Yesterday, Apple introduced iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and similar “27" updates that Apple says are coming this fall. Based on what Apple has done in the past, my guess is that Apple will release the final version of iOS 26 on Monday, September 14, 2026. However, beta versions are currently available for developers, and a public beta will likely be available in a few weeks for people who want to preview the future and don’t mind the inevitable bugs that come with running beta software. Apple had a lot to say yesterday, both in the official Keynote presentation and in follow-up presentations. Here are the items that I think will be the most important for lawyers and other professionals who use Apple mobile products such as the iPhone and iPad to get work done.

Apple Intelligence and Siri AI

My #1 hope for WWDC was that Apple would introduce AI improvements that are both impressive and practical. Apple did that, previewing a new version of Siri that is a vast improvement. It even has a new name: Siri AI.

What it does. Siri AI works with text, voice, and images. It can provide responses based on personal content that is already on your device. For example, using an improved Spotlight engine that provides better search on your device, Siri AI knows about the things described in your text messages, emails, and notes, the events on your calendar, and the photos in your Photos app (and information about those photos, such as where and when they were taken) so that Apple can provide you with a more responsive answer. It can also access world knowledge—i.e., information that is on the web. It can also see what is on your screen while you are talking to Siri, tailoring the response to what you are doing at the time. And it can use different apps to perform actions. Siri AI on an iPhone will be much more like your own personal assistant in your pocket.

In one example during the WWDC Keynote, Apple executive Mike Rockwell asked Siri about an upcoming concert, and Siri learned the dates from the web. He then asked follow-up questions about tickets, and Siri set a reminder so that he knew when it was time to purchase them. He then asked Siri to play new music from the artist. And all of this occurred as a part of a conversation, so he did not need to repeat information provided earlier.

You can also use Siri AI to create calendar events using natural language. I’ve been using this feature within Fantastical for years, but it will be even more powerful and easier to use now that it is built-in to Siri.

There is also a dedicated Siri app that you can open to get back to a conversation that you previously started. And Siri AI works across Apple devices. For example, you could start a conversation on your iPhone and continue it on your Apple Watch.

The new Siri AI is deeply integrated into iOS and the other platforms. You can summon it the same way as before, such as saying “Hey, Siri…” or pressing the side button on the iPhone. You can also swipe down from the Dynamic Island on an iPhone. When Siri is triggered, it emerges from the Dynamic Island on the iPhone.

Since so many of us talk to Siri, Apple also improved how Siri sounds—although, as noted below, you need to have a newer device to take advantage of this. Siri’s voice is more expressive, sounding more natural. You can also adjust the expressiveness as well as the pace, slowing Siri down or making Siri sound like a high-school debater who is spreading.

The Visual Intelligence tools are improved as well. Point your iPhone’s camera at an object, and you can get even more information about it.

If you are wearing an Apple Vision Pro, you can simply look at the Siri icon—a small orb that floats in space—and ask questions about objects in the room. (This is clearly a feature that Apple is working on now so that it can be full-featured when future visionOS products are the size of a regular pair of glasses.)

The improved Apple Intelligence can also use AI to do three interesting things with your photos. First, the existing clean up feature is even more advanced, making it easier to remove unwanted items from a photo. Second, an extend tool can expand the area on the edges of a photo, making it easier to frame the subjects in the photo however you want even if you were too close to the subjects. Third, a spatial reframing feature lets you change the perspective of the photo after you’ve taken it. For example, you can make it seem like you were standing a few feet to the left or right when you took the photo so that the objects behind your subjects line up in a more appropriate location.

Apple Intelligence also adds sophisticated writing tools, such as a built-in proofreader: technology that may make it unnecessary to pay for a service like Grammerly.

Instead of creating automated tasks by hand using the powerful Shortcuts app, you can now just tell the app what you want to do and Apple Intelligence can create the shortcut for you. You can also adjust the shortcut by just using natural langauge to describe what you want to do. Thus, Apple is taking a power user feature and making it more accessible to more people.

If you have a lot of tabs open in Safari, Apple Intelligence will be able to automatically group your tabs by topic to reduce the chaos. And you can ask to be notified whenever the content on a website changes. That could be a useful way to get the very first notification when a court releases new decisions.

