. But now, one AI firm has just come out swinging in defense of Apple’s position.

Speaking on an episode of the This Week in AI podcast broadcast on YouTube, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said that none of Apple’s best iPhones are going to be threatened by AI alternatives. In fact, Srinivas believes they’ll only go from strength to strength.

“The iPhone is actually not getting disrupted by AI at all,” Srinivas said, adding that “the more AI works better, the iPhone essentially becomes your digital passport.”

By that, Srinivas explained that the iPhone stores many things that are important to your life: your wallets and bank cards, your health records, and your precious photos. It also lets you stay in touch with people through messages and FaceTime calls. “All these are things that are truly personal to you and have no connection to AI at all,” Srinivas remarked.

In other words, Srinivas believes that the iPhone performs a wide variety of roles that will not be replaced or impacted by AI, no matter how good it gets. And that could help it survive long into the future.

Too early to write Apple off

The discussion on the podcast also touched upon the way that Apple’s combination of strong privacy controls and excellent silicon chips gives it a strong competitive edge in terms of AI.

That’s because Apple’s chips enable it to put more emphasis on on-device AI processing, which is better for your privacy than uploading your photos to the cloud and potentially having them fed into an AI algorithm. For people concerned about that sort of thing, Apple’s iPhone is an attractive option.

But why are people asking questions about the iPhone’s future in the world of AI? Well, some advocates have argued that much of what a phone can do today — such as search information on the internet, create images or draw up documents — can be performed by AI. In the future, they suggest, we might prefer to use a device for these tasks that is designed solely for AI, which could lead to the eventual downfall of the smartphone.

Yet past efforts on this front – including the Humane AI Pin and the Rabbit R1 – have failed spectacularly, while iPhone sales continue to go from strength to strength. And considering what This Week in AI’s guests had to say, it doesn’t look like Apple has too much to worry about for now.

With that in mind, it might perhaps be time to reconsider Apple’s position in the AI 'race'. While other companies seem to be putting out products that are more powerful or offer more functionality than Apple Intelligence, the company has its own strengths that could be valuable in the years to come. There’s a long way to go yet, but it might be a little too early to write off Apple's role in AI entirely.

• Apple is working on smart glasses that should be revealed later this year, according to leaks
• AI AirPods and an AI pendant are also planned
• Apple's privacy-first approach could help it win with AI glasses

Every tech company and its dog is cramming AI into whatever system it can, and while Apple has been slow to get off the starting line, its rumored AI glasses, AI-focused AirPods, and AI necklace could help it snatch victory from the jaws of defeat — all thanks to one major long-term focus: privacy.

While a couple of these gadgets have been teased previously by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman (behind a paywall), who often shares reliable Apple insider info, he has just revealed more details about Apple’s plans to create its first smart glasses.

According to Gurman, Apple is developing display-free smart glasses that will compete directly with the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2. These smart specs, internally code-named N50, will apparently help you capture photos and videos, play music, catch up on notifications, and interact with Siri. The latter will finally, according to reports, get a big upgrade in iOS 27.

The rumored AirPods and pendant could similarly rely on tech like cameras and microphones to capture information from your surroundings to provide insight and assistance, such as visual reminders.

Gurman doesn’t share release dates for any of the trio, but says the smart spectacles should appear later this year, with a launch due in 2027. He also claims that Apple's smart glasses are being tested with four designs: a large, rectangular frame (like the Ray-Ban Wayfarers), a slimmer rectangular design (like Tim Cook's specs), larger oval or circular frames, plus a "smaller, more refined" version of the latter.

But despite these rumors that Apple will try to eclipse its rivals with a "higher-end build", I still think they're going to have their work cut out for them, for a few reasons.

Not plain sailing

For starters, this delayed Apple glasses rollout could damage the perceived utility of its tech compared to its rivals — especially as by the time it debuts AI specs, Apple’s competitors are expected to have a generation or two of AR / display glasses released.

From experience, AR and display glasses (which can overlay your vision with various details, including live translation, shared play environments, or HUD elements like a map) are also a significant step up from display-less AI specs in terms of their usefulness and capabilities.

The less-than-stellar Apple Intelligence rollout also gives me cause for concern. Apple still hasn't really proved that it knows what it's doing with AI.

The other potential pitfall is that Apple is said to be going it alone design-wise, rather than linking with a brand like Ray-Ban or Warby Parker, like Meta and Google have. As a fashion accessory, the look of smart glasses is almost as essential as their usefulness, and several brands I’ve seen try to design their glasses in-house have struggled to make something that looks good.

That said, if any brand can buck that trend, it’s arguably the tech design champion that is Apple.

And the Californian tech giant also has one major smart glasses strength that could still win me over, even as an Android fan: privacy.

Privacy, privacy, privacy

Visual reminders are seen as the next big advantage AI wearables can leverage. That is, they can take in all of the information about your life and help you remember things like people’s names, where you left your keys, or what needs restocking in your fridge.

The issue is, while this level of AI assistance is undeniably useful, it’s equally invasive — essentially requiring the wearable to have an always-on view of your life. Otherwise, it could miss vital context that would make its advice useless.

Meta and Google's practices have come under fire in the past for their data privacy, and what information is or isn’t shared with their AI — most recently, Meta has fallen into hot water over how many more videos and images than people realized are being shared with Meta and reviewed by contractors.

Apple, on the other hand, has always made a big effort to promote privacy with its tech. And in the world of AI — where some tasks require personal information to be processed on servers rather than on your device — it created Private Cloud Compute to ensure that user data is kept private even when it is used by Apple’s remote servers.

I’m firmly in the Android ecosystem, and if you’ve seen our podcast you know I have a bit of an ‘Apple-hater’ persona. Still, I’d currently trust Apple glasses over any other brand as things stand — and with the privacy advantages I expect them to offer I’d even be willing to put up with worse performance and specs if it meant knowing my personal data was secure.

We’ll have to wait and see what Apple reveals — as with all leaks, we must take teases and speculation with a pinch of salt — but I’m uncharacteristically excited to see what Apple has up its sleeve. Meta and Google (and the rest) should watch out.

This week marks Apple’s fiftieth anniversary, and the company has been a core pillar of the tech landscape for much of that time.

From the iPhone to the evolution of the Mac, Apple has had a glorious run of wins. But sometimes its reach exceeds its grasp, usually when it turns to form over function, or when it underwhelms by overpromising and underdelivering.

We've already rounded up Apple's worst-ever gadgets (and, for balance, its best gadgets of the past half century). But the moments below represent its biggest lapses in judgement across software, services and baffling product decisions.

We're big fans of Apple when it gets things right – which happens more often than not – but even the most hardened fan has to admit that the company has dropped some huge, and sometimes hilarious, tech clangers...

1. MobileMe — or should that be 'MobileMess'?

Before iCloud, there was MobileMe, which itself came from the likes of iTools and .Mac. This paid service acted very similarly to what we expect from cloud services today, like offering cloud storage that worked across Mail, Contacts, Calendars and more.

Unfortunately, it quickly earned the nickname “MobileMess” because it was too unreliable to be used by just about anyone. Syncing was unreliable, often dropping out right when you needed access to your most important files, and many users complained about missing emails.

This embarrassing launch infuriated Steve Jobs, who reportedly rounded up the development team and told them: “You’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation. You should hate each other for having let each other down.”

After debuting in 2008, it was taken offline in 2012 and paved over with the much more reliable iCloud. If you’ve ever cursed an iCloud sync issue, count yourself lucky you’re not using MobileMe instead.

• Read more: MobileMe: what went wrong?

2. That 'hockey puck' mouse

Ever seen an iMac G3? They have a great, retro quality today, but back in 1998, they were the future — a brightly-colored look at the computing future of tomorrow.

The trouble was that the mouse that came with it, the Apple USB Mouse, was circular. If you’ve ever used a mouse (and there’s a very good chance you, the discerning TechRadar reader, have), you’ll know that holding onto a circular mouse is hardly conducive to a strong grip or getting much done.

Combine that with a short cable, and you’ve got a rounded recipe for hand cramp. The worst part? Apple persevered with it for two years.

• Read more: 'A complete disaster': The 11 worst Apple gadgets of the past 50 years, according to you

3. The great Apple Maps fumble

While Apple Maps has become a very reliable mapping service, its launch was a thing of legend — and not for positive reasons.

Apple was keen to remove Google Maps from its devices and began work on its own maps app. It launched in September 2012, and just about everything that could go wrong went wrong. It was an Apple Park-sized fumble.

Incorrect location information, unreliable directions, and Apple’s inability to read the room when it comes to geopolitical tensions were all criticized by users. Incredibly, new CEO Tim Cook actually told users to look at rivals while iOS Maps was being fixed.

"While we're improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app," he said at the time in an open letter on Apple's website.

While Apple Maps is now a much better product — some would argue, even better than Google Maps — for some it’ll always tainted by this launch.

• Read more: Apple admits Maps failure, suggests users try competitor apps

4. The rise and rapid fall of Ping

Whether you were an iTunes die-hard or using another service entirely, there’s a good chance the removal of iTunes Ping was something you didn’t even realize happened.

Pitched by Steve Jobs as a crossover between the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and iTunes, the idea was to make it easier to share music with your friends and family, see what they were buying, and was accessible across the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Sadly, Ping was short-lived: Apple released it in September 2010, and it was gone just two years later.

Tim Cook, who didn't take over as CEO until after Ping launched, summed up Ping's lackluster reception with characteristic understatement. "We tried Ping and I think the customer voted and said this isn’t something that I want to put a lot of energy into… Will we kill it? I don’t know. We’ll look at that," he said.

A month later, Apple did indeed look at that — and pulled the plug on poor Ping.

• Read more: One More Thing: Apple kills Ping

5. The unforgettable U2 blunder

Do you like U2? Back in September 2014, it didn't really matter what your answer was to that question because Apple beamed Bono and Co’s Songs of Innocence album straight into your iTunes library.

All 500 million iTunes subscribers found the album waiting for them, whether they wanted it or not. For some, it caused storage space issues, and it wasn’t particularly easy to remove, either.

It also led to deeper conversations about the value of music and raised suggestions that U2 had devalued the art form. Just wait until you get to streaming services, guys…

• Read more: Achtung freebie: U2 album gives the internet another reason to hate iTunes

6. The butterfly keyboard fiasco

Nothing sums up Apple’s focus on form over function — and the occasional lapses that can create — better than the Butterfly keyboard fiasco of 2015.

The MacBook 12-inch was already grabbing the wrong kind of headlines for switching out USB for USB-C (which at the time was still an emerging technology), but the keyboard’s ‘butterfly’ hinge system was a huge issue for Apple — especially since it came to MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models, too.

From repeating keys to keys simply detaching themselves while in use, the whole thing cost Apple millions to fix. The free repair program expired in 2024, so if your keyboard fails now, you’re out of luck.

• Read more: Apple is finally writing checks for its butterfly keyboard fiasco - so if you made a claim it’s time to cash in

7. The iTunes Phone that made iPods looks amazing

If you were looking for a way to take your iTunes library on the go back in 2005, your only option outside of Apple’s own iPod was the Motorola ROKR E1.

Not heard of it? We don’t blame you. Billed as the phone that let you take your iTunes library anywhere, there were two major downsides.

For one, its USB 1.1 speeds meant moving files to and from the device was glacially slow. The other issue was that it would only allow users to download 100 songs to it in order to protect iPod sales.

That’s not exactly a great sales pitch — and it's incredible to think that just 15 months after the video above, Apple would introduce the iPhone and immediately make all 'music phones' look like ancient history.

• Read more: Our Motorola ROKR E1 review from back in the day

8. The charging port is where?

Every now and then, Apple makes a decision that feels like it could have been avoided by asking just one person outside of the design room what they thought.

One of those was burying the Mac Mini power button under the otherwise amazing mini PC. But the most famous example is the Magic Mouse (Second Generation). On the top half, it’s everything Apple does so well — it’s a great mouse, comfortable in the hand and stylish, while supporting slick gestures. On the bottom? The charging port.

That means that, if you want to use the computer while charging the mouse (hardly an unreasonable use case), you need to plug it in and use an alternative mouse while it powers up.

Apple then stunned the computing world by doubling-down on this decision with a redesigned Magic Mouse in 2024, which is a rare example of a consumer product also being an immaculate piece of rage-bait.

• Read more: Good news! Apple finally redesigns the Magic Mouse with USB-C! Bad news! The charging port is still on the bottom

9. RIP AirPower, gone too soon

Apple’s 'Let's meet at our place' September 2017 event would be remembered for many things, including the iPhone X — which is a good thing, given that one of the announced products never actually shipped.

The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus were overshadowed by the reveal of the iPhone X, the first iPhone to remove the home button and go for an all-screen display. Its $999 price tag got a lot of attention, but so too did AirPower.

A charging mat intended to charge your phone, AirPods, and Apple Watch all at once, regardless of where you lay them, was almost a no-brainer for a company releasing all three in the same year.

Sadly, manufacturing issues with the prototype meant AirPower never made it to market, with some reports suggesting that Apple’s early units struggled to dissipate heat and also melted the plastic — oof.

• Read more: AirPower prototype shows why Apple was right to abandon its wireless charger

10. Antennagate, or how to dig yourself a bigger hole

The iPhone 4 debuted in 2010 with a new design that made your iPhone 3GS look hokey by comparison, but the new metal frame that doubled as the antenna was holding a secret — or, more specifically, those holding it would find that its signal would drop out.

Apple initially claimed users were, in a way, 'holding it wrong'. Well, Apple didn't exactly say that, but it did say in a misguided statement: "Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases."

It soon became a widespread enough issue to prompt Apple to eventually issue a formal apology and offer free bumper cases to affected users.

Thankfully, the iPhone 4S, which launched the next year, shared the same visual design but fixed the antenna issue.

• Read more: Need more iPhone 4 signal? There's no app for that

11. Apple Intelligence, Or lack thereof

With the rest of the tech world foaming at the mouth for AI products and services, Apple was seemingly caught in a standing start and struggling to make up ground.

Siri was behind the curve (to put it politely) when pitted against other assistants, and while Apple had partnered with ChatGPT to solve some issues, it was clear it needed a quantum leap to catch up.

Thankfully, that’s what was promised at WWDC 2024, showcasing how Siri could read your emails to extract context and much more. The trouble? Many of the features didn’t ship, and many still haven’t, almost two years later.

The company faced lawsuits based on false advertising for the promised features, and is now seemingly partnering with Google Gemini to supercharge Siri to get even close to what was promised.

• Read more: Apple sets WWDC for June 8 — and this may be its last best chance to fix Siri and deliver the AI we were promised

Take a look around the artificial intelligence (AI) landscape, and it’s clear that Apple is not among the frontrunners. Although the company announced its own Apple Intelligence offering at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2024 — hailing it as “AI for the rest of us” — it’s been beset by delays and missing features in the two years since it was revealed.

With rivals like ChatGPT and Google Gemini pulling further ahead, it seems like it’s harder than ever for Apple to catch up.

That’s the main argument of Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman, who said in his latest Power On newsletter that Apple is going to adopt a new strategy, one that gives it a new way to bring AI to its devices. Yet Gurman says Apple’s decision means the company has “effectively conceded the AI race.” Worse, I worry that it could leave your iPhone more at risk than ever before — and could even result in Apple losing control of its operating systems. Let me explain.

Masquerading as Siri

According to Gurman, Apple plans to bring what it calls ‘Extensions’ to Siri at WWDC 2026. These would “let users install third-party AI chatbots beyond ChatGPT and run them inside Siri,” Gurman says. This is separate from the ongoing situation whereby ChatGPT and Google Gemini are being harnessed to power some Apple Intelligence features.

