Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Chatrie v. United States

Amy Howe:

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that when law enforcement officials used a “geofence warrant” – a warrant that instructed Google to provide location data for cellphone users who were near a particular place during a specific time period – to obtain evidence used to convict a Virginia man of a 2019 bank robbery, they conducted a “search” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. By a vote of 6-3, the justices sent Okello Chatrie’s case back to the lower court for it to consider whether, as the Fourth Amendment requires, the search was “reasonable.”

Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan emphasized that “[a]n individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone’s location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information—even though for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company.”

[…]

For purposes of whether the government conducted a search, Kagan said, it does not matter that law enforcement officials “access[ed] only a short amount of cell-phone location information.” […] Nor does it matter, Kagan continued, that Chatrie gave Google permission to collect and use the location data.

Previously:

Dissecting Apple’s Sparse Image Format (ASIF)

Erik Schamper:

ASIF takes a lot of inspiration from existing virtual disk formats. Practically, that means it’s another sparse virtual disk format, and functions very similar to sparse VMDK, VHDX or QCOW2 files (for the uninitiated, it allow you to store a large disk, or file, in a smaller, “sparse” manner).

Shortly before the release of macOS Tahoe (late 2025), I thought it’d be a fun exercise to try and write a parser for ASIF files.

Previously:

App Store Complaint From Chinese Developers

Hartley Charlton:

A group of 48 China-based iOS developers have filed an antitrust complaint against Apple with the country’s market regulator over the App Store’s commission rates, the South China Morning Post reports.

The developers sent an open letter to China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), alleging that Apple failed to deliver on a promise to offer the lowest commission rate to the Chinese market. The group asked the SAMR to investigate and penalize Apple for allegedly abusing its market dominance to impose “unfair and excessively high” costs on local developers.

Apple lowered the fees in March but not as much as it did in Brazil and Japan.

Previously:

Kids Online Safety Act

Amanda Silberling (May 2025):

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) has been reintroduced into Congress. If passed into law, this bill could impose some of the most significant legislative changes that the internet has seen in the U.S. since the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998.

As it currently stands, KOSA would be able to hold social media platforms legally accountable if it’s proven that these companies aren’t doing enough to protect minors from harm. The bill includes a long list of possible harms, such as eating disorders, sexual exploitation, substance abuse, and suicide. Though it overwhelmingly passed through the Senate last year, the bill was stifled in the House.

[…]

“Apple is pleased to offer our support for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Everyone has a part to play in keeping kids safe online, and we believe [this] legislation will have a meaningful impact on children’s online safety,” Timothy Powderly, Apple’s senior director of Government Affairs, said in a statement.

Nick Heer:

The App Store Accountability Act is based on model legislation written by the Digital Childhood Alliance. The lobbying group also publishes marketing pieces, including one (PDF) that calls Apple’s age verification frameworks “ineffective”. Specifically, it points to the lack of parental consent required “for kids to enter into complex contracts”, with “no way to verify that parental consent has been obtained”.

Maya Posch (via ednl):

Since the arrival of so-called ‘social media’ the central tenet of never giving out your personal information which was front and center during the 1990s and 2000s got quite literally flipped around. Suddenly we had massive corporations practically begging you to give every last scrap of your personal information, every intimate detail of your daily life and with it every last second of your attention span.

[…]

The upshot of this reversal is that instead of a mostly comfortable anonymous experience, suddenly every second that you’re awake has been turned into the equivalent of a schoolyard during recess, the watercooler banter at the office and similar social interactions.

[…]

This raises many questions, such as whether ‘social media’ and the FOMO it introduces is a legitimate addiction, and whether we shouldn’t make being online more anonymous rather than enforce a rather dystopian ‘real name’ policy onto the populace.

Joe Mullin (Hacker News):

Within the next week, Congress is preparing to vote on the KIDS Act, a sprawling package of legislation that seeks to control Americans’ web browsing and private messaging. The package includes a revised version of the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, combined with a collection of other internet bills, study bills, reporting requirements, and new regulations. Instead of debating any of these proposals on their merits, lawmakers are attempting to move them all at once under an ultra-expedited process.

[…]

Buried inside the KIDS Act are provisions that will push online services to verify all users’ ages, require government-directed moderation policies for online speech, and even create new rules about private and encrypted communications. While supporters continue to claim this bill protects minors online, its requirements come at the expense of privacy, free expression, and the ability of people of all ages to use the internet without revealing sensitive data.

[…]

Several provisions of the bill create new rules around direct messages, disappearing or “ephemeral” messages, and AI chat services.

The bill includes language stating that certain KOSA requirements should not be construed to override strong encryption. But the protection is incomplete. The carve-out applies to certain features and messaging controls, but doesn’t apply to KOSA’s separate requirement that platforms “address” a list of harms to minors.

Previously:

UK Social Media Ban

Tim Hardwick:

The British government will introduce a ban on social media access for all users under 16 years of age, set to take effect in 2027.

[…]

The plan goes further than a similar ban introduced in Australia. It will cover major platforms Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X. An exhaustive list has not yet been released, but Starmer said the rules will apply to services “whose purpose is to enable social interaction and which allow users to post material.”

Messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal are not covered by the ban, and most social media platforms already require children to be over 13 to create an account and use their services.

Max Goldbart (Hacker News):

So-called AI ‘romantic companion’ chatbots – designed to simulate sexual relationships or roleplay with users – will have to enforce a minimum age of 18 and the government will also be looking in more detail at overnight curfews and breaks in infinite scrolling for under-18s, with more detail coming in July.

[…]

The government said it will “learn the lessons” from Australia’s experience by introducing more highly effective age assurance measures to support compliance, making it far harder for children to bypass safeguards.

Ax Sharma (Hacker News):

In practice that means anyone opening a new account will likely have to prove they’re over 16 by uploading an ID or passing a facial age scan, the same checks that adult sites serving UK visitors have implemented since July 2025 under the Online Safety Act.

Long-standing accounts are largely exempt, but signing up fresh now triggers verification, effectively ending anonymous account creation in the UK.

James Rodger (Hacker News):

New VPN rules are set to be issued by the Labour Party government as part of the under-16 social media ban. The government has not revealed any plans to regulate them, but ministers have said details about action alongside the social media ban, including regarding VPN use, will come in July.

Paige Collings and Jillian C. York (Hacker News):

There remains no reliable, privacy-preserving method of verifying the age of every internet user and methods vary from one platform to the next.

Young people will not simply be protected from being contacted by adults or endlessly scrolling—they’ll also lose access to educational videos on YouTube, local events on Facebook, and potentially cut off from distant friends and family.

[…]

The provision also requires internet service providers to limit the time kids spend online, and has rules about who can contact them online. These extreme rules will take decisions about using technology away from families and put them in the hands of government regulators.

Cory Doctorow (Hacker News):

The problem is, there’s no such thing as “age verification” for the internet. What we call “age verification” is actually mass surveillance, so invasive and pervasive that it makes the ad-tech industry’s commercial surveillance look like some kind of cypherpunk darknet pirate utopia[…]

[…]

Any attempt to save kids from online harms should start with saving kids from online surveillance, but that’s the opposite of what we’re doing today. After decades of failing to pass and enforce privacy controls for the internet, those same governments are breaking all land-speed records to pass “age verification” laws that make privacy illegal[…]

Anonymous (Hacker News):

Lots of US states, European countries, and Australia have introduced “age verification” regulations. They present it as the classic “save the children” talking point, but it’s really just a precursor to attribution of speech, particularly attributing your words to your real identity.

Sean Hollister (via John Gruber):

Azdoufal is the security researcher who used Claude Code to help discover that every DJI Romo robot vacuum cleaner and a million baby monitors and security cameras were embarrassingly easy to hack. This time, he says he discovered over 985,000 photo IDs sitting on the public internet for any half-decent hacker to steal.

[…]

Traditionally, you’d need to provide a photo ID every time you wanted to get into a club. But with the verification system, the receptionist can pull up your stored identity documents and check if your face matches. There’s also an optional app called PuffPal that lets clubs scan a QR code for faster entry.

But when Azdoufal decompiled that PuffPal app, he explains in his report, he discovered that Nefos had no meaningful level of security.

Previously:

Monday, June 29, 2026

What to Do With a Hot Mac

Howard Oakley:

Hot Macs have their own paradox: open Activity Monitor, select the CPU view, and at the top of the CPU % list will be kernel_task hogging the CPU cores with 100% or more, rather than its usual 4% or so. Kerb any temptation to kill it and hope it goes away, as it has taken control of your Mac to let it cool.

[…]

There are rare occasions when fans blow full on and kernel_task goes wild without any thermal problem. In Intel Macs, resetting the SMC is usually curative, but this could instead be the result of a fault in a thermal sensor, or in the SMC. Hardware diagnostics should tell you more. By far the most common cause of persistent problems is dust and debris in the air ducts, and in the case of some Intel Mac notebooks overheating of the left USB-C ports. For more details, see Apple’s note about kernel_task, which also confirms what I have written here.

[…]

If your Mac is showing early signs of thermal strain and still running, encourage heat loss by immediately[…]

Paul Haddad:

It boggles my mind that the biggest software company in the world, with total control of their hardware/software stack is totally incapable of shipping an OS that doesn’t include one or more daemons who just endlessly waste CPU cycles.

Bonus irony points because dasd’s purpose is supposedly to schedule low priority background processes.

Howard Oakley:

Continuing with the results from file compression, it’s straightforward to calculate the total energy required to compress the test file using the P and E cores:

  • When compressing using the ten P cores, power used was 51 W for a total of about 8.4 seconds, thus 428 J, or 43 J per core.
  • When compressing using the four E cores, power used was 255 mW for a total of about 150 seconds, thus 38 J, or 10 J per core.

[…]

In omitting GPU power from Energy Impact, many power- and energy-intensive tasks will appear far less demanding than they really are. This is becoming even more important now Apple silicon chips are being used increasingly to run AI computation locally.

Neither powermetrics nor Activity Monitor provide any estimates of power or energy used by other parts of a Mac, such as memory or the internal SSD, although those can also be important determinants of battery endurance and heat generation.

Previously:

macOS California Adventure

Basic Apple Guy:

But what exactly is a Mavericks? Where is Sonoma? And how many Mac users could point to where Ventura or Tahoe on a map?

I decided to trace the history and real-world locations behind every California-inspired macOS release and the wallpapers used to market the them to the world. Enjoy.

Previously:

Shutting Down Notion Mail

Zac Hall:

Last year, Notion expanded its productivity suite to include Notion Mail, an AI-powered email client. Today, the company announced that it’s shutting down the Notion Mail inbox service this fall.

[…]

Today, more than half of Notion Mail users manage emails without ever opening their inbox. So, we’re going all in on using agents to run your inbox.

Previously:

Export Control for Fable and Mythos

Anthropic (tweet, Hacker News):

The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance.

David Sacks (recently departed AI czar, via Dare Obasanjo, Hacker News):

Fable is Mythos with guardrails. But if those guardrails fail, then you’ve exposed Mythos and its advanced cyber capabilities to people who shouldn’t have them. (Keep in mind that Anthropic itself widely promoted the idea that Mythos was a cyberweapon and needed to be regulated as such. They asked for government regulation of Mythos and championed the guardrails on Fable. If there is a vulnerability — big or small — it is Anthropic’s responsibility to patch.)

A highly credible trusted partner of both Anthropic and the USG who was testing Fable came forward with a jailbreak of those guardrails. The Admin asked Dario to fix the jailbreak or de-deploy the model. Dario refused.

Amrith Ramkumar and Robert McMillan (Hacker News):

The Trump administration’s decision to halt all foreign use of Anthropic’s most-capable AI models was prompted by conversations between Amazon.com Chief Executive Andy Jassy and U.S. officials including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, people familiar with the matter said.

Dare Obasanjo:

If Claude Mythos is as powerful and dangerous as Anthropic says it is then export controls are totally reasonable. After all, Biden put export controls on Nvidia GPUs for similar reasons.

That said, banning foreign worker Anthropic employees from Mythos reads more like retaliation than regulation.

Ben Thompson (via John Gruber):

Anthropic went on to make the case that non-universal jailbreaks were inevitable and also narrow, and that there was no evidence of a universal jailbreak; the jailbreak that was found, meanwhile, appears to have been reported by Amazon, which is notable given Amazon is both an investor in Anthropic and a major provider of inference to the company. As I write this, senior Anthropic staff are in Washington D.C. seeking to resolve what they insist is a misunderstanding, and which White House officials are suggesting is insouciance by the company’s leadership to legitimate national security concerns.

I don’t actually have much to add to the current conflict given how many facts are in dispute; what I am not surprised about is the fact that the conflict is happening: I already explained in Anthropic and Alignment why conflict between the U.S. government and Anthropic was inevitable. To that end, people who are arguing that Mythos isn’t powerful enough to warrant the government’s drastic action are missing the point: if it’s not powerful enough now, the next one will be, or the one after that, particularly now that models are increasingly useful in creating their successors.

[…]

The broader takeaway from that previous episode, however, is that Anthropic believes that they are the ones who should have final say over how Anthropic is used; given that they think only they should be developing leading edge AI, they by extension think that only they should have final say over AI generally. When you further combine this realization with the company’s pronouncements about AI’s ability to conduct all economic activity, you realize that Anthropic’s leadership effectively wants to have power over everything and everyone.

Bruce Schneier:

The government’s actions won’t help. The problem isn’t any one particular model; it’s the general trend of increasing AI capabilities. And any real solution requires the sort of collective action that just isn’t possible right now.

[…]

The broader community had only a few days with Fable, but that time we learned some about its capabilities. Its difference is less the new model’s raw analytical and problem solving capabilities, and more that the model doesn’t need that sophisticated harness.

[…]

Human systems rely on so many norms that we scarcely recognize the existence of until they are broken. AIs naturally think outside the box, because they don’t have any real conception of what the box is or why it’s there in the first place.

There is no foolproof way to prevent people from using AI models to complete harmful tasks. There is no way to prevent the models from incidentally causing harm while completing benign tasks. AI models are no longer isolated from the real world. They browse the internet and answer emails.

Hayden Field:

Anthropic declined to comment multiple times this week about the state of the talks, saying there was no news to share. But the lack of news is the story here. After 14 days of high-intensity negotiations, nobody knows when or if Anthropic’s most powerful AI models will come back, let alone whether President Trump could expand his order to more companies with similar tech.

[…]

It’s not clear exactly why Anthropic and the administration remain at an impasse. One problem may be that there’s no clear framework for applying export controls to AI systems. Most companies making dual-use products — civilian systems with potential defense or military uses — can evaluate them using what’s essentially a checklist during the manufacturing and production process. Anthropic, however, is facing a complicated bureaucracy figuring out how to apply its rules from first principles.

[…]

Katie Moussouris, the founder and CEO of Luta Security, viewed a report about the Fable 5 vulnerability at Anthropic’s request. She thinks it’s significantly overblown. In a blog post, Moussouris detailed how researchers jailbroke guardrails that prevent Fable 5 from finding exploitable security holes, one of the unfettered Mythos 5’s scariest capabilities. […] In Moussouris’ eyes, however, this shouldn’t have triggered such a severe governmental action and is in fact an essential tool for AI coding.

Jared Perlo (Hacker News):

The U.S. government is allowing Anthropic to deploy its Mythos 5 model to a select group of customers and partners, according to a letter from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to Anthropic that was seen by NBC News.

In the letter, Lutnick wrote that the government was confident in the guardrails Anthropic had put in place to allow trusted users to access the powerful AI system.

Julie Bort (Reddit):

It is now allowing Anthropic to make Mythos 5 available to more than 100 specific U.S. government agencies and companies, including allowing the non-American employees at those organizations to access to the model, both Semafor and Reuters report. This list also includes Anthropic’s own non-American employees, who were included in the original ban that forbade non-Americans from accessing the models.

[…]

Apparently, the administration did not address the release of Fable 5 in this directive.

It’s unclear what technical changes Anthropic may have made or what else they may have done to change Lutnick’s mind.

Kate Park (Hacker News):

On Wednesday, Chinese cybersecurity firm 360 reportedly unveiled Tulongfeng, an AI tool it says can go head-to-head with Anthropic’s Mythos.

Dare Obasanjo:

It seems inevitable that OpenAI and Anthropic will lobby the U.S. government to ban Chinese models in much the same way car companies effectively got Biden to ban Chinese EVs with 100% tariffs.

This puts them on a collision course with the hyperscalers like Microsoft who’ll happily host GLM & Kimi.

Previously:

Friday, June 26, 2026

Xcode 26.6

Apple (xip, downloads):

Xcode 26.6 includes Swift 6.3 and SDKs for iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, tvOS 26.5, macOS 26.5, and visionOS 26.5. Xcode 26.6 supports on-device debugging in iOS 15 and later, tvOS 15 and later, watchOS 8 and later, and visionOS. Xcode 26.6 requires a Mac running macOS Tahoe 26.2 or later.

[…]

Google Gemini is now available in the coding assistant.

Xcode adds support for the Agent Client protocol.

[…]

Launch Time similar-app goals have been refined for improved accuracy, establishing new baselines.

Previously:

Boom Mobile Restructuring

Our phones stopped working this morning, or perhaps last night, but everything looked fine on Boom’s Web site. I contacted their support, and as always they got back right away, but this time with bad news:

I’m deeply sorry to share that after careful consideration, we’ve made the very difficult decision to restructure through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. If this isn’t successful, then we will discontinue Boom! Mobile service. I know this is upsetting, and I want to personally thank you for trusting us. We’re committed to making your transition to another provider if you choose to do so.

So now I’m looking for another Verizon MVNO. The options and pricing seem to have changed a lot since the last time I was picking a plan. Some possibilities: US Mobile, Visible, RedPocket, Tello, Boost Mobile, and Total Wireless.

See also: Reddit.

Update (2026-06-29): I ended up going with US Mobile. I like that they offer smaller plans without unlimited data and that you can add extra lines sharing the same bucket of data for only $8. So far, so good. It was an easy switch—even for Visual Voicemail, which has given me trouble in the past. Their Web site works much better than Boom’s, which used to be good but had gotten unreliable in recent years.

Om Malik, RIP

Ryan Merket (Hacker News, Wikipedia):

Om Malik (@Om), the journalist, GigaOm founder, photographer and True Ventures partner whose work tracked the commercial internet from dial-up optimism to AI saturation, died on June 24 at Stanford Hospital after what his family described as a long health journey with his heart, according to a post on On my Om. He was 59.

[…]

That exchange was small. It was also the whole system in miniature. A founder could reach the editor directly. The editor was awake. The story was not filtered through a communications department, a conference stage or a banked embargo calendar. Malik helped build that operating system for Silicon Valley media: fast, conversational, porous, technically literate and dangerously close to the companies it covered.