How it works. We already knew that Apple would be working with Google, but Apple made it clear both during the WWDC Keynote and in a separate session focused on AI that it is more complicated than that. What Apple introduced is far from the Google Gemini app with an Apple logo slapped on top. This is something better.

When you invoke Siri AI, something called the System Orchestrator analyzes your request. It has access to personal content stored locally on your device—such as your emails, messages, and calendar—so it can better understand what you are talking about. It has access to the contents of your device’s screen to provide additional context for your query. It then decides how to process your request. Some requests can be handled by the AI engine running locally on your device. If it is a more sophisticated question, the System Orchestrator reaches out to the cloud: Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, which maintains your privacy because it doesn’t know who you are and doesn’t retain information about your request.

Google’s models are used alongside Apple’s to process your request, and different models are optimized for different tasks (such as one optimized for working with images). The most demanding requests use something Apple calls Apple Foundation Model Cloud Pro, which is similar to Gemini’s frontier models. The goal is to get you the best response as quickly as possible.

Perhaps best of all, all of these Siri AI and Apple Intelligence features were developed with privacy in mind. Your confidential information remains confidential and is not shared with Apple, Google, or anyone else.

Where it won’t work. You need to have a newer Apple device to take advantage of Siri AI. Siri AI works on iPhone 16 models or later, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPad mini (A17 Pro), iPad models with M1 or later, MacBook Neo (A18 Pro), Mac with M1 or later, Apple Vision Pro, Apple Watch Series 9 or later, Apple Watch Ultra 2 or later, and Apple Watch SE 3 when paired with an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone nearby.

However, to get the best possible Siri AI experience, you will want to use the most powerful on-device AI model offered by Apple. It enables features like expressive voices for Siri and advanced dictation. For the iPhone, it is only available on the iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. It is also available on the iPad, but only if (1) the iPad uses the M4 or later and (2) the iPad has at least 12GB of memory. All models of the iPad Pro (M5) (introduced October 2025) and iPad Air (M4) (introduced March 2026) satisfy those two requirements. However, if you have an iPad Pro (M4) (introduced May 2024), you only have enough memory if you purchased the version with 1 TB or 2 TB of storage. Alas, my iPad Pro (M4) is the 512 GB model, so it only has 8 GB of memory, which is not enough. For the Mac, you need at least an M3 processor and 12 GB of memory. For the Vision Pro, you need the version with the M5 processor (introduced October 2025), not the original version of the Vision Pro.

This new technology also won’t work in certain parts of the world, at least not at first. Apple issued a press release stating that, due to restrictions under the EU’s Digital Markets Act, Siri AI will not be available in the EU. Apple says it hopes to work with EU regulators to find a path forward, but also notes it has been working with them on this for many months to no avail. Siri AI also will not be available in China for similar reasons.

Finally, even if your device supports Siri AI, Apple says that some Apple Intelligence features, including image generation, have daily usage limits because they rely on powerful models that run on Apple’s servers. Apple mentioned that if you have an iCloud+ subscription, you have greater access.

New features and improvements

AI was the focus yesterday, but there was more.

At Apple’s 2009 version of WWDC, it introduced the new operating system for the Mac, called Snow Leopard, by stating—shockingly—that there were zero new features. That was an exaggeration; there were new features. But Apple’s point was that it spent its time improving what was already there rather than coming out with new technology without fixing flaws in what was there before. Snow Leopard was well-received at the time, and I got some Snow Leopard vibes during yesterday’s keynote address because Apple spent a lot of time focusing on what was improved and fixed from iOS 26.

For example, the iOS 26 liquid glass interface can, in some circumstances, make the interface less legible. Apple says that it has tweaked liquid glass in iOS 27 so that it always works better. Plus, you now have the option to adjust the interface so that it is even more or even less see-through.

Apple also said that it has optimized the system to dramatically speed up things like app launches, content loading, and AirDrop transfers. When you take a new photo, it will now appear in the Photos app up to 70% faster.

Apple has also improved search results, doing a better job of indexing your messages, mail, etc. I’m sure that this is in part to support Siri AI, but it is always frustrating when I cannot find something even though I know it is there, so this will be a welcome improvement.

The iPhone and iPad will do a better job switching between Wi-Fi and cellular. For example, when your plane lands, your iPhone should do a better job of switching to cellular instead of staying connected to the plane’s Wi-Fi that is no longer working. And when Wi-Fi is weak, the iPhone will jump to a stronger cellular signal.