It’s the last bit of Gurman’s quote that has me concerned. Right now, Siri has wide-ranging access to the contents of your iPhone. The list of tasks it can currently fulfil (or will soon be able to, when the new Apple Intelligence-powered version lands) is extensive and includes looking up your contacts, knowing places you’ve recently visited, recognizing people in your photos, and more. Apple has been happy to allow that because it controls the process from end to end.

But what if Apple opens up this kind of sensitive information to third-party chatbots? Will your information be ingested into the unknowable algorithms and be used to train them, thus presenting a not-insignificant risk of data leaks?

The very fact that AI algorithms are a black box means we just don’t know what could happen to your information. You’d hope that Apple would put stringent restrictions on what the AI tools can do, but do we know that those guardrails will be foolproof? I doubt it.

And then there’s the fact that all this will be going on inside a Siri-shaped wrapper (as Gurman says, Apple’s plan is to run these chatbots “inside Siri”).

If you interact with ChatGPT when it is masquerading as Siri, my feeling is that you’re more likely to let your guard down and feed it more sensitive information because you’re used to Siri and you know it comes from a privacy-focused company like Apple. Yet in reality, you’ll be using a third-party tool, not Apple’s locked-down chatbot.

Without some clear signposting that an external AI tool is being used, that could have potential consequences for your data privacy, as well as for a company like Apple, which usually positions itself as working so hard to protect that very privacy.

Losing control

That’s not the only risky upshot I can foresee for this project. It feels to me that there’s a good chance that Apple could end up losing control of Siri, and that could have consequences for everyone involved.

For instance, when or if something goes wrong with one of these Siri-wrapped chatbots, who are users going to blame? At least with the standalone ChatGPT app, users know that it’s an external product. That allows the blame to be properly allocated and also permits Apple to wash its hands of the problem.

But what if you have a seriously negative experience with Siri when it’s powered by a third-party AI tool? Are you going to necessarily know that it’s not Siri that caused the issue, but the underlying chatbot? If Google Gemini is embedded within Siri, and Siri is the interface you interact with, you’re probably going to lay the blame squarely at Apple’s feet. After all, it’s that familiar Siri experience that you’re getting, even if the guts are different.

That means there’s a good chance of negative blowback coming Apple’s way, whether or not the company is actually at fault. Siri has enough problems as it is. Is it worth creating more?

Gurman added a further detail: Siri Extensions will have their own “dedicated App Store section, effectively creating an AI App Store.” Users will be able to download and install Extensions directly from this trusted place, then have them integrate right into Siri.

On the face of it, this sounds like a positive development. Apple’s App Store review process is conducted by humans and is generally fairly reliable, despite the occasional slip-up.

But we already know that Apple is struggling with AI apps that are submitted to the App Store. There have been multiple reports of delays to App Store approval as Apple’s reviewers seem overwhelmed by the number of fully vibe-coded apps that have been submitted. After all, if AI can write your entire app in a matter of days or even hours, the quantity of submitted apps is going to increase substantially as the accessibility of creating and publishing an app goes up, and the cost of doing so goes down.

Apple has also blocked several vibe coding apps from submitting updates to the App Store, citing store rules concerning apps that change their code or purpose. Vibe coding apps fall foul of this rule because they allow users to generate code on the fly. Since Apple isn’t able to review code that's added after the app was submitted, it has no way of knowing what could be created with a vibe coding app.

Now imagine a reality in which Apple’s already overworked App Store review team is confronted with an entire sub-section dedicated to AI add-ons for Siri. How is the company going to guarantee the security of its users’ devices in a situation like this? And how is it going to guarantee a timely submission and approval process if it’s adding an extra sub-section to its already bustling App Store?

Any failures or dangerous Extensions that get through will not only potentially damage users’ devices but will also generate bad press for Apple. The company won’t want either of those things, especially when they’re linked to its much-discussed Apple Intelligence and Siri features.

Apple is a firm obsessed with control. It feels hard to imagine it’s worth the risk of jeopardizing that control to carve out an increasingly small AI niche for itself, even as Apple has seemingly given up hope of becoming a leader in the field. Yet that seems to be the risk of rushing ahead with this chatbot plan — and the already much-maligned Siri could be hit with the fallout.

As a trillion-dollar company with one of the most recognizable brands in the world, I don’t think Apple has a lot to worry about. But when I looked at the results of a recent poll I ran, asking you, dear readers, if you use Apple Intelligence, the results made me grunt an ‘ooph’.

That’s because a hefty 96% of respondents selected the ‘Nope, it’s not for me’ option, leaving a mere 4% to select ‘Yes, it’s pretty good’ as a response.

Given that the world and its virtual dog seems to be using AI or talking about it, either positively or negatively, I’d have expected at least a good percentage more people to be using Apple Intelligence. But it seems that Apple just isn’t scratching the AI itch in the way people expect.

Now, as I’ve mentioned before, I can’t say I’ve been blown away with what’s on offer with Apple Intelligence. But unlike our Phones Editor Axel Metz, I’ve yet to actively turn its features off on my iPhone. However, I’ve definitely found AI features on Android to be more effective, and while I’m not really a ChatGPT user I will occasionally flirt with Google Gemini.

Yet I don’t find myself ever really using Apple Intelligence with any gusto. I keep notification summaries on just for the hell of it, despite them not exactly being the most accurate. Occasionally, the summary will misinterpret a cluster of notifications and serve up a few words that set a sense of dread or panic in me until I properly open up a message or email and find out that all is fine.

But I’m just one tired man who’s perhaps a little bored with phones; those of you who are more actively engaging with the latest smartphone software features perhaps demand a lot more from AI tools. And it would seem to me that Apple is still doing its iPhone users a disservice.

“Apple can’t figure out their AI strategy to save their life,” said a commenter going by the handle of ‘laughfactory'. “I love Apple stuff, but they’re WAY off-base on AI.”

I’d say the commenter has a point, and with such a high percentage of people not looking favorably at Apple Intelligence, I’d also say that Apple has cause to be a bit embarrassed, even though it’s unlikely to be stung by such failure in a significant monetary fashion.

And as there's a movement towards 'AI phones' and other actually smart tech, I do think Tim Cook and his Cupertino crew should be a little worried that Apple could get left behind in the AI world.

There’s hope on the horizon with the news that Apple will tap into Google Gemini to give Siri and Apple Intelligence a boost in smarts, but that’s not happened yet. And now that there’s a rumor that iOS 27 might be delayed, Siri could soon become one of Apple’s biggest ever embarrassments.

For years now, Siri has felt like the weak link in Apple’s otherwise slick ecosystem. While ChatGPT, Gemini, and even Alexa have surged ahead, Apple’s voice assistant has mostly stood still, promising big things but never actually fulfilling them.

That’s finally starting to change, however, as Apple and Google have entered into a long-term partnership where Siri will be powered by Gemini.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple could reveal its long-awaited Gemini-powered Siri upgrade as soon as February 2026 (next month), and that could mean huge things for the iPhone in a year where the Cupertino-based company looks to revolutionize its smartphone lineup with more powerful products and maybe even a foldable screen.

As someone who’s used Gemini on Android for months now, this is genuinely exciting. But confirmation alone isn’t enough. If Apple wants this to be the Siri reset iPhone users have been waiting for, here are five things I really want to see when it finally arrives.

1. A Siri that can actually hold a conversation

Right now, Siri still feels transactional. You ask a question, you get an answer, and the conversation ends. Ask a follow-up, and it’s a coin toss whether Siri remembers what you were talking about in the first place.

If Apple is plugging Gemini into Siri, that has to change. Gemini already handles conversational context well. It understands follow-ups, clarifications, and vague human language without needing you to repeat yourself like a robot.

If I ask for restaurant recommendations and then say “book the second one,” Siri should just get it. In 2026, with AI assistants capable of booking flights a reality, this should be the bare minimum for a Gemini-powered Siri.

2. Real help with real tasks

Siri has always been fine at trivia and timers, and while that was enough in 2011, it's not anymore.

A Gemini-powered Siri should help you do things, not just answer questions you could simply use Google Search for. Planning trips, summarizing emails, organizing your day, and making sense of information across apps should all be on the table, and I genuinely think that's the absolute minimum.

Gemini already does this in apps like Gmail, which is why my expectations are high. If Siri can’t help me plan a weekend away using my calendar, messages, and location data, then something’s gone wrong.

This is Apple’s chance to turn Siri into a genuine personal assistant, and I'm hoping once Gemini enters the fray, it'll just be the beginning of a Google AI-powered iPhone capable of streamlining my life.

3. Intelligence without ignoring privacy

Apple leaning on Google for AI will understandably make some people nervous. Privacy is still Apple’s biggest selling point, and it cannot afford to fumble that trust now, especially when it's the main reason the company has gotten away with being behind in the AI race for so long.

The good news is Apple has already laid the groundwork with on-device processing and Private Cloud Compute. The Gemini-powered Siri needs to feel just as safe with clear explanations of what data is used, when it leaves your device, and how it’s protected.

The experience should feel private by default, not something you need to opt out of, and if Apple gets this right, it could end up being the most privacy-conscious AI assistant on the market.

4. Memory, memory, memory

In my opinion, memory is one of the most important features of any AI chatbot, and if you live in the UK like me, you'll know Google still hasn't fully launched Gemini's memory functionality across the pond.

I'm hoping Apple's Gemini-powered Siri can remember everything I do on my device while still operating within Apple's industry-leading privacy bubble.

I know I've mentioned memory across multiple sections in this article, but I truly believe Apple could win the hearts of every AI-sceptic if it were able to create the ultimate personal assistant in your pocket - one that's capable of remembering where you had breakfast, when your next meeting is, and what the last movie you saw at the cinema was.

Apple can play into its privacy-first approach to make AI memory impressive rather than creepy, and if it does, I'll be convinced about Apple Intelligence again.

5. Siri that finally understands the Apple ecosystem

Siri never actually feels connected to your experience on an Apple device. For years, it has just been an extra on top of iOS or iPadOS, which often feels like a gimmick more than a useful tool.

A Gemini-powered Siri should understand that your iPhone, Mac, iPad, Watch, and Apple TV are all part of the same life. Context should carry over between devices, and everything should sync seamlessly.

If I start a conversation on my iPhone, I should be able to continue it on my Mac without starting from scratch. If Siri knows what I’m doing on one device, it should use that knowledge on another.

This is where Apple can really shine. No one else controls hardware, software, and services the way Apple does. A smarter Siri should finally bring all of that together.

The Siri we've been waiting for is just around the corner

Apple confirming a Gemini-powered Siri is a big deal, but it’s also an admission that the company needs to do better. Apple knows it fell behind, but 2026 could be the year it rectifies the wrongs.

If Apple nails these five things, Siri could go from being a punchline to being one of the best AI assistants you can use. Not because it’s the flashiest, but because it’s the most useful in everyday life.

After years of waiting, iPhone users deserve nothing less.

According to the latest report from The Information, Apple is developing its own wearable AI Pin. The Apple product could potentially rival the forthcoming Jony Ive-designed AI hardware device that OpenAI has scheduled for a 2026 release.

The Information states that, “according to people with direct knowledge of the project,” Apple’s AI Pin is roughly the size of an AirTag and is equipped with multiple cameras, a speaker, microphones, and wireless charging. The device could be released as early as 2027, the report claims.

The Apple device is described as “a thin, flat, circular disc with an aluminum-and-glass shell,” and sounds fairly feature-packed. It’s designed to capture photos and video of its surroundings using standard and wide-angle lenses. There are three microphones, a speaker, and a physical button along one edge, as well as a charging interface similar to that used by the Apple Watch.

A future beyond smartphones

The real question isn’t about specs – it’s about how you’d actually use the device. Interest in wearable AI devices was rekindled last year when OpenAI announced that it was acquiring Jony Ive’s IO company so it could work on an Ive-designed wearable AI device.

Since then, we’ve heard all kinds of rumors. OpenAI’s mysterious gadget could take the form of an AI-powered pen, or it could be AirPods-like earphones that sit behind your ear rather than inside it.

Just about the only thing we know for sure is that it’s coming in 2026, meaning we’ll find out what it is soon, and that it could be the start of an era where we move beyond smartphones.

What we don’t know about the Ive-designed device is how it will actually work. All we know so far is that it’s a hardware product powered by AI.

The most famous wearable AI product to date, the Humane AI Pin, turned out to be a failure, largely because it couldn’t really stand alone as a product without a constant connection to a smartphone. While I didn’t get a chance to use the Humane AI Pin myself, I have used the Rabbit R1, an AI device designed to be controlled by voice commands, and I struggled to find a use for it that my smartphone can't do better.

For any wearable AI product to succeed, it needs to overcome that hurdle, and so far, none have.

Achilles heel

While Apple has undeniable and proven hardware development skills, AI has been something of an Achilles heel for the Cupertino giant. So far, it has failed to deliver on its promises of a fully AI-powered Siri.

Earlier this month, Apple announced that it was partnering with Google to use Gemini as the base model for its enhanced version of Siri. Having access to a reliable large language model in the form of Gemini could give Apple the software foundation it needs to build a new wearable AI product.

Even so, the device would represent something of a gamble. Whatever AI Pin Apple is rumored to be working on will need to overcome the shortcomings of these early devices, and that’s a real risk.

Apple is best known for its cautious, iterative approach to product development. The last time it went out on a limb with an entirely new category, it produced the Vision Pro, an expensive AR headset that few people were really asking for, and that few ultimately wanted. While the Vision Pro is still being developed and sold, it’s fair to say it hasn’t been a success so far.

That said, the fact that someone as serious as iPhone designer Jony Ive is involved in OpenAI’s wearable AI ambitions suggests the market could exist for devices like this in the future, but Apple is going to have to do a lot to convince me I want this.

Apple may well be able to build a better AI Pin than anyone else, but that doesn’t automatically mean people will want one. Until wearable AI can clearly replace something we already rely on, rather than awkwardly sit alongside it, devices like this risk feeling like solutions in search of a problem. And after Vision Pro, Apple may find consumers are less willing to take that leap of faith.

Recent discussions with a few folks at TechRadar around Apple Intelligence and its usefulness and feature set has left me thinking that it’s still not really up to scratch for what people expect from the crew at Cupertino.

Phones Editor Axel Metz mentioned he mostly turns off the Apple Intelligence features on his iPhone, while freelancer James Rogerson hasn’t been overly complimentary about the AI features on iOS.

As for me, I keep them on, but can’t say I’ve been blown away with what’s on offer. Notification summaries aren’t particularly accurate or clear, the Intelligence option in Camera Control can be hit and miss, and I just don’t really find myself using Siri.

So now it’s over to you, dear readers: I want simply want to know via the poll below if you use Apple Intelligence, whether that’s on an iPhone, iPad or MacBook. And if you have more thoughts, please head to the comments below and let me know what you like or dislike about Apple Intelligence.

In general, I still think it’s early days for Apple Intelligence and that Cupertino fumbled its launch but is at least slowly improving it. I can’t say I’m super excited at what’s next for it, but I won’t quite fully dismiss its future potential right away.

Equally, I think Apple will need to put of a good show at WWDC this year to really win back some favor for Apple Intelligence. Of course, that’s some time away so right now we’ll have to rely on any iOS 26 updates and AI improvements.

• A new report says the more personal Siri will launch with iOS 26.4
• This upgraded Siri will use Foundational Models built on Gemini
• It comes just days after Apple confirmed a partnership with Google

Just nine days after Apple partnered with Google to use Google's Gemini models and cloud technology to base its next-generation of Apple Foundation Models, it appears that the AI-powered Siri that the Cupertino-based giant first promised to us all back in 2024 might be coming way, way sooner than any of us thought.