Malik was not just one of the people who covered Silicon Valley. He became one of the people Silicon Valley used to understand itself. That was the gift and the complication of his career. He was a reporter, then a founder, then a venture investor, and he never entirely gave up any of those identities. He could spot a network shift early because he had spent decades watching pipes, protocols, business models and human ego interact at close range. He could also be too close to the machine he covered, a tension that defined the blog era he helped build.

[…]

On my Om, became less about scoops and more about judgment. He wrote about technology, photography, business cycles, health, memory and the human cost of living inside the network. He preferred the long arc to the launch post.

We were mutual readers for many years, and I respected him as a thoughtful writer, but I didn’t know him well. He always seemed like a kind soul, and reading the many comments about his passing that really comes across. When he announced the break recently, I hoped he was off to take some more wonderful photos.

Benjamin Clymer:

Through it all, Om Malik was just a kind, warm, funny (af), true, and honest friend who helped me get to the good times and ride out the bad. He’d been through a lot and wasn’t afraid to tell you all about it. He was a rare breed indeed in many ways, but having the confidence to show kindness and vulnerability in the world of venture capital is something that should be studied.

Om Malik (2020):

Given that I have been writing three decades, including eighteen-plus years a blogger, I am hardly surprised that I am repeatedly asked: how should I write? And my answer is always the same — write like a human.

Update (2026-06-29): See also:

“If You Can’t Stand By a Feature, You Shouldn’t Launch It.”

Jason Snell, on The Talk Show:

[… Apple] decides to do a big feature. The circus comes to town, they build the feature, they launch it, they leave town, and that feature sits there.

And the problem is, there’s bugs, things are broken, and in Year Two, you’re like, “You’re going to fix all the things that were broken in the thing you shipped last year, right?” And in the last decade, I would say, a lot of times what happens is they just don’t. And if you’re lucky, they’ll fix it Year Three or Year Four, […] give it a polish.

The thing that troubles me most about Apple software quality in general is the feeling like they don’t have the people to own the thing that they launch. They build the thing that they launch, and then those people go off and do something else, and nobody is maintaining and improving the thing that’s there.

Via Marcin Wichary:

I think this is spot on, and said really well. Are you honest with yourself about resourcing and focus for right after the launch and then later on? Have you really thought about worst case and best case scenarios vis-à-vis bug reports, latency, user feedback, and craft/​quality however you define it? Have you actually started to make room for those outcomes ahead of time?

For me, an ongoing tension with Apple is Finder, so central to my (and I imagine many people’s?) use of a Mac, but rewritten at some point eons ago in a new framework that caused all sorts of problems, and then pretty much abandoned like a proverbial American city’s downtown.

Revealing files in the Finder and Mail’s table view sort indicators have been broken for me since Big Sur. Disk Utility still doesn’t work as well as before its El Capitan rewrite. But these aren’t even big new features.

Jeff Johnson:

This is what happens when you release major OS updates every year: you have to keep launching new features.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-29): Jesper:

The issue really, that Jason pins down, is that it’s so easy to use incremental development, agile development, sprints, whatever, as a method to do the wrong thing. If you have a year-long schedule, it is easier to say “I will take care of the Finder”, and within the scope of that is a number of features that need be built, but there’s also room for ongoing maintenance. Within the confines of sprint planning, within a culture that sheepishly focuses on the wrong thing, or is obsessed by following the wrong number, or worries about the internal politics of appearing to not have it together, all of a sudden the same work, scheduled into 3 week long sprints, looks like poison.

I know of plenty of organizations that make this work. That have the maturity and discipline and culture to see bugs and defects for what they are, to allocate plenty of time to them and to focus extra time on them with regular intervals.

Qualcomm Acquiring Modular

Chris Lattner:

I’m excited to share that Qualcomm is acquiring Modular: this will accelerate our path to unifying accelerated compute with an open platform. This will also mark a new era in open software development for Qualcomm.

[…]

This will accelerate our progress and path, and their vision is expansive: [spanning] edge to cloud, CPU, GPU, NPU, and custom ASICs and perhaps more.

Modular (Hacker News):

As AI scales, efficiency, not capability, becomes a constraint. Performance-per-watt drives the cost of inference, and cost determines what scales. Meeting this demand requires more than hardware. Developers need software that connects system-level optimization with heterogeneous, disaggregated compute, turning silicon performance into reliable and efficient AI services across accelerators, environments, and use cases.

Previously:

Thursday, June 25, 2026

Apple Hardware Price Hikes

Osmond Chia (Hacker News, 9To5Mac, Engadget):

Apple plans to raise the prices of its products as the cost of the memory chips it uses has surged, the technology giant’s boss has said.

Tim Cook, Apple’s outgoing chief executive, told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that price increases were “unavoidable” as the situation around memory chips had become “unsustainable”.

Nick Heer:

During its holiday quarter, Apple’s profit margin on hardware was 40.7%; in its most recent quarter, that dropped to 38.7% — a remarkable figure for physical products. It is these high margins that led to analysts like Ming-Chi Kuo to claim Apple would keep prices more-or-less stable and offset the additional costs through its even higher-margin — 76.7% — services business.

Adam Engst:

Winkler suggests in his summary that Apple has absorbed the cost increases so far because it has always treated memory and storage upgrades as profit centers. That’s no surprise to the Apple community, which has long chafed at Apple’s premium prices for memory and storage. But now, for instance, the price of standalone internal flash storage is closer to and sometimes even higher than Apple’s upgrade prices.

[…]

Obviously, Apple could absorb such costs and more if it were to accept dramatically lower gross margins. But as high-minded and customer-focused as Apple is, the company is still in business to maximize profit.

I was recently looking to add another SSD and a few hard drives to my setup. Normally, prices go down over time, but currently it SSDs are about double the price I paid last year, and large hard drives are almost triple.

John Gruber (Hacker News):

Apple, to my recollection, has never before issued a warning about price increases. Keep in mind that Apple deals with prices in a very different way from its competitors. For Apple, prices are part of a product’s brand, so they don’t fluctuate with component costs.

Chance Miller (Hacker News, MacRumors, Mac Power Users):

Apple has raised prices across the board for many of its products today. MacBook Neo now starts at $699 (up from $599), while MacBook Air now starts at $1299 (up from $1099). Other impacted products include MacBook Pro, iPad, iPad Air, and many more. iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods pricing is unchanged.

Ben Lovejoy:

Earlier this week, I outlined three reasons for agreeing with Mark Gurman that the Apple price increases could be imminent, and that indeed proved to be the case.

iPhones have escaped the increases, but they are otherwise both broad-reaching and pretty dramatic. But perhaps the most surprising thing is that the MacBook Neo has been included …

Tim Hardwick:

Apple today increased the starting price of the Mac mini with M4 Pro chip by $200, taking the higher-tier model up to $1,599 on its online store.

[…]

Apple had already raised the Mac mini’s effective starting price in May by discontinuing the $599 configuration with 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, leaving the $799 model with a 512GB SSD as the new entry-level option. Interestingly, the 16GB RAM / 256GB storage option has now been reinstated, but the $799 starting price remains.

Stephen Hackett has a table of the old and new prices.

Nick Heer:

Pre-announce it with a small delay, thus giving you a temporary sales boost as people scramble to get their orders in at current prices, and to soften the blow when the increases hit.

Matt Birchler:

I also can’t help but see that “we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today’s increases for iPad and Mac,” statement as implying more increases are coming. The iPhone price increase seems inevitable, and my money is on it starting with the new models in September.

Simon Sharwood:

Micron CEO, president and chairman Sanjay Mehrotra explained the SCAs in prepared remarks delivered during the company’s Q3 earnings call. He explained that Micron has signed 16 SCAs, most of them covering 2026 to 2030, and that they involve a commitment to buy a certain quantity of product and pay for it in a pricing band that has a floor and a ceiling price. The floor price covers the historically high gross margins mentioned above, and the ceiling price means those who commit to an SCA are insulated if memory prices go even higher.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-26): Hartley Charlton:

Micron’s chief business officer has hinted, without calling it out by name, that Apple’s tough supplier negotiations contributed to the conditions behind the global memory shortage.

M.G. Siegler:

For years, Apple has been able to dominate and dictate to their suppliers thanks to their scale. But the Asian operations which Tim Cook so famously set up, have been upended, like most everything else, by AI. From TSMC on down, Apple is no longer the customer dictating terms for the entire industry, it’s now the company which has taken over the mantle as the most valuable one in the world: NVIDIA.

Joe Rossignol:

Apple’s stock price dropped 6% on the day — its largest single-day loss since April 2025.

John Gruber:

Here’s a table with most of the base models whose prices increased[…]

[…]

iPad prices mostly went up 20–25%, but the hardest hit was the no-adjective base model, which rose almost 30%, from $350 to $450. That’s a big increase for a product meant to appeal to buyers for whom price is obviously their biggest concern.

John Gruber:

Anyone who purchased a MacBook Neo for $600 (or $500 with education discount) between March and this morning purchased the lowest-price MacBook Apple has ever sold — and perhaps the lowest-price MacBook they ever will sell.

Joe Rossignol:

Apple’s full statement:

The consumer electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge. The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly. We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today’s increases for iPad and Mac. We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions.

[…]

Apple indicating that it needs to “begin” raising prices suggests that additional price increases might occur later.

Jason Martin:

“and we are working tirelessly to find solutions.”

I find this to be the most confusing part. Do we believe this to be a genuine effort? Even if so, how would a “solution” actually work? Would they actually lower prices if a solution were to be found?

They also just said they “will continue working” on bringing Siri AI to the EU right before saying in a different venue that they’d stopped working on it.

Jeff Johnson:

In a statement about the price increases, Apple said, “We can no longer shield customers from our 39% gross margin.”

Christina Warren:

Like, truly laughable. $200 for a 64GB Apple TV 4K that is almost 4 years old?

John Gruber (Mastodon):

But even setting aside the prices of competing devices, it just feels wrong to hike prices this much for four-year-old hardware running five-year-old pre-AI silicon. The higher-end model’s price went up 67 percent!

The only way this makes sense is if these prices are really meant for the upcoming new hardware, and those new models are more ambitious home hubs that warrant $200–250 prices.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-29): Zac Hall:

The Financial Times reports that Apple is seeking clearance from the Trump administration to purchase memory chips from a blacklisted Chinese company. The move would help it meet demand for product manufacturing during the ongoing global memory supply shortage.

Perhaps this is the “working tirelessly” that Apple was referring to.

Ben Lovejoy:

Apple previously sought permission from the Biden administration to do the same thing back in 2022, and that did not go well – despite promising to use the chips only for iPhones sold in China …

John Gruber:

Something happens — outside the company’s control — that causes those essential components to rise in price significantly.

[…]

What you cannot do is hold a philosophically consistent logically coherent view where your answer to how a company should respond in such a scenario is contingent on what the “something happens” is that caused component prices to rise.

Maybe—but that’s only relevant if you accept the premise that it was out of Apple’s control. I don’t know the details of the deals, but there’s an argument that the rising costs to Apple are to some extent Apple’s “fault.” If Tim Cook gets credit for helping suppliers expand capacity and locking in contracts for memory at low prices over the past two decades, doesn’t the same logic apply in reverse? The AI-driven shortages were foreseeable—and publicly discussed years ago. If you believe Micron that Apple chose to prioritize its own past numbers rather than securing its future supply, doesn’t that make today’s situation different from, say, a tsunami that unexpectedly wiped out a bunch of factories? I don’t know exactly how the increased costs should be apportioned, but I think the reasons for the costs are relevant, and I don’t think they’re fully exogenous.

sid:

If Apple has the balls to raise the prices of their products, they should also have the balls to increase trade-in values for older devices.

Update (2026-06-30): Kif Leswing:

But while tech giants like Apple and Microsoft, which both announced price hikes this week, have a hefty cash cushion, supply chain leverage and customers numbering in the millions or billions, a much wider swath of businesses face potentially dire straits. Most consumer electronics companies have little margin to spare and can’t confidently raise prices in an economy already grappling with inflationary pressures.

GoPro, the struggling maker of action cameras, warned this month that it might go out of business after memory costs shot up between 80% and 115% at the end of the first quarter. And shares of speaker maker Sonos are down 23% this year as memory prices pressure margins.

Tony Krueger, RIP

Raymond Chen:

Tony Krueger is remembered in Wikipedia as the person who ported the game Chip’s Challenge to Windows for the Windows Entertainment Pack. But that’s probably not the code he wrote that touched the most people.

Tony worked on Word 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, then on Word for OS/2 and Word for Mac, then returned to Word 6.0 and several versions beyond that. He probably holds the record for “most versions of Word shipped.”

[…]

Tony made the spell checker much more unobtrusive so that it didn’t interfere with your foreground work. And when it found a problem, instead of waiting for you to trigger a spell check, it immediately drew red squiggles under potentially-misspelled words (and later green squiggles under potential grammatical errors).

Update (2026-06-30): See also: Marcin Wichary and Jon Snader.

WebKit Always Enables the Copy Menu Item in Every App

John Gruber (Mastodon):

In most Mac apps, since the dawn of time, if there is nothing selected to be copied, the Edit → Copy (and Cut) commands are disabled. If you invoke the ⌘C shortcut while the Copy command is disabled, you hear an alert sound, letting you know that whatever you thought you were copying could not be copied because it wasn’t selected. That beep is useful context. This is proper behavior for all menu items — if they’re not available to do something, they should be disabled, and invoking a disabled menu item keyboard shortcut should beep. In any app that uses WebKit, since early in 2025, the Copy command is always enabled when a WebKit view has focus — but if nothing is selected, you get useless clipboard data that can’t actually be pasted anywhere. (And whatever was on your clipboard is now gone, or pushed back if you use a clipboard history utility.)

Jeff Johnson:

I decided to file a bug report on behalf of Gruber: Copy main menu item is enabled with no selection in the web page. I subsequently learned that the first appearance of the bug was January 2025 in the WebKit source code, February 2025 in Safari Technology Preview 213, and March 2025 in Safari 18.4, as a result of attempting to fix another bug, document.execCommand("copy") only triggers if there is a selection, reported in 2016, nine years prior!

[…]

Sadly, my bug report was closed with the resolution “won’t fix.” The refusal appears to be based on a misunderstanding[…]

Jeff Johnson:

LOL that was fast.

Sometimes Apple is hilarious.

Previously:

Xcode 27’s Device Hub

Apple:

You manage all the devices that appear in Xcode as run destinations using Device Hub.

Run your app on simulated devices in Device Hub to quickly evaluate new features and fix bugs, and to see how your interface works on devices that you don’t have physical access to. Run your app on physical devices to test features or services that have hardware dependencies or investigating performance issues. For more information, see Running your app on simulated or physical devices.

Fatbobman:

Device Hub is undoubtedly a major surprise. It integrates simulators, physical device management, system state testing, and dynamic size adjustment into a new workflow. Its impact on day-to-day development experience may be more direct than that of many individual APIs. That said, iPhone apps now also support dynamic size adjustment, which will bring new challenges for developers, especially in terms of data and state organization. Adapting to different sizes is not something that can be solved merely by relying on dynamic layout containers. In many scenarios, large and small sizes correspond to very different navigation logic.

Collin Allen (Mastodon):

Xcode 27 introduced, among other new features, a new Device Hub app for developers that takes the place of the Simulator app. Where Simulator relied on separate windows for each device, Device Hub brings them all together into a single window where each simulated device is the detail view from a source list of devices on the left. It’s a more organized approach, made necessary by the wide variety of platforms Apple and Apple platform app developers have to build and test against.

[…]

In releases prior to Xcode 27, you could resolve this by importing the root public certificate into the simulated OS. On iOS, this could be done by dragging and dropping the .cer file onto the Simulator device window. Nothing would appear to happen, but you could then navigate to Settings, General, About, Certificate Trust Settings and mark the certificate as trusted.

[…]

In Xcode 27 with Device Hub, this process is much more uniform. […] While this new process does require you to wrap certificates in an Apple Configurator profile, this is much more consistent with how Apple’s device management system works, as it relies on signed profiles with policies, not loose .cer files. And now, just by adding the .mobileconfig to the Profiles section of the device inspector, the embedded certificate is automatically marked as trusted, greatly speeding up installation on new virtual devices.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

I get what Apple is trying to do with the Device Hub, but it’s nowhere near as usable and as useful as the iOS Simulator (in this seed)

Adam Overholtzer:

Device Hub is missing the “pixel accurate” and “point accurate” zoom options and that’s not acceptable.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

Maybe someday the Simulator/Device Hub might even be able to output screenshots in the same orientation as the emulated device 😛

Steve Troughton-Smith:

Thanks to the remote control / screen sharing features of Device Hub, I can remotely navigate to Settings and start a software update on all my iOS27 devices without having to go collect them around the house 👌

Steve Troughton-Smith:

For all of Apple’s nonsense about adding iPhone Mirroring to the EU, the new Device Hub (iOS Simulator) lets you remote-control your physical iOS devices just fine. I don’t think the DMA has an opt-out for developer tools 😛

Steve Troughton-Smith:

It’s such a shame for now that Xcode 27’s Device Hub doesn’t support remote screen sharing with iOSes earlier than 27. I wish the screen sharing functionality was part of the developer disk image, and backported to iOS 26 and even iOS 18. Having a physical device plugged in somewhere is so much faster than booting a Simulator.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-26): Léo Natan:

Xcode 27’s “Device Hub” is a broken shitshow, but most importantly, it lacks the Debug menu, where you could toggle slow animations and simulate memory warnings. Apple works tirelessly to destroy any good tool they used to have.

He has a thread of issues. Hopefully these will be addressed before it’s out of beta.

Wednesday, June 24, 2026

Swift Package Index Joins Apple

Ted Kremenek, Dave Verwer, and Sven A. Schmidt (Hacker News):

Bringing Swift Package Index to Apple allows us to build on its strong foundations while preserving its vision and expertise. Together, we’re building a comprehensive package registry to serve the Swift community’s evolving needs.

[…]

Swift Package Index will continue to operate as it does today. You can continue to rely on it to discover packages, check compatibility, and explore documentation. As we embark on this new phase, our goal is to accelerate development and introduce new features that make discovering and evaluating packages even better.

[…]

Swift Package Index will remain open source.

Helge Heß:

A little sad that this era ends. SPI was a stronghold of Apple independence, a package index run by independent and trusted individuals.

Swift 6.4

Swift 6.4 is now available in beta form with Xcode 27. The Swift Evolution proposals are listed here.

What’s new in Swift:

Discover the latest language advancements, including updates for everyday ergonomics, improved concurrency, and safer high-performance code. Explore workflow and language interoperability improvements and updates in embedded Swift.