Apple is also improving its toolbars to provide more uniformity. Apple is also adjusting the icons in sidebars to make it easier to see which menu item is active and which window layer is active.

In addition to those refinements, there are quite a few new features. Here are some of them that jumped out at me:

• Individual texts and images in the Messages app now have their own progress bars to give you a better understanding of what is and is not going through. And the app will automatically retry if the send failed.
• Shared albums will now feature full-resolution photos—even if you share with Android users.
• The Flyover feature in Maps is far more detailed. It provides you with a far more detailed view of the buildings, trees, etc.
• HomeKit cameras will (finally!) support 4K resolution for camera recordings.
• Faster data updates in the Health app.
• Dual Capture in FaceTime lets you show someone else what you are seeing and your face at the same time.
• If you have a child who uses an Apple device, Apple has significantly improved its parental control features.
• “Easier card selection and payment management with Apple Pay.” I’m not sure what Apple means when it says this, but I use Apple Pay all the time, so this sounds good.
• Share a single phone number between two iPhones. As Juli Clover of MacRumors notes, this could be useful for someone who purchases the rumored—and perhaps now confirmed—upcoming foldable iPhone but also wants to use a traditional iPhone.

Features for Developers

Those are just the features that will be directly useful for those of us who use Apple devices. However, the primary focus of WWDC is the developers who make third-party apps: the “D” in WWDC. This week, Apple is introducing a ton of new behind-the-scenes technologies that will allow developers to improve their apps and create new ones that were previously impossible. This will also benefit those of us who just use devices like iPhones and iPads, even if we don’t yet know how. Hopefully, the best is yet to come.

Putting it all together

The more I think about everything that Apple announced yesterday, the more excited I get about iOS 27 and the other new platforms. In three months, your iPhone, iPad, and other Apple devices are going to become much more helpful. I love it.

And finally, here is a short video from Apple that provides an overview of the key changes coming to iOS 27—presented with the feel of an over-the-top movie trailer:

WWDC is only 48 hours away, so we begin this week’s episode of the podcast by discussing what Apple might announce on Monday. AI is sure to be a big part of it, but what does that mean, and how will Apple explain its approach? Next, we discuss Apple’s spatial photo features, iPad hubs, whether Apple might disrupt the eyeglasses market the same way that it disrupted the watch market, Hårga-Låten, and more.

In our In the Know segment, Brett shares a tip for printing emails on an iPhone or iPad, and I share a tip for issuing certain Siri commands very efficiently if you have an Apple Watch.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice. You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