According to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the rumor mill is doubling down on the rollout of the AI-powered Siri being released in Spring 2026 – now writing that it’s “planned for iOS 26.4,” which is likely due in the coming weeks or months. Right now, Apple is seeding iOS 26.3 to registered developers and folks enrolled in the public beta program.

The report notes that iOS 26.4 will deliver on the promised features Apple first teased at WWDC 2024 as part of Apple Intelligence – things like Siri having a deeper personal understanding of you, based on what it can see on your screen, and being way smarter. Meaning that it could also pull up topical information in a jiffy, making it a much more impactful and meaningful user experience.

More importantly, though, is the timing here – this report, which comes alongside a rumor that Apple will launch an AI chatbot with iOS 27, one that competes directly with Google Gemini and ChatGPT, notes that this updated Siri wouldn’t likely be possible without the partnership with Google for that foundational base.

The iOS 26.4 version of the AI-powered Siri “will rely on a Google-developed system internally known as Apple Foundation Models version 10,” the report reads before noting it operates at 1.2 trillion parameters.

Clearly, access to Gemini models to build and stand Apple’s own Foundational Models on top has sped things up and might mean that Apple will be able to deliver on the smarter, more personal Siri it’s been promising for a long time, much sooner, rather than later.

As for when iOS 26.4 will arrive, it’s likely in the Spring, after the start of March and before the end of May. Meaning it would likely arrive before WWDC 2026, which is expected in June.

Of course, Apple could save this news for a bit of consumer buzz at WWDC and ship 26.4 to all users with an Apple Intelligence capable device, and thus the access to the new Siri, right after the keynote wraps.

It would be a surprise-and-delight moment, but would also push aside the usual public beta and developer testing periods. Either way, though, with Google Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude all pushing what we’ve come to expect from AI tools and many of them becoming more personal, we’ll have to wait and see if Apple’s actually smarter Siri is worth the wait, and how it prepares us for the other big rumor: a Siri chatbot inside iOS 27.

Time will tell, but Siri’s major upgrade is still a long time coming.

Apple promised us this was never the plan...until we guess, it became the plan: A new report from Apple soothsayer Mark Gurman says Apple will build an all-new Siri chatbot for iOS 27, one that looks and works differently but should remind most of us of an AI chatbot like ChatGPT.

To say this is a possible about-face is an understnatment and it's just one piece of the whirlwind that is apparently now Siri development.

Remember that pledge to deliver in early 2026 the Apple Intelligence Siri we were promised almost two years ago? That's apparently still happening, Gurman claims, via an iOS 26.4 update. If so, Siri will, with your permission, be able to see your screen, understand your actions in apps and other systems, becoming a more proactive and smarter assistant.

It's unclear if that ability is still what Apple meant when it announced earlier this month that it would use Google Gemini models to build its Foundation Models and enable the promised Siri. The only reason to doubt that iOS 26.4 will contain that is the timeline.

For Apple to deliver that update by late May (before it unveils iOS 27 in June), it probably must have been working with Google since late last year. Again, Apple is not commenting, so we have no insight into the development process.

Siri, we have questions

What will power this potential Siri AI chatbot is also a question mark. Will it still be tapping into Gemini foundation models and therefore be more or less a skin for Gemini? That seems unlikely, or at least too much of an admission by Apple that it was never up to the task.

But Gurman claims that not only will the iOS 26.4 update use those promised Gemini models (albeit built into Apple's Foundation Models), but the chatbot update (currently called Project Campos, per Gurman) will also rely in part on fresher, more powerful Gemini models and even use Google cloud servers.

That last bit sounds bonkers because it erases the security promise of Apple's Private Compute Cloud. Sure, since iOS 18, it's transparently sent some queries to either ChatGPT or Google, but to send potentially all Siri Chatbot prompts there is tantamount to abandoning a core privacy promise.

The problem with this Gurman theory is that it contradicts what Federighi told me almost a year ago at WWDC 2025 when we asked about what happened to the development of that long-promised Siri update.

"This wasn't about just building a chatbot," said Federighi last year, adding. "...That was never the goal, and it remains not our primary goal."

A hint of truth

So who are we to believe? Gurman or Apple executives. To be fair to Gurman, the only recent comment we have from Apple is that they are partnering with Google (Gurman claims it's for a $1 billion-a-year price tag, paid to Google). So it stands to reason that there is some truth here.

I agree with Apple that Google's Gemini provides some of the best models, and it is clear that Apple can't get there on its own, but the handing of privacy keys to a chief computer, one who already rules so much of our data, looks pretty anti-Apple. That's why I'll take all these rumors with a massive helping of salt and await Apple's next big AI reveal.

• Apple Notes might get a Google Gemini-powered update in iOS 26.4
• This will potentially let you create notes based on content from other apps
• That could fulfill a promise Apple made back in summer 2024

Despite being outdone by many of the best notetaking apps, Apple’s Notes app is never far from my side when I’m on my iPhone. There’s something about its low-friction simplicity that makes it my go-to place for organizing my thoughts, managing my grocery list, planning ahead, and much more. And now, it looks like it could become even more essential thanks to a key upgrade that’s reportedly coming in iOS 26.4, and it’s all thanks to Apple’s recent partnership with Google Gemini.

According to The Information, the Notes app will get a significant tune-up in iOS 26.4 thanks to the addition of some artificial intelligence (AI) smarts that will link the Siri virtual assistant to Google’s Gemini AI.

Specifically, The Information says that “Siri will also be able to handle other types of tasks, such as creating a Notes document with a cooking recipe or information about the top causes of drug addiction, for instance.”

Honestly, that line about tying in with your favorite recipes has me intrigued. Back when we first got a glimpse of Apple Intelligence in June 2024, Apple promised that we’d be able to get Siri to take things from one app and use them in another.

Reading The Information’s report, I’m just imagining people able to look up a recipe in Safari, then saying something like “Siri, add these ingredients to my shopping list note.” Think about how much time that could save repeatedly copying and pasting text from one place to another.

Finally delivering on its promise

And of course, it wouldn’t have to be limited to topping up your cookbook. You could potentially ask Siri to send an image from the Photos app to a specific person in Messages. Or take an address from an email and get directions there in Apple Maps.

Working across apps like this was one of the key promises Apple made back in 2024, and now it looks like the company might finally be able to deliver on that pledge – even if it means rowing back its ambitions and enlisting the help of Google.

Apple has added a lot of handy features to Notes in recent years. I love that the app can scan documents, correcting their colors and cropping them appropriately with minimal effort on my part. And being able to have my audio notes automatically transcribed in the app is a great tool to have.

But with Gemini-powered AI taking the helm, the app could finally come close to what Apple promised us almost two years ago. It’s clear why Apple picked Gemini, and I’m hopeful that the wait will be worth it.

Personal Intelligence, Gemini's biggest upgrade yet, is launching today, and it's one of the most significant AI innovations we've seen to date.

The new Google AI feature allows Gemini to tap into Google apps and pull from your personal data to get extra context from your queries.

Think of Personal Intelligence as a major next step for AI chatbots, allowing Gemini to securely access information from apps like Google Search, Gmail, Google Photos, and YouTube.

Yeah, Gemini can already tap into apps, but this is different, and it sounds genuinely incredible. 'How is it different?' I hear you ask. Well, imagine asking Gemini for help with a car problem and the AI being able to directly access your purchase history from Gmail to know which car you own, access Photos to see when you last took it in for servicing, and access YouTube to see what solutions you've looked for already.

Personal Intelligence in Gemini sounds like the AI personal assistant lots of us have been waiting for, and if it lives up to Google's billing, then it could be a monumental moment for consumer AI.

Gemini Personal Intelligence starts rolling out today in beta to Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers in the US. Google says the feature will be expanding to more countries and free users soon, as well as Search in AI Mode.

A first glimpse at iOS 27's Siri?

It feels like a new AI feature is heralded as the 'next big thing' almost daily, but the examples Google has shared with the launch of Gemini's Personal Intelligence are genuinely impressive and exciting.

One example shared was the ability for Gemini to find out what the best tyres are for the user's car without even knowing the model. Then Gemini could grab the licence plate number from Photos without even being instructed where to look.

Another example given was Gemini's new ability to create an itinerary for an upcoming trip like no AI chatbot has been able to do before. Instead of just linking the most popular places, Personal Intelligence uses all of the information it knows about you to suggest specific restaurants, things to do, and even what board games to play on the road.

Personal Intelligence looks like it could be Google's answer to the Siri Apple promised users back at WWDC 2025. Now, following the announcement of Apple and Google's major AI partnership, I wouldn't be surprised if this is our first glimpse at Siri in iOS 27, just without the Apple branding.

Gemini is set to power the next generation of Siri, albeit without any Google branding, and that could mean just like when Gemini features launch on Pixel before a larger Android rollout, this could be an initial trial of Siri's upcoming capabilities before they get repackaged for iPhone.

Privacy at its core

When you hear about new AI features that tap into everything you do online, it's absolutely normal to question your privacy. But Google promises Personal Intelligence has been built with privacy at its core, allowing you to decide exactly how Gemini connects to the apps in question.

Google says Personal Intelligence is off by default, and Gemini only accesses the data to answer your specific requests. Because Personal Intelligence taps into other Google services, everything remains with Google, with no sensitive information sent to third parties.

Everything Personal Intelligence does will also come with a source, allowing you to see exactly how Gemini came up with the specific answer that it provides. This means if you realize that Gemini has access to niche personal information you didn't even know you had shared online, it can show exactly where it came from.

Personal Intelligence is also restricted by guardrails for sensitive topics, meaning Gemini will only seek information from sensitive data like health if you allow it to do so.

It's a very neat feature, and Google seems to be focused on making sure consumers feel safe sharing more personal data with Gemini than ever before. Google says Gemini won't train directly on your Gmail inbox or Google Photos library, so you can have peace of mind that your privacy remains secure.

How to turn on Personal Intelligence

So, you've got a glimpse of what Gemini is now able to offer thanks to Personal Intelligence, and you want to start using it straight away. Well, the good news is Personal Intelligence begins rolling out to eligible users in the US today.

Personal Intelligence will work across Web, Android, and iOS, and is currently only available to personal Google accounts. Here's how you enable it:

1. Open Gemini and tap Settings
2. Tap Personal Intelligence
3. Select Connected Apps (Gmail, Photos, etc)

Who had Apple conceding it can’t keep up with the rest of the AI industry to kickstart 2026? If you’ve been following TechRadar over the past year or so, you’ll have heard many times that Apple was in discussions with Google to use Gemini foundation models to power the ever-delayed AI Siri upgrade.

Now, just a few weeks into the new year, Apple and Google have confirmed these reports, announcing that the two companies “have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology.”

The models have also been confirmed to “help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year.”

This partnership raises uncomfortable questions about Apple’s place in the AI race. Still, the more interesting story is what it unlocks for iPhone users, and why switching to Android suddenly makes a lot less sense.

A bit of background

I’ve been an iPhone user since 2008, essentially growing up alongside Apple’s industry-leading smartphone. In fact, it wasn’t until last year that I decided to see what the world outside of iPhone looked like.

After the latest iPhone launch in September, I moved from an iPhone 16 Pro Max to an iPhone Air, and I absolutely fell in love with Apple’s sleek ultra-thin design. After a few weeks, however, I felt the hollowness that had plagued my smartphone use for years, wanting to try something new to feel a change.

If a new hardware design and an elegant software overhaul (I like Liquid Glass) couldn’t fill the constant void and boredom of using an iPhone, I had to look elsewhere, so I opted to move to Android for a few months to close out the year and get a new perspective on smartphones.

The main driving force behind my decision to switch to a Samsung Galaxy S25, and then to a OnePlus 15R, was mainly to get a glimpse of what using AI features on Android really felt like, considering I’d given up on Apple Intelligence long ago.

Having Gemini built into my smartphone’s operating system has opened my eyes to the possibilities of AI features, way more than what Apple has been able to do until this point. In fact, I’ve started using more Google features than ever before, all because I want the most seamless Gemini integration possible.

I’ve previously talked at length about the main reasons iPhone users should be excited by a Gemini-powered Siri, so I don’t want to dwell too much on that here. Instead, I want to emphasize just how exciting this partnership is, allowing users to get the AI prowess of Android with its own iOS spin.

Apple Intelligence, powered by Google

The joint statement announcing the partnership reads, “After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google's Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users.”

What are those new experiences, you might ask? Well, you don’t need to look very far to see just what Gemini integration on a mobile operating system is capable of. One of the best smartphone use cases for AI right now is Circle to Search, which lets users circle an image and quickly search Google for context.

As it stands, iPhone users can access Circle to Search via the Google app on iOS or via Visual Intelligence on a compatible iPhone. The problem is that both ways of interacting with the feature are inconvenient: the former is locked to the Google app, while the latter is sluggish and hard to find.

Now imagine how Google and Apple, combined, could improve AI integration on iPhone across the board, allowing users to simply access Circle to Search as easily as Android users currently can, or even using Google’s excellent models to search throughout iOS.

I had seriously lost trust in Apple’s AI strategy, to the point that I switched to Android to see what was possible on the other side. But now, knowing that Google has the reins, I’m ready to jump back to the Apple ecosystem with a newfound conviction that iPhone AI will succeed.

Apple promised an incredible AI-powered Siri at WWDC 2024, and nearly two years later, we’ve finally got our answer on how the Cupertino-based company is going to achieve that. I, for one, couldn’t be happier that Apple has recognized its AI weakness and instead opted for a foot up from one of its biggest competitors.

We’re only one month into 2026, but for the first time in years, I’m excited about the future of the iPhone. And that excitement is coming from Google, not Cupertino.

• Apple and Google say they've entered a multi-year AI partnership
• Joint statement says Apple's next foundation models will run on Google AI
• This will include the next-gen version of Siri, due later this year

We’re still waiting patiently for the arrival of Apple’s AI-powered version of Siri, but a new deal with Google could mean that the upgraded voice assistant is one step closer to launching.

In a joint statement given to CNBC (which we've also now received), Apple and Google say they're about to enter a multi-year partnership. Apple will use Google's AI models to power artificial intelligence features, including a next-gen Siri later this year.

"Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology. These models will help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year," the surprise joint statement reads.

Even more surprising is that Apple has publicly admitted that Google's AI tools are simply a step above its own. "After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google's Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users. Apple Intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute, while maintaining Apple's industry-leading privacy standards," the joint statement concluded.

Embarrassing for Apple, good news for iPhone fans

We can’t say that we’re entirely surprised that it’s come to this. Late last year, we reported that Gemini may be the only way for Apple’s AI Siri voice to see the light of day following rumors sparked by Mark Gurman at Bloomberg. Gurman first reported on this rumor in August 2025, then doubled down on his findings a few months after.

Apple first unveiled its plans to launch an AI-upgraded Siri during WWDC 2024 where it announced its multi-modal Apple Intelligence platform, which offers a slew of generative AI tools for image editing, organization, and functions such as your standard AI search summaries. It was set for a 2025 launch, but here we are in 2026 without it.

It’s been a bit of a rocky road for the next-gen Siri. Following Apple’s WWDC 2025 event, the company delayed its launch and promised a spring 2026 launch. Between now and then, a handful of Apple’s competitors have taken the AI world by storm, including Google’s upgrades for Gemini for Home. Amazon has also dipped its toe into the AI waters with the launch of Alexa+, which has recently launched on the web.

On paper, the Apple-Google partnership sounds like great news for iPhone owners, who've been struggling away with the increasingly creaking current version of Siri. But it remains to be seen exactly when the new Siri will launch, and what this all means for its current ChatGPT integration.