Build real-time apps and services with gRPC and Swift:

Build engaging live experiences with gRPC in your Swift app and backend. gRPC is an open-source RPC framework designed for high-performance, bidirectional streaming APIs. Explore how the gRPC Swift package provides a modern, safe runtime built with Swift concurrency.

Explore numerical computing in Swift with MLX:

Bring NumPy-style computing natively to Swift with MLX Swift. Discover how to eliminate cross-language friction in your machine learning workflows by handling image processing, tensor operations, and neural network training in a single, type-safe environment. Explore the APIs that let you leverage GPU acceleration while enjoying the compiler, tooling, and debugging experience you already know.

Swift Group Lab:

Join us online for a deep dive into WWDC26 with Apple engineers and designers to ask questions, get advice, and follow the discussion about the week’s biggest Swift announcements.

Matt Massicotte:

There’s a voting system. And that means a number of questions weren’t selected. This time I copied those down and I thought it could be fun to take a shot at answering the ones that are more in my area.

Xcode 27 Beta 2 Release Notes:

The Swift dependency scanner has been optimized to avoid redundant setup work and header searches when looking up Clang modules during a single dependency-scan action, substantially improving scanning performance.

As a consequence of this change, every Clang module reachable from a single Swift dependency-scan action must have a unique module name. If two module maps visible to the same scan declare a Clang module with the same name, the scan may report an error.

[…]

System now provides Swift APIs for the C stat, lstat, fstat, and fstatat system calls. This includes a new Stat type with initializers from FilePath, FileDescriptor, or a C string; FilePath.stat() and FileDescriptor.stat() instance methods; and supporting types (FileType, FileMode, FileFlags, UserID, GroupID, DeviceID, and Inode).

Wade Tregaskis:

The final piece of the Prospective Vision for Accessors, this allows for more efficient accessors on structs, in a nutshell.

[…]

Now there’s a safer version of the existing withUnsafeTemporaryAllocation (first introduced in Swift 5.6). It works just like you’d expect. It comes in both “raw bytes” and typed elements versions, just like its unsafe predecessor.

[…]

The new isTriviallyIdentical(to:) method offers a guaranteed-fast way to check two objects for equality. It is essentially an optimised version of the existing equality condition provided by Equatable and the == operator. It’s useful because it guarantees O(1) time complexity, whereas == makes no formal guarantees at all (and for many types is O(N) or worse). But unlike the existing identity comparison operator === – also O(1) – it promises to do more than just tell if two objects are the exact same pointer, and it works on value types (not just reference types).

[…]

These new types generalise the existing patterns of borrowed and mutable references, that have previously existed in Swift in much more restricted forms (e.g. inout parameters are essentially MutableRef parameters, and Span & MutableSpan are array equivalents).

There’s now a built-in function for demangling Swift symbol names, in the Runtime module (that’s bundled with the Swift toolchain, alongside the stdlib etc).

Khoa Pham:

As Apple has aligned OS version numbers across platforms, Swift 6.4 takes the next step by letting you collapse repetitive availability attributes into a single anyAppleOS token.

[…]

There are situations where you need to call a deprecated API while you plan a migration, or audit a critical function for unsafe usage, without letting those concerns bleed into the rest of the project. The new @diagnose attribute handles both cases.

[…]

Some work should complete even after a task is cancelled, like flushing a file to avoid corruption. withTaskCancellationShield wraps a region where Task.isCancelled always returns false.

Antoine van der Lee:

Swift 6.4 implements SE-0493: Support async calls in defer bodies. This is one of those changes that feels obvious once you need it.

[…]

Swift 6.4 improves error handling for unstructured tasks through SE-0520: Discardable result use in Task initializers. The change helps you catch a subtle bug: creating a throwing task and then ignoring its returned task handle.

[…]

Swift 6.4 also implements SE-0530: Async Result Support.

[…]

Swift 6.4 implements SE-0518: ~Sendable for explicitly marking non-Sendable types. It allows you to communicate that a type has been audited and should not conform to Sendable.

Slava Pestov:

I thought it would be a good time to detail some of the type checker performance improvements we worked on since I shared the type checker performance roadmap last year. I’m also going to outline a couple of things we plan on looking at next.

Previously:

Swift 6.3

Holly Borla and Joe Heck (Hacker News):

Swift 6.3 introduces the @c attribute, which lets you expose Swift functions and enums to C code in your project. […] @c also works together with @implementation. This lets you provide a Swift implementation for a function declared in a C header[…]

[…]

Swift 6.3 introduces module selectors to specify which imported module Swift should look in for an API used in your code. If you import more than one module that provides API with the same name, module selectors let you disambiguate which API to use[…]

[…]

Provide pre-specialized implementations of a generic API for common concrete types using @specialize.

[…]

Guarantee inlining — a compiler optimization that expands the body of a function at the call-site — for direct calls to a function with @inline(always).

[…]

Expose the implementation of a function in an ABI-stable library to clients with @export(implementation). This allows the function to participate in more compiler optimizations.

The Swift Evolution proposals are listed here.

Florian Pircher:

I love that I can now name my module the same as the primary/only type of the module without making the module namespace unreachable.

Jordan Rose:

Congrats to my Swift colleagues for #finally pushing @c over the finish line! Been a long time coming.

Previously:

Tuesday, June 23, 2026

iOS 27 Recovery

Hartley Charlton:

To use the feature, users must turn the device off, then hold the side button to power it on. The Apple logo appears as it would during a normal boot, but holding the button for an extended duration brings up a progress bar, and the device then launches into the new recovery environment rather than continuing into iOS or iPadOS as normal. The process mirrors how recovery mode is triggered on Apple silicon Macs by holding the power button.

The new recovery screen offers five options: Recovery Assistant, Software Update, Diagnostics Mode, Erase All Content and Settings, and Recovery Mode.

Previously:

RCS in iOS 27

Ryan Christoffel:

Today following iOS 27 beta 2’s arrival, Aaron Perris discovered that the update adds at least two key RCS improvements:

  1. Proper reaction support, so no more “Aaron loved an image” messages
  2. In-line replies

Previously:

SwiftData in appleOS 27

SwiftData updates:

Section your query results by creating your query with a macro that takes a sectionBy parameter, as listed on the Additional query macros page.

Use types that conform to Codable in a model, including types you don’t control directly, by using the codable option for Schema.Attribute.

Receive real-time updates to models that match specified fetch criteria by using the ResultsObserver type.

Observe remote model changes with the HistoryObserver type.

What’s new in SwiftData:

Discover the latest enhancements to SwiftData. We’ll show you how to persist custom and third-party types using Codable, and group fetched data into sections in your SwiftUI app. We’ll also explore how to observe data store changes anywhere else using ResultsObserver and HistoryObserver, giving you the flexibility to drive powerful state objects and react precisely to model updates.

Again, there seems to be nothing new in Core Data this year, nor any communication about it. There’s still no interoperability for object IDs. The SwiftData changes seem fine but don’t really address the new framework’s deficiencies relative to Core Data. It seems like there are still basic problems with threading. I just don’t understand how Apple is deciding what to prioritize with this framework.

With SwiftUI, the bones seem questionable, but at least we can see that Apple is full steam ahead, with substantial progress to address limitations and pain points. SwiftData seemed to have better bones and is much less ambitious. Getting it right seemed like just a matter of follow through. But, for some inexplicable reason, it seems to lack the resources and/or urgency to reach its potential. And even though SwiftUI is clearly the chosen one, AppKit remains in development. Meanwhile, Core Data seems to be abandoned, even though SwiftData feels more like a side quest than a genuine attempt to supplant it.

The implicit message, for those who have build the core of their app on top of Apple’s old persistence framework, seems to be that Apple is not looking out for their needs. Core Data will surely get maintenance to the extent that Apple’s own apps need it, but there’s no evidence of a future or even a migration plan. The answer, I guess, is third-party frameworks, but that’s not an easy migration, either, since none is even as close a match as SwiftData.

Add persistence with SwiftData:

Experience SwiftData in action as we add persistence to an existing app. We’ll show you how to define your data models and seamlessly integrate persistent data with SwiftUI. You’ll also learn foundational skills for managing your app’s state using this expressive, declarative API.

SwiftData Group Lab:

Join us online for a deep dive into WWDC26 with Apple engineers and designers to ask questions, get advice, and follow the discussion about the week’s biggest SwiftData announcements.

macOS Golden Gate 27 Beta Release Notes:

Fixed: You might experience a deadlock for @Query when saving a ModelContext on a background actor while scheduling new async tasks for a ModelActor.

Paul Hudson:

I am so pleased to say these words: IT IS A BIG YEAR FOR SWIFTDATA! 🎉

Mohammad Azam:

SwiftData predicates can now work directly with enum values, resulting in cleaner models and simpler query code.

[…]

In iOS 27, Apple introduced support for compound predicates through the Predicate(all:) and Predicate(any:) initializers, making it easier to build queries dynamically based on user input.

I’m not sure why that took so long.

The framework is gradually moving beyond simple demos and becoming easier to use in larger, more sophisticated projects.

[…]

iOS 27 is the first release where many of the framework’s early rough edges have started to disappear.

Matt Massicotte:

Results of my now-yearly check to see if SwiftData’s ModelActor continues to sometimes run code on the main thread: yes it does

Fatbobman:

Compared with @Query gaining support for section fetches, and ResultsObserver enabling observation of query result changes outside views, I am more interested in @Attribute(.codable). It provides a clearer storage intent and gives developers a way to avoid falling into the black box of composition.

Of course, @Attribute(.codable) is not a silver bullet. It is more like a clearly defined escape hatch SwiftData provides for opaque Codable types: suitable for storing external types that you cannot model yourself, but still genuinely need to persist. The cost is that this content cannot participate in SwiftData’s predicate, sort, or migration awareness. Precisely for this reason, its value lies not in being “more powerful,” but in being “more explicit.”

However, SwiftData still does not provide cloud syncing for public / shared data, nor have I seen a clearer signal of performance improvements. These issues will continue to limit its adoption. For many developers, SwiftData this year feels more like it is filling key gaps rather than making a leap significant enough to fundamentally change confidence in it.

Helge Heß:

Codable types in SwiftData seem pretty lame given that SQLite absolutely does have JSON support and does support queries on it?

But the funnier thing in the MKMapItem.Identifier example is that MKMapItem.Identifier is a RawRepresentable==String, so it could actually be stored as a String in the store.

Previously:

Monday, June 22, 2026

CrashReportExtension

CrashReportExtension:

The Crash Report Extension framework allows you to perform analysis and produce a report when your app crashes. Your crash-handling code executes out-of-process, rather than from a signal handler or other in-process techniques.

You implement your handler by writing an app extension that conforms to the CrashReporterExtension protocol. The system calls your processCrashReport(process:) method when the app crashes. Use the CrashedProcess parameter to inspect the state of the crashed app by retrieving a crash reason, symbolicating relevant addresses, and communicating with the process over a read-only Mach port. After collecting the crash data, you can send a report back to your own server.

[…]

Crash Report Extension is available on iOS 27 and later. It isn’t available to Catalyst-based macOS apps, or on iOS apps running on Mac computers with Apple silicon.

The top of the page says “macOS 27.0+,” so I guess this means it does work for regular AppKit and SwiftUI Mac apps. It’s great to finally have a supported way to do this.

I don’t know why they can’t just give you the crash report text or .ips JSON directly, though. It looks like you have to use Mach IPC with the corpsePort to get the backtrace for each thread and then use the extension API to symbolicate the addresses. Even then, I’m not sure you can get all the information that’s in a standard crash report, such as the Application Specific Backtrace. Maybe you can find the address for gCRAnnotations/__crashreporter_info__ and load it with mach_vm_read?

Previously:

Friday, June 19, 2026

SwiftUI in appleOS 27

macOS Golden Gate 27 Beta Release Notes:

AsyncImage now automatically caches downloaded images using HTTP caching protocols, allowing servers to control caching behavior via standard headers.

[…]

Xcode 27 introduces a new @State implementation that avoids this repeated evaluation. This new behavior back-deploys to iOS 17 aligned OSes. The new @State is implemented with a Swift macro. It is largely source compatible with the property wrapper version, with a few exceptions.

[…]

Text views now support TextRenderer.

[…]

In apps built with the 27.0 SDKs, the new ReadableDocument and WritableDocument protocols support asynchronous reading and writing, progress reporting, and direct access to document URLs. New DocumentGroup initializers that adopt these protocols let you disable document creation for editing-only apps and present custom UI before any document is opened.

[…]

TextField respects custom font and color styling applied to its prompt.

[…]

List accepts drops in two cases that previously didn’t work: drags with compatible transfer representations are accepted into reorderable content even when the .reorderableItem transfer type isn’t present, and a .dropDestination(…) modifier declared on a list item now performs the drop.

SwiftUI updates:

Build your project in Xcode 27 or later to construct type-agnostic content from closures that you mark with ContentBuilder, which serves as the unified replacement for type-specific builders like ToolbarContentBuilder and CommandsBuilder.

Add reordering by drag-and-drop in containers such as lists, stacks, grids, or custom layouts with reorderable() and reorderContainer(for:isEnabled:move:).

Add custom swipe actions to views in containers such as scroll views, stacks, grids, or custom layouts using swipeActions(edge:allowsFullSwipe:content:onPresentationChanged:) and swipeActionsContainer().

[…]

Use the visibilityPriority(_:) modifier to prioritize important toolbar actions so SwiftUI keeps them visible as space shrinks, moving lower-priority items to the overflow menu first.

[…]

Present an alert or confirmation dialog from an optional data item or error object, and use that data to produce the content and title[…]

What’s new in SwiftUI:

Explore the latest additions to SwiftUI and discover how they can improve your apps. We’ll introduce a new Document protocol with direct disk access and snapshot-based diffing for building high-performance apps; new APIs for reordering content in lists, grids, and sections; and toolbar enhancements including visibility priority and auto-minimizing behavior. We’ll also cover expanded presentation APIs — including swipe actions on any view — plus AsyncImage caching improvements and lazy state initialization for Observable types.

Use SwiftUI with AppKit and UIKit:

Discover how to incrementally adopt SwiftUI in your existing AppKit or UIKit app. We’ll show you how to use the Observation framework to automatically update your views, integrate SwiftUI components into an existing view hierarchy, and bring gesture recognizers into SwiftUI. We’ll also explore how to add complete SwiftUI scenes to your app without changing your overall architecture.

Dive into lazy stacks and scrolling with SwiftUI:

Discover the inner workings of lazy stacks in SwiftUI. We’ll explore how LazyVStack and LazyHStack estimate sizes, lazily load subviews, and prefetch content to deliver smooth scrolling experiences. We’ll also cover advanced performance optimizations, state management best practices, and tips for precise programmatic scrolling. To get the most out of this session, we recommend basic familiarity with SwiftUI layout using stacks.

Compose advanced graphics effects with SwiftUI:

Discover how to craft rich, custom experiences by creatively composing SwiftUI layout and graphics APIs. We’ll show you how to break down complex designs and use a creative pipeline to chain simple building blocks together. Learn how to draw with layer shaders, animate with timelines, and anchor views with alignment guides.

Build powerful drag and drop in SwiftUI:

Follow along as we build a game of Solitaire to explore the latest drag-and-drop capabilities in SwiftUI. We’ll show you how to use the new reordering API to let people arrange content, implement drag containers to move multiple items at once, and customize the drag-and-drop lifecycle to fit your app’s rules.

There are also a bunch of labs.

Natalia Panferova:

Up until now it was a property wrapper conforming to the DynamicProperty protocol, but in Xcode 27 it becomes a Swift macro. In this post we will look at what the change means for @Observable models stored in @State.

Malcolm Hall:

Only took 3 years lol!

Majid Jabrayilov:

SwiftUI also introduces a new prominent tab role. You can use the prominent role for trailing-separated tabs, similar to search.

[…]

Document-based apps get a refreshed look and feel, along with a performance boost. It looks like Xcode has started using these improvements, which might explain why we see so much work around document-based apps this year. And finally, Xcode introduces SwiftUI Specialist and What’s New in SwiftUI skills for agentic coding in Xcode.

Fatbobman:

For me, the biggest change in SwiftUI comes from its comprehensive support for document-based apps. It not only adds a large number of new APIs, but also shifts the mental model toward “observable document objects + asynchronous snapshots + dedicated readers / writers.” This is clearly better suited to complex document apps, and it also aligns more closely with the overall evolution of modern Swift around Observation and Concurrency.

The sessions also mentioned that SwiftUI continues to optimize layout- and container-related implementations, bringing noticeable performance improvements in some scenarios. This is an improvement developers have urgently needed. However, SwiftUI still does not provide the ability to create custom Lazy containers, which remains a clear disappointment.

Natalia Panferova:

iOS 27 introduces new reordering APIs that work with any container. We can mark dynamic content with reorderable() and define the scope of the interaction with reorderContainer(for:). SwiftUI handles the drag preview, insertion placeholder, and drop animation, while our code applies the resulting change to the model.

SwiftUI’s drag container APIs are also now available on iPhone and iPad, after previously being limited to macOS. They let us make items in a collection draggable without making the collection reorderable, and include multiple selected items in the same drag. The APIs also support lazy generation of transferable values and drag-session observation.

robb:

I love the new #SwiftUI Text selection but without a way to make selection span multiple Texts in a group, it doesn’t really address our needs at Linear – here’s hoping we see an update in a later seed 🤞

Natalia Panferova:

The NavigationTransition protocol has been available in SwiftUI since iOS 18, letting us control how views animate when pushed onto a NavigationStack and when presenting sheets and full-screen covers. We specify the transition using the navigationTransition(_:) modifier on the destination or presented view, and SwiftUI uses it instead of the default animation for that context. Before iOS 27, SwiftUI provided two built-in conforming types: AutomaticNavigationTransition, used via the automatic static value, which defers to the system default for the current context, and ZoomNavigationTransition, used via zoom(sourceID:in:), which animates the presented view expanding from a source view marked with matchedTransitionSource(). iOS 27 introduces CrossFadeNavigationTransition, a new built-in transition that cross-fades between views without requiring a source, and adds AnyNavigationTransition, a type eraser that lets us select a transition at runtime.

Kyle Howells:

The last few years watching WWDC has been a mixed experience for me, because I honestly believe Swift and SwiftUI are actively either bad or being made worst.

Yet every year, the problems I have with them are doubled down on, not improved.

Kyle-Ye:

The FB21333309 cache bug I submitted is now confirmed to be fixed on iOS 27.