All systems glow! That’s the tagline Apple is using on its developer website to promote WWDC26, its annual developer conference that starts on Monday. At 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern, Apple is expected to provide the first public preview of iOS 27 and related operating systems for all of the other Apple devices. As Tyler Graham of CNet speculates, the “glow” likely refers to Siri’s glowing UI elements, and Siri is expected to get many new features in iOS 27, many of which will be powered by AI. As you prepare for the announcements, you can download a special wallpaper for your device, get free animated iMessage stickers by downloading the Apple Developer app, and even listen to a special Apple Music playlist. I’m very excited to learn what Apple will announce, and it is great that we only have to wait a few more days. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Are you a legal professional who works with audio recordings of legal proceedings that use the ForTheRecord proprietary format .TRM files? I’m not, but if this means something to you, there is a new service called MatterScribe that can create transcripts of court proceedings, depositions, etc., in only minutes using AI. It also lets you listen to these audio files on an iPhone, which the developer says was not previously possible. Becuase I don’t have any experience working with these sorts of audio files, I cannot comment upon any of these details. Nevertheless, this struck me as something that might be useful to some iPhone J.D. readers, so I wanted to share the news.
• The MacRumors staff produced this roundup of everything that they expect Apple to announce at WWDC.
• Ian Carlos Campbell and Cherlynn Low of Engadget provide their WWDC predictions.
• Filipe Esposito of Macworld says that we shouldn’t expect to see new hardware announced at WWDC. I agree.
• Glenn Fleishman of Six Colors explains the different depth-effect features available for your photos in Apple’s Photos app.
• The Apple Watch Series 11 sells for $399, but you can occasionally find it for an all-time low price of $299, and that 25% discount is available right now at Amazon.
• Rei Padla of The Gadgeteer recommends hubs that work well with the iPad’s single USB-C port.
• Cirrus is a company that sells personal aircraft. The cost of the airplanes starts at around $1.1 million, with some models costing several million dollars, so I suspect that most potential customers wouldn’t bat an eye at the $3,500 starting price of an Apple Vision Pro. Thus, it makes sense for Cirrus to promote its products in an app designed for the Vision Pro, and the app that the company released this week is quite impressive. First, the app features a fantastic, seven-minute immersive video that shows what it is like to be in the cockpit of one of these beautiful planes as it flies over places like the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley. Second, the app features full-size models. You can walk around the planes or step into them, and the attention to detail is absolutely phenomenal. The quality is breathtaking. If you have access to an Apple Vision Pro, I encourage you to check out this free app.
• What are Apple’s future plans for the Apple Vision Pro? Malcolm Owen of AppleInsider reports on speculation by Mark Gurman of Bloomberg. He thinks that Apple has eyes on the glasses market. “This involves competing against glasses made by EssilorLuxottica SA, which produces Ray-Ban, Oakley, Persol, and other fashion glasses. There’s also Safilo Group who make Tommy Holfiger and Hugo Boss glasses, and Warby Parker.” Of course, Apple did something similar to the watch market when it introduced the Apple Watch in 2015. And I suppose the iPod and then the iPhone similarly disrupted the prior market for portable music—a market originally dominated by Sony with the Walkman in the 1980s.
• Marcus Mendes of 9to5Mac says that Widow’s Bay on Apple TV is its best new show in years. I’m not quite that much of a fan, but I do enjoy the show, and it is certainly unlike anything else that I’ve ever seen. Parts are hilarious, parts are pretty intense horror, and the acting is fantastic.
• Today, Apple TV debuts a new show: Cape Fear. As Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac notes, the new series was inspired by the 1991 movie, which was inspired by the 1962 movie.
• And finally, here is a new and funny video from Apple that celebrates the fact that the Safari web browser helps to block data trackers. By the way, consider watching this one with the closed captions turned on.

I’m currently on vacation at the beach, and a huge Wi-Fi outage where I am staying forced us to delay this week’s episode by 24 hours. Fortunately, we were able to record on Saturday and the episode is now posted. And as a bonus, if you watch the video version of this week’s podcast on YouTube, you can watch the sand and the waves behind me. We start by talking about some wishlist items for the upcoming WWDC, which is just over a week away. Then we talk about Pope Leo’s AI warnings, slim MagSafe batteries, using an iPhone instead of professional broadcast cameras, lots of tips, better prices when you sell back an item to Apple, a new badge for the Fitness app, and more.

In our In the Show segment, we talk about the Apple TV shows For All Mankind and Star City.

In our In the Know segment, Brett discusses the late great Sonny Rollins, and I share a tip for taking an iPhone selfie picture using the back camera—as long as you also have an Apple Watch.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice. You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