So farewell, 2025 – you were frequently exciting, regularly chaotic, occasionally frustrating but always interesting. And that’s how we like it around here.

It was a year in which often fairly iterative improvements to hardware were overshadowed by rapid and significant advances on the computing side of things. I’m talking, of course, about AI, which is now so dominant within the tech world that it’s increasingly hard to find a device that doesn’t have an AI brain.

Not that I’m complaining, because the leaps made in 2025 by the likes of OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Gemini were truly astonishing; the pace of change is such that it feels like we’re squeezing about a decade’s worth of advances into each year now, and I wouldn’t like to predict what the state of play will be in 12 months’ time. Well, other than to say that we’ll be taking for granted things which seem almost impossible right now – although as our AI Editor Graham Barlow notes below, maybe we’re already doing that.

In comparison, it often looked in 2025 as though things were slowing down on the hardware side. Could Apple really make its already-excellent MacBooks much better? Could Samsung improve much on the superb Galaxy S series? Was there much scope for OLED TVs or wireless headphones or mirrorless cameras to develop?

The answer was yes, yes and yes. Though the upgrades to many models may not have been as big as those on the software side, they were frequently excellent in their own right. The improvements to battery life, screen tech and camera lenses may not be as flashy as those on the AI front, but they can make a real difference to how we use our devices on a daily basis. In many ways, tech fans have never had it so good.

Whether that will continue in 2026 remains to be seen. AI now looks to be having a direct – and negative – effect on component prices, which could make your favorite new phone or laptop more expensive in the coming year. We might also see stock shortages in some areas, which could further inflate those price tags.

It looks like we’re set for another year of exciting, chaotic, frustrating and interesting news, then – and we’ll be here with you every step of the way. Until then, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading TechRadar in 2025, and have a happy New Year!

My year in tech

I bent reality, but I failed to bend an iPhone

This year was marked by astonishing leaps in AI capabilities, which I tried to not only report on but experience in full. From my first experience with ‘vibe coding’ to wild leaps of fancy with Veo 3 (and later the Sora app) to creating my own digital double, AI’s fast-changing capabilities constantly amazed me.

Never in four decades of covering emerging technologies have I seen anything like it: AI’s rise continues to be a heady mixture of enthusiastic adoption tinged with white-knuckled fear about what it all means for jobs, and for humanity, and nothing we saw in 2025 did much to resolve that anxiety.

However, it was my conversations with those leading the AI and wider innovation charge that stood out. My interviews with Amazon’s Panos Panay about Alexa+ and Google’s Sameer Samat about the future of Android were particularly memorable, as was the moment when one of Apple’s top executives threw his brand-new iPhone Air to me during a video podcast and insisted that I try to bend it.

The rise of humanoid robots was a trend that shocked and pleased me in equal measure, though I’ve tried to temper my enthusiasm with the knowledge that clever marketing and eye-popping videos will only get us so far. We all want the ultimate home robot, but I still don't think many of us are willing to pay $20,000 to get it.

Away from all the AI and robots, I spent much of the year trying new phones, including redesigned iPhones and an incredibly thin folding Samsung phone, along with a wide range of wearable technology that included the Galaxy XR headset, and some very exciting AR glasses from Meta and Google’s Android XR group. Experiencing these felt like peering into our near technological future, which increasingly will be filled with on-demand AI, flexible phones, and maybe those robots.

The year in AI

This was the year we started taking AI for granted 

For all the talk of breakthroughs and hype, 2025 felt less like the year AI changed everything and more like the year it quietly became unavoidable. While the much-hyped arrival of super-powerful artificial general intelligence (AGI), predicted for 2025 by many, simply hasn’t materialized, the year has still been a strong one for companies such as OpenAI, xAI, Anthropic, and Google. That said, there have also been some massive flops; and as for Apple, it feels like yet another year in which it slipped further behind in the AI race.

ChatGPT maintained its vice-like grip as the most popular AI chatbot in the world, though it hasn’t been plain sailing for OpenAI. Legal challenges, particularly the copyright infringement claim brought by The New York Times, have continued to dog the company, and in June its servers crashed for a couple of days, giving the world a brief taste of life without the ubiquitous chatbot.

OpenAI then fumbled the ball with the release of its GPT-5 model, which came across as cold and unemotional compared to the previous GPT-4o. For millions of users who’d come to rely on the chatbot as something closer to a trusted companion it felt like a best friend had undergone a personality transplant overnight, forcing OpenAI to make the legacy 4o model available again.

The company has also lost a little ground to Google’s Gemini in recent months. The arrival of Gemini 3 Pro in November was well received, and on the image front, Gemini’s Nano Banana and Nano Banana Pro proved superior to ChatGPT for image generation. OpenAI responded with a new image-generation model in December.

AI-powered pets and toys also began to appear this year. We took Moflin for a spin, until we accidentally fried its battery. More broadly, the dominant theme of the year was that every product must now have AI built into it in some form, and no company exemplifies this approach better than Microsoft, which has spent the year enthusiastically stuffing Copilot into just about everything it makes.

Finally, the year looks set to end on a high note for Amazon. Alexa+, the AI-powered version of Alexa that Amazon has been promising all year but hasn’t yet managed to fully roll out, may finally be getting a web version, at least in the US.

THE YEAR IN PHONES

Slim pickings for thin phones, and hints of a tri-fold future

2025 was the year of the super-thin phone, writes Roland Moore-Colyer, Managing Editor, Mobile Computing, with the release of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge in the first half of the year, and the iPhone Air in the second. These handsets grabbed headlines with their svelte proportions, but so far sales figures have yet to match the hype.

That’s likely due to their relatively high prices in the face of already pretty slim iPhones and Galaxy and Pixel handsets, all of which saw the expected yearly upgrades with the iPhone 17, Galaxy S25 and Pixel 10 lines respectively. While the upgrades to the iPhone 17 family appeared incremental at first glance, I'd argue they're a bigger deal when you dig into the details: there was a new design and cooling system for the Pro phones, the standard model finally got a 120Hz display, and Apple's 48MP 'Fusion' camera came to every iPhone in the lineup, including the Air (the Plus model went the way of the dodo).

AI found its way into more phones and more features, with Google’s Pixel phones in particular boasting a whole host of genuinely useful smart tools. Meanwhile, Apple just about managed to distract us from the shortcomings of Apple Intelligence with its flashy Liquid Glass design and the eye-catching Cosmic Orange iPhone 17 Pro.

Some of the most interesting phones came from smaller brands, with the Nothing Phone 3 offering something a little different without scrimping on flagship features. There was the Oppo Find X9 Pro with its strange but useful camera kit, while the OnePlus 15 was the only phone to earn a maximum five-star review from us this year. There were also a clutch of affordable phones from the likes of Motorola and Xiaomi, proving that you don’t have to pay a lot to get a very capable smartphone these days.

We saw further evolution in the folding phone space, with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 leading the way, and Samsung also unveiled its first tri-folding phone, with the Galaxy Trifold joining Huawei's Mate XT, and teasing a future of devices that truly blend phones and tablets. We may even see a foldable iPhone in 2026, but don’t hold your breath.

THE YEAR IN COMPUTING

RAM drama enlivens a year of evolution over revolution

When it came to computing, 2025 didn't start off as the most promising year. While 2024 felt like a year of revolutionary change, with the explosive growth of AI, the fall of Intel, and the rise of Arm-based laptops that were actually worth buying, this year has felt more like we're in a holding pattern, as the innovations of the past few years are iterated on and refined.

The year kicked off with Nvidia launching its latest generation of consumer graphics cards, the RTX 5000 series, at CES 2025, and they encapsulated the ‘evolution, not revolution’ theme, with some great new features that haven't fundamentally shaken up the industry, as the introduction of ray tracing with the RTX 2000 series did. Of course, making a great product even better is no bad thing, and our components editor and GPU expert John Loeffler was suitably impressed, enthusing in his RTX 5090 review that “If you're a gamer, you'll still get impressive gen-on-gen performance improvements over the celebrated RTX 4090, and the Nvidia RTX 5090 is really the first consumer graphics card I've tested that can get you consistent, high-frame-rate 8K gameplay.”

I have an RTX 5090 and I love it, and I've also been impressed by its 8K performance in modern games, but with the majority of PC gamers still playing at 1080p, this high-end GPU might be a bit too expensive to justify. Other releases from AMD and Intel, plus Apple’s latest M5 chip, continued the theme of impressive releases that don’t massively change the computing landscape.

Perhaps the biggest event in 2025 was the continued rise of AI. Recently, the AI boom has led to a global shortage of memory, which has in turn caused an increase in the prices of devices that use it. All of a sudden, PCs, RAM, and GPUs look set to get increasingly expensive, though some, like our computing editor Christian Guyton, aren’t too worried – yet. Personally, the end-of-year drama is making me nostalgic for those early months when 2025 felt rather boring.

THE YEAR IN TVS

The era of giant, cheap TVs is here

This year saw two really interesting developments in TV technology, with the first being the arrival of a whole new kind of ‘Tandem RGB’ OLED TV panel from LG. This appeared in the LG G5, helping it to score the maximum five stars in our review, and in the fantastic Panasonic Z95B, enabling both TVs to hit stunning levels of brightness and color depth, but with reduced power consumption.

However, this new screen technology didn’t win either of those sets our TV of the Year award – that went to the Samsung S95F, which not only earned its own perfect 5-star review, but was also voted the top TV in the most categories by the judges in our flagship OLED TV showdown, which pitted it against the LG G5, Panasonic Z95B, and Sony Bravia 8 II.

The second big tech development was the arrival of RGB mini-LED tech – and, make no mistake, this is the next big thing. It’s more efficient than current mini-LED tech, and is capable of richer colors and less light leakage from bright areas to dark ones, and it could be the tech to finally knock OLED off its perch.

We know that Samsung, LG, TCL and Hisense will all launch RGB mini-LED TV ranges in 2026, but the Hisense UX116 was the only TV to use it in 2025 – and it was a mixed bag, with performance issues that disappointed given its eye-wateringly high price. Still, we’re excited to see how this tech develops.

But the biggest thing in TVs this year was the TVs themselves – as in, they got big and they got affordable. TCL and Hisense launched 85-inch and 100-inch TVs that were within the budgets of regular mortals, and 75-inch TVs are becoming positively cheap, while still being good. While new tech is exciting, huge TVs like the Hisense U8N and TCL QM7K becoming more affordable is the change that made the biggest difference for customers.

THE YEAR IN VR/AR

Android XR arrives to challenge Meta’s dominance

This year XR or 'extended reality' took center stage, thanks in large part to Android XR hardware finally breaking cover in the shape of the Samsung Galaxy XR headset. We also tested prototype Android XR glasses ahead of their expected release in the coming year, and they’re impressive (the glasses at least, the headset less so right now). Google, along with its Android partners, looks set to seriously challenge Meta in 2026.

For its part Meta debuted several new smart wearables over the past 12 months, including two pairs of Oakley smart glasses – the stylish HSTNs and the sporty Vanguards, the latter of which are perfect for runners when used with a compatible Garmin watch. We also saw a Gen 2 model of the Meta Ray-Bans, and the company's latest step towards full-on AR specs, the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, which as you can probably guess feature a display for the specs to relay info visually. We’ve tested them, and they’re everything Google Glass wanted to be, but right now they're not easy to get hold of.

What about VR headsets proper? Valve surprised no one (because the device was so heavily leaked before launch) with its Steam Frame headset announcement. Key details like the price are still a mystery, but it will be landing in 2026 – and when it does, the spec sheet teases a device that could seriously challenge the reigning champion of VR, the Meta Quest 3. Depending on how Valve handles the launch, I wouldn’t be surprised if it makes all other headsets feel obsolete – even the Galaxy XR and Apple Vision Pro.

Talking of Apple's mixed-reality spatial-computing headset, we got a new version with an M5 chip and comfier strap, but while it's a worthwhile upgrade the price still feels too high.

THE YEAR IN AUDIO

The year the big dogs bit back

If 2024 was the year niche UK hi-fi brands took over the dance floor amid a hiatus from audio's heavy hitters (see Bowers & Wilkins' fantastic Pi8 earbuds or Cambridge Audio's inaugural, affordable, adorable P100 cans), 2025 was the year the big dogs returned to the party and got their groove back.

We got five major headphones releases in 2025, starting with the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 earbuds in February. The hotly anticipated update to the 2019 Powerbeats Pro proved that Apple could indeed deliver heart-rate monitoring in its earbuds.

Cut to May and Sony's WH-1000XM6 landed, to finally knock the 2020-issue WH-1000XM4 off the top spot in our best headphones guide. It was a similar story with the June arrival of the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen), quickly followed by the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) in September – a two-pronged attack on the market that saw Bose reinstated as the king of ANC.

However, this roundup wouldn't be complete without a nod to the biggest launch of them all: the fall arrival of Apple's AirPods Pro 3. The shape's different, the ANC is twice as good, and yes, like the Powerbeats Pro 2 they also keep tabs on your ticker, in a slightly different way, and with increasing third-party fitness-app support. Still the most popular earbuds in the world? Absolutely.

Elsewhere, Spotify Lossless finally landed, at no cost to Premium subscribers, offering almost-as-good-as-Apple-Music resolution at up to 24-bit/44.1kHz. While Lossless wasn't a huge hit with fans initially, the big green streaming machine's popularity continues to grow, despite concerns over artist payments.

Oh, and if you take note of just one audio brand name this year, let it be WiiM. As Sonos continues to tackle trust issues among its once-loyal fanbase, the plucky multi-room underdog unveiled its WiiM Sound (and now the WiiM Sound Lite) premium hi-res speakers – and the firm would love to help you build your wireless sound system around them.

THE YEAR IN CAMERAS

A memorable year for glass as well as for cameras

2025 was full of pleasant surprises for photographers. The Sigma BF was truly out of the ordinary, being dubbed ‘the camera Apple would have made’, while the Caira with its Nano Banana AI skills showed us a glimpse of how on-the-go generative editing can work in an actual camera.

Fujifilm and OM System showed us that user experience matters with the quirky X half and retro OM-3 respectively, while Hasselblad and Nikon delivered strong offerings of their own – my favorite stills camera ever, the X2D II, and a new player in the cinema-camera game, the Nikon Zr. A special shoutout goes to Nikon for becoming the best-value camera brand this year, notably for the excellent Z5 II, which is our Camera of the Year, and Z50 II.

It was arguably an even better year for new lenses than cameras, with Sigma, Sony and Viltrox in particular knocking it out the park with world-first and affordable optics. Canon continues to lock out third parties from its full-frame camera lineup, but that decision feels more justified after it launched the affordable and capable 45mm F1.2 STM prime.

A sense of order was restored towards the end of the year when Canon and Sony launched their anticipated mid-range full-frame cameras: the EOS R6 III and A7 V, both of which are integral to their lineups.

The long-threatened US ban on DJI products finally came into effect, and we saw a couple of major product launches from the brand in the build-up to it: the incredible (sort of) sub-250g Mini 5 Pro, and the DJI Osmo 360 – its first foray into 360 cameras, and rival to both the Insta 360 X5 and GoPro’s new Max 2. DJI is also being tipped to launch its first 360 drone soon, but Insta360 got there first with the truly innovative Antigravity A1.

Overall, it’s been a good year for camera fans, with demand seemingly remaining strong in the face of competition from increasingly capable smartphones. I’m predicting that the consumer and cinema camera spaces will continue converging in 2026, and I hope the likes of Viltrox expand our options with new and affordable autofocus zoom lenses.

The year in gaming

The Switch 2 makes waves, and GTA 6 looms over 2026

Gaming in 2025 was largely dominated by the arrival of the Nintendo Switch 2. It’s a safe improvement on the original Switch, and one that epitomizes the ‘evolution not revolution’ approach to console development.