Instead of introducing a new CacheKey like I suggested, SwiftUI team choose to move the intensity payload out of the FeedbackType enum to a new Payload enum and add a new payload var to SensoryFeedback storage.

dasdom:

A few weeks ago I realised that most iOS jobs require knowledge of SwiftUI. So I started to rebuild my Mastodon client in SwiftUI. Then I got an offer for a new job and accepted it. This means I can get back to working on the ObjC version. Feels good. :)

Previously:

Update (2026-06-23): Natalia Panferova:

iOS 27 adds new AsyncImage initializers that accept a URLRequest instead of a URL. We can now configure request headers, cache policy, and timeout interval while continuing to use the built-in loading and phase handling provided by AsyncImage. A new asyncImageURLSession(_:) modifier also lets us provide the URL session used by asynchronous images in a view hierarchy.

Apple Clearing App Store Clutter

Ed Hardy:

Finding useful software in the App Store is about to get easier. Apple is apparently preparing to remove what it describes as “opportunistic” apps that provide little value to iPhone and iPad users.

It already had a policy of not approving applications that are “indistinguishable from what’s already widely available.” This week, it quietly warned developers that it will start removing low-value software that doesn’t attract attention from users.

App Review Guidelines (News):

4.3 (b) Don’t submit apps that are indistinguishable from what’s already widely available. Opportunistically creating variants of existing app categories or popular apps degrades App Store discovery, reduces overall app quality, and harms both users and developers. Certain kinds of apps, such as dating, flashlight, sound effects, wallpaper, simple timers, and fortune telling, are well established on the App Store and we will not accept new submissions unless they offer a meaningfully different or improved experience. We may remove these apps from the App Store going forward if they are not updated, improved, or do not attract customers. Other kinds of apps, such as drinking games, Kama Sutra, fart, and burp apps, are mediocre, low-quality, or low-effort and do not add value to the App Store. Repeated submissions of this kind may lead to removal from the Apple Developer Program.

Previously:

Mandatory Apple Intelligence

Rodrigo Ghedin (Hacker News):

That show of respect for its customers may change with iOS/macOS 27. Reports suggest that, at least in the first beta, Apple Intelligence is mandatory[…]

[…]

“So what’s the problem?”, you might ask. Apple’s AI takes up several gigabytes of storage and leaves less headroom for RAM.

Brandon Vigliarolo:

Those are small inconveniences, however, compared to my biggest gripe with Siri AI: It’s completely ruined Spotlight.

[…]

The new Siri-first interface that presumes that if you’re searching for anything but an app or file, you must want Siri to feed you a few links of Apple Intelligence’s choosing.

Getting to a web search from a Spotlight query now requires multiple taps: Type your query, tap “Show Results” (careful: hitting enter will trigger Siri to craft a response, eliminating the possibility of seeing any actual Spotlight content), tap on “Show More” next to the list of Siri-surfaced web results, scroll down until you see Search Google (or whatever engine you have set as your default), then tap that.

Apple Intelligence used to be opt-in, but now it seems that you can’t even opt out. I had previously mentioned the removal of the switch in the context of hypocrisy, but it seems there are enough issues here for it to warrant its own post. Also, I had previously written that the switch was combined with Siri, meaning that you could turn off Apple Intelligence if you turned off Siri, too. I now doubt that’s the case.

John Gruber:

I’m thinking that asking for a switch to turn of “Apple Intelligence” systemwide is like asking for a switch to turn off Spotlight.

Indeed, we can turn off Spotlight, both the indexing (except, alas, for APFS Time Machine volumes) and the UI, and I think that’s a good thing.

Previously:

Thursday, June 18, 2026

macOS Touch

Dan Moren:

Second only in speculation to the folding iPhone might be the reported MacBook Pro that will be Apple’s first Mac with a touchscreen.

[…]

A preponderance of drawing related features are specifically making their way to the Mac, including both in Notes and in Freeform. Those features have existed on Apple’s touch-first platforms for some time, but this is their first jump to the Mac. While nominally this will work with your trackpad or even using an iPad as input, it’s not hard to imagine a future where you might be able to draw right on your Mac’s screen.

Joe Rossignol:

“MacBook Ultra” is the rumored name for a new high-end model above the MacBook Pro. The laptop is rumored to feature an OLED display, touch-screen capabilities, a Dynamic Island, a thinner design, and M6 Pro and M6 Max chips.

macOS 27 includes a trio of hints about touch-screen support and a Dynamic Island in particular.

Hartley Charlton:

macOS 27 Golden Gate adds pull-to-refresh support to the Mac, adopting one of iPhone and iPad’s most familiar gestures for the first time.

Hartley Charlton:

Apple has added direct touch input to Sidecar with macOS 27 Golden Gate and iPadOS 27, allowing users to tap and interact with macOS interface elements using a finger on their iPad for the first time.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

Unsurprisingly, UIKit-based iOS and Catalyst apps seem to handle touchscreen macOS better than AppKit apps, with all the little touches like swipe-to-go-back that you might expect.

David Price:

In a post to Weibo on Thursday, the leaker known as Instant Digital made a characteristically terse comment on the upcoming product. “It’s 100% confirmed that the MacBook screen will be touch-enabled,” they wrote (translated from the original Chinese using Google Translate).

Craig Grannell:

A touchscreen MacBook Ultra would face a similar challenge [as the Touch Bar]. It would launch as a niche, expensive device in a sea of non-touchscreen Macs. Developers would need to bet Apple was committed to rapidly rolling touchscreens out across its entire laptop line to justify their investment.

I don’t expect a touch screen to need as much developer buy-in as the Touch Bar.

The only way a MacBook Ultra makes sense to me is if it zips past that period of compromise. Which means a screen that detaches and effectively becomes an iPad, so you get a great laptop and a great touchscreen device. That sounds a lot like an iPad running macOS or, for that matter, a Microsoft Surface or any number of Windows hybrid laptops.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

NSMenuUseGlassWindowStyle

NSMenuEnableGestureTracking

macOS and iPadOS are moving closer together every day 🙃 Presume this will be enabled for the upcoming touchscreen MacBooks

Previously:

AppKit in macOS 27

macOS Golden Gate 27 Beta Release Notes:

AppKit adds NSRefreshController, providing pull-to-refresh functionality for NSScrollView.

[…]

NSToolbarItemGroup adds the role property and the NSToolbarItemGroupRole enum, allowing toolbar item groups to be tagged with a semantic role. NSSegmentedControl similarly adds a role property and the NSSegmentedControlRole enum, including a tabs role for controls that represent tab-based navigation and content selection.

[…]

NSTextSelectionManager provides common text selection interactions (click, drag, shift-click, double/triple-click word/line/paragraph selection) to a NSView with a set of NSGestureRecognizers rather than overriding NSEvent mouse methods. NSTextView now uses NSTextSelectionManager and provides its own set of NSGestureRecognizers to provide additional features in addition to text selection.

[…]

By default, NSMenu hides all menu item symbol images — non-symbol images remain visible. […] Use the new preferredImageVisibility property on NSMenuItem to customize the image visibility for your menu items. As in macOS 26.0, NSMenu automatically provides default visible menu item images for certain common system-wide menu items, such as Settings, Share, and Print.

AppKit updates:

Create events similar to UIControl events on NSControl with the new NSControl.Events type.

[…]

Initiate a drag operation from a gesture recognizer using the new beginDraggingSession(items:gesture:source:) method on NSView.

[…]

Update views automatically in response to Observable model changes using the guidance in Updating views automatically with observation tracking.

How is this different from what was announced last year?

Modernize your AppKit app:

Bring your AppKit app up to date with modern macOS conventions. Dive into handling input with control events and gesture recognizers, moving beyond traditional tracking loops. Enhance keyboard navigation in your app, implement graceful state restoration after restarts, and take advantage of new corner concentricity APIs that let your interface blend seamlessly with the macOS aesthetic.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

To summarize the singular AppKit session this year: hey remember all these APIs and design patterns from UIKit? Well they’re now in AppKit and you should use them! Also make your glass use interactive bounce effects.

Why? No reason!😉

TN3212:

In macOS 27, AppKit continues to standardize on gesture recognizers as the primary mechanism for input handling. This change directly affects Sidecar because gesture recognizers are the only way to respond to touch input from a Sidecar-connected iPad running iPadOS 27. If your app relies on tracking loops for mouse event handling, migrate to gesture recognizers to support Sidecar touch input.

This article explains how the gesture recognizer model works, how to implement gesture recognizers correctly for Sidecar touch input, how to update your existing event-handling code, and which APIs macOS 27 adds. Codebases that implement nextEvent(matching:) or mouseDown(with:), mouseDragged(with:), and mouseUp(with:) events are most affected by the updates discussed.

Greg Pierce:

After the AppKit session blindsided me a bit after telling me not to override mouseDown, and then telling me I should override hitTest

Mario Guzmán:

A few years ago, Apple introduced:

func tableView(_ tableView: NSTableView, userCanChangeVisibilityOf column: NSTableColumn) -> Bool

for NSTableView, which Is a native way users could control-click on a TableView column to show/hide columns.

This year, in #macOS27, they updated it to have a new “Reset to Defaults” option.

This is awesome bc I have done my own implementation of this feature JUST to have the option to “reset all columns” and now Apple just includes it!

Elevate your app’s text experience with TextKit:

Discover how to combine the convenience of built-in text views with the control of TextKit. We’ll show you how new APIs make it easy to extend UITextView and NSTextView with custom behaviors like line numbers and collapsible sections. We’ll also explore the TextKit architecture and walk through new caching and reuse policies for text attachments.

Previously:

UIKit in iOS 27

iOS & iPadOS 27 Beta Release Notes:

[You] can use UIScene.extendStateRestoration and UIScene.completeStateRestoration to extend state restoration for UIScene.ActivationState.background to UIScene.ActivationState.foreground lifecycle transitions.

[…]

iOS and iPadOS apps built with the 27.0 SDK or later are required to include a launch screen.

[…]

Siri can load resources from drag interactions installed in your app’s interface.

[…]

In apps built with the iOS 27.0 SDK, a presented view controller inherits its trait collection by walking up its view’s superview chain through the intermediate views of the presentation, rather than jumping directly to the presentation controller.

UIKit updates:

Use UICollectionViewCompositionalLayoutSectionProvider closures as part of automatic observation tracking to automatically invalidate and update compositional layouts when observable objects change.

[…]

Use UIRefreshControl and UIStepper in Mac apps built with Mac Catalyst. These controls are now fully supported in the Mac idiom.

[…]

Starting in iOS 27, apps built with the latest SDK must use the scene-based life cycle or they fail to launch.

[…]

Use NSTextTable, NSTextBlock, and NSTextTableBlock to represent table structures in attributed strings.

Modernize your UIKit app:

Discover the latest updates to UIKit. Learn how to update your iPhone app layouts to work great when resized with iPhone Mirroring and on iPad. Explore new APIs for tab and navigation bars, find out how to prepare your app for new Apple Intelligence capabilities, and get introduced to a skill for your coding agent of choice that helps modernize your codebase.

Kyle Howells:

iOS 27’s UIKit is a tiny release in terms of API changes, but does have some changes. There are no new top-level paradigms, but there’s an new addition to TextKit 2, a new scene accessory API, Liquid-Glass-era bar minimization controls, and a small amount of quality-of-life additions to menus, tab bars, and drag interactions.

Hartley Charlton:

Apple appears to be laying the groundwork for a foldable iPhone in iOS 27, with new references discovered in the operating system’s frameworks and a notable emphasis on flexible app layouts at this year’s Platforms State of the Union.

Jordan Morgan:

The nav bar and its friends got quite a bit of attention, and to be honest that’s where we will find most of the changes. They adapt to all sorts of sizes and situations…hmmm, I WONDER WHY!?

[…]

A few years ago, I wondered if UIKit would be deprecated altogether. That would’ve been drastic, sure, but I did wonder. These days, I don’t share the same concern anymore. SwiftUI gets better each year, and yeah — it’ll have top billing. But UIKit is solid, and it appears to be a core part of Apple’s strategy into the future.

Not much changed this year, and not much was added that’s flashy. But, that’s true of iOS 27 in several ways.

Previously:

Core AI Announced

Meet Core AI:

Discover Core AI, Apple’s new framework for on-device AI model deployment. Tour the ecosystem, from Python libraries for converting, authoring, and optimizing models, to a Swift API for simple plug-and-play inference and advanced use cases with strict latency and memory requirements. Explore the new Core AI models repository with ready-to-run examples for popular architectures. See how deep Xcode integration, including ahead-of-time model compilation, streamlines the workflow so you can deliver smarter, more responsive app experiences.

Dive into Core AI model authoring and optimization:

Dive into the complete custom model deployment workflow for Apple silicon with the new Core AI framework. Discover powerful techniques for authoring models using custom Metal kernels, alongside platform-aware compression strategies. The new Core AI Debugger offers deep intrinsic analysis, and AI-assisted workflows guide you from initial concept to optimized on-device execution.

Integrate on-device AI models into your app using Core AI:

Discover a curated collection of popular open-source models — including Qwen, Mistral, SAM3, and more — optimized for Apple silicon using the new Core AI Framework. Learn how to download, run, and benchmark models on your Mac, and integrate them into your app with just a few lines of code. Explore a new workflow for model compilation and on-device specialization to speed up first-time model load. Find out how to profile and optimize runtime performance with Core AI tools in Xcode.

Core AI Documentation (Hacker News):

Core AI helps you build, run, and deploy AI models in your app. Designed with Apple silicon in mind, Core AI allows your app to use the latest model architectures and inference techniques across the CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine. The Swift API makes common tasks simple, while giving you more control over model specialization, caching, and inference performance when needed.

Previously:

Wednesday, June 17, 2026

WWDC 2026 Links

General:

Documentation:

Sessions:

Podcasts:

Previously:

Tuesday, June 16, 2026

SpaceX Acquires xAI, Goes Public, Acquires Cursor

Elon Musk (February, Hacker News):

SpaceX has acquired xAI to form the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform.

[…]

Current advances in AI are dependent on large terrestrial data centers, which require immense amounts of power and cooling. Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions, even in the near term, without imposing hardship on communities and the environment.

In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale.

There are potential environmental and energy benefits to putting data centers in space, and Blue Origin’s Bezos also thinks this makes sense, but many are convinced that the numbers just don’t work (Reddit).

Kirsten Korosec and Russell Brandom:

But in its 24-year history, nothing quite compared to its initial public offering. Everyone seemed interested — perhaps because of the sheer size of the IPO. The company priced its 555.6 million shares at $135 each to raise $75 billion, making it the largest IPO in history and turning Musk into the world’s first trillionaire. That total raised figure would end up ballooning to $85.7 billion raised.

[…]

SpaceX shares opened June 12 at $150 on the Nasdaq public exchange, an 11% pop for the most anticipated debut in history. And it has continued to rise. The shares kept rising too. In midday trading, SpaceX shares soared 30%. SpaceX shares closed at $160.95, up 19%.

Sean O’Kane:

SpaceX passed Amazon to become the fifth-most valuable company in the world, after its stock price climbed 20% on Monday and more than 8% in early trading Tuesday, pushing its valuation past $2.7 trillion.

Reuters (Hacker News):

SpaceX is buying the startup behind the popular AI coding agent Cursor, Anysphere, for $60 billion in an all-stock deal to boost its presence in the lucrative enterprise AI tools market.

Previously:

Apple Intelligence in appleOS 27

Apple (MacRumors):

Apple today introduced the next generation of Apple Intelligence, powered by a bold new architecture that integrates the latest Apple Foundation Models deep into Apple’s platforms and is uniquely designed to protect users’ privacy.

[…]

The next generation of Apple Intelligence also helps power Siri AI, an entirely new version of Siri.

[…]

Image Playground offers new powerful ways for users to bring their imagination to life. They can create high-quality images in virtually any style, now including photorealistic, thanks to a new generative model that runs on Private Cloud Compute. This is a major transformation for image generation across platforms. And generated images will automatically include a hidden SynthID watermark to identify them as AI-generated.

[…]

Now Messages offers one-tap suggestions based on the context of users’ conversations, making it easier than ever to get things done, such as creating a reminder or a note.

[…]

Apple Intelligence powers even more enhancements across operating systems. With automatic proofreading, users receive improved suggestions for spelling and grammar as they type across the system.

Damien Petrilli:

Apple WWDC26 “big features”: selling a rebranded gemini.

John Gruber:

What’s confusing about this Apple-Google partnership is that Google pretty much calls all things AI “Gemini”. The models are “Gemini”, the assistant is “Gemini”, and the feature integrations are “Gemini”. So Apple is taking pains to emphasize that they’re building atop the Gemini models, not the Gemini assistant.

Google creating the model, Apple figuring out how to integrate it and make it easy to use. Are we back to Apple and Google each focusing on what they do best?

Dave B.:

This is my favorite Apple event in a long time.

Instead of bombarding you with a million new features that mostly feel half-assed, this feels like it’s actually catered to the user experience instead of to marketing checklists.

Matt Ronge:

All of these AI additions to MacOS/iOS look like nice improvements, but somehow it all feels unambitious given the current state of AI.

But I suppose it’s better for them to underpromise given what happened with Siri last year…

Christina Warren:

As I expected, Apple is going to punt the “on-device” story for Apple Intelligence and push towards the “private cloud compute” story for the models that you’ll actually want to use. I’m glad on-device isn’t going away, but it’s clear a hybrid approach is absolutely necessary

Hartley Charlton:

Apple’s most advanced on-device AI model in iOS 27 requires a minimum of 12GB of unified memory, meaning the standard iPhone 17 is excluded.

Alex Rosenberg:

The 16 Pro was explicitly sold as having Apple Intelligence-capable hardware.

Juli Clover:

Apple today said it is expanding Private Cloud Compute (PCC) beyond its data centers, partnering with Google and NVIDIA to run Apple Intelligence workloads on Google Cloud.

[…]

All server components and software are part of a trusted computing base subject to verifiable transparency and no-privileged-access guarantees, plus Apple has a cryptographically verifiable ledger of all Google Cloud hardware that is part of the PCC fleet to mitigate the risk of supply chain attacks. PCC on Google Cloud also uses many of the same architectural security patterns as PCC on Apple silicon.

John Siracusa:

PSA: Remember that Apple Intelligence is disabled in macOS if you boot from an external drive.

See also: Mac Power Users Talk.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-19): Apple:

As we continue to refine our approach to image generation, the ImageCreator class is being discontinued and will no longer work in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, and visionOS 27 or later.

[…]

Transition to presenting the Image Playground sheet, which provides a consistent, system-managed image generation experience. Alternatively, you can integrate another image generation service of your choice.

Apple Foundation Models in appleOS 27

Apple:

At the heart of this architecture is our third generation of Apple Foundation Models (AFM), a family of five foundation models custom-built in collaboration with Google. These span from on-device models to server-based models running on Private Cloud Compute.