When I think about technology, I normally don’t think of the Pope. But Pope Leo is different. For example, he is the first Pope to wear an Apple Watch. So unsurprisingly, he thinks very carefully about technology. Earlier this week, the Pope released an encyclical letter addressing the societal implications of AI called Magnifica Humanitas. As Mia Sato of The Verge reports, the document notes some of the positive aspects of AI, but also warns about dehumanization. I’m increasingly using AI in my law practice because it allows me to create better documents when I work for my clients. But I agree that it needs to be used with caution. Not only do you need to watch out for hallucinations, but you need it to enhance your work product—not as a substitute for a lawyer’s careful analysis. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• With WWDC around the corner, many of us are thinking about our wishlist of announcements. Riley Hill of Slate Pad shares some interesting items from his iPad wishlist, including removing the app limit in Command-Tab on the iPad. Amen.
• Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that folks with an Arkansas driver’s license can now add their license to the Apple Wallet app.
• I love using Apple’s MagSafe Battery Pack, released in 2021, and it is a shame that Apple currently only sells a model for the iPhone Air. But third parties have worked to fill the void. Michael Burkhardt of 9to5Mac reviews the Belkin BoostCharge Slim, which looks to be a worthy competitor that adds one feature missing from Apple’s product: a kickstand.
• This past weekend, Apple filmed an MLS soccer game using only iPhones. As John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes, the quality was quite good. Impressive that the iPhone in your pocket is powerful enough to replace an expensive video camera.
• Ankur Thakur of iDownloadBlog shares 14 iPhone tips.
• Jason Cross of Macworld reports that Apple has increased the trade-in values for many devices, including iPhones, iPads, and Macs.
• Glenn Fleishman of Six Colors shares tips for typing emoji with your iPhone.
• As noted by Guille Lomener of the Spanish website AppleSefera, Apple redesigned its Passeig de Gràcia Apple Store in Barcelona, Spain. One feature of the renovated store is a dedicated area for picking up items ordered online. This makes a lot of sense. Whenever I go to my local Apple Store, I always see lots of people there to simply pick up items. And one of them is often me.
• Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, you can earn a special Apple Watch Activity Award if you run a 5K.
• Fans of the fantastic Apple TV show For All Mankind have a big weekend. First, Apple is releasing the season finale of Season 5. Second, the spin-off show Star City debuts today. Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac notes that the early buzz for the show is good, although it does appear to be a darker show—perhaps unsurprising for a show set in the Soviet Union around 50 years ago.
• Matt Grobar of Deadline reports that a new comedy series from Mike Judge is coming to Apple TV. It stars Ben Stiller and will be called Protective Custody.
• And finally, last week, I mentioned some of Apple’s new accessibility announcements. One of them was the availability of new versions of the Hikawa Grip & Stand for iPhone: a $55 device that makes it easier for many people to hold an iPhone. Apple released a short and interesting video to show how this product was designed:

Happy Memorial Day, for those of you in the United States enjoying a three-day weekend. The next big event in the Apple world is WWDC, which is right around the corner on June 8—a date guessed by many of us, but Apple made it official this week. I look forward to learning about all of the cool software that Apple has been working on in its labs. But the Apple announcements have already started: Apple made numerous accessibility announcements this past week, and we discuss them in this week’s episode of the In the News podcast. We also discuss a deluge of tips, whether there will ever be an Apple Watch store for watch faces, cryptography and password security, a web browser for your Apple Watch, immersive Fútbol, and more.

In our Where Y’at? segment, we discuss a woman in the UK whose life was saved by the iPhone’s crash detection feature.

In our In the Know segment, Brett shares an interesting tip for determining how your iPhone’s camera captures audio when you use the Zoom feature, and I discuss using AI software to interrogate documents.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice. You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