The specs sheet won’t blow anyone’s socks off, but it’s a superb package that cements the Switch's position as the go-to handheld console; and it was so popular in the pre-order and launch phases that it took months for retailers to catch up with demand. It’s been backed up by some excellent games too, including Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Kirby Air Riders, and Pokémon Legends Z-A.

Sony had its own say in the gaming handheld space, breathing new life into the PlayStation Portal handheld device, which is now capable of excellent cloud streaming. This has elevated the handheld, which we were already big fans of, to impressive new heights.

The PS5’s game library got a bump with Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and Ghost of Yotei, as well as titles including Borderlands 4, Battlefield 6, Arc Raiders and TechRadar Gaming’s Game of the Year, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Elsewhere, indie games ruled, with the likes of Blue Prince, Hades 2, and Hollow Knight: Silksong proving standouts in a strong year for releases.

It’s been a year to forget for Xbox, however, and its woes only accentuated the aforementioned successes for Nintendo and Sony. For starters, more Xbox games – including Gears of War: Reloaded – arrived on PS5, while others are set to follow, including the symbol of Xbox itself, Halo. Meanwhile studios were shuttered and prospective games cancelled, and to make matters worse the Xbox X/S were outsold by a tiny family console, the Nex Playground, over Black Friday. All in all it’s been tough going for Team Green.

As for 2026, it’s beginning to feel like the pace of progress towards next-gen consoles will quicken, and the game release calendar looks well stocked. However, a titan looms: Grand Theft Auto 6 is now slated for release in November after being originally planned for late 2025, and the whole gaming world is going to revolve around its arrival.

THE YEAR IN FITNESS

Time’s finally up for wasteful wearables, thanks to Google

Last year, I ended my contribution to this round-up by predicting a move away from fitness watches towards screenless trackers, such as a new WHOOP model, writes Matt Evans, Senior Editor, Fitness, Wellness & Wearables. Well, we got not one, but two new WHOOPs, and they were… fine. But, as prices rose, I found the ongoing subscription model far too expensive.

However, my prediction that we’d move away from smartwatches hasn’t really been borne out. Wearable tech isn’t changing much in the mainstream, with the highest-profile releases being a slate of new watches from Garmin, Apple, Samsung, Google and OnePlus, and they’ve been as popular as ever.

Look beyond those big releases, however, and interesting new stuff is out there. A subscription-free WHOOP competitor band was launched by Polar, while Core Devices, the resurrected Pebble watch company led by its original founder, unveiled a pair of watches inspired by the original Pebble designs, complete with low-power LCD-style screens, and open-source software that anyone with the know-how can tinker with.

Core Devices also launched a new kind of smart ring with a button and a microphone, which the company says acts as “external memory for the brain”. Elsewhere, the AirPods Pro 3 now have built-in heart rate sensors, and Meta teamed up with Garmin to bring us the Oakley Meta Vanguard sports specs. Cool new wearable innovations are happening, but it all still feels quite fringe.

My innovation of the year, however, came from Google. The Google Pixel Watch 4 is the first properly repairable smartwatch, as you’re able to take it apart and replace the battery and display. This enables you to change individual parts rather than the whole watch, reducing your contribution to e-waste, and saving you money in the long run.

Almost every other piece of wearable tech from every other company is still a sealed unit that will ultimately end up being disposed of, and I hope Google's move could be the catalyst for change that the wasteful wearable tech industry sorely needs.

THE YEAR IN ENTERTAINMENT

Streaming sensations, box-office flops, and merger madness

The biggest story of 2025 broke late in the year, and it concerned off-screen studio machinations rather than on-screen drama. Netflix’s $82.7bn bid for Warner Bros. sent shockwaves through the industry when it was announced in early December, and provoked a counter-bid from Paramount Skydance. There’s still a long way to go before a deal is approved, but should Netflix acquire one of the film world’s most iconic studios it would be a landmark moment for the streaming sector, and would represent a seismic shift for the entertainment industry as a whole.

Turning to the year's big theatrical releases, and numerous new movies flopped at the box office, including some with huge names attached (I’m looking at you, Dwayne Johnson and The Smashing Machine). Heck, with Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps all underperforming, even the usually reliable Marvel Studios didn’t have a money-spinning hit on its hands. I wonder how many people predicted that animated and live-action/CGI hybrids would rule the theatrical roost, led by multi-billion dollar-spinning flicks like Lilo & Stitch, Zootopia 2, and Ne Zha II…

As for the major streaming services, users endured more of the now-customary annual price hikes, while Max raised eyebrows by rebranding itself – again – to HBO Max. On the screen, unexpected hits such as HBO medical drama The Pitt, plus Netflix's ‘one-shot’ drama Adolescence and pop-culture phenomenon Kpop Demon Hunters, proved that not even the savviest industry exec can really be sure what viewers will latch onto. Add in the return of unmissable shows including Severance and Stranger Things amid the glut of great and not-so-great film and TV releases, and there was plenty to keep our eyeballs engaged. Now, what have you got in store for us, 2026?

The Year in Smart Home

If the subscriptions don't get you, the fridge ads will

It's been a slow but not insignificant year in home technology as legacy brands scramble to keep pace with bigger, already tech-savvy players vying for their spot in our homes – whether that's Breville reinventing the toaster with a proprietary optical sensor, IKEA launching new renewable energy solutions, or Eufy and Dreame duking it out to give us the most effective stair-climbing robot vacuum.

Some brands were less innovative than others though. Dyson left some of us feeling snubbed with its 'new' (read: decade-old) vacuum, while Shark's TurboBlade Cool + Heat failed to impress despite its noble attempt at mimicking other SharkNinja product's viral fame.

Elsewhere we saw big plays from Amazon and Google in the smart home space, with the arrival of their AI-bolstered home assistants. Amazon's Alexa+ and Google's Gemini for Home both entered Early Access beta in the US, and while the early reviews for both have been mixed, it's a promising glimpse into the future of the connected home.

Both of those services are subscription-based offerings, and subscriptions look set to become a major battleground for smart-home brands, and a bone of contention between brands and their customers, as companies attempt to lock users into their ecosystems, as we've already seen with video doorbells. Between that, and brands like Samsung using screen-loaded appliances as advertising billboards around the home, now might be a good time to really think about which brands you want want to invest in as you build your smart home.

At a quick glance, you might think it’s been business as usual for iPhones this year, given that we’ve once again seen more evolution in Apple’s smartphones than revolution; plus, there’s still no foldable iPhone.

But look a little deeper, and you'll realize that Cupertino has made some big strides with its ubiquitous smartphone in 2025. And that’s exactly what I’ve done in this article; I've analyzed what’s been good, bad, and downright ugly with iPhones over the past 12 months.

So, let's get into it, and if you have any thoughts, please head to the comments below after you’ve read my take.

The good: solid upgrades, iPhone 17 hardware on par with Android

While there’s not been a shake-up in general iPhone features and overall offering, both the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro got a neat suite of upgrades that make them well worth considering if you’re due an upgrade.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max and its smaller sibling got a new rear camera module that now holds the A19 Pro chip, making room for a vapor chamber below that not only offers more cooling and thus sustained performance, but also shifts hot components further away from a user's fingers – unless you hold the phone in a strange way.

Again, not a revolution for iPhones, but a solid change.

The iPhone 17 arguably did even better on the upgrades front. It got a larger, brighter display, with slimmed-down bezels that allow a 6.3-inch display to be fitted into the same footprint where a 6.1-inch screen once sat.

That display is now a 120Hz Pro Motion one, too, with Apple finally no longer saddling non-Pro phones with a sluggish 60Hz display (which even the best cheap phones had moved on from a long time ago). That upgrade alone has made it rather easy for me to transition from an iPhone 16 Pro Max to an iPhone 17.

Furthermore, all four new iPhones got Apple's latest 48MP Fusion main camera, which uses a lot of sensor cropping to deliver better zoom range without upping the rear camera count. It’s early days, but in my short time with the iPhone 17, I've found this Fusion camera (which was previously exclusive to the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max) to work rather well.

The bad: iPhone Air is kinda meh, not so smart Apple Intelligence

While it grabbed headlines, the iPhone Air is arguably a bit of a swing and a miss for Apple. In our iPhone Air review, Jacob Krol praised the svelte design of the phone, but it’s not like the main iPhones are particularly bulky or heavy.

And for the price, Apple is only offering one rear camera. Yet it then equips the slim phone with a powerful A19 Pro chip… I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense.

And I think consumers might agree, as there have not been a lot of positive sales reports for the iPhone Air, and I’ve not seen many actual Air phones out in the wild. Perhaps it’ll be more of a tech and design platform for Apple to integrate into the main iPhones; we’ll have to see what a likely Apple event in September 2026 brings.

In other bad bits, Apple Intelligence has hobbled out of a messy launch last year, and now feels a lot more featured and widely available. However, in practical use, it’s still not up to snuff, with notification summaries not being partially accurate, Siri being overly reliant on ChatGPT, and the Intelligence features built into Camera Control being largely hit-and-miss.

Chatting to Phones Editor Axel Metz, he told me he’s turned off most of the Apple Intelligence features apart from Siri Suggestions, Clean Up, and Visual Intelligence, and in his use finds Google Gemini on iOS far more effective than Apple’s native AI tools. So, there’s definitely room for improvement in 2026.

The ugly: overwhelming orange, iOS 26 niggles

Now, I’ll caveat that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but unlike Editor at Large Lance Ulanoff, I can’t say I’m a big fan of Apple’s new Cosmic Orange color for the iPhone 17 Pro phones.

While it’s striking, I don’t think it’s a very ‘Apple’ color. Rather, Cosmic Orange feels like a color Samsung would come up with, and I’d have expected a more pastel hue from Apple, instead of one that looks almost like it’s a candy coating.

So, of course, the iPhone 17 Pro I have to use for work is Cosmic Orange; such is the cruel irony of life. Maybe it’ll grow on me, but rather than releasing such a polarizing color, I do wish Apple would bring back its hits, like the fantastic dark green that used to adorn its best iPhones.

On other iPhone ugliness, I (and a good few others across the internet) have found iOS 26 to not quite be up to the standard I'd have hoped for from Apple. I encountered some bugs and performance gremlins on my iPhone 16 Pro Max, and while some found the upgrade to be fine, in my experience, it ate up battery and just felt clunky.

I also can’t say I was won over on the Liquid Glass material design. It looked neat in slick presentations, but in general use, I find it a bit fussy, and it feels like form has trumped function; not something I expect from Apple. So, I reckon there’s room for improvement with iOS next year.

• Apple ML and AI Strategy SVP John Giannandrea is retiring in Spring 2026
• Amar Subramanya named as replacement to lead revamped Siri with Craig Federighi
• Subramanya spent six months as Microsoft’s AI CVP and nearly six years working on Gemini/Bard for Google

Apple has announced that Machine Learning and AI Strategy SVP John Giannandrea will be stepping down after nearly eight years in post.

Giannandrea will remain as an advisor until Spring 2026, when he will be replaced by Amar Subramanya, who will become the company’s AI VP, reporting to Craig Federighi.

With the change, Subramanya will lead Apple Foundation Models, ML research, and AI Safety & Evaluation.

Apple’s AI/ML VP retires in 2026

Apple credited Giannandrea for building a “world-class team” and developing and deploying “critical AI technologies.”

It’s unconfirmed whether the change comes in response to industry pressure, but Apple has certainly received its fair share of criticism for lagging behind competition when it comes to AI.

Part of Apple’s slow movements comes down to its preference for on-device processing rather than cloud-based systems. Private Cloud Compute bridges that gap, but the Cupertino giant has also entered into a deal with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into Siri. Rumors of a similar deal with Google have also been circulating the internet in recent weeks.

Federighi has already been playing a big role in Apple’s evolving AI strategy, including work on a more personalized Siri, although that has already been delayed until 2026.

Subramanya joins with a wealth of experience, coming from an AI VP role at Microsoft and 16 years at Google, where he also led AI products like Gemini.

“AI has long been central to Apple’s strategy, and we are pleased to welcome Amar to Craig’s leadership team and to bring his extraordinary AI expertise to Apple,” CEO Tim Cook said.

Apple says the changes will help it to “continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible.” Apple shares rose about 1.6% following the announcement.

• ChatGPT and Copilot have announced they’ll leave WhatsApp in 2026
• The move is prompted by a change in WhatsApp’s terms of service
• That means you’ll be forced to use Meta AI if you want a WhatsApp chatbot

ChatGPT still leads the pack of the best AI tools, with rivals like Copilot not too far behind – and WhatsApp users have long been able to harness those chatbots within their messaging app. Unfortunately, Microsoft has now revealed that Copilot will be leaving WhatsApp due to a new policy from Meta, following a similar announcement from ChatGPT last month.

Conveniently, that leaves you with a single choice of AI bot within WhatsApp: Meta’s own Meta AI. And that’s likely to come as a big disappointment considering how unpopular this chatbot has proven to be, given you can't remove it.

Why exactly are ChatGPT and Copilot leaving WhatsApp? It all comes down to a change in the terms of service for WhatsApp Business Solution, which will start taking effect on January 15, 2026.

When that happens, AI companies will be banned from using WhatsApp’s API for their own chatbots, meaning ChatGPT, Copilot and others will have to withdraw their products from the app (although both chatbots will remain in WhatsApp until that date).

Interestingly, the terms do not ban chatbots used for customer service or support, just those where the chatbot itself is the product – which is exactly what you get with ChatGPT and others.

A backwards step?

Back when the changes were first announced in October, a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch that “The purpose of the WhatsApp Business API is to help businesses provide customer support and send relevant updates.”

An upshot of this, though, is that you’ll soon be forced to use Meta AI if you want to talk to an AI chatbot within WhatsApp. And that might not prove to be a popular option considering how poorly received Meta AI has been since it was first added to WhatsApp.

All it takes is a quick skim of Reddit to find countless threads decrying Meta AI and declaring it to be “the most useless and stupid thing I ever used.” When it becomes the only AI chatbot you can use within WhatsApp, those complaints are only going to grow louder.

While both ChatGPT and Copilot have announced they will be leaving WhatsApp when the ban comes into effect in January, other providers, such as Perplexity, have stayed silent.

Yet barring a change of heart from Meta, they’ll have to remove their own services come 2026, too. And with so much to gain from banning the competition, we can’t see Meta deviating from this course any time soon – unless it's forced to.

• Apple shifts chip power from CPUs toward GPUs and memory for better balance
• Efficiency gains plateau for CPUs while GPU and neural engine performance soar
• MacBook Pros redefine performance around sustained workloads not raw CPU speed

Apple’s custom silicon has evolved rapidly since the launch of its first M1 processor back in 2020 - the first chip which marked Apple’s transition away from Intel and focused heavily on CPU efficiency.

The power balance began to shift with the arrival of the M1 Pro and M1 Max in 2021, where the GPU consumed a far greater chunk of total chip power.

The M2 generation largely followed that trend, but the M3 Max raised CPU clocks and power limits, nudging more budget to the CPU in mobile systems, before the balance shifted back toward GPU and memory.

M4 goes to the Max

When the M4 Max arrived in 2024, adding Thunderbolt 5 to the Mac for the first time, the CPU was no longer the principal consumer of thermal headroom.

Early M1 designs dedicated roughly 18W to 25W of their power budgets to the CPU. The rest went to graphics and memory bandwidth.

The M1 Max drew about 115W in total, but only 25W for its CPU cores. Estimates suggest the M4 Max CPU draws about 48W within a roughly 70W chip envelope, with Apple allocating substantial power to graphics and memory bandwidth.