Apple Foundation Models are built to unlock a wide range of helpful experiences for our users, like an entirely new Siri and intelligent tools that make everyday apps smarter and more useful.

Hartley Charlton:

“The amount of the Google Assistant we use is none,” Federighi said, explaining that Apple uses none of the Gemini models deployed to Google’s customers, none of Google’s client-side code, and no Google Search infrastructure as the knowledge backbone.

Federico Viticci:

The cloud models hosted on Private Cloud Compute are interesting: they’re not “Gemini” models; they’re Apple Foundation Models trained using proprietary data via RL, which were then “refined” with data from Google’s “frontier” models.

[…]

I’ve been covering the AFM family of models for a while now, and AFM Core Advanced is one of the most interesting on-device models I’ve read about in a while, especially in the context of model size for mobile devices and built-in multimodality with support for text, images, and audio. I’m very keen to play around with this model and understand how it holds up in practice. I wonder if the new CLI (!) for AFM will let you test this one.

Awni Hannun:

It’s very cool that Apple shipped a 20B parameter on-device.

You can’t put 20B parameters in RAM at any reasonable precision. To make it work they are using pretty exotic architecture by today’s standards.

A small model predicts from the query (or prompt) which experts to load from Nand into RAM. The key distinction from a typical MoE is that you do this once per query and then generate all the tokens with the same experts (instead of switching the experts for every token).

Greg Pierce:

Looks like there’s still a 4K context size on local FoundationModels. Pretty limiting.

Kyle Howells:

Really disappointed SwiftUI’s result builder syntax has infected FoundationModels API too.

How did a million modifier methods become the default way to build APIs?

It’s horrible for discoverability, code completion, documentation.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

FoundationModels is one of the highlights of this WWDC; I think it’s now finally what we hoped we were getting two years ago, and thought we were getting last year (just the models themselves were barely up for it then). I finally feel like I can build features with it, though I really don’t like the Sword of Damocles Apple is holding above Private Cloud Compute and how it can permanently lock you out of using the models forever across all your apps if you hit a download threshold. Poison pill

John Gruber (Mastodon):

These strict limits don’t seem to be getting as much attention as they should. It’s nice that for small developers who meet the above criteria, access to PCC has no cost. But there’s no way (yet?) to buy your way out of these limits.

[…]

The “fewer than 2 million first-time app downloads from any of their apps” restriction is particularly notable. It’s not 2 million installations for apps that are using PCC, but 2 million downloads for any app the developer has ever released.

Chad Podoski:

Is there a real time count somewhere of total lifetime downloads for a developer account, so one can plan if they at risk of the switch tripping? Reminds me of the small business qualifications. I had to try to figure out if an employers developer account was going to exceed the revenue threshold for the year. I was left trying to determine it from sales reports, not to mention sales date versus pay out date confusion. I think I botched the calculation in the end.

Anthropic (Hacker News):

Claude for Foundation Models is a Swift package that makes Claude available as a server-side language model in Apple’s Foundation Models framework. The package conforms Claude to the framework’s LanguageModel protocol, so you drive it with the same LanguageModelSession API you use for Apple’s on-device model: respond(to:), streaming, guided generation, and tool calling all work the same way.

Requests go directly from your app to the Claude API; Apple is not in the request path and does not see prompts or responses. Usage is billed to your Anthropic account at standard API pricing.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-17): Simon B. Støvring:

Apple is literally stopping me from building a brand new app using Private Cloud Compute because I made a successful app a few years ago.

The new app might be a success, or it might be a complete flop. Nobody knows yet.

I would understand it if Apple were to limit developers once an app reaches a certain number of downloads or active users, but that’s not what’s happening here.

Instead, they’re blocking developers before they’ve even had a chance to build and ship the app.

Agentic Password Updates

Hartley Charlton (9To5Mac):

Apple today announced that the Passwords app can now automatically update weak and compromised passwords using Apple Intelligence and Safari to take action on a user’s behalf.

[…]

Apple describes the system as agentic, with Apple Intelligence and Safari securely navigating through websites, signing in, and upgrading accounts to strong passwords without the user needing to intervene beyond an initial tap.

Craig Hockenberry:

Raise your hand if you’re going to trust an AI agent with your passwords.

Maybe it’s architected so that the agent doesn’t see the actual passwords, but I find the idea of this ghost surfing through sites, logged in as me, really creepy.

Rob Mathers:

I still see Safari failing to save generated passwords in some cases.

Previously:

Photos AI in appleOS 27

Apple (MacRumors):

With Spatial Reframing, users can improve the composition of a photo after it’s been taken. Spatial Reframing builds on Apple’s deep understanding of spatial models thanks to Apple Vision Pro, so users can touch and drag a photo and preview in real time how the perspective shifts — as if they’d repositioned the camera in the original scene. Using powerful image models, Spatial Reframing will only generate new content where the perspective has been shifted, ensuring the reframed photo stays consistent with the original scene.

Users can also expand images with the Extend tool to give their subjects more breathing room. For example, they can straighten a crooked horizon without cropping out anything important, or adjust the aspect ratio, and Extend will fill in the missing pieces. Additionally, the popular Clean Up tool gets a major upgrade, so users can remove distractions with better quality and more realistic infill, even when the scene is complex.

These seem like useful features. I think it’s fine for Apple to offer them, but they do seem somewhat at odds with its previous preening about how they believe in the sanctity of photos that actually happened.

Kuba Suder:

“Reframing photos with AI” - I don’t like this at all 👎

Kind of the crosses the line to cheating about reality too much for me… it’s one thing to lighten or darken or colorize pixels, but another thing to reposition them against each other.

Louie Mantia:

“Deep respect for photography” right after a demo on generating images bc they do not respect art.

Jeff Carlson (Mastodon):

Generative AI is a technology that photographers are distancing themselves from (or should be), thanks to all the AI slop being produced everywhere. And yes, that includes creations from Apple’s Image Playground app, the image generator that the company also showed off during the WWDC keynote.

But generative AI doesn’t need to mean full images created from text prompts. When applied to selective areas, like erasing a piece of trash next to a subject’s feet, generative AI can do some of the menial work of replacing pixels that photographers would otherwise spend time retouching in an app like Photoshop. Google’s Pixel phones include a similar Magic Eraser tool.

Spatial Reframing is a great example of how the technology can be used to enhance real photos you capture.

Brian MacDuff:

I can personally confirm that Apple’s Photos “Clean Up” feature is DRASTICALLY improved in iOS 27. 😳

John Siracusa:

This is a bit hyperbolic and unkind, so I hope you can forgive me for venting. And, hey, who knows? Maybe the fancy new AI-powered reframing feature will actually get broad use. (But I doubt it…)

See also: MacRumors.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-18): Ben Lovejoy:

In the two weeks since, my view has been very much reinforced. The Clean Up tool is now significantly more powerful, while the Reframe and Extend tools address similar real-life needs …

AI-Generated Shortcuts

Hartley Charlton:

Apple today announced that users can now describe a shortcut in natural language, with Apple Intelligence automatically building the automation in the background.

Marcus Mendes:

Users can simply describe what they want, such as “when I’m leaving work, text my wife with my expected ETA,” and Shortcuts will actually build the shortcut to make it work.

This sounds great in that I find creating shortcuts annoying. It’s not always clear which building blocks I should be using, and stringing them together properly seems tedious and fiddly. On the other hand, I dislike how AppleScript doesn’t get first-class support for the functionality and triggers that are available to Shortcuts.

Simon B. Støvring:

Data Jar got sherlocked, and that genuinely makes me happy.

Simon B. Støvring:

Apple should let users filter out and maybe even rewrite notifications from any app using Shortcuts.

[…]

The new notification automation trigger in Shortcuts is super cool. As far as I can tell, it won’t let me modify the notification content or filter out notifications based on the content, but it’s still a quite powerful addition.

[…]

Third-party automation triggers in Shortcuts are now possible. Sort of.

Just send a notification containing data meant for the new notification trigger to consume.

Anders Borum:

iOS 27 allows 3rd party shortcuts actions to run for longer than 30 seconds making me publish 2 actions that have been hidden behind feature flags for years.

Create cloud servers, run commands and destroy them again right from Shortcuts.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-26): Jason Snell:

This is as close as we’ve come, across 40 years, to the original dream of putting computer power in the hands of everyone. You can literally tell your device what you want it to do, and when—”every morning show me my to-dos and calendar events for the day”—and it will generate a program to do it and a schedule to run it.

[…]

Yes, there are lots of limitations. Describe a Shortcut doesn’t work with third-party apps, only Apple’s own stuff (at least, for now). It can sometimes get confused, especially with complex queries. And it has an interesting tendency to kick things to the Use Model action—why am I not surprised that an AI model likes to build Shortcuts that themselves use AI models?

But when it works, which is most of the time, it’s magical.

Simon B. Støvring:

Shortcuts on macOS Golden Gate is… Something.

Dedicating that much window space to a larger shortcut tile and a text field feels incredibly wasteful.

Friday, June 12, 2026

App Store Personalized Recommendations and Keylogging

Sarah Perez:

This week, Apple announced a series of discovery features that will personalize app recommendations based on users’ interests and behavior, providing a new way for developers to have their app discovered.

At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the iPhone maker introduced Personalized Collections in the App Store, which will showcase recommendations tailored to the individual. These will also include new “App Notes” that explain why the specific apps were recommended to you. Starting this week, you’ll find these new personalized suggestions in various places in the App Store, including the Apps or Games tab or on the Search tab.

Mysk:

Now Apple is putting the extensive identifiable analytics they collect in the App Store in action. They record every tap and there’s no way to turn it off.

They can even calculate your typing speed.

[…]

If you don’t like Apple Music privacy options, you can stream music from Spotify. But where else can you download apps on the iPhone?

The data is associated with your account and unencrypted.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-17): Mysk:

The screenshot in the sub-post was taken from a CSV file you get when requesting your data from Apple. It’s called “App Store Click Activity.” Every event contains 110 attributes 🤯

In this PDF, Apple describes the data points collected in this category.

I requested my own data yesterday but am still waiting for Apple to prepare it.

Mysk:

There’s an ongoing class action lawsuit against Apple related to this. In iOS 26, Apple added an option to “reset” the identifier associated with “usage statistics,” but we haven’t seen any effect for this option. The analytics are still identifiable and linked to the user.

See also: John Gruber, Thom Holwerda, MacRumors.

Update (2026-06-19): Mysk:

It is not only about recording your typing skills in the search field, the App Store app even reports how much time you spend on every part of an app description as you scroll, hence recording your reading skills 🙃.

Apple also forces iOS to open any App Store link in the App Store app, and that will immediately log a detailed event that user XYZ has viewed that particular app as well as the referrer.

[…]

This data collection is not new. Apple has been doing it at least since iOS 14 when we discovered it. All data collected is NOT anonymous. The data is associated with your Apple ID. This means that given a court order, Apple has to hand this data to law enforcement.

Mysk:

Just for fun, I generated a 1000-character text and pasted it in the search field in the App Store. Well, the analytics captured the entire text, linked it to my ID and sent it to Apple, before even pushing “enter”. Now imagine you accidentally paste something private in there🙃

Update (2026-06-23): I received my own personal data from Apple and can confirm that it does include my timestamped App Store search queries.

Rewriting Apple’s TrueType Hinting Interpreter in Swift

Scott Perry:

My team rewrote Apple’s TrueType hinting interpreter in Swift, ask me anything.

[…]

I feel like naming just one would be a disservices to all of the features that made this effort possible (C interop, generics, noncopyable/nonescapable types) but at the end of the day I think the star of the show was the optimizer; despite being faster than the code it replaced, the new code is super readable and that was only possible because the optimizer was able to completely eliminate all of our abstractions.

The new version is faster, but the main motivation was security concerns.

Dmitrii Kalianov:

Is hinting useful/being used in the days of hi-dpi displays? I was under impression that Apple switched to grayscale anti-aliasing and ditched hinting.

Scott Perry:

For the most part hinting isn’t really necessary anymore, but thanks to being Turing-complete it has been Hyrum’s law-ed by at least one CJK font that uses hinting to lay out strokes in its characters.

Alex Rosenberg:

There were three major TrueType implementations at Apple IIRC:

  • The original 68K one
  • A rewrite for Copland that lived with ATS/ATSUI after Copland was cancelled
  • iPhone shipped one derived from heavily-modified FreeType that was current until today

Scott Perry:

One of the axioms for this project was that I wanted my team to write the most boring code possible—nearly identical structurally to the code it was replacing, because to do otherwise would introduce binary compatibility risk. The other axiom was 100% test coverage for all new code as it landed, with the same units testing both interpreters.

Rosyna Keller:

Is the font parsing code itself still C++?

Scott Perry:

There is also a “Safe Font Parser” for WebKit in Lockdown Mode, but it supports a subset of all the myriad features provided by font formats.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-16): Scott Perry (Hacker News):

Font parsers process data from untrusted sources, making the TrueType hinting interpreter a security-critical attack surface. To make the format more resilient on Apple platforms, we rewrote its hinting interpreter from C to memory-safe Swift for the Fall 2025 releases. In addition to memory safety, we also improved performance: on average, our Swift interpreter runs 13% faster than the C interpreter it replaced.

[…]

Binary compatibility was crucial for this project to succeed: existing programs had to continue to function the same as they did before, effectively unaware that a new implementation was in place. This means not just interface compatibility but pixel-identical glyph rendering as well, relative to the C implementation.

[…]

To ensure correctness, we developed two test suites. The first was a unit test suite that can target both implementations, providing exhaustive (99.7%) code coverage for both. This suite is included with the open source release of the Swift interpreter.

Then, to represent real-world workloads, we used a fuzzer to minimize a corpus of 10 million PDF files down to 4,200 without any loss of code coverage.

[…]

Following WebKit’s Safer Swift Guidelines, the example below demonstrates how to wrap a bridged structure from C in a projection type that uses Ref for lifetime safety, brokers bounds-safe access to the underlying data, and returns idiomatic Swift types to its callers.

The interpreter source is on GitHub.

Marcin Krzyzanowski:

@_lifetime(copy code, copy twilightZone, copy glyphZone)

See also: Phillip Tennen’s Writing a TrueType font renderer (Hacker News).

Previously:

Rewriting Notion in SwiftUI

Hartley Charlton:

Apple this week confirmed that Notion is migrating its user interface to SwiftUI, citing the app’s desire for greater performance and UI consistency than its existing web-based stack can deliver.

[…]

The callout was clearly deliberate; Notion is one of the most widely used productivity apps on the Mac, and has long been criticized for the sluggishness that comes with its Electron-based architecture.

Previously:

Safari 27 Announced

Tim Hardwick:

Apple’s new version of Safari browser in macOS 27 and iOS 27 can be tasked to monitor a webpage and notify you of any changes, thanks to a new built-in feature.

[…]

In other upcoming feature additions, using the power of AI, Safari tabs that you have open can automatically be organized into topics.

Saron Yitbarek et al.:

Don’t miss our WWDC26 sessions on web technology, including What’s new in WebKit for Safari 27, to go deeper on our work in this release. Now, let’s dig into this beta, packed with 58 new features, 525 fixes and 4 deprecations that will hopefully make your work as a web developer a little easier.

Saron Yitbarek:

This year, the WebKit team is here with six sessions covering new CSS layouts, customizable form controls, 3D models, immersive spatial experiences, and browser extensions.

See also: Safari 27 Beta Release Notes.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-17): Jeremy Keith:

But credit where credit is due. The upcoming version 27 of Safari is looking very good.

That’s not because it’s at the cutting edge of the latest web standards. Quite the opposite. Most of the changes listed for this release are bug fixes. That’s what I want to acknowledge and applaud.

Previously:

Wednesday, June 10, 2026

No Siri AI in EU

Apple (MacRumors):

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.

[…]

EU users will be able to access Siri AI on macOS 27 and visionOS 27. Developers located in the EU will not be able to test or use the new Siri AI features for their apps on iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and watchOS 27.

[…]

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.

[…]

Apple designed a solution called Trusted System Agent — an intermediary that would allow virtual assistants to safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI for devices in the EU. Apple also shared a plan to launch Siri AI in the EU while gradually rolling out this new solution over an 18-month period. The European Commission said no. In fact, the European Commission did not agree to any of Apple’s proposals.

This phrasing is not very clear, perhaps intentionally so. Apple is trying to give the impression that it did all this extra work to meet the DMA’s requirements, and yet the EC rejected its proposals, so it’s their fault Siri AI isn’t shipping in the EU. But it looks like the crux is that the Trusted System Agent is currently vaporware. What the EC rejected is that Apple wanted to be able to ship Siri AI now on the promise of future openness. The TSA would actually be built during this 18-month window of exclusivity. It’s not surprising that the EU would reject that proposal. The App Store doesn’t approve apps that flout the guidelines but promise to comply later. It doesn’t even entertain proposals of the form, “If I built this would it be approved?”

European Commission (via Steve Troughton-Smith, Update: John Gruber, Mastodon):

So first, the decision not to roll out Siri AI in the EU is Apple’s and Apple’s only.

Because absolutely nothing in the DMA prohibits Apple from introducing new products in the EU.

What Apple is however not allowed to do, just like any other gatekeeper, is to close the market.

[…]

Apple simply made a request to the European Commission to be exempted from their interoperability obligations under the DA.

And this for at least 18 months on top of it. Guess what? That’s not an option.

Reuters (Hacker News):

Apple said it detailed its plans for Siri AI to EU regulators six months ago, along with a technical proposal to allow secure ​third-party access to that data.

“In essence, a commission that’s asking us to conduct a very risky experiment on many, ​many, many tens of millions of users,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s marketing chief, told reporters, “and we only want to ship these capabilities when we can do so safely.”

The EU said not to ship it without the TSA, yet Joswiak spins this as the EU asking Apple to be reckless? And if Apple wanted to ship them safely, why did it stop working on them?

William Gallagher:

Apple spoke of having spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours on changes to comply with the EU. In the new report, though, Apple now says that it no longer knows what to work on.

So currently none of its engineers are working on adapting Siri AI to meet the EU’s demands.

It seems like Apple isn’t taking this very seriously. They’re more interested in trying to score PR points by blaming the delay on the EC rather than on building something compliant. So I guess the EC was prescient not to grant an exemption based on the promise that they’d follow through with the TSA.

Kyle Howells:

However, do I think Apple should be made to open up that level of system access?

Honestly yes. They are worried about protecting my data. But it’s MINE. Me, the user.

Stick a big privacy prompt, maybe a system settings screen and reboot, but I want access to my data!

We can look to BrowserEngineKit to see how well it works out to introduce a trusted intermediate layer that Apple doesn’t itself rely on. And this seems like a much harder problem.

