Richard Lawler (MacRumors, Hacker News, Slashdot):
Apple’s biggest acquisition ever is still its $3 billion Beats buy in 2014, but now the second biggest deal is bringing in Q.ai, a four-year-old AI audio startup. Apple did not disclose the terms, but Financial Times reports that Apple is spending $2 billion on the company. It also mentioned Q.ai patents for optical sensor technology that could be built into headphones or glasses to recognize “facial skin micro movements,” allowing for non-verbal discussions with an AI assistant, for example.
The founders of Q.ai will join Apple, including CEO Aviad Maizels, who founded PrimeSense. Apple bought that company in 2013 and repurposed its Xbox Kinect technology to power the iPhone’s FaceID setup. This time around, tech that understands whispered speech could connect to the generative AI-upgraded Siri or other Apple Intelligence features, and work with future AirPods, Vision Pro, iPhone, or Mac devices.
Ryan Christoffel:
Israeli technology site Geektime dug into patent details to uncover Q.ai’s work. Here’s the translation:
According to its patent applications, the company appears to be working on reading what is being said, not using voice, but by using optical sensors that detect muscle and skin movements in the face, to translate them into words or commands. Some of the patents indicate the use of a headset that also examines the user’s cheek and jaw, and will apparently allow you to talk to Siri, Apple’s voice assistant, using only lip movements.
[…]
I’m often around other people, whether that’s my family at home or random strangers out on the street or at a coffee shop where I’m working.
As a result, I always type in my AI requests. But using the iOS system keyboard can feel a bit clunky at times and slow me down. It would be so much quicker and easier to just speak my queries, were it not for the social hangup.
Dan Moren:
Overall, this feels more like a traditional Apple acquisition: a smaller company, more targeted in its use case, with talented staff that it can bring onboard.
Previously:
Acquisition Apple Artificial Intelligence Business Siri
Apple (transcript, MacRumors, CNBC, Hacker News):
The Company posted quarterly revenue of $143.8 billion, up 16 percent year over year. Diluted earnings per share was $2.84, up 19 percent year over year.
[…]
“iPhone had its best-ever quarter driven by unprecedented demand, with all-time records across every geographic segment, and Services also achieved an all-time revenue record, up 14 percent from a year ago. We are also excited to announce that our installed base now has more than 2.5 billion active devices, which is a testament to incredible customer satisfaction for the very best products and services in the world.”
Jason Snell:
And now, to help you visualize what Apple just announced, here is our traditional barrage of charts and graphs[…]
Jason Snell:
Even more interesting, though, is Apple’s suggestion that it’s still selling the iPhone 17 about as fast as it can make them—or to be more specific, about as fast as TSMC can make cutting-edge 3nm chips to power them, per Cook[…]
[…]
Mac revenue was down 7% in the quarter, the poorest performance of all Apple’s categories. But it’s hard to be that down about the results, because not only did the Mac still generate $8.4B in revenue and reach an all-time high in its overall installed base, but this was all happening in a quarter that is the proverbial “tough compare”—since Apple released the M4 MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac in the year-ago quarter, and only the low-end M5 MacBook Pro in this quarter.
[…]
Apple posted a company gross margin of 48.2%, based on a 40.7% products margin and an astounding 76.5% margin on services.
[…]
What really impressed the analysts was his insistence that even this upcoming quarter, where memory price issues are expected to become even more serious, Apple says it feels “pretty good” about its guidance to another 48% to 49% margin quarter.
Joe Rossignol:
Apple CEO Tim Cook believes that his company will have opportunities to deliver “innovations that have never been seen before” this year.
[…]
Cook hypes up Apple’s future on every earnings call, but “innovations that have never been seen before” is particularly bold wording compared to his usual comment about how the company’s product pipeline is stronger than ever.
I’m still waiting for the secret Leopard features and for Catalyst to get really good.
John Gruber (Mastodon):
It is difficult to get a company to see that certain of its core competencies are in severe decline when the company is making more money than ever.
Previously:
Apple Apple Quarterly Results Apple Services Business iOS iPhone 17 iPhone 17 Pro iPhone 17 Pro Max iPhone Air Mac
Sebastiaan de With (Bluesky, MacRumors, The Verge):
Some big personal news: I’ve joined the Design Team at Apple.
So excited to work with the very best team in the world on my favorite products. ✌️
Great news. I wish they’d also hire Mario Guzmán.
Anna Washenko:
Prior to Halide, de With had done other work at Apple, collaborating on properties including iCloud, MobileMe and Find My apps. It’s unclear if his exit will mean any notable changes for Halide, or for the Lux apps Kino, Spectre and Orion.
Ben Sandofsky:
As we mentioned in the announcement post today, we’ve been working with legendary team at The Iconfactory on Mark III. We’re also super excited to be collaborating with the renowned colorist Cullen Kelly on the new looks in Mark III.
[…]
So in short, Halide is going nowhere. This has been my full time job since 2019, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
Tony Arnold:
I have spent my career leaning on Apple’s excellent design chops when building my own apps.
Now they’ve broken the design language of their operating systems so badly that it’s not possible to build excellent, bug free user experiences.