The new M5 generation, which rolled out a week ago and powers the new 14-inch MacBook Pro and new iPad Pro, has the CPU drawing a maximum of 15W from 25W.

While there’s no word on when an M5 Max might see the light of day – there was an almost six month gap between the M4 and the M4 Pro and Max – that version is likely to raise total chip power, but without a large hike in CPU consumption.

Data estimates generated by Google Gemini, based on past Apple chip trends, suggest that CPU will use about 50W from a 95W overall design, nearly identical to the M4 Max’s proportion.

Apple’s power scaling looks to have reached a point where the CPU cores are efficient enough that adding wattage to the mix brings minimal benefit.

Multi-core CPU benchmark scores have risen relatively modestly from the M1 Max’s 13,188 to up to 25,000 in the M4 Max.

GPU performance, meanwhile, has climbed from about 112,000 in the M1 Max to an estimate of more than 200,000 for the projected M5 Max.

The neural engine has jumped from 11 TOPS in the first M1 to an estimated 133 TOPS in the new M5, supporting Apple Intelligence on-device, with Gemini's projections suggesting around 400 TOPS for the future M5 Max.

Instead of chasing peak CPU output, Apple is optimizing for sustained mixed workloads that combine CPU, GPU, and AI processing, ultimately reshaping what we think of as a professional MacBook.

For creative and machine-learning tasks, the payoff comes from how efficiently the chip moves data and balances power, rather than how fast a single core runs.

In Apple’s base M5, the CPU has reached a mature efficiency point, and the true cost of performance now lies with the GPU and memory system.

• Apple is reportedly developing an AI-powered health chatbot as part of a new Health+ subscription
• The chatbot would help users manage their health, but Apple must prove it offers more value than similar offerings already bundled into rivals like Whoop and Oura
• Unless it meaningfully improves on today’s gimmicky tools, the feature risks becoming bloatware rather than a reason to pay for yet another subscription

Apple's health-conscious AI chatbot is still in the works, and could be set to launch as soon as next year - opening the door to a new Health+ subscription fee.

Top insider Mark Gurman had previously reported in March that Apple was working on an AI-powered chatbot that the company planned to incorporate into a Health+ subscription. Now the Bloomberg journalist has doubled-down on this rumor, stating "a revamped Health app with a new Health+ service," is on the horizon.

Gurman adds, the Health+ subscription "will include an AI agent that helps users manage their health. If successful, the service could make Apple one of the first major tech companies to gain steam in the health AI chatbot space."

Considering Apple's current AI woes, with sub-par Apple Intelligence offerings, an AI-powered chatbot that can help with your health metrics could be the perfect addition to the company's AI catalog, alongside the Gemini-powered Siri we expect to see next year.

That said, will the AI health chatbot be enough to tempt users to pay yet another subscription? Apple wouldn't be the first company to integrate AI into its health and fitness offering, but unless it stands out from the crowd, it might just be another chatbot gimmick.

Apple's AI doctor could be a huge hit

I've used a Whoop for nearly a year now, and previously wore an Oura ring. Both smart health products already have AI chatbots incorporated into their subscription fees, but honestly, they're more gimmick than genuinely useful additions.

You know the drill; an AI chatbot built into an app to answer questions on the data you can already find for yourself. Don't get me wrong, I bet some users love the inclusion of AI into these health apps, but these chatbots don't add anything new. If anything, they're just better search fields.

Apple's AI health chatbot is still under wraps, and it's hard to know exactly how it would work. But one thing's for sure; in order to warrant a subscription fee as part of the long-rumored Apple Health+, this use of AI needs to go beyond the offerings from the Apple Watch's competitors. If not, it's just more bloatware to give the perception that the best smartwatch is powered by AI smarts, when in reality it's just a relatively useless add-on.

As Apple draws closer to a $1 billion-per-year deal with Google to power Siri with Gemini, it’s got me feeling nostalgic for the initial Apple Intelligence announcement at WWDC 2024 and the promise of Apple AI.

Nearly 18 months later, and we all know about Apple’s AI situation; in fact, it’s been so publicly documented, delayed, and ineffective that, as it stands, Apple Intelligence is up there with the Apple Newton as one of the company’s worst ever products.

It’s been a long-standing rumour from Bloomberg’s top industry insider, Mark Gurman, that Apple was looking to partner with Google to fix its AI woes and meet the delivery window for the delayed upgrade to its voice assistant Siri by March/April 2026.

Now it’s all but confirmed with Gurman’s latest report, revealing the $1 billion a year deal will allow Apple to use Google’s 1.2 trillion parameter artificial intelligence model to “help run its long-promised overhaul of the Siri voice assistant, according to people with knowledge of the matter.”

Time to catch up

The 1.2 trillion parameters of Google’s AI make Apple’s 150 million parameters for the cloud-based version of Apple Intelligence almost embarrassing, and while I have little doubt that Apple, with the help of Google, will get AI on its devices right, it’s hard not to ignore the mess that the Cupertino-based tech giant has found itself in.

According to those same people in the know, this deal is going to remain on the down-low, with Apple choosing to power Siri with the Gemini system without singing about it from the rafters. In fact, Gurman goes as far as to say that this solution is being viewed internally as an “interim solution until Apple’s own models are powerful enough.”

If this new partnership with Google is a temporary solution, then it truly does highlight Apple’s panic to catch up with the AI race, despite constantly lagging behind. This news shines even more light on the fact that the initial Apple Intelligence reveal was slapped together at the last minute in an effort to showcase Apple as a trailblazer, rather than being left in the past while Google and OpenAI were heading for the future.

According to Gurman, Google Gemini will power Siri’s “summarizer and planner functions — the components that help the voice assistant synthesize information and decide how to execute complex tasks. Some Siri features will continue to use Apple’s in-house models.”

It’s essentially going to be a hybrid between Google’s AI model and Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers, allowing Apple to emphasize the privacy element of Apple Intelligence, keeping data private from Google.

According to the report, this new approach to “fix Siri with a third-party model” has been named internally as “Glenwood” and is being “led by Vision Pro headset creator Mike Rockwell and software engineering chief Craig Federighi.” Gurman adds that the voice assistant is codenamed “Linwood” and is set to launch as part of iOS 26.4 early next year.

But is it too late?

Last year’s iPhone 16 lineup was marketed as the best smartphone for Apple Intelligence, but ultimately ended up offering very limited AI in the form of Genmoji, Summaries, and Image Playground, to name just a few of the headline features.

With a measly AI offering to date, Apple chose to limit its mention of Apple Intelligence at the iPhone 17 reveal keynote in September, with barely any marketing, if any, focused on the power of AI in the current best iPhones.

It’s that 180 that makes me concerned for the future of Apple Intelligence. Does Apple really think people are going to forget the woes of the branded AI and just get back on the hype train once this new Gemini-powered Siri launches next year? If anything, publicly revealing Gemini’s part in the resurgence of AI on iPhone would give Apple credibility that it has since lost, because I don’t believe going back to the “AI for the rest of us” spiel is in the brand’s or consumer’s interest.

This deal is reportedly at the finalization stage, and with 2026 fast approaching, we won’t have long to wait to see the implementation in full flow. That said, I really think the ship might’ve sailed, especially if Apple continues to put its pride above humility.

Google could’ve powered Siri, just like it powers Samsung AI, back in 2024, and I don’t think anyone would’ve had an issue. Instead, now, Apple is going to launch a new Siri, when most of us already use the Gemini that will power it, or a competitor like ChatGPT. Is it too late to tempt users back to Apple Intelligence? I’m starting to think it is.

Apple has reportedly chosen Google Gemini to power the upgraded AI-powered Siri expected to launch in March/April next year.

The news comes from top insider Mark Gurman, who said, "Apple is betting heavily on the new Siri, which will lean on Google’s Gemini model and introduce features like AI-powered web search."

Gurman added, "Apple is paying Google to create a custom Gemini-based model that can run on its private cloud servers and help power Siri. Apple held a bake-off this year between Anthropic and Google, ultimately determining that the former offered a better model but that Google made more sense financially (partly due to the tech giants’ preexisting search relationship)."

That's incredibly exciting news for the future of Siri on iPhone, and while Gurman doesn't believe either company will "ever discuss this partnership publicly," or Siri will be flooded with Google services and Gemini features, it does mean " Siri will be powered by a model that can actually provide the AI features that users expect — all with an Apple user interface."

As TechRadar's Senior AI Writer, I test out all of the best AI models, and Google Gemini is up there with my favorite chatbots on the market.

Apple's AI strategy has been underwhelming, to say the least, but reports of the Cupertino-based firm bringing in Google to superpower Apple Intelligence could be the best thing to happen to the iPhone in years.

Here are five reasons why I really hope these rumors are true, and Apple adds Google Gemini to Siri.

1. Gemini Live is best in class

AI voice assistants are everywhere these days, yet we're still waiting for Apple to truly supercharge Siri with Apple Intelligence.

While OpenAI's ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode is good, it falls short of Google's Gemini Live, which I believe is the best AI-powered voice assistant on smartphones at the moment.

I like Gemini Live so much, in fact, that I've assigned the voice assistant to my iPhone Air's Action button, using it frequently instead of activating Siri on my device.

If Apple is looking to power Siri through an AI model from another tech giant, then Gemini Live is proof that Google is the perfect partner to do so.

Apple has a ready-made Siri replacement staring it in the face, and all it needs is some swanky branding and compliance with Apple's strict privacy vision.

2. Gemini reads your email and calendar already

One of the best ways to use Gemini at the moment is by asking it questions based on your other Google services, such as Gmail and Google Calendar.

Adding Gemini into Siri would allow iPhone users to ask questions about these incredibly popular services, taking us one step closer towards the AI personal assistant everyone hopes for.

Considering the AI model is already able to tap into Google services, you'd expect it to be relatively easy for Apple and Google to offer similar abilities with Apple's most popular apps, such as Mail, Notes, and Calendar.

When Apple revealed Apple Intelligence last year, Siri was able to listen to your requests and implement them across iOS. Gemini basically does that on Android already, so why not allow it to do the same on iPhone?

3. A smooth transition

The AI options available are endless, so having some parity between iPhone and Android would actually be a great thing for smartphone users.

Think about it, Gemini powers the AI in the best flagship Android devices like the Samsung S25 and the Google Pixel 10. But what if a similar experience was bundled into every iPhone, just with a little bit more Apple polish?

I'd love to use Gemini as my go-to AI assistant on my iPhone, and quite frankly, I already do. However, having it built into Siri would make it feel even more at home on iPhone, and best yet, for consumers, it means the switch to Android or vice versa, from an AI perspective, would be incredibly smooth.

4. It's ready to go

I don't know about you, but I'm bored of waiting for a new version of Siri that's capable of what I want from a voice assistant.

Gemini works, and it's already good to go, so adding implementation into Siri and powering Apple's voice assistant with Google's hard work would mean an intelligent Siri sooner rather than later.

Currently, I have no hope for an AI-powered Siri by the end of the year, and quite honestly, that's a real disappointment, considering I bought the iPhone 16 Pro Max last year with the promise of "AI for the rest of us."

If Apple opted to use Gemini, we could get the AI Siri we've wanted for what feels like an eternity very soon, and that's only a good thing for Apple users who are getting impatient waiting for a voice assistant that knows what year it is.

5. There's already a fruitful partnership

Google and Apple have been working together for a very long time, with Google Search as the default search engine on Safari.

And quite honestly, even though there's still skepticism towards AI I think it's easier to continue to use Google on a daily basis rather than opt for OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Currently ChatGPT is integrated into Siri, but using OpenAI's chatbot requires you to send information through the company's servers and it leads to an incredibly slow process which feels almost as bad as using Siri natively instead.

Considering how smooth the Google implementation in Apple products has been over the years, I think a Gemini-powered Siri would work flawlessly, and ultimately, lead to a much smarter Siri that's finally powered by AI.

In iOS 26, Apple has given app developers access to Apple Intelligence's Foundation Models via a framework they can incorporate into their apps.

What does that mean exactly? Some of your favorite apps can now run Apple Intelligence-powered tasks directly, allowing developers to supercharge the user experience with the power of AI.

I've looked through the impressive catalog of apps that already take advantage of Apple Intelligence and picked my five favorites to share with you.

All of these apps use Apple's AI in some way, and the functionality can be accessed on any of the best iPhones built for Apple Intelligence.

Why is this a big deal?

Apple says this new Foundation Models framework gives developers access to the same on-device intelligence powering features like Writing Tools, Image Playground, and Genmoji.

The key difference, however, is control. Instead of relying on cloud-based APIs or generic chatbots, apps can now call Apple’s on-device model directly, integrate it with their own features, and even combine it with Apple’s system tools like Vision, Speech, and Translation.

It keeps your data private, runs locally for speed, and opens the door to AI features that feel deeply integrated instead of bolted on.

Obviously, the power of this framework relies on Apple Intelligence, which is still lagging behind other AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini. That said, direct system integration is impressive, and the five apps we're showcasing really highlight the potential of this new power.

Some apps have jumped on this immediately, and the results are genuinely impressive. These are not just simple AI summary buttons. These are real use cases that save time, automate boring steps, and make apps feel more human.

1. SmartGym

SmartGym was already one of the best workout planners on iPhone and Apple Watch, but Apple Intelligence elevates it into something that feels closer to a real personal trainer.

Instead of manually browsing templates or fiddling with exercise selections, you can now describe exactly what you want in plain language. “30-minute chest and triceps workout with dumbbells, low impact” is enough for SmartGym to build a complete routine from scratch.

It gets better. SmartGym uses the Foundation Models framework to analyze your training history and make adjustments over time. If you are progressing quickly, it might suggest increasing the weight or the number of sets. If you have been inconsistent, it can scale back the intensity to avoid burnout. Apple’s model can summarise your performance, highlight trends, and feed that insight back into the planner.

It even greets you with personalized suggestions when you open the app. Apple highlighted SmartGym in its original press release on the launch of this framework as an example of how developers can use on-device intelligence to adapt content in real-time based on user behavior.

The result is fitness guidance that feels tailored to you in a way that wasn't possible just a few years ago.

2. Stoic Journal

Journaling apps with AI are nothing new, but most of them simply rewrite your entry or spit out generic prompts. Stoic Journal takes a completely different approach thanks to the Foundation Models framework.

It uses Apple’s on-device intelligence to detect mood, emotional tone, and recurring themes inside your entries. This allows the app to offer context-aware prompts that feel personal and thoughtful.

For example, if you write about feeling anxious or overwhelmed, Stoic might guide you toward clarity, gratitude, or reframing. If you have been logging stress over multiple days, it can highlight that pattern and suggest coping strategies. Because the model runs locally, all of this analysis happens privately on your device without any of your writing being sent to servers.

Stoic also adds natural language search, mood summaries, and gentle notifications that reference your previous entries.

I've yet to check this one out, but it's at the top of my list, especially as the days get shorter and darker in the Northern Hemisphere.

3. CellWalk

CellWalk is a beautifully designed biology and anatomy app that lets you explore detailed 3D models of cells and molecules. Traditionally, if you tapped on a structure you did not understand, you had to read a static label or jump to an external reference.

Now, with Apple Intelligence built in, CellWalk lets you ask natural language questions inside the app and get conversational explanations that match your level of knowledge.

Apple’s Foundation Models are backed by tool calling, meaning the AI's responses are generated using the app’s own verified scientific database. That keeps explanations accurate and avoids hallucinations.

The AI is also able to adapt based on your prompt, so CellWalk can help beginners interested in science as well as medical students looking to research with deeper analysis.

4. Stuff

I'm always on the lookout for a good productivity app, and Stuff with new Apple Intelligence powers looks like an excellent option to help get things done.