Kyle Howells:

Yeah, that privacy layer is a stupid [non] starter. “Find the place my friend said we should go swimming and give me directions”

The only way that query can work with an intermediary layer is if the AI asks that layer to do the searching for them and only gets the response back.

Except that basically kills the advantage of LLM agents & instead delegate all the ‘smart’ parts to some dumb on device model Apple makes.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-11): Amy Worrall:

I keep seeing people (usually Americans) confused by where the EU is coming from with Apple and the DMA, eg “how can they care about privacy but also demand AI companies can access your data?”

My read is, the EU’s starting point is that a gatekeeper cannot treat itself as inherently more trustworthy than any other company. So if anyone’s AI can access your data, including Apple’s, it’s not up to the gatekeeper to say “we trust ourselves but don’t trust other companies” and force that on users.

The users should get to choose who they trust. And I think Apple is trying to draw a different line than it says. It worries that AI could be hijacked to steal your passwords and photos. But you can already install apps that manage and access that data. You can also install apps that access your calendar and mail data, and these apps can incorporate AI. Such apps actually get more access than what the EC wants because they must communicate with your servers directly. I would rather let an AI search my downloaded e-mails than read/write to my IMAP server, but Apple is blocking that option. The actual line it’s drawing isn’t that AI can’t access your data but that (aside from iMessage) it can only access it via additional engineering work and additional hoops for users to enter credentials. It seems like what Apple really wants is to make it hard for anyone to compete with Siri.

Update (2026-06-12): Cory Birdsong:

I’m skeptical that Siri AI is even capable of being meaningfully private or secure. As far as I know there is no mitigation for prompt injection, as Matthew Green describes here.

If it has access to private information, is exposed to external input and can access the Internet then how can they meaningfully claim it’s private or secure?

John Gruber:

There’s a lot to unpack here, including more background information — and on-the-record statements — from a briefing Apple held Tuesday that I was invited to at Apple Park.

It’s frustrating that Apple has said so little on the record. They want to communicate that their “offers for compromise have been rejected,” but what exactly did they offer? Personally, I don’t think the TSA would be a very good solution because it would lock in both the limitations of Apple’s technology and their role as a gatekeeper. But Apple did not even say that the EC rejected the idea of the TSA, only that it rejected their proposal to violate the law for 18 months while building it.

But the bottom line is that Apple’s public statements regarding the DMA and the European Commission have never been this strident before.

[…]

Now, they’re a bit more on war footing. There’s a massive gulf between what Apple is willing to do with Siri AI in the EU and what the Commission is demanding from Apple for DMA compliance.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

The European Commission isn’t demanding anything, the law is demanding it. The laws have been in place for several years now, Apple is currently in default of the law on several fronts, and is fighting its existing fines.

When the Chinese government wanted access to user data, Apple complied, but when the EU parliament voted for their citizens to be able to choose how to share their own data, that put Apple on a “war footing.”

David Deller (Reddit):

There is some kind of irony in how Apple isn’t allowing Europe access to the new AI stuff; and meanwhile for the US, Apple is removing the setting for us to opt-out of it, effectively forcing it on us.

That’s how it is these days, huh? Either a government or a giant corporation makes our technology choices for us. We don’t get to choose for ourselves.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-17): John Gruber:

What exactly is the motivation for Apple and Google to engineer entirely separate systems for the EU to bring new features into compliance with the Commission’s broad interpretation of the DMA? Because if Apple doesn’t engineer a DMA-compliant version of Siri AI, iOS users in the EU will ... switch to Android, whose system-level AI was deemed noncompliant by the Commission a few months ago?

I briefly hoped that the DMA would lead to a sort of California effect for software, where products are designed for the stricter (more open, in this case) jurisdiction, and everyone else reaps the benefits, too, because that’s easier for companies than making separate versions of their products. But it turns out that Apple finds it well worth it to feature flag away the EU features it doesn’t want us to have, as well as the ones it doesn’t want to adapt for the DMA.

This doesn’t directly hurt Apple. It doesn’t force Apple to design, engineer, and ship a compliant EU-exclusive version of Siri AI that supports plug-and-play LLM back ends. It only hurts iPhone users who live in the EU, who are stuck with the old dumb version of Siri for the foreseeable future.

This demonstrates a market failure or legislative failure, depending on how you look at it. Both halves of the duopoly are in conflict with the law of the second largest economy in the word. Users will get a worse Siri, but this doesn’t bother Apple enough to do anything about it. Maybe the customers in the EU can be used as a bargaining chip. Neither Apple nor Google is worried that a competitor will come along with a compliant phone to challenge their dominance.

John Gruber:

Here we are two years later and I think the answer is more clear than ever which side of the continental divide is more fun.

Simon B. Støvring:

Gotta admit that as an EU citizen, I feel handicapped when it comes to brainstorming ideas to utilize Foundation Models.

Like, if I were to build a new app around them, it’s difficult to gauge if this is something Siri AI does out of the box when it isn’t available to me.

And unlike Apple, I intend to build software for the entire world.

Jack Wellborn:

Apple is acting out of greed and spite (see their hairbrained fee structures for alternative marketplaces as an example), but also yes, the DMA and enforcement thereof seems like a particularly difficult and capricious regulatory dynamic.

[…]

Those arguing that Apple is acting purely out of spite seem to suggest there is some obvious solution for iPhone Mirroring that would satisfy the interoperability mandate, but they never go into what that obvious solution is because they don’t know. They don’t know because I would guess no one does, not even Apple and certainly not the European Commission.

As far as I can tell, the European Commission doesn’t see it as their responsibility to help gatekeepers design features ahead of time in a way that should be compliant with the DMA. What they want instead is to decide whether or not a given feature runs afoul of the DMA after its released in the EU and presumably after they’ve gotten feedback from third parties.

Wojtek Pietrusiewicz:

If a developer emails Apple and asks if an app idea they have will be approved, they will get told to build it, submit it to the App Store, and see. The EU is the App Store here, and Siri AI is the app. I guess Apple don’t like their own policies.

I sympathize, even though Apple is in a better position than the developer, because it has more resources, because it would only potentially be blocked from shipping in one market, and because it can still sell its product in the EU, just with certain features disabled. Building something that might not be accepted is risky, but if you don’t submit anything that you think would be complaint with the rules, you don’t seem very serious. It’s still unclear to me exactly what Apple’s plan is. Its press release says it “will continue working” on bringing the features to the EU, but its SVP of marketing said in an interview that “none of its engineers are currently working on solutions.” Perhaps this implies that it’s banking on a legal or political solution rather than a technical one.

Update (2026-06-25): Jack Wellborn:

While the relationship between the European Commission and Google tells us nothing about playing ball, it tells us exactly how inconsequential support for alternative marketplaces is when it comes to regulatory scrutiny of integrated features. Apple hasn’t played ball with alternative marketplaces and now its new AI-based features are being withheld from the EU lest they get scrutinized for fines by the European Commission. Google hasn’t had to play ball with alternative marketplaces and now its new AI-based features are either being scrutinized for fines by the European Commission or being withheld lest they also get scrutinized. The European Commission is, rightly so in my opinion, regulating both operating systems equally and regardless of their support for alternative marketplaces.

Manton Reece:

It struck me today what a contrast this is with the rest of the AI world, increasingly connected via MCP. Imagine if Gmail was only accessible to AI on Android phones. If Teams was only accessible from a Windows Surface laptop. That is the kind of environment Apple’s policies create, with data locked into silos and monopolies free to leverage their existing strengths into dominance of new technologies too.

No thanks. Just as I should be able to sideload an app onto my own phone, I should be able to choose whether ChatGPT can access my iMessage history. The world is not going to come crashing down by giving users control of their own data.

Siri AI Announced

Apple (Hacker News):

Siri AI is an entirely new version of Siri deeply integrated into iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. It can draw on personal context understanding to search across messages, emails, photos, and more, and get things done across apps with even more systemwide app actions. Additionally, Siri AI can answer questions related to the content on a user’s screen or go out to the web to get up-to-date information using broad world knowledge and generate a helpful answer. A dedicated Siri app allows users to revisit a past conversation or kick off a new one — all in one place — and uses iCloud to privately sync conversational history across a user’s products.

Apple (MacRumors, MacStories):

Powered by the next generation of Apple Intelligence, Siri AI is a completely reimagined version of Siri that is more helpful, more capable, and more intelligent. With detailed, engaging responses and natural back-and-forth conversation, Siri AI helps users get more done than ever.

[…]

Siri has been rebuilt from the ground up with powerful AI at its core. It takes full advantage of the bold new architecture for Apple Intelligence, including the next generation of Apple Foundation Models that run on device and on servers using Private Cloud Compute. When Private Cloud Compute is handling users’ requests, their personal data is not stored nor made accessible to Apple or anyone else. Outside experts can continue to verify this privacy promise at any time. Additionally, Siri AI uses the system orchestrator to tap into core capabilities like the Spotlight index and App Toolbox, which work entirely on device to keep users in control of their data.

[…]

For products that support Apple’s most advanced on-device model ever, Siri AI offers even more expressive voices, as well as a major boost in accuracy with systemwide dictation. Users have the ability to customize the expressiveness and pace of Siri’s voice so it’s just right for them. Dictation now captures what users say as polished text with greater precision, automatically handling capitalization, punctuation, and formatting as they speak. With improved speech understanding, users can speak naturally and trust that their words will appear clearly, accurately, and as intended.

I remain uninterested in these more advanced Siri features. They matter in that Apple needs to show that they’re not “behind” and that they can actually deliver on what they announce and advertise. But I don’t find the use cases compelling and wouldn’t trust the results.

If you really care about a particular concert, would you believe Siri about how the tickets work and that it will auto-create a reminder at the right time? Why should I believe that it can figure out whether a particular irregularly shaped object can fit inside an irregularly shaped container when said shapes are probably not even published on the Web? Can it really dig into my e-mail to find the right flight info? An answer without being able to see the sources is not useful. And I certainly don’t want it to pick for itself which vacation photos to send out.

I just want the basic features—from a decade or so ago, like music controls, reminders, and access to my purchases—to work quickly, reliably, and offline to the extent possible. I did not hear anything to suggest that this was a focus. Instead, everyone is celebrating how slow the demos were because that proves they weren’t fake.

Ben Thompson:

It’s actually super important that the Siri demo was kind of slow, because it emphasized it was real. Would be even better if it were live, though.

Mark Gurman:

The other interesting thing to note from the keynote: watching the demos, there is ZERO doubt these are real, recorded demonstrations on live devices. There will be no confusion about what is real or fake like there was at WWDC 2024 and the initial attempt at the new Siri.

John Gruber:

In fact, I think most of them were single takes of multiple demos back-to-back. That’s the way it should be, even when they feel a little slow.

Jonathan Wight:

Who the fuck wears a $4000 VR headset to find out if their boots will fit in their fucking backpack?

THATS the best example they could come up for that feature?

Rob Terrell:

also I wouldn’t trust the answer anyway

Kyle Howells:

These Siri demo’s feel like OpenAI demo’s from a view years ago. However, this is built in to the operating system.

Much like Dropbox vs iCloud, I feel like long term, once it’s good enough Apple will succeed in making AI a “feature” rather than a product.

Simon B. Støvring:

Apple needed to show that they could make a version of Siri that wasn’t three years behind. They didn’t succeed.

Ben Thompson (Hacker News):

And, if your standards are the state of the art in AI circa June 2024, when Apple took their first crack at answering the question, they did quite well.

[…]

What’s fascinating about this specific demo is that it also showed just how far behind Apple is.

[…]

Still, the bubble was strong enough to convince OpenAI to make the exact same mistake Dropbox did: the company somehow convinced itself that it could make enough money selling subscriptions to consumers; Anthropic, meanwhile, realized that it was enterprises who were willing to pay for AI’s massive productivity benefits, even as OpenAI failed to capitalize on their consumer market penetration by refusing to build an advertising product.

This is a long-winded way of saying that I don’t think that Apple’s agentic shortcomings are a big deal, at least for now. Agents help you do work and be more productive, and consumers don’t want to work or care about being productive. What they do want to do is watch short-form video, and an iPhone is simply much better at that than any other device ever will be; in that context, Siri being good enough is enough, and it appears that Apple crossed that bar.

John Gruber:

They need to execute, they need to prove this can scale, and most of all, they need to get third-party apps on board with App Intents and App Schemas. But it seems like they’re doing all of that. This is not a done deal but it is very realistic.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

Siri doesn’t have access to the filesystem or tool-calling, so it’s completely unable to do the kinds of tasks you might easily do with Codex or Claude. It’s a good start, but the state of the art has already dramatically shifted over the past year. The question is will Siri move in this direction, or stick to providing answers from the web?

Will Apple introduce its own distinct Codex-style agentic programming model that can do all this, and work with Xcode? You would hope so…

Aaron Pearce:

Have new Siri now. Siri still can’t do “turn lamp off and turn plug on” in one command.

Joe Rossignol:

The revamped version of Siri that is officially named “Siri AI” will be available to test in the iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, and visionOS 27 developer betas starting today, and it is coming to the Apple Watch in a future watchOS 27 beta. “Siri AI” will also be included in the public betas of each platform that are launching in July.

“Siri AI” requires a device that is compatible with Apple Intelligence.

Hartley Charlton:

Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi has explained why the company launched a standalone Siri app in iOS 27, after previously characterizing a dedicated chatbot as contrary to its Apple Intelligence strategy.

[…]

“We see Siri not as a separate chatbot, just an unintegrated place you go and chit-chat, but rather as an integral, conversational tool that you use in the moment, deeply integrated into your experience.”

Clear as mud.

ldt:

How to bypass the new Siri waitlist (Mac only)

See also: New Siri Waitlist.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-11): famebot:

…And playlists, contacts, settings and preferences. Peel off the agentic slop bandwagon and focus on core performance, smarter caching, and resilience under adverse network conditions.

Joe Fabisevich:

Love the new Siri, sick.

Update (2026-06-12): Juli Clover has a hands-on video.

Nick Heer:

Though this is a test conducted on the very first version of Siri A.I. from a fixed point in Calgary, it seems to work quite well. So far, it is better than any version of Siri Apple has released yet and, as you can see above, it is almost as good as the original 2010 demo, before Apple acquired the company.

Update (2026-06-16): Riccardo Mori:

On the one hand, if Siri has indeed become this reliable at understanding queries like those demoed so far, it’s indeed impressive. On the other hand, I can’t help but ask myself, once again, whether people at Apple even know how regular people actually use their phones and devices.

Jeff Johnson:

Apple executives downplay and obfuscate the role of Google in Siri AI. The Siri AI announcement didn’t even mention Google or Gemini once! Does anyone actually believe Apple’s BS? The argument seems to be that since Google made a bespoke implementation for Apple, Google is not really involved, and it’s all Apple. Ridiculous.

Jeff Johnson:

It’s really odd to me that Apple is getting so much credit for Google’s work. Siri now “works” to the extent it does because Siri is to a very large extent Gemini, and Apple has wrapped that in a bow.

Apple didn’t “nail” anything. Apple failed at its own internal efforts and was forced to outsource.

This is the advantage of being a platform: you can fail and still win.

Chance Miller (via John Gruber):

Apple’s Siri team, led by Craig Federighi, held a post-WWDC keynote tech talk with members of the press this afternoon to talk through iOS 27 and the new Siri AI.

During the talk, Federighi shared more details about Apple’s collaboration with Google.

Matthew Green (Lobsters):

Apple looks like it will use some combination of Google Gemini models, combined with Google’s Confidential Inference and Apple’s own Private Cloud Compute for private hosting. These systems will process both your queries and evaluate private data from your devices.

[…]

Apple has since “expanded” PCC to encompass Google’s hardware as well. I will confess that I find the details of the new “expanded” PCC just a bit vague. It sounds a lot like Apple is primarily going to rely on Google’s existing confidential compute (running in Google datacenters) to process this data, but they’re bolting on a new layer of technical security to control which models are actually running. In any case: security experts can argue about whether this is good enough to keep Cozy Bear away from your data. What I will grant is that it’s probably good enough to keep Google and Apple from accessing your stuff, which is what most people are worried about in the first place.

So why am I so nervous?

[…]

So far we’ve discussed two adversaries: the misaligned designers of private agents (such as search operators), and the possibility of remote prompt injection attacks. But of course, in any discussion of technical privacy systems we need to talk about the last elephant in the room: your government.

Previously:

Child Safety Features in appleOS 27

Apple:

With software updates this fall, parents will be able to access new child safety features, including a simpler setup experience with a recommended set of essential apps, Ask to Browse, Time Allowances, and a redesigned Screen Time. These updates enhance Apple’s already industry-leading parental controls and underscore its commitment to building a safe and trusted platform for kids.

[…]

For years, Apple has integrated guidance from leading clinical and child development research, as well as online safety experts, into its products and services, and continues to help advance research into children’s digital wellbeing. Apple is working with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to adapt its Family Media Plan into a guide parents can reference when using Apple products. Apple also continues to collaborate with researchers to understand the impact of technology on children’s wellbeing, and is committed to advancing the science in this area.

Unanswered is whether they fixed Screen Time so that it actually works now. Currently, it’s a complete mess of settings that get lost, reports that don’t sync, and protections that manage to break sites and apps yet are also easily bypassed. Separately, it’s confusing and difficult to configure, but it seems like that part is improving. It’s hard to believe there wasn’t already a way to ask permission to access a new Web site.

Adam Engst:

To help parents manage how long children spend on allowed apps, Apple has introduced time allowances. A daily time allowance spans entertainment, games, and social media, with each category having its own allowance. Time allowances can vary by time of day and day of week as well, to keep kids from using certain apps during school and to allow more flexibility on weekends.

Does it support weekly rather than daily allowances?

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy:

Apple spending a big chunk of its WWDC keynote on parental controls was surprising for several reasons. But the biggest is that, despite all the airtime, it didn’t announce much new beyond a redesigned interface. Almost all the features touted already exist or are upgrades to current options. Why Apple chose to do this isn’t a mystery. You can trace the threads from the recent landmark social media trials against Meta and Google to the protesters outside the Cupertino HQ today: Apple is trying to show the world it’s being responsible when it comes to your children.

Craig Grannell:

Curious to see Mastodon almost unanimously hostile to the keynote parental controls bit. Maybe I’m missing something, but the vast majority of what was shown was iteration on existing features.

Corentin Cras-Méneur:

AND screen time and parental controls should actually work?? It feels like an early Christmas :->

Previously:

Update (2026-06-11): Craig Grannell:

But here’s the thing: the Screen Time system already existed. What Apple announced isn’t so much new features as the refinement of existing ones.

[…]

There will always be edge cases. Apple must get better at understanding them. But giving parents more flexibility strikes me as preferable to the current Screen Time system and blanket government-level bans – or demanding adults constantly prove their age online to do anything.