Apple is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and that number sounds about right to me. Five decades. But I was surprised to see that this week, Apple also celebrated a 25th anniversary. As Luke Dormehl of Cult of Mac reports, on May 19, 2001, the first Apple Store opened at Tysons Corner in Virginia. My brain still thinks of the Apple Stores as a somewhat new phenomenon. I still remember how pitiful it was shopping for Macs in stores that didn’t really care about Apple, like Best Buy and Sears. I love the new energy that Apple Stores brought to Apple. I just cannot believe that they have been around for half of Apple’s history. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• This time every year, Apple celebrates Global Accessibility Awareness Day by announcing new accessibility features that will be unveiled in the coming year. There are lots of interesting announcements this year. For example, if a video doesn’t already have subtitles, the iPhone will be able to generate and display them automatically. Wheelchair users will be able to use their eyes with a Vision Pro to drive around the wheelchair, something that will be useful for people with ALS. And larger text options are coming to tvOS.
• This time every year, Apple also announces the finalists for the Apple Design Award. As always, this year’s list contains a few apps I know about, and many, many more that are new to me.
• I’m really enjoying the David Pogue book Apple: The First 50 Years. Because that book focuses on Apple, it doesn’t address what Steve Jobs was doing after he was pushed out of Apple in the 1980s until he came back in the 1990s and saved the company. A new book by Geoffrey Cain tells that story: Steve Jobs In Exile: The Untold Story of NeXT and the Remaking of an American Visionary. Jason Snell of Six Colors reviews the book, and it sounds like an interesting read.
• Juli Clover of MacRumors shares 10 iPhone tips.
• That wasn’t enough? Tim Hardwick of MacRumors shares 15 Apple Watch tips.
• That wasn’t enough? Eric Griffith of PCMag shares 109 iPhone tips.
• David Sparks of MacSparky wishes that Apple would announce a watch face store for the Apple Watch—me too!—but acknowledges that at this point, it seems doubtful that Apple will ever do so.
• iPadOS 26 has been out for many months now, but I continue to be pleased with all the nice new features it includes. Andrew Orr of AppleInsider explains why iPadOS 26 lets the iPad get even closer to its full potential.
• I use 1Password as my password manager, and it stores my passwords in the cloud, so they are synced across my PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, etc. But that doesn’t mean 1Password has access to my passwords on their server, and this article from 1Password does a good job of explaining why, by design, the company is incapable of looking at my passwords, even if they wanted to.
• Speaking of passwords, J.D. Biersdorfer of the New York Times explains what passkeys are and why you should use them.
• It doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while, I need to access a website, and my Apple Watch is the only device I have handy. μBrowser (pronounced “Micro Browser”) is a web browser for the Apple Watch, and it works. D. Griffin Jones of Cult of Mac explains how to use μBrowser.
• The crash detection feature of an iPhone saved the life of a woman in the UK when her car slid 330 feet down a mountainside, as reported by Oliver Haslam of AppleInsider.
• There is a new immersive video from Apple for the Vision Pro available today: Real Madrid: The Weight of Greatness, as noted by Jason Snell of Six Colors. I just watched it, and even though I’m not a soccer fan, I thought it was fantastic. While the focus is on the players, it gave me a new understanding of the passion of the fans because I felt like I was right there among them. If you are a fan of soccer, you will really love this. By the way, this Apple immersive video brings the total up to 47, and I keep track of all of the immersive videos on this page.
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball explains why he likes the Apple Sports app, Apple’s free app that provides real-time sports scores and stats.
• Gruber also notes that tomorrow, May 23, Apple TV will air a Major League Soccer game in which every single camera used for the broadcast will be an iPhone 17 Pro. That’s quite a flex.
• The new show on Apple TV this week is Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed. It’s a dark comedy crime thriller, and as Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac notes, the initial reviews are quite positive.
• And finally, here is a wonderful video of Steve Jobs introducing the world to the very first Apple Store in 2001. I’ve seen this video before, but it was a great walk down memory lane to watch it again.

Time flies. Five years ago, a friend of mine from Ohio asked if I might be interested in recording a podcast. I figured it might be fun to try it out, and five years later, the In the News podcast is one of the highlights of my week. Not only do I love talking to Brett Burney every Friday, but the feedback that we get from folks who listen to the podcast has been phenomenal. I have loved the last five years, and I’m excited about the next five.

In this week’s episode, Brett and I begin by looking at the topics that we discussed in our very first episode back in 2021. Next, we discuss the big changes in iOS 26.5, including encrypted text message communications with our “green bubble” friends who use Android and changes to the Maps app. We also discuss multi-modal weather forecasts, the Steve Jobs coin, Ted Lasso comes to life, and more.

In our In the Know segment, Brett shares his scary real-life experience with the fall detection feature of the Apple Watch, and I extol the virtues of apps that produce podcast transcripts.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice. You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