Stuff is a minimalist to-do and list app that is actually pretty powerful. The new Foundation Models integration makes it one of the smartest productivity apps on iPhone. As you type or paste information, Apple Intelligence automatically extracts tasks, dates, tags, and even priorities. Type “Lunch with Emma next Tuesday at 1 pm” and Stuff instantly turns it into a scheduled task without any manual input.

There are also two new modes powered by AI: Listen Mode and Scan Mode. Listen Mode lets you speak naturally (“Buy groceries, renew passport, remind me to pay rent next week”) and Stuff converts it all into organized tasks. Scan Mode works the same way, but with images, so that you can take a photo of handwritten notes or a whiteboard, and Stuff will turn it into structured lists.

Because the intelligence runs locally, everything happens instantly and privately. The real magic is how seamlessly it works. You do not have to learn commands or open a separate AI tool. Stuff reads your intent and makes order out of chaos.

5. VLLO video editor

Video editing on mobile is often either too basic or overwhelmingly complex. VLLO strikes a great balance, and with Apple Intelligence, it becomes even more powerful. The app now analyses your video clips and uses Apple’s Vision APIs alongside the Foundation Models to identify key scenes, detect faces, read the mood, and understand pacing.

From there, it can automatically suggest background music that fits each moment, apply dynamic stickers at the right time, and even build a rough edit based on a simple request like “Make a 30-second highlight reel.”

You still have full control, but VLLO gives you a polished starting point in seconds, rather than forcing you to manually cut everything together.

Apple Intelligence is finally showing its true potential

The most exciting thing about these apps is not the AI itself. It is how naturally the intelligence fits into everyday tasks. You do not have to open a chatbot or write prompts. The apps just understand more, anticipate more, and do more of the work for you.

Apple’s Foundation Models framework is a crucial piece of the puzzle because it gives developers the same tools Apple uses in its own apps. They can build features that are fast, private, offline-capable, and deeply integrated into their existing design. Instead of bolting AI on top, they can build AI into the core experience.

This is just the beginning. Apple says developers can combine its on-device model with cloud-based Apple Intelligence when more power is needed. That hybrid system will unlock even more advanced features without sacrificing privacy. As more apps adopt the framework, we are going to see entire categories transformed.

If you have an iPhone with Apple Intelligence support, these five apps are the perfect way to see what the future of mobile apps looks like. They are smarter, more helpful, and less effort than ever before. And the next wave is coming fast.

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Apple makes a fantastic product, including some of the best laptops in the world, but sometimes it can feel like Apple's biggest innovation year after year is hype.

And so now that Apple has announced its new Apple M5 chip that will power the 14-inch MacBook Pro, 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro, and Vision Pro headset, a simple look at the press release is enough to see the Apple hype train clearing the station.

Will the Apple M5 be a good chip? Almost certainly, considering that its predecessor, the Apple M4, was a good chip, too, and the Apple M5 is more akin to what's already on the market than "the next big leap" Apple is always promising.

What's new about the Apple M5

That's not to say that there's nothing new in the Apple M5, because there is. First, Apple is introducing "neural accelerators" into its GPU cores, something that Intel, AMD, and Nvidia have been doing for a couple of generations now. This should help improve graphics performance in games and applications that choose to leverage those AI components.

For the GPU compute units themselves, Apple says the "next-generation" GPU delivers up to 30% faster performance compared to the M4 and up to 2.5x faster performance than the M1.

For its CPU component, the M5 will get up to 15% better multicore performance than the M4 with similar core configurations, though no word on the single-core performance.

The M5 will also feature an expanded bandwidth for its unified memory of up to 153GB/s, which is a roughly 30% increase over the previous M4's, and frankly says a lot more about memory-intensive graphics performance than anything about its new architecture.

Why none of this is likely to matter

To understand why I am very underwhelmed by this chip, even without seeing a single independent benchmark, is the second sentence of Apple's press release announcing the new chip, which begins: "Built using third-generation 3-nanometer technology...". That's certainly one way of saying that you've been using the same TSMC N3 process node for the last three generations of your processors, severely limiting the kind of gains you can get from performance.

Second, I've covered a lot of processor announcements and launches, and every company claims that their new chips get "up to" some impressively high-percentage better performance in this category or that. AMD, Intel, and Nvidia, however, actually show you what those benchmarks are, which lets us, as journalists, hold them accountable. What's more, I've sat through any number of Intel and AMD briefings and announcements that show games and applications that don't show any performance improvement at all.

Apple is nothing if not completely opaque when it comes to its performance claims. Saying the Apple M5 can "deliver up to 15 percent faster multithreaded performance over M4," is functionally meaningless if you don't know what application or test got that score. Likewise, its performance claims regarding its GPU. If anything, this chip should be called the Apple M4 Plus, or even the Apple M4 AI. It would be more honest.

The only indication we get from Apple's announcement about its performance claims is a footnote that reads, in part: "Performance measured using select industry‑standard benchmarks. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro."

Apple has done this kind of thing for years, but in the case of the M5, it feels worse since I get the sense that Apple is trying to hide the ball here from consumers and journalists in order to hype up a chip that isn't likely to see the kinds of overall performance gains that Apple wants to tout and that customers expect.

That's because the only real add here is neural processing capacity that, quite frankly, won't make all that much of a difference in the small smattering of apps that use Apple's neural engine or new GPU neural accelerators. Apple isn't an AI company the way Nvidia is. Apple makes very fine computers and designs very good processors, but few will turn to a MacBook to run actual on-device AI workloads that matter.

The neural accelerator-enhanced GPU cores and neural engine on the M5 likely don't have the juice to compete with even a two-generation-old Nvidia RTX 3060 laptop GPU.

Meanwhile, since this is also about the MacBook Pro and iPad Pro, actual "Pro"-level AI work is done on Nvidia GPUs, end of story. CUDA is the language of today's AI, and the entire AI ecosystem is built around it. CUDA is also a proprietary software framework that is exclusive to Nvidia GPUs, and so, try as they might, AMD, Apple, Intel, and Qualcomm simply cannot break that industry lock-in with Nvidia.

Apple has its own AI framework that it is encouraging its developers to use, but this runs the risk of those developers locking themselves into Apple's framework, which is different and incompatible with what everyone else in the field is doing, which makes no sense for an AI professional.

So ultimately, the biggest sell for this chip and the products it will power is negligible in most cases, while the actual day-to-day functionality won't be noticeably different than an Apple M4 chip you might already have in your laptop, or which will now be cheaper if you are looking to upgrade this year, so will be a much better value than anything with an M5 in it.

Should Apple have just waited a year or so to launch the M5?

Yes.

Apple has a good working relationship with TSMC and Samsung, and TSMC and Samsung's respective 2nm process nodes will be ramping up production in 2026. It could have fabbed the Apple M5 on a more advanced node next year and seen real, across-the-board performance gains.

It chose not to because it's under pressure right now to "catch up" on AI and is attempting to do so when just about everyone—including OpenAI's Sam Altman—is acknowledging that we are probably in the midst of an AI bubble. How that will work out for Apple and everyone else remains to be seen, but what it does show is that Apple is struggling right now to find the kind of direction that it had when it made the decision to launch its own in-house silicon, and is now chasing after ideas instead of innovating.

Which makes sense. Apple's been coasting on the move to its M-series for half a decade now, but the car is starting to sputter a bit as TSMC hasn't been able to get its 2nm node into production in time to keep pace with Apple M-series releases, leading to three generations of Apple M-series chips using the same 3nm process technology.

Apple needs something more than just hype right now, and I'm not sure what it is, but it's not going to be the new Apple M5.

Read more about the latest Apple news...

• The M5 MacBook Pro is official – here are 5 things you need to know
• Apple unveils an M5-powered iPad Pro and makes the update all about AI
• Apple just upgraded the Vision Pro with the M5 chip, and a 'Dual Knit Band' that looks way more comfortable

• New code in the latest iOS 26 beta reveals Apple could be working on adding third-party image generators to Image Playground
• Currently, you can only use ChatGPT inside Image Playground, but this new code hints at more third-party options in the future
• If this comes to fruition, Gemini Nano Banana could be one of the image generators added in the future

Apple looks set to upgrade Image Playground in iOS 26, with new code in the latest beta suggesting that users could soon be able to use third-party AI image generators other than ChatGPT.

Revealed by 9to5Mac, the new code hints at "estimated latency" and adds provider identifiers, which means we're likely to see other AI image-generation tools outside of OpenAI's in Apple's stock Image Playground.

This would be an incredibly exciting addition to Apple Intelligence, and lines up with previous reports from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, who said Apple could introduce Google's AI products into iPhones in the future, for example to power Siri.

Google is currently the trailblazer in AI image generation, with its latest model, Nano Banana, offering the best way to turn your text into images. Nano Banana also offers AI image-editing capabilities that would truly enhance the Image Playground experience should it be introduced.

Image Playground is accessible on compatible devices running iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26, and now has ChatGPT capabilities as well as Apple's own LLM for image generation.

While we don't have any idea of when more third-party image generators will be introduced into Image Playground, this found code hints at a huge upgrade to the native application.

A playground of opportunity

The prospect of having AI image-generation tools from providers like Google built into Image Playground on iOS sounds absolutely fantastic.

I don't use AI image-generation tools often, but having a native application that allows you to tap into the very capable tools on the market without needing to open a third-party app would really push Apple Intelligence and Apple's AI offering forward.

Image Playground is limited to say the least, and while it was improved with iOS 26 by the addition of some ChatGPT functionality, it could get even better if Apple brings Gemini's Nano Banana on board.

Obviously, nothing is confirmed just yet, but these findings hint at a very big Apple Intelligence upgrade soon, and I just hope this comes to fruition.

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“Dad, you’ve got to try this, it’s amazing!”

You know Apple is onto something when your teenage son excitedly tells you about a new feature on his iPhone that’s arrived thanks to a simple upgrade to iOS 26.

I’m talking about a small feature that you might easily skip over when you upgrade, but it might just be my favorite thing about the new iOS 26 iPhone update. It's called AutoMix.

When turned on, AutoMix blends the end of one song into the start of the next one, but it does so intelligently, in a way that sounds pleasing to the ear and gives each song the respect it deserves.

Sometimes AutoMix will leave a gap between songs, and other times it will overlap them or use beatmatching to change a song’s time signature to match what’s coming up next. Usually it does a good job, although tracks with false endings can definitely catch it out.

If I just take the playlist that Apple Music has created for me based on Bon Iver’s Hey Ma as an example, Bon Iver’s 29 #Strafford APTS fades out just as the four-count intro to Mumford & Sons The Wolf starts off, and they overlap as if they were meant to work together like that.

Some users have complained that using AutoMix results in track shortening, and while that is sometimes true, I haven’t really found this to be a distraction when I’ve used it. I’m more interested in waiting for one song to end and another to start so that I can hear exactly how AutoMix has mixed them together.

How to use AutoMix

AutoMix works across Apple Music on all your Apple devices, so it’s not limited to iPhone, but that seems to be where I use it most.

It can be turned on and off at any time by using a new toggle button that appears on the far right next to the usual player controls for looping tracks, playing continuously on an auto-generating playlist and shuffling the current playlist.

AutoMix doesn’t work on albums; it works on playlists that you or other users have created, or Apple Music stations.

It’s not clear entirely how AutoMix works its magic. Apple says it “uses intelligence”, but does that mean it's using artificial intelligence? I think it must be. Either way, it works on iPhones that can’t run regular Apple Intelligence features, so it doesn’t require the full power of Apple Intelligence. Perhaps some AI is being done on a server somewhere in Apple land, rather than on the device?

While the exact details of how it works remain a mystery, it’s a feature that you’ll also find in Spotify, which cheekily added the feature to playlists just before the iOS 26 release so that Apple wouldn’t be the only one shouting about it amongst the best streaming music services.

Sleep detection

What I particularly like about AutoMix is that it doesn’t do anything crazy; quite often, it just leaves a beat pause between the two tracks in a way that sounds right.

In fact, it can easily lull you into a dreamlike state as your playlist start to blend together.

It’s a good job that another of Apple’s new iOS 26 features is that AirPods can now detect when you’ve fallen asleep and pause playback – I’ve got a feeling I’m going to find that feature useful in the months ahead.

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When Apple announced the new Apple Intelligence features in iOS 26 earlier this year, there was one in particular that really piqued my interest.

You see, I'm Scottish with Italian grandparents, an Italian wife, and I moved to France when I was 10 years old. Combined, this makes for lots of different languages on my iPhone, and a lot of dialect shuffling in my brain to make conversing easy.

I speak fluent French, understand most Italian, and can make myself understood through a mix of my upbringing, speaking to my partner regularly in the language, and by adding Os and As to French words.

So while I don't necessarily need the AI feature I'm about to talk about, using it for the last week or so has significantly improved my communication experience on iPhone, and I think this might be one of the best iOS 26 features, full stop.

If you haven't guessed yet, or aren't up to speed with the new Apple Intelligence features available in iOS 26 (there's a lot, check out this article), I'm of course talking about Live Translation.

Now, before you click off from this article because a translation tool sounds boring, hear me out, I swear this is the kind of technology that will transform the way we communicate. Just keep reading.

Language barriers? What language barriers?

I've been trying Live Translation for the last few months now, and I think it will transform how smartphone users communicate.

It's a pretty seamless tool. In iOS 26, you can open up any conversation in Messages and select a primary language to translate from. The language will be downloaded, and then any incoming messages will seamlessly be translated from the language of the message to your preferred one.

I tested this with my Italian in-laws as well as my wife, and I was thoroughly impressed with how seamless the translation was. There's no waiting; someone just messages you, and it arrives in two languages, allowing you to understand exactly what is being written and see the original message too.

Live Translation doesn't only work in Messages, it also removes language barriers from phone calls and FaceTime. And if you have a pair of AirPods Pro 3 (or Pro 2/AirPods 3 with ANC), the feature is even better.

It's the voice communication Live Translation feature that I'm most excited about, as it now allows me to take part in conversations with my Italian family without any struggle. Live Translation translates in real-time as the person on the other side of the phone speaks, and can do the same for them, allowing one of you to speak in English and the other to speak in Italian without any hiccups.

Sound cool? This is the kind of built-in feature I've been waiting for for years, and I'm so excited to finally have my hands on it.

Connecting the world, one language at a time

iOS 26 is now available, and Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhones get access to everything Live Translation has to offer. Live Translation, as well as all the other new Apple Intelligence features, such as Visual Intelligence for screenshots and ChatGPT styles in Image Playground, are some of the best AI features we've seen on iPhone to date, and you don't need an iPhone 17 to use them.

In my brief time testing Live Translation, I've been thoroughly impressed with its accuracy and just how quickly it works. I've written conversations in French and English, and received replies in Italian, all absolutely seamlessly.

Live Translation might not have as much of an impact on your life if you rarely converse in other languages, but even then, the capability to eliminate language barriers across Apple devices is the first step in making the world more connected, and that's an incredibly exciting and powerful thought.

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iOS 26 is finally here, and your iPhone software just got a gorgeous redesign.

While the headline feature will be Liquid Glass, installing iOS 26 will also give you access to some new Apple Intelligence features that might improve your life in subtle, yet meaningful, ways.

I've whittled down the list of new AI-powered features available in iOS 26 (and iPadOS 26) and selected my five favorites. From in-app translation to new Apple Intelligence abilities in Shortcuts, there are plenty of reasons to install the new update right away, rather than wait for the iPhone 17 to launch later this week.

1. Live Translation

After using iOS 26 for a few months, I've found Live Translation to be my personal favorite new Apple Intelligence feature.