It remains to be seen whether Apple’s changes will actually hold off any government-level bans.

freediverx (Mastodon):

Apple continues to design child safety features based on guidance from “leading clinical and child development research” and “online safety experts” while neglecting to consult independent security, privacy, and civil rights experts and advocates.

Update (2026-06-16): The Talk Show with Joanna Stern and Nilay Patel had a great segment on parental controls and Screen Time.

Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Golden Gate Window Corners

Adam Overholtzer:

Corners!

Simon B. Støvring:

“We fixed corner radius” was a WWDC keynote highlight. Let that sink in.

Rudrank:

This should have been since macOS 26 #WWDC26

Folks getting excited for consistent corner radius 😂

Kuba Suder:

Ehh, no change here, RIP Intel Macs… stuck on the v1 Liquid Glass forever 🫤

There was so much demand for this that the Liquid Radius haxie exists. People were willing to disable FileVault and System Integrity Protection to get consistent window corners.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-23): Marcin Wichary:

Then, there’s the website you’ve just seen: elaborate, with nice “before and after” animations, and a fun landing page. I thought the installation steps, given the complexity of the effort, were exemplary and even educational. There’s also a page listing all the apps confirmed to work, and a “How Liquid Radius limits its blast radius” (ha) section, revealing the author is clear-eyed about their work being a hack, and even the dimensionality of its hackiness. Even within the tool there are nice design details.

But, as I was exploring the site, I kept switching between “this is ridiculous!” (laudatory) and “this is ridiculous!” (derogatory) in my head.

Golden Gate Sidebars and Toolbars

Joe Rossignol:

macOS Golden Gate also has design changes. For example, apps now have a unified toolbar at the top, and the sidebar now expands to the edge of the window.

Hartley Charlton:

Sidebar behavior is also being updated. Sidebars will now expand to the full edge of the window, with refraction effects continuing beneath them rather than cutting off at the sidebar boundary. Sidebar icons will also retain their color, a change that addresses a common complaint about the original Liquid Glass implementation.

I’m really happy for these changes, but it’s not clear to me that they’re improvements over what we had pre-Tahoe or, especially, pre-Big Sur.

John Siracusa:

Oh thank god! No more margins around sidebars on macOS!

Benjamin Mayo:

sidebars now work how they used to!

Mario Guzmán:

I just love that toolbars have clear/strict dividers again in #macOS27.

Whoever said your content and UI should blend is a liar.

What a wonderful and welcome fix in #macOS27.

Betamagic:

Instead of properly fixing the Liquid Glass implementation of NSToolbar buttons in macOS 27 Golden Gate, Apple decided to simply place an ugly, semi-transparent macOS 15-ish background bar behind the buttons, which makes Liquid Glass completely useless in the toolbar.

João Pavão:

macOS 26 should have never been more than one developer seed release, with these changes taking place before the actual public release.

It’s sad that we had to endure this crap of a UI for a full year and now have to maintain apps for it for I don’t know how much longer.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-12): Norbert Heger:

Why has nobody told me this before?

defaults write -g NSSplitViewItemSidebarDefaultsToFloatingAppearance -bool NO

Look at this gorgeously clean sidebar on macOS Tahoe!

Jesper:

The macOS standard sidebars don’t live in a blob with very uncomfortable margins (which were required for there to be a layer fit in between the “traffic light” window controls and the window’s edge).

Update (2026-06-16): Mark Sokolovsky has screenshots of the sidebars in recent macOS versions.

Golden Gate Menu Icons

Wesley Hilliard:

macOS Tahoe threw an icon on every menu item, making them impossible to distinguish at a glance. macOS Golden Gate has rectified that design taboo with blessedly iconless menus.

Apple:

In macOS 27.0, menu bar and context menus present a reduced set of menu item images, similar to the behavior prior to macOS 26.0. By default, NSMenu hides all menu item symbol images — non-symbol images remain visible. For menu items created from a xib file, NSMenu also observes the value of the “macOS 26.0 only” checkbox in the menu item inspector. If this checkbox is unchecked, the menu item image remains visible; if checked, it is hidden. These changes in menu item image visibility apply to applications linked on macOS 26.0 and later. Review the updated Human Interface Guidelines to determine which menu items in your app should still display images. Use the new preferredImageVisibility property on NSMenuItem to customize the image visibility for your menu items. As in macOS 26.0, NSMenu automatically provides default visible menu item images for certain common system-wide menu items, such as Settings, Share, and Print.

Joachim Kurtz:

„Icons in menus are now hidden by default“ and you can specifically enable them to draw attention to the most important actions.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a great change! But to take a full year and your lead designer leaving to figure out that this was a mistake… woof…

Dominik Wagner:

I like that Menu Icons now are hidden by default again on macOS - Quite a lot of concessions towards liquid glass being the wrong move last year. Takes courage to take so many steps back, literally. I’m appreciating that. Even if they present it as improvements rather than “undo” - that’s just what one has to do for marketing.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-11): John Gruber (Mastodon, Hacker News, MacRumors):

Wonderful news in MacOS 27 Golden Gate: the icons are gone. It’s like Tahoe’s menu item icons never happened. Prokopov noted it on Mastodon with before and after screenshots, and mentions that Apple has updated the Human Interface Guidelines accordingly[…]

[…]

This is my favorite news from all of WWDC this week.

Marcin Wichary:

Kudos to Nielsen and Prokopov for pushing on this and explaining the problem so well. This wasn’t about ugly icons. This was about improper use and misunderstanding of iconography.

Liquid Glass 27 Icons

Ryan Christoffel:

Last year with iOS 26, Apple redesigned its full lineup of app icons for iPhone. But just one year later, iOS 27 has even more design changes for many app icons.

[…]

iOS 27’s new app icons are “sharper and more detailed,” per Apple’s description. And it really shows.

Louie Mantia:

If you’re curious how much changed from 26 to 27 for app icon rendering with Icon Composer, here are a few examples of the difference (in this thread). First of the pair is 26, the second is 27.

Benjamin Mayo:

App icons also look significantly different now, but I think some of this is beta 1 bugs as the 27 rendering is very flat.

Andreas Storm:

All app icons are getting a Liquid Glass update

Louie Mantia:

The needless, barely-even-noticeable directional specular highlights based on the rotation of your phone on app icons are gone in iOS 27, and thank god for that.

Kuba Suder:

Ohhhh they made app icons sharper! That was one of the things that stood out to me, some were sooo blurry… my mom noticed it too on her new iPad.

Mario Guzmán:

I will say that icons render better in #macOS27 so some of these icons look super sharp, super glassy, super sophisticated. Almost like something you’d buy at the Swarovski store.

I mean, look at this icon! Look at it closely. Zoom in. Almost gives me Mac OS X Tiger detail vibes.

• • •

Thomas Brand:

All I wanted from WWDC was release from squircle jail.

Simon B. Støvring:

Just f***ng free macOS app icons from squircle jail already.

• • •

Icon Composer for Beginners Group Lab:

Join us online to ask questions, get advice, and follow the discussion about getting started with Icon Composer.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-11): Ged Maheux:

I appreciate Apple wiping the vaseline off the screen for iOS 27. App icons seem significantly less fuzzy, especially in light mode, which is a good thing.

Kuba Suder:

I think they dragged the sharpness slider too far in some cases, and some lines are too strong and too visible, but imho generally this is a change in a good direction (if it also scales well to various sizes). Some of those icons were annoyingly blurry in 26.

Jonathan Reed:

The clarity and legibility of almost all the icons have improved significantly, with icons like Photos packing a real visual punch. Additionally, viewing the icons at this size, you can see the nice refraction effects of the glass-like elements.

The one that really stood out for me, though, was the new Finder icon, which not only looks cleaner but also has a subtle change to the nose and the curve of the divide, bringing it much closer to the classic Finder icon from the pre-Liquid Glass days.

Basic Apple Guy:

Here are a list of many of the icons across macOS Golden Gate (beta 1) compared to their liquid glass Tahoe counterpart.

Update (2026-06-16): Marcus Mendes:

Following Monday’s WWDC6 keynote, Apple updated its Design Resources portal with assets for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 Golden Gate.

Notably missing were explicit download links to the SF Symbols 8 beta and the Icon Composer 2 beta. However, both are available to download, and you can get them below:

Liquid Glass 27 Slider

Hartley Charlton:

Apple said it has heard user feedback, which it “deeply appreciates,” and is now making adjustments to the underlying foundations of how Liquid Glass is constructed. Chief among those changes is a new slider that lets users control transparency, ranging from fully opaque to completely clear.

Benjamin Mayo:

As well as offering this new degree of customization, Apple is also changing the default way the glass material is rendered, to improve contrast and provide an even more vibrant visual look.

It’s definitely improved. I’m not sure it’s better than pre–Liquid Glass, though. I’m reserving judgement until I use it more, but I’m skeptical of the slider being a good solution. Previously, even going “full” opaque with the Reduce Transparency accessibility setting didn’t make it look good. The slider doesn’t even go as far as that, and I’m not really sure what the point of providing the intermediate options is.

Gui Rambo:

I laughed out loud when that slider showed up in the keynote 😂

Chris Turner:

Can confirm that if you want to reduce the effects of Liquid Glass as much as possible, using Reduce Transparency in the Accessibility settings on iOS is still the way to go over the new slider that was introduced.

Kyle Howells:

A setting to tint or clear liquid glass?!? Adding UI sliders like this isn’t design.

Design is making a choice, weighing the options and picking the best option.

Michael Love:

I’m disappointed at the lack of deeper changes to Liquid Glass, they’re not really addressing the fundamental problem that this is an AI designed to look good superimposed over colorful feeds or photos or whatever and looks annoying and bland on top of plain text

Ryan Jones:

iOS 27 Liquid Glass is more “bubble” than glass to me. More sharp on the edges.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

Tell me that’s not Aqua

Riccardo Mori:

“We improved Liquid Glass by letting you reduce the effects until there’s no more Liquid Glass”

Well, that’s nice.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

The line weights on the new Liquid Glass button elements are so thin that it looks pretty bad when not at 100% scale…

Which it will almost never be on macOS, iPadOS, in the iOS Simulator, or in screenshots… 👀

Apple Knowledge Navigator:

Since the release of macOS 26 Tahoe, some users have defended the changes made by Apple - specifically, the implementation of Liquid Glass - as being a forward-thinking design was unproblematic, despite many clear and obvious objections that had sound reasoning. These were routinely dismissed as a “You’re holding it wrong” mentality.

[…]

Apple should never have released Tahoe in the state that it was, and I was pleasantly pleased to see that Golden Gate looks like a return to focus on quality and attention to detail.

Saagar Jha:

I think this is about how close we will get to “yeah we messed up Liquid Glass lmao”

David Kopec:

Apple very rarely admits mistakes. The fact that they’re rolling back some of the extremeness in Liquid Glass and actively mentioned in the keynote that they very seriously took user feedback, shows just how bad some of it was.

Yes, we need to be able to read text.

Craig Grannell:

Well, that’s the closest Apple is ever going to get to saying “We fucked this up and are rowing back.”

Joe Fabisevich:

Translation for this new Liquid Glass: We fucked up, our bad.

Hey, I’ll take it.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

Two conflicting things can be true at the same time:

  • I quite like how retro and Aqua ╳ iOS 6 the new version of Liquid Glass looks
  • I feel like the changes to Liquid Glass are a colossal rug-pull that invalidate much of the last 12 months of my development efforts across all my apps

Just as it’s more costly for users and developers when Apple rushes to ship features before ironing out the bugs, massive design changes like iOS 7 and Liquid Glass, released without adequate testing and refinement, waste developer time and burden users with poor design while they wait for Apple to figure out what it actually wants to do.

CM Harrington:

There’s a chunk of my developer timeline that is very confused that the face-eating leopards are eating their face.

My dudes (all dudes): Apple always tells you to jump. You always jumped. It’s just now you’re realising the giant corporation that will always operate in their best interest is not actually aligned with you. You conformed to it.

…but you’ll keep doing it.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

If you want to support macOS Sequoia, you’re now going to have to support three different UI styles. If you want to skip the macOS 26 version of Liquid Glass, you’re going to have to drop support for users on Intel Macs. It’s a no-win situation.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-12): Jesper:

That said, iOS 27 still suffers from the basic usability issues with Liquid Glass – like, say, the tendencies to pick up touches and taps in the sliver between the bottom/corner edge of the display and the tab bar. I suppose it is honest from a user interface perspective for links that are visible within that area to be tappable, but it is a terrible user experience. (When is the intent of the user to tap any of those things?) Together with the tinted glass, the solution that springs to mind here is to just extend the tab bar towards the edges, which would solve the problem, but is also what pre-Liquid Glass iOS did.

Update (2026-06-17): Khaos Tian:

lol as part of WWDC 26, they got rid of the Liquid Glass Gallery hosted on developer.apple.com 😂

Steve Troughton-Smith:

“They fixed Liquid Glass!”

…are you sure about that? 😅

Update (2026-06-19): trixit:

The inconsistency alone is damning. Buttons and toolbars still look rough even after Apple’s attempts to reign things in, and the corner radius situation remains all over the place. They fixed app windows, sure, but countless dialogs still have that chunky, Duplo-brick quality that made 26 such a visual mess. The new Siri chat app is a perfect example: those conversation bubbles look like they were ported in from a different OS entirely. They just don’t belong.

[…]

What really gives it away, though, is the behavior of the design team itself. They’re already quietly dialing up opacity, adjusting refractions, pulling back on the more extreme glass effects. That’s not iteration, that’s damage control. When a “bold new design language” starts getting walked back before the ink is even dry on the release notes, the writing is on the wall.

The core problem was always philosophical. Transparent, refractive UI elements look striking in a keynote demo. In a professional OS where you need clarity, speed, and visual stability, where you’re actually trying to get work done, they’re a liability.

Glow Leopard

Tim Hardwick:

Apple at WWDC 2026 today said it has made several responsiveness improvements across its software ecosystem, speeding up system animations, app launching, and much more.

Zac Hall:

Overall, iOS 27 so far is a major collection of performance improvements and refinements.

Ryan Christoffel:

As had been rumored leading up to today, Apple has spent extra time this year working on bug fixes and performance improvements for iOS 27.

Adam Engst:

Although there’s no obvious connection between the Tahoe and Golden Gate names to indicate a “tock” release, Apple devoted the first chunk of the WWDC keynote to how OS 27 will address user and developer complaints about OS 26.

[…]

Apple also made a big deal about performance improvements, smoothing system animations, launching iPhone and iPad apps up to 30% faster, displaying new photos in the Photo Library up to 70% faster, transferring files via AirDrop up to 80% faster, and moving files from an iPad to an external drive is up to 5x faster, so it compares with macOS transfer speeds. A new CPU Scheduler promises to improve iPhone performance even on older models back to the iPhone 11, which may encourage more people with older iPhones to upgrade.

Kyle Howells:

There really aren’t many changes this year.

I’m way more interested in bug fixes, but optimizations and refinements are great, too. Simply limiting the number of new features creates space to improve the software quality, though, it’s not clear to me whether there are really fewer new features or if it’s just that they mostly fall under the single heading of AI.

Paul Hudson:

Animations run smoother, apps launch faster, and Liquid Glass is better? It’s Glow Leopard for sure!

Divya Ravi:

One underrated theme from this WWDC is Apple investing heavily in fundamentals.

Faster launches, scheduler improvements, search infrastructure, networking transitions, rendering performance…

Users notice responsiveness long before they notice most new features.

Clarko:

You gotta admire Apple’s ability to market “bug fixes and performance improvements” so effectively.

Please just do this every other year.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-12): David Smith:

Something I’ve noticed about performance work is that people really want there to be A Cause for improvements. A new technology, something old no longer holding things back, “removing the debug logging”, etc…

The truth of the matter is that 97% of the time the enabling thing for performance work is engineers having time in the schedule to sit down with the tools (usually a sampling profiler) and grind out small wins over and over.

There’s no magic bullet that replaces good engineering.

It sounds like the magic bullet is a reasonable release schedule. You’ve always had the power, my dear Craig. You just had to learn it for yourself.

Jason Snell:

The moment the keynote used the phrases “sweating the details” and “attention to detail,” it was clear that beyond AI and Siri features, this year is about small fixes and improvements. In more private settings, Apple folks specifically referenced Snow Leopard and iOS 12, two updates that saw Apple take a pause from huge feature roll-outs and prioritize speed and bug fixes a bit more.

But to be clear, referencing Snow Leopard does not mean “no new features.” Like Apple’s 27 releases, Snow Leopard was full of dozens, if not hundreds, of new features—they were just scattered small improvements throughout the system.

Patrick McConnell:

The older I get and the longer I do this development work I realize time is short and we may not get to all the things we want to do in life. So when we are forced to wait yet another year for some fixes to a framework we’ve been trying to use for several yearly cycles already it can be disappointing to say the least.

[…]

Unlike past years there is no clear Apple mandated work. Thank god. I can focus on what I want to build without having to adopt my code to an ill conceived UI update that will be semi-discarded the following year.

Update (2026-06-16): Marcin Wichary:

It’s an impressive list that garnered universally positive reactions, but I have one observation:

  • “Fast” and variants thereof appear on this list 59 times.
  • “Reliable” and similar words appear 22 times.

[…]

It’s not just me. 15 out of 17 bugs listed on the Bugs Apple Loves site are about reliability.

[…]

I just… I would be a lot more excited if the 3:1 ratio of fast-to-reliable on that slide went the other way.

Xcode 27 Announced

Platforms State of the Union:

Discover the newest advancements on Apple platforms.

What’s new in Xcode 27:

Discover the latest productivity enhancements in Xcode 27. Accelerate your development workflow through customization, coding agents, and Device Hub. Explore updates in localization, performance, and testing tools to refine your apps further.

Xcode 27 Beta Release Notes:

Xcode 27 beta includes Swift 6.4 and SDKs for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, tvOS 27, macOS 27, and visionOS 27. Xcode 27 beta supports on-device debugging in iOS 17 and later, tvOS 17 and later, watchOS 10 and later, and visionOS. Xcode 27 beta requires a Mac running macOS Tahoe 26.4 or later.

The big news is that they’re dropping support for deploying apps on macOS 10.13 through 10.15. The minimum you can target is now Big Sur (or Monterey for Apple Silicon Macs). Also, even though Xcode 27 runs on Tahoe, it doesn’t run on Intel Macs.

Google Gemini is now available in the coding assistant.

Planning with agents is now first class in Xcode. Plans appear as editable Markdown artifacts next to the conversation.

[…]

The Xcode MCP server has been updated with new tools that allow agents to debug projects by manipulating the active run state, interacting with and reading the contents of the debugger console; listing and switching between available schemes and run destinations and inspecting and modifying build settings, compiler flags, entitlements, and Info.plist keys.