The iPhone was updated to iOS 26.5 this week. As noted by Jason Snell of Six Colors, one change was to support end-to-end encryption RCS for phones and carriers that support it. This means that if you are communicating with a “green bubble” friend and everything is configured correctly, your messages are encrypted, just as they always are with your “blue bubble” iPhone friends. This is nice, but as Wesley Hilliard of AppleInsider notes, it can be confusing to figure out whether your green bubble communications are encrypted or not. I think there are also some kinks to work out. This week, I tried to type a message on my iPad to someone on Android. In the past, that has always worked fine—my iPad passes the message to my iPhone, which then sends it via SMS or RCS. But after I upgraded this week, I got an alert that my messages didn’t go through. (They did go through when I re-typed them on my iPhone.) Almost all of my text messages are sent to people who use an iPhone, but there are exceptions. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac notes that another change in iOS 26.5 is that when you use the Maps app and tap the search bar, you are shown two recommendations you might be interested in. At some point soon, the Maps app will start including ads, and perhaps they will go in the same section.
• Jason Snell of Six Colors reviews Indigo, a new app that works as a client for both Mastodon and Bluesky. You can have a single timeline for both services, and if something is posted on both, you see it only once (with an indication that it was cross-posted).
• David Sparks of MacSparky discusses the new CARROT Weather feature that provides multi-model forecasts so that you can see predictions from multiple weather models at once. I’ve used it a few times over the last few weeks, and it works well.
• New York attorney Niki Black recommends her top iPhone apps. The only one she recommends that I use is 1Password, but I use that one every day, throughout the day.
• If you had planned to purchase the new $1 coin from the U.S. Mint with a picture of Steve Jobs on it, it is too late. As noted by Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac, the coins sold out almost instantly.
• When I recently reviewed the Anker Prime Wireless Charging Station, I noted that it is excellent, and the only disadvantage compared to its competitors is the price. But right now, the device is selling for only $104.99 on Amazon, a big discount from the $149.99 MSRP. Highly recommended if you want an excellent 3-in-1 charger that is also portable.
• David Snow of Cult of Mac notes that Twelve South has made a new $29.99 device called PowerClip. It is a small battery (about the size of dental floss) that has built-in USB-C cords. You can clip it to something like a backpack, and you always have a 2,000mAh emergency power bank if you need it.
• A Wi-Fi router is typically something that you purchase once and then forget about for a long time. But Russia has not forgotten about them, and the FBI and NSA have announced that Russia has been hacking into TP-Link home and small-office routers since 2024. As Joe Supan of CNet reports, federal agencies recently obtained a court order allowing them to remotely reset thousands of routers without notifying owners, as a temporary fix. But these units remain vulnerable, so if you are still using one of the affected units, now is the time to unplug it and purchase a new one.
• Tim Hardwick of MacRumors reports that hackers have attacked Foxconn factories in the United States that produce products for Apple, and the ransomware group claims to have stolen confidential Apple project files. Yikes.
• Most of the chips that Apple uses in iPhones are produced by Foxconn in China. But Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac notes a new report that Apple is already starting to have some chips produced by Intel in the United States.
• If you have a newer iPhone and you need help in an area with no cell service, you can use satellite communications to text emergency services, request roadside assistance, message friends and family, and share your location. Oliver Haslam of AppleInsider reports that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have teamed up to allow you to do even more with satellites—but to be honest, the press release is pretty vague about what additional services will be available. Are they talking about voice calls? I guess we’ll see.
• David Snow of Cult of Mac reports that the Apple TV show The Studio is now the most-awarded new comedy in history.
• In today’s installment of life-imitates-art, the actor who plays soccer player Dani Rojas on Ted Lasso signed a contract to play professional soccer for the El Paso Locomotive FC, as reported by Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac.
• The new Apple TV show Margo’s Got Money Troubles is excellent. The season finale is next week, but Marcus Mendes of 9to5Mac reports that Apple has picked up the show for a second season.
• I don’t believe that this is a spoiler, but stop reading this bullet point now if you haven’t yet watched For All Mankind on Apple TV and you want to be extra cautious. In the alternative history depicted in this wonderful show, Apple developed the Newton, and it became a hit. Thus, in the current Season 5 (which takes place around 2012), the smartphones used by the characters are called Newtons, but they are similar to the iPhone, with features like swipe-to-unlock. Tom Pritchard of Tom’s Guide discusses the Newton models depicted in this show, noting: “For All Mankind’s Newton is eye-catching, and obviously an iPhone analogue to anyone who looks at it, but looking closer reveals a bunch of cool details that phone nerds like myself can appreciate.”
• And finally, here is a new video from Apple that shows college students using Macs to come up with great ideas. But even as someone whose college days are long past, the video speaks to me as well. Virtually every day, I find myself working through the best way to do something until I have that eureka moment when the path is clear. Perhaps the video will speak to you as well:

Apple released a new watch band this week—the 2026 version of the Pride watch band—so this was a good opportunity for Brett and me to have an extensive discussion of Apple Watch bands that Apple has released over the years, including the models that we recommend the most. Also, just before we started recording, Apple changed the way that educational discounts work, so we discussed that breaking news. We also discuss what people in Enterprise think about Apple products, different uses of the HomePod, iPhone theft, the Bloomberg article on casino-style apps, and much more.

In our In the Show segment, we discuss the shows that are coming to Apple TV this summer. There is a lot there!

In our In the Know segment, Brett discusses the Lego Game Boy, and I recommend the Bandbreite app (and website).

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