Built into Messages, FaceTime, and the Phone app, Live Translation lets you automatically translate messages, add translated live captions to FaceTime, and, on a phone call, the translation will be spoken aloud throughout the conversation, completely removing language barriers using AI.

I've written about how Live Translation has drastically improved my ability to communicate with my Italian in-laws, and trust me, if you regularly speak multiple languages, you'll also find this new Apple Intelligence feature to be a game-changer.

2. Genmoji and Image Playground upgrades

Apple launched Genmoji and Image Playground as part of the first wave of Apple Intelligence features, and now the company has improved its generative AI image tools.

Users can now turn text descriptions into emojis as well as mix emojis and combine them with descriptions to create something new. You can also change expressions and adjust personal attributes of Genmojis made from photos of friends and family members.

Image Playground has also been given ChatGPT support to allow users to access brand-new styles such as oil painting and vector art. Apple says, "users are always in control, and nothing is shared with ChatGPT without their permission."

I've enjoyed my time using ChatGPT in Image Playground. While it's still not as good as some of the other best AI image generators out there, it improves the Image Playground experience and is a step in the right direction for Apple's creative AI tool.

3. Visual Intelligence can now see your screen

Visual Intelligence might've already been the best Apple Intelligence feature, but now it's even better.

In iOS 26, Visual Intelligence can now scan your screen, allowing users to search and take action on anything they’re viewing across apps.

You can ask ChatGPT questions about content on your screen via Apple Intelligence, and this new feature can be accessed by taking a screenshot. When using the same buttons as a screenshot in iOS 26, you are now asked to save, share the screenshot, or explore more with Visual Intelligence. Visual Intelligence can even pull information from a screenshot and add info to your calendar; it's super useful.

If you're like me and take screenshots regularly to remember information, Visual Intelligence on iOS 26 could be the Apple Intelligence feature you've been waiting for.

4. Third party apps have Apple Intelligence access

While this entry isn't a feature per se, this iOS 26 addition is a big one for the future of Apple Intelligence: Developers now have access to Apple's Foundation Models.

What does that mean exactly? Well, app developers can now "build on Apple Intelligence to bring users new experiences that are intelligent, available when they’re offline, and that protect their privacy, using AI inference that is free of cost."

Apple showcased an example at WWDC 2025 of an education app using the Apple Intelligence model to generate a quiz from your notes, without any API costs.

This framework could completely change the way we, users, interact with our favorite third-party apps, now with the ability to tap into Apple's AI models and make the user experience even more intuitive.

At the moment, I've not seen many apps take advantage of this new feature, but give it a few weeks, and we'll be sure to list the best examples of Apple Intelligence in third-party applications.

5. AI-powered Shortcuts

Last but not least, Apple Intelligence is now available in the Shortcuts app. This is a major upgrade to one of the best apps on Apple devices, allowing users to "tap into intelligent actions, a whole new set of shortcuts enabled by Apple Intelligence."

I've tried Apple Intelligence-powered shortcuts, and just like the Shortcuts app, the true power here will come down to user creations and how people tap into this new ability. As someone who uses Shortcuts daily, I'm incredibly excited to see how the fantastic community of people who create powerful shortcuts and share them online will tap into Apple Intelligence's capabilities.

This is not an AI improvement everyone is going to use, but if you choose to delve into the world of the Shortcuts app and learn how to get the most from it, this new iOS 26 addition might be the best of the lot.

Upgrade today

iOS 26 is now available as a free update for iPhone, and while only Apple Intelligence-compatible devices (iPhone 15 Pro and newer) have access to the new AI features, there's plenty here to be excited for.

Whether you want a fresh coat of paint and a new lock screen redesigned with Liquid Glass, or the idea of Live Translation makes you excited to use your smartphone on vacation, iOS 26 is a huge step forward for iPhone and well worth the upgrade.

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My iPhone 16 Pro Max has been a fantastic smartphone, a sheer powerhouse in tackling all the tasks I throw at it, without compromise.

That said, ever since I purchased the best iPhone on the market last September, I’ve had a recurring issue pop up every so often. Most of the time, I use Apple Intelligence, whether that’s ChatGPT through Siri or Genmoji, my iPhone gets pretty hot and it happens very quickly.

I’ve tried to restore the software, but the issue is so intermittent that it never truly feels fixed, and I’ve spoken to other colleagues with a similar device, and they’ve also mentioned hot iPhones when using the built-in AI.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a deal-breaker by any means, but it is an issue that has been discussed online since Apple decided to move to the more premium titanium chassis with the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, and while it’s not specific to AI, using generation tools like Image Playground, is pretty taxing on the chip inside the device.

Yesterday, Apple unveiled the next generation of iPhones: the iPhone 17, iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. All beautiful in their own right, and all ready to showcase the future of AI-powered Siri when it hopefully launches next year.

While watching the keynote, one feature stood out to me more than anything else. And while I wasn’t planning to upgrade, it has made me want to preorder an iPhone 17 Pro later this week.

Ice, Ice, baby

I purchase a new iPhone every year, and it’s fair to say I’m more forgiving of software issues than most when it comes to the user experience on my smartphone.

For example, I had to close the Messages app and reopen it before uploading any photo to send via iMessage on my iPhone 12. Instead of sorting the issue out, probably through a software erase, I accepted the problem and just got on with my life. All this to say, I’m not one to really nitpick on annoyance.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll moan about tech annoyance in the pub, but more often than not, I just choose to live with them. After all, I buy a new device every year, and I always set it up as a new one, seeing the shiny new iPhone as an opportunity for an app spring clean.

Why am I going off on this tangent? Well, the 16 Pro Max has been an awesome phone, and honestly, the heating issue has been annoying, but nothing too severe to really impact my appreciation for the product.

That said, when Apple showcased the gorgeous copper-like Cosmic Orange iPhone 17 Pro last night, in a new (old) aluminum chassis, with an Apple-designed laser-welded vapour chamber, I knew I had to have it.

Reverting to aluminum and focusing on thermal performance means the iPhone 17 Pro should be absolutely future-proof when it comes to AI and everything to do with Apple Intelligence that is expected to come in the next year or so.

Over the last 12 months, I’ve been unable to shake the feeling that my 16 Pro Max, despite being an absolute powerhouse, is going to struggle with more demanding AI tasks, especially considering I can’t create a genmoji of a frog eating ice cream without ramping the heat up.

We obviously don’t know what AI features Apple will bring to its products in the future, but we’re all hoping we finally see the Apple Intelligence-powered voice assistant we were promised at WWDC 2024. Rumors from top insiders like Mark Gurman report a new AI search engine built into Siri could also be on the horizon, and if that’s the case, I want the iPhone most capable of dissipating heat.

Getting ready for what’s to come

The dust has now settled on the iPhone 17 Apple keynote, and looking back at the devices Apple unveiled, I can’t help but get excited about the prospect of stability. One of the best iPhones in recent years was the iPhone 13 Pro, which improved on some of its predecessor's battery and performance-related flaws.

With the iPhone 17 Pro, I get a similar vibe, a bigger battery, a more efficient chip, and a smartphone made to withstand the stress of modern-day applications powered by AI. If you’d have told me last week that I’d be most excited for a vapor chamber on an iPhone and the prospect of blazing fast AI capabilities, I’d have laughed in your face: there’s no way Apple could make me excited for cooler performance.

Fast forward to today, and the Cupertino-based company did it; they only went and did it. I’ve succumbed to the idea of an ice-cold iPhone capable of any AI process you throw at it, and I can't wait to give it a try.

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September 9 will play host to what's very likely to be the biggest Apple event of the year.

The TechRadar team and I are expecting to see the iPhone 17 family, Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch Ultra 3, and AirPods Pro 3.

I doubt we'll see any big surprises, but I'd say we could expect some exciting new features for all of the above and Apple Intelligence updates.

But enough about me and TechRadar; I want to hear what you're most excited to see. So take a look at the poll below and select the one product that's got your tech synapse quivering.

And do head to the comments section to let me know if there's anything I've missed or if you just have more to say.

I'm most excited for the iPhone 17 Pro models, given the potential new design, vapor chamber cooling, and a new 48-megapixel telephoto camera have all been tipped.

Have a look at our live coverage of the last-minute news, rumors, and analysis of the Apple event.

But I'm also curious to see how the Apple Watch Ultra may have evolved as it enters its third generation.

And the AirPods Pro 3 could be some of the smartest wireless earbuds around if the rumors bear fruit.

All in all, I think there's plenty to be excited about, but this isn't about me. So have your say by voting in the poll above and embrace the comments if you've got more Apple event thoughts.

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As we draw near to what's likely to be the biggest Apple event of the year on September 9, I'm gearing up for new Pro iPhones.

If you've read my rundown of the key rumors for the iPhone 17 family, you'll know that the biggest upgrades are likely coming to the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, from a new telephoto camera to tipped vapor chamber cooling.

But I want to know what you, dear reader, are most excited about for the iPhone 17 Pro phones. Do you want more power? A better screen? A new design? Or something else?

Go vote in the poll below, and let me know in the comments if an upgrade you're looking for isn't on this list.

From my perspective, I'm actually low-key excited for the iPhone 17 Pro vapor chamber cooling, as I think that could be the secret sauce to extract the best gaming performance out of Apple's upcoming flagship phones, and see Cupertino accelerate what mobile gaming can be.

Have a look at our live coverage of the last-minute news, rumors, and analysis of the Apple event.

I'm also quite intrigued to see what Apple can do with the telephoto camera on the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max. A 48-megapixel sensor is all good news, but I'd be keen to see if there's something extra in the mix, especially as the Pro phones are tipped to get a bigger rear camera module.

However, this article isn't about me; it's about you. So please go and vote in the poll above and head to the comments if you've got more iPhone 17 Pro opinions.

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I haven't used an iPhone as my daily device since 2012. That was the iPhone 5, renowned for its stunning industrial design, including, amusingly, the squared metal edges not too dissimilar to the latest iPhones.

The iPhone 5 offered a 4-inch display, while the same year saw the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S III, the HTC One X, and the Nokia Lumia 920. Each of these devices had a larger display, with an exciting feel to Android and Windows Phone compared to iOS 6 and its dated skeuomorphic design.

It felt, at the time, as though the innovation in phones wasn't coming from Apple.

I've reported on the launch of every iPhone since, and I've tested plenty of iPhones and other Apple devices, but I've always come back to Android at the end of the day. The question is, can Apple do anything to win back my affections?

It's no longer a hardware race, except…

The thing that got me to switch from Apple to Android was hardware: larger screens, greater flexibility, better camera solutions. While Apple's approach to the iPhone was slightly more cautious (despite the "courage" that Apple showed in removing the headphone socket on iPhone 7), there wasn't enough happening to draw me in.

But the playing field has leveled. In recent years, Apple has dropped the Lightning connector in favor of the universal USB-C standard, and there's now display size parity and a decent telephoto camera on the iPhone 16 Pro models, too. Truth be told, I love the design of the regular iPhone 16; it's a great-looking device.

In other words, there's no longer a hardware race in smartphones. I'll happily accept that iPhones are generally more powerful (and wonderfully optimized), their displays are of great quality, and their cameras produce decent results. I don't need to turn to a kooky Android brand to get those things anymore.

The exception to the rule is battery life, where Android is leagues ahead.

A battery dilemma for Apple

Battery life is the holy grail of mobile device performance. People aren't rolling from year to year, crying out for more powerful hardware, but they do, consistently, call for longer battery life. That goes hand-in-hand with faster charging, something that Apple has been reluctant to implement, while Android has devices packing silicon-carbon batteries and, in some cases, 100W charging in some cases.

Apple is improving in this regard, but slowly. The iPhone 17 Pro Max is expected to use a larger battery than any previous iPhone model, while faster wireless charging is also on the cards thanks to the new Qi2 25W standard. That's likely to see the iPhone 17 offer 25W MagSafe charging, compared to the current 15W offering.

It's rumored, too, that the super-slim iPhone 17 Air could use silicon carbon battery tech, helping it keep a slim waistline while lasting through the day.

Boosting battery life will pique my interest, but Apple is in something of a bind. While cheaper Android phones can offer big batteries and faster charging rates, it's generally accepted that those devices won't be used for as long as an iPhone. Apple's customers expect an iPhone to last for many years, and controlling battery health with more restrained charging rates is part of the company's strategy to deliver on that expectation.

The new frontier is AI – and Siri has a lot of work to do

With hardware parity taking a back seat to functionality, it's in the software department that the opportunity for innovation lies. Apple's focus has so often been on expanding the ecosystem advantage, and while that's great for fans using multiple Apple devices, it means nothing to those outside the wall.

Siri – one of the first voice assistants to launch – fell well behind the sort of interaction that Google Assistant offered soon after, and now it's even further behind Gemini. Siri's promised revolution powered by Apple Intelligence hasn't yet arrived, but this is exactly where Apple needs to be taking the lead. The company's Visual Intelligence tool is a step in the right direction, but there's nothing unique about it, as Android's Screenshot offers similar functions.

We're moving into a post-app era, where AI will offer a personalized experience, able to predict what you want and when you want it. While we stagger through the iterative offers for translation or summarization – which is where AI is currently focused – that personalized AI experience seems far off.

Apple has, in the past, been a master of user interface experiences, smoothing the path to make everything easier. This is exactly what Apple Intelligence should be doing. Let's press pause on generative AI images and create a seamless world where your phone really learns your routines, makes smart suggestions, learns from your preferences, and makes life easier.

Let's break out of the restrictions of systems like Shortcuts to automate life without blow-by-blow user selection. Apple Intelligence, Galaxy AI, Google AI, and others all currently under-deliver on the promise of a better phone experience.

If Apple meaningfully moved things forward, with a new, smarter experience, I'd be happy to jump back into iPhone. Here's hoping the company's September 9 showcase has some good news in store.

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Apple is said to be working on an AI-powered search engine that could be powered by Google, according to a top insider.

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg's Apple expert, reports Apple is "planning to launch its own artificial intelligence-powered web search tool next year, stepping up competition with OpenAI and Perplexity AI Inc."

This comes following previous reports that Apple was looking into potential opportunities to improve its AI offering, following the disappointing launch of Apple Intelligence nearly 12 months ago.

Gurman has spoken to "people with knowledge on the matter" who claim the project is being called "World Knowledge Answers" and it will be integrated into an upgraded version of Siri.

According to the report, some executives call the upcoming software an "answer engine," and Apple is "aiming to release the service in the spring."

From Gurman's article, it sounds like World Knowledge Answers will work similarly to ChatGPT search or Google's AI Mode, allowing users to ask Siri for answers and listen as the voice assistant responds.

Interestingly, Gurman claims the technology that's said to power this new feature could be powered by Google. He claims, "The companies reached a formal agreement this week for Apple to evaluate and test a Google-developed AI model to help power the voice assistant."

This would come as no surprise, especially considering previous reports that Apple was interested in implementing Google's Gemini AI model into Apple Intelligence.

The Intelligence we've been waiting for?

Gurman says the "new search experience will include an interface that makes use of text, photos, video, and local points of interest, according to his sources. It will also offer an AI-powered summarization system designed to make results more quickly digestible and more accurate than what’s offered by the current Siri."

While this sounds incredibly promising, it's worth taking with a grain of salt, especially considering Apple's previous track record with launching AI-powered features. While Gurman is usually very accurate with his reports, so many things can change during the development of a product that is rumored to launch nearly 12 months from now.

Apple is gearing up for its biggest week of the year when it reveals the iPhone 17 on September 9, and while we don't expect to see much from Apple Intelligence at the event, maybe the Cupertino-based company has an AI surprise lined up.

Time will tell if this AI-powered Siri search engine comes to fruition, but considering the increase in popularity of generative AI tools, I suspect it could be a massive hit.

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