[…]

xctrace record allows you to pass recording options for Instruments from within the CLI.

[…]

Enabled by default, toolchain allows compiling IB documents without the need to download a simulator, which is especially useful for build servers.

Apple:

Apple today introduced new intelligence capabilities, expanded productivity features in Xcode, and platform improvements that make apps faster, more adaptive, and easier to build.

Xcode, agents, and you:

Learn how you can use coding agents in Xcode in your development process. We’ll explore multiple ways of working with agents with tips to take you from creating an initial prototype to polishing a refined app. Discover how Xcode’s coding assistant adapts to help you stay engaged with the creative work that makes coding fun, whether you’re building an app solo or working with a team.

Translate your app using agents in Xcode:

Find out how Xcode and coding agents help you translate String Catalogs using the context of your app. We’ll walk through strategies for reviewing translated output and iterating on your localizations, so you can deliver a tailored experience to people around the world.

Create UI prototypes using agents in Xcode:

Learn how to prototype your app using agents in Xcode. Explore techniques for using AI to prototype interactions, iterate on layouts, and generate creative solutions to design challenges. You’ll learn how to evaluate ideas critically and refine them into polished, people-centered experiences for your app.

Build, deliver, and automate with Xcode Cloud:

Discover the latest updates to Xcode Cloud that quickly get you started building and delivering your apps. Learn essential Xcode Cloud concepts, set up cloud build and tests simply by connecting your source repository, and configure for app distribution when you’re ready to ship. Find out how webhooks and management tools extends Xcode Cloud’s capabilities, supporting your most advanced workflows.

Xcode Tips and Tricks Group Lab:

Join us online for a deep dive into WWDC26 with Apple engineers and designers to ask questions, get advice, and follow the discussion about getting the most out of Xcode.

• • •

Matt Gallagher:

In Xcode 27, new projects are created in a temporary location. You can type Command-Shift-N, hit return and you’re immediately in a scratch SwiftUI app.

You’re prompted to pick a save location on close (more like a regular document app).

Joachim Kurz:

Xcode 27 brings you one-click new project creation *

*because we neglected the Xcode project templates for a whole decade. And honestly no one who is still in the team knows how to write one anymore. Many of the new target types didn’t even have a proper project template anymore. Also, do you know how much work it is, to update the CoreData template code every year? We tended to forget about them… So we deleted all that. Have fun setting up the basics of a CoreData-document based app from scratch. You‘ll figure it out, we trust you! It‘ll be fun and you’ll learn so much!

Mario Guzmán:

Xcode 27 also got a standard-height toolbar.

Matt Gallagher:

you can customise the toolbar. Like it’s a regular Mac app.

Alex Rosenberg:

This window is a perfect example of slop UI that shouldn’t have been shown. Terrible metrics, some kind of oddball non-Mac close box, Back instead of Cancel, etc.

Keith Smiley:

Xcode settings in iCloud?

• • •

Steve Troughton-Smith:

Xcode 27 is devastating for minimum OS deployment targets. A lot of third party software is going to be forced into dropping older OSes

Saagar Jha:

Ugh swiftc hard crashes on my (tiny) apps things are not looking good for this Xcode

• • •

Khoa Pham:

Xcode 27 ships with a set of agent skills that capture Apple’s own guidance for writing modern Swift and SwiftUI code. These skills cover things like adopting the newest SwiftUI APIs, modernizing UIKit apps, and auditing security settings.

They are designed to be consumed by coding agents, but they are just as useful when you want to read Apple’s recommendations directly or feed them into your own tooling. The good news is you can export all of them to a folder with a single command.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-11): Marcin Krzyzanowski:

and that’s exactly why we should not embrace SwiftUI on Mac. what is that even.

The Page Up and Page Down keys don’t work in the new “Xcode and Apple SDKs Agreement” dialog, but you do get an animated splash screen afterwards.

Jonathan Wight:

Your other reminder that Xcode 26 does NOT run on macOS 27

(I’ve also heard anecdotally that folks are having trouble running macOS 27 on VMs on macOS 26)

Matt Gallagher:

It’s been 16 years. The iPad simulator still can’t handle launching in landscape.

Update (2026-06-12): Steve Troughton-Smith:

I’ve found Xcode 27 emitting binaries that crash on launch on both macOS 26.4 and tvOS 26.4. Do some cross-OS testing before you try pushing anything to TestFlight.

Update (2026-06-25): Steve Troughton-Smith:

I hadn’t seen anybody mention this, but new in Xcode 27 / macOS 27 your development mode devices now expose their containers and diagnostics through a mounted filesystem, rather than requiring Xcode to export them from the device. You can read/write to your app containers, modify databases and plists, etc, all without a round trip to/from the Xcode Organizer

macOS 27 Golden Gate Announced

Joe Rossignol:

Much like Mac OS X Snow Leopard in 2009, Apple said it focused on improving macOS’s performance and dozens of underlying technologies this year.

Apple says macOS Golden Gate offers quicker AirDrop transfers, faster network file browsing, improved syncing in the Messages app, better Spotlight search suggestions, and other changes that make your Mac feel “more responsive than ever.”

I had lots of problems installing beta 1 via Software Update, so I recommend downloading the full installer or IPSW. I eventually got it to work by updating to macOS 26.5.1 first (instead of installing on top of 26.4) and by booting into recovery multiple times to use Startup Security Utility to toggle the LocalPolicy from Full Security to Reduced Security and back.

macOS Golden Gate 27 Beta Release Notes:

The Recents list in the open and save panels can be accessed with the keyboard shortcut cmd-shift-f.

[…]

Unified Logging System archives generated on 27.0 releases cannot be read on macOS 26.1 or earlier due to an updated archive format.

[…]

Encrypted HFS+ (CoreStorage) is deprecated and will not be supported in a future version of macOS.

[…]

Starting in 27.0 operating systems, select system processes now enforce stricter network security (TLS) requirements. These new requirements might cause connections to fail if the server does not meet them.

[…]

Devices configured with Reduced Security mode might fail to install macOS 27 beta 1.

[…]

Accessing files in other developer teams’ app data containers and app group containers no longer prompts the user for authorization; such accesses are denied by default and can be managed by the user in Privacy & Security settings.

[…]

Apps can no longer access the local TCC database directly.

Marcus Mendes:

Visual Intelligence on macOS Golden Gate 27 is getting a dedicated keyboard shortcut. Similar to the screen capture shortcut, it lets users select portions of the screen and get contextual answers around that. From there, users can also continue the interaction from the Siri app.

Mr. Macintosh:

When using a wired network adapter with a live connection, macOS now displays a network menu bar item!

Jeff Johnson:

I love this “More in Accessibility Settings…”

Hartley Charlton:

Apple adds native ultrawide display support in macOS 27 Golden Gate, bringing higher resolutions and persistent display arrangements to users of widescreen monitors.

Hartley Charlton:

macOS 27 Golden Gate brings a major improvement to iPhone Mirroring, allowing users to resize the window beyond the iPhone’s fixed aspect ratio for the first time.

Marcus Mendes:

Currently, there seem to be several fixed aspect ratios available for resizing the iPhone Mirroring window, meaning the system adjusts the window to the nearest supported shape rather than allowing users to choose any arbitrary aspect ratio.

Louie Mantia:

iPhone Mirroring app has many, many more zoom level options now, which I very much appreciate. Thank you, whoever did that.

See also:

Previously:

Update (2026-06-11): I’ve retitled this post because it looks like Apple has mostly switched back to the old pattern of putting the OS name after the version number: “macOS Tahoe 26” but “macOS 27 Golden Gate.”

Juli Clover:

Apple is making several changes to Liquid Glass and the overall macOS Golden Gate design, and while subtle, some of the changes could make Liquid Glass on Mac easier to digest.

Jeff Nadeau:

Another on my list of small niceties in macOS 27 beta: we have decoupled Show Borders from Increase Contrast for apps using the new design. This is great for people who just want a little more edge definition on UI elements, but don’t want to jump all the way to the weighty color changes of Increase Contrast.

Matthias Gansrigler-Hrad:

If you’re getting an error trying to install the macOS 27 beta ipsw […] in UTM… I have a solution for you.

Mike Wuerthele and Malcolm Owen:

What appears to be a bug in macOS 27 is preventing a number of users from selecting alternate partitions or drives to boot from. This is having a big impact on Asahi Linux users.

Stefan Esser:

csrutil disable on MacOS 27 beta gives me a manifest signing error. Is disabling SIP broken in beta 1. Or is this a problem with my Mac?

Sam Guichelaar:

Can we no longer disable SIP in MacOS 27, or what is going on here?

Teodor Sorescu:

If you are experiencing this, it is probably related to this known issue:

“Devices configured with Reduced Security … might also be prevented from allowing kernel extensions or disabling System Integrity Protection.”

See workaround there.

See also: Hacker News.

Update (2026-06-12): Dan Moren:

From what I can see, Golden Gate still doesn’t offer the ability to access Clipboard History via a single keyboard shortcut (as opposed to hitting command-space and then command-4). And it has no menu bar item, so you can’t even add a custom

Steve Troughton-Smith:

New Finder feature in macOS 27: you can paste things from your clipboard into the filesystem. Who else has been asking for this one? 😄

Juli Clover has a roundup of what’s new.

Update (2026-06-16): Mike Wuerthele:

We’ve had macOS 27 for all of four days at this point, and there may already be a show-stopping problem for folks that hang on to RAID enclosures. We’ve found several that just don’t work under macOS 27.

Mark Sokolovsky:

Based on the listed improvements shown at WWDC, the performance benchmarks thus far, and my own personal experiences using the MacBook Air, I could definitely say it’s chalking up to be a real Snow Leopard kinda OS release, and I’m curious to see what else was improved but unlisted.

He has lots of screenshots.

BasicAppleGuy:

Siri Menu Bar icon history

Update (2026-06-17): Ryan Christoffel:

Over the past day, Apple has updated a variety of its Mac-focused support pages to replace macOS version names with version numbers instead.

Jeff Johnson:

Every year, people seem to forget how the WWDC betas work:

1) Apple often waits until later builds to release breaking changes, because they want us to start testing our app compatibility ASAP, or perhaps just because Apple wasn’t yet finished writing stuff.

2) The bad bugs in the new OS are often discovered later, sometimes not until after September.

Update (2026-06-25): Howard Oakley:

Now the second developer beta-release of Golden Gate is available, Apple’s release notes are giving further details of features that are being deprecated or removed. This article gives a summary of those that I know about.

iOS 27 Announced

Zac Hall:

  • Photos: iCloud Shared Albums now supports sharing with Android and Windows.
  • Health: Cycle tracking is more advanced.
  • AirPods: Custom EQ is coming to Apple’s wireless headphones.
  • Apple Maps is adding an upgraded Flyover feature with richer aerial imagery.

Joe Rossignol:

Apple said the CarPlay video feature is available in new vehicles that support it. When playing a video in an iPhone app that supports AirPlay video streaming, users can select the car’s display from the AirPlay menu on iOS and watch the video on a compatible vehicle’s screen.

New in iOS 27, Apple is allowing developers to create CarPlay apps with video browsing capabilities, so you can find videos to watch right on CarPlay.

Tim Hardwick:

When AirPods owners connect to their iPhone running iOS 27, they’ll see a completely revamped settings menu for their earbuds that does a better job at organizing all of the feature options that Apple has added over the last few years.

Tim Hardwick:

Apple’s first iOS 27 developer beta, released on Monday, includes a new feature in the Find My app that lets you temporarily hide your location from select people.

See also:

Previously:

iPadOS 27 Announced

Ryan Christoffel:

Here’s what’s new in iPadOS 27:

  • The Menu Bar can now be optionally kept always on screen
  • iPhone apps can be resized in iPadOS
  • Liquid Glass has been refined and is more customizable than ever
  • Performance improvements make iPadOS 27 perform much quicker
  • Screen Time has been revamped for managing your child’s device use
  • Brand new Siri with dedicated Siri app
  • Overhauled search experience with upgraded intelligence
  • Active app name now displays in status bar
  • Photos improvements like slideshow customization, Shared Albums across Android and Windows, upgraded Clean Up, more
  • Safari can organize tabs into topics

Hartley Charlton:

iPadOS 27 raises the floor to A14, M1, or later, cutting the 3rd generation iPad Air model from the compatibility list entirely.

[…]

The iPad Pro also sees cuts. […] iPadOS 27 raises those floors to the 4th generation 12.9-inch and the 2nd generation 11-inch, dropping two older Pro models that were still supported just a year ago.

See also: iOS & iPadOS 27 Beta Release Notes.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-11): Meek Geek:

It seems arbitrary that while iOS 27 supports all iOS 26-compatible iPhones, Apple somehow has to obsolete that many iPads with iPadOS 27, given that the OS foundation, RAM capacities and SoC generations would be similarly supported.

Especially given the performance optimizations in the 27 OSes.

What’s especially punitive is that users who suffered from the iPadOS 26 performance and UI train wreck will have no recourse. This won’t be forgotten.

watchOS 27 Announced

Hartley Charlton:

Apple today unveiled watchOS 27, featuring a redesigned dynamic app grid, new gesture controls, and a raft of usability and battery improvements.

The new dynamic app grid surfaces and rearranges five apps based on context and usage. Users can simply tap the bottom center icon to go to the rest of their apps.

[…]

Users can now create custom passes for any membership or card that uses a QR code or barcode, such as a library card, using their iPhone and access it directly from the Apple Watch’s Wallet app or pin it to the Smart Stack.

Hartley Charlton (Marcus Mendes):

Apple today confirmed that watchOS 27 will not support the Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra (first generation), or Apple Watch SE (second generation), effectively drawing a line at devices equipped with the S9 or S10 chip.

Apple had initially announced that Series 9 would be dropped, too.

Zac Hall:

Here are new features coming in watchOS 27 for Apple Watch

Hartley Charlton:

watchOS 27 contains a series of enhancements to fitness and sleep tracking, including new Workout Buddy insights, improved indoor run tracking, and more.

Hartley Charlton:

Apple yesterday announced a redesigned Find My app in watchOS 27 that brings all tracking functionality into a single, map-centric interface.

Previously split across separate Find Devices, Find People, and Find Items apps, the new app now consolidates everything into one unified view.

See also:

Previously:

Update (2026-06-11): Meek Geek:

Seeing a lot of lamenting for the Series 7/8 and Ultra 1 losing support for watchOS 27. But those models were EOL’d in the subsequent year.

It’s worse for SE 2 owners who purchased theirs just last year before the SE 3 came out in September. Totally shafted. Oof.

Greg Pierce:

In addition to watchOS 27 dropping support for a lot of pretty recent Apple Watches, the minimum target for builds moved up to watchOS 9. So, you can no longer support Series 3 watches that are stuck on watchOS 8.

Update (2026-06-18): Steve Troughton-Smith:

We’re nearly 12 years on from the introduction of Apple Watch, and you still can’t make your own watch faces for it.

Update (2026-06-19): Hartley Charlton:

Speaking to TechRadar, Cait Dooley, Apple Watch and Health product marketing manager, said performance requirements were behind the cutoff:

With every software release across every single one of our platforms, we always want to ensure that you have the best experience, so we make power and performance a priority. The great new features in watchOS, including the capabilities of Siri AI and the new tap gesture, work best with the processing power that is in Apple Watch Series 9 and later, Ultra 2 and later, and SE 3.

But, presumably, if you’re in the EU and don’t have access to Siri AI you still won’t be able to run watchOS 27.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-26): Dennis Oberhoff:

Especially the new AppleTV prices are ufff. With tvOS 2.7 deprecating the 2015 and 2017 AppleTV, it seems the platform will fragment pretty hard, since I don’t see people upgrading.

Previously:

tvOS 27 Announced

Joe Rossignol:

Apple barely touched on tvOS 27 during its WWDC 2026 keynote today, but the update exists, and it adds some new features to the Apple TV.

Benjamin Mayo:

One major new feature for tvOS this year is an updated Podcasts app, as well as a new smart downloads feature, performance enhancements including faster app launch and Control Center loading, larger text size options for accessibility, and more.

Ryan Christoffel:

Apple TV HD and the first-gen Apple TV 4K are not supported by tvOS 27.

See also: tvOS 27 Beta Release Notes.

Previously:

visionOS 27 Announced

Ryan Christoffel:

Here’s what’s new in visionOS 27:

  • Turn panoramas you shoot into spatial scenes
  • Use panoramas as your immersive Environment
  • Enhanced Flyover features in Apple Maps
  • Next-generation of Apple Intelligence
  • Entirely new Siri that’s more responsive to your needs
  • “New windows with curvature”
  • Visual intelligence, so you can ask Siri about anything you’re looking at
  • Expand notifications with your eyes
  • Redesigned Control Center

Tim Hardwick:

Apple made the visionOS 27 beta available to Vision Pro developers after Monday’s WWDC 2026 keynote, and in this version there is a new Environment that allows you to immerse yourself in the Icelandic highlands.

[…]

There were only a handful of passing references to visionOS 27 during Apple’s keynote, but the Vision Pro software is set to benefit from the same Siri AI features that are coming to iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 Golden Gate.

See also: visionOS 27 Beta Release Notes.

Previously:

Monday, June 8, 2026

WWDC 2026 Keynote

Joe Rossignol:

Ahead of the WWDC 2026 keynote at 10 a.m. Pacific Time today, Apple CEO Tim Cook has shared a short video in which country singer Lainey Wilson, actress Rhea Seehorn, DJ and producer Zedd, and other celebrities say “good morning” in various ways.

Apple (YouTube, MacRumors, 9To5Mac, Macworld, AppleInsider, Hacker News, The Verge, Wired, Lobsters):

All systems glow for WWDC26.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-09): Dan Moren:

During its discussion of platform improvements, Apple zoomed out on a small-text screen of many of the changes coming in its platforms this year—and there are a lot of them. Good news, now you can read at your own convenience—still in very small text.

Jonathan Reed:

Luckily, we managed to capture it and have the full list for you to peruse, grouped appropriately.

Adam Engst:

Apple is not a company that admits weakness or mistakes in public, but the WWDC 2026 keynote made clear just how much external pressure Apple is under right now. Although a few of the announced features undoubtedly bubbled up internally, the three-part structure of the 75-minute-long keynote was clearly reactive. Apple focused on user and developer complaints, parental concerns about technology abuse, and the embarrassment surrounding Apple Intelligence and the “more personalized” Siri it had promised two years earlier. This was not the keynote of a company setting the direction of the industry.

Juli Clover:

It took Apple an hour and a half to walk through the major new features in the updates, but we have a quicker 10 minute recap for those who want the highlights.

Previously:

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