I’ve lost a north star here, and it’s heartbreaking because there’s no real way for them to turn this around for a very long time.
CM Harrington:
Here’s the thing about my trepidation around Sebastiaan de With going to Apple is he is but one man. The rest of the company has to give a fuck about design to allow people with taste and capability to make the things.
Jason Anthony Guy:
Last June, just ahead of the introduction of Liquid Glass at WWDC, de With imagined what a new design language from Apple might look like, which he dubbed “Living Glass.”
[…]
After using Liquid Glass for six months, I’ll add one more descriptor for de With’s design concepts: restrained.
See also: The Talk Show and Accidental Tech Podcast.
Previously:
Apple Design Halide Hiring iOS iOS 26 iOS App Liquid Glass Mac macOS Tahoe 26
Ben Sandofsky:
Typical photo-preset apps simply swap a photo’s color palette. Halide’s Looks are capable of much more, virtue of being part of the camera itself. When you select a look, it changes the way the camera captures a photo and interprets the results. For the best results, you should pick the final look at the time of capture.
[…]
Our next look is Process Zero II, the second generation of our acclaimed look we launched it a year and a half ago. The Process Zero disables all computational photography at the time of capture, for photos with stronger contrast, subtler details and an overall more natural feeling.
[…]
In the past, you had to decide between the flexibility of Apple ProRAW or the natural look of Process Zero. Not anymore. With Halide Mark III, you can quickly experiment with ProRAW and Process Zero looks, after the fact.
Previously:
Halide High Dynamic Range (HDR) iOS iOS 26 iOS App
Peter Steinberger (Hacker News):
Two months ago, I hacked together a weekend project. What started as “WhatsApp Relay” now has over 100,000 GitHub stars and drew 2 million visitors in a single week.
Today, I’m excited to announce our new name: OpenClaw.
[…]
I’d like to thank all security folks for their hard work in helping us harden the project. We’ve released machine-checkable security models this week and are continuing to work on additional security improvements. Remember that prompt injection is still an industry-wide unsolved problem, so it’s important to use strong models and to study our security best practices.
See also: Moltbook (Hacker News), CNET, Rui Carmo.
Previously:
Artificial Intelligence Mac Mac App macOS Tahoe 26 OpenClaw (Moltbot/Clawdbot)
Sarah Perez (MacRumors, Hacker News, Slashdot):
Creator platform Patreon is taking issue with Apple’s new mandate that forces all creators to move to a subscription billing model, which now has a new transition deadline of November 1, 2026.
[…]
The company said it would switch creators to subscription billing in November 2024, and creators could choose whether to increase their subscription prices to cover Apple’s fees. In addition, creators could opt to delay changes until November 2025 if they needed more time. However, they wouldn’t be able to offer subscriptions in the app until they adopted Apple’s in-app purchases.
Last May, Patreon took advantage of newly loosened App Store guidelines resulting from the U.S. court ruling in Epic v. Apple to offer creators the ability to process web payments from links in Patreon’s app.
Patreon—at least in the US—is now allowed to use external payments, but this is still creating a mess.
Patreon:
In 2024, Apple mandated that Patreon move all creators onto subscription billing by November of 2025, or risk being removed from the App Store. Last May, after a landmark court decision, Apple told us the timeline of that mandate was no longer in effect.
Apple has now reversed course again, reimposing their subscription billing mandate with a new transition deadline of November 1, 2026.
We strongly disagree with this decision. Creators need consistency and clarity in order to build healthy, long-term businesses. Instead, creators using legacy billing will now have to endure the whiplash of another policy reversal – the third such change from Apple in the past 18 months.
Over the years, we have proposed multiple tools and features to Apple that we could’ve built to allow creators using legacy billing to transition on their own timelines, with more support added in. Unfortunately, Apple has continually declined them.
Jamie Zawinski:
For several years now, they have been trying really hard to get creators to switch to daily billing whether they like it or not, with a series of intrusive nags and dark patterns. E.g., the “Settings” tab always has an “unread” alert on it reminding me that I have not made the “recommended” change.
Now they’re going to force everyone to switch, and they’re blaming Apple for it. And, to be clear, fuck Apple, but also fuck Patreon, this is their choice and it’s going to mean that I can no longer use their service.
[…]
I sell monthly memberships to a physical nightclub. The memberships begin on the first of the month. I fulfill and mail the physical membership cards on the first of the month. If you make me switch to daily billing, that means I will have to do merch fulfillment on a daily basis instead, and I simply cannot do that.
[…]
I know for a fact that none -- zero, 0% -- of my patrons have signed up using the iOS app. I know this because I had to warn them away from it, due to the 30% Apple Tax, and all of them complied. All of them. The iOS app is utterly meaningless to me and to my patrons.
Dominic:
Especially weird when we have just had the stories about Goldman Sachs having to get out of running the Apple credit card because Apple insisted on billing everyone on the first of the month (among other reasons).
Patreon:
For per-creation billing creators: Migration requires manual support from our team. If you’d like to make the switch, contact Support and we’ll help guide you through the process.
Previously:
App Store Dark Patterns External iOS Payments In-App Purchase iOS iOS 26 iOS App Patreon
