In addition to yesterday’s MacBook Air announcement, Apple dropped a two-fer: A new Mac Studio with an M4 Max and an unexpected M3 Ultra configuration.

First, the new chip. A new M3 variant is a surprise in itself; I assumed—as I think most people did—that any new chip configurations would be based on the M4. It appears, though, that there won’t be an “M4 Ultra”: Apple told Ars Technica “not every chip generation will get an ‘Ultra’ tier,” and French technology website Numerama (via Mac Rumors) was told “there are no UltraFusion connectors on the M4 Max chip” (Safari-translated from the original French), making an Ultra M4 physically impossible.

That’s a bummer (and makes me wonder about the future of an M4-based Mac Pro), but the M3 Ultra is a beast of a chip:

Apple today announced M3 Ultra, the highest-performing chip it has ever created, offering the most powerful CPU and GPU in a Mac, double the Neural Engine cores, and the most unified memory ever in a personal computer. M3 Ultra also features Thunderbolt 5 with more than 2x the bandwidth per port for faster connectivity and robust expansion. M3 Ultra is built using Apple's innovative UltraFusion packaging architecture, which links two M3 Max dies over 10,000 high-speed connections that offer low latency and high bandwidth. This allows the system to treat the combined dies as a single, unified chip for massive performance while maintaining Apple's industry-leading power efficiency. UltraFusion brings together a total of 184 billion transistors to take the industry-leading capabilities of the new Mac Studio to new heights.

And:

In fact, M3 Ultra is built for AI, including ML accelerators in the CPU, Apple’s most powerful GPU, the Neural Engine, and over 800GB/s of memory bandwidth. AI professionals can use Mac Studio with M3 Ultra to run large language models (LLMs) with over 600 billion parameters directly on device, making it the ultimate desktop for AI development.

The AI power in this chip makes me wonder if it (or something like it) powers the Private Cloud Compute servers scheduled to be built in Houston, TX.

On to the new Mac Studio itself:

Apple today announced the new Mac Studio, the most powerful Mac ever made, featuring M4 Max and the new M3 Ultra chip. The ultimate pro desktop delivers groundbreaking pro performance, extensive connectivity now with Thunderbolt 5, and new capabilities in its compact and quiet design that can live right on a desk. Mac Studio can tackle the most intense workloads with its powerful CPU, Apple’s advanced graphics architecture, higher unified memory capacity, ultrafast SSD storage, and a faster and more efficient Neural Engine.

The M4 Max Mac Studio is a significant upgrade and readily induces lust, but the M3 Ultra Mac Studio is just off the charts:

It delivers nearly 2x faster performance than M4 Max in workloads that take advantage of high CPU and GPU core counts, and massive amounts of unified memory.

That “massive amounts of unified memory”?

Mac Studio with M3 Ultra starts with 96GB of unified memory, which can be configured up to 512GB — the most unified memory ever in a personal computer — and up to 16TB of ultrafast SSD storage, so content and data can be kept locally.

I’ve been trying—and failing—to recall the last time Apple introduced a computer where the highest configuration was powered by a faster version of a previous-generation chip. It may well be unprecedented.

The M3 Ultra allows the Mac Studio to accomplish some mind-blowing feats, including driving up to eight Pro Display XDRs, and playing back up to 22 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video.

I would love to see that rig!

With great power comes great responsibility… for your credit card. The base M3 Ultra starts at $3,999 (compared to a paltry $1,999 for the M4 Max) and maxes out (ultras out?) at $14,099. Whew.

Pre-orders have already started, with availability beginning March 12.

Apple’s “Air” releases continued today, with the long anticipated M4 MacBook Air. The highlights:

• “The blazing-fast performance” of an M4 chip.
• New 12MP Center Stage camera.
• New sky blue finish, “a metallic light blue,” which, from website photos, just looks like silver to my eyes. I’m curious how it plays in person.
• Lower starting price of $999 ($899 for education).

A solid update (especially for anyone on an M1, or especially an Intel, MacBook), with a fantastic starting price. But, as with yesterday’s iPad no-modifier, very few people are walking out the door with a sub-$1000 M4 MacBook Air—the base storage is 256GB, which I consider miserly to the point of malice—even pre-ghost Ebenezer would wince. I usually recommend at least 512GB storage for most people—1TB would be better for future-proofing—but the cost of those upgrades is bananas: $200 and $400, respectively. For some, it may be better to pick up an external SSD or two (I have a bag full of them) and deal with that (minor) hassle.

I do legit love my refurbished, 13” 16GB/1TB M2 MacBook Air in midnight, though. I originally purchased it in mid-2023 as a “travel” laptop to reduce the weight in my backpack, but it’s become my most used computer. (I’m typing on it right now!)

(Yes, refurbished. These are some of Apple’s most screamingly good deals. For one thing, the memory and storage markups are significantly reduced, which is how I managed to pick up this 1TB MacBook Air for under $950.)

I put the M-series MacBook Air near the top of the list of best computers Apple has ever made. It’s thin, light, well-priced, and more powerful than it has any right to be. It’s my number one recommendation for almost anyone looking to buy a computer. Not laptop—computer.

My only disappointment: I really do wish Apple would finally add cellular. If they’d done so here, I would’ve bought this new one instantly (rather than trying to justify the purchase with a trade-in).

A couple of days ago, Tim Cook teased that “There’s something in the Air” on X/Twitter. More about that in a bit. Today, Apple released a new iPad Air, announced via press release:

Apple today introduced the faster, more powerful iPad Air with the M3 chip and built for Apple Intelligence. iPad Air with M3 brings Apple’s advanced graphics architecture to iPad Air for the first time — taking its incredible combination of power-efficient performance and portability to a new level.

It’s a very minor spec bump (to be generous). Other than the upgraded CPU (and a 0.01 lb./2g weight reduction) very little has changed from the previous M2 generation. Notably, Apple speed-compares it against the older M1-based iPad Air, not last-gen’s M2.

The M3 brings with it hardware-accelerated ray tracing (for that undoubtedly sizable segment of iPad gamers who’ve been missing it), plus 8K HEVC, 4K H.264, ProRes and other media processing muscle for those looking to record or edit their high-end video.

It’s a classic product speed bump, especially useful if you have a non M-series iPad.

Pre-orders start today, with availability starting Wednesday, March 12.

New Magic Keyboard

Along with the upgraded iPad Air, Apple announced a new Magic Keyboard “designed for iPad Air”, and at lower prices ($269 for the 11” model, $319 for the 13”). It gains a larger trackpad and a 14-key function row, as with the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro, but loses backlit keys and trackpad haptic feedback. The price drop had to come from somewhere, right?

The big shocker: An updated iPad (no modifier) that can’t support Apple Intelligence

An update to the iPad—that is, the entry level, $349, no modifier iPad “nothing”—was relegated to an “also” in the iPad Air release:

Apple today also updated iPad with double the starting storage and the A16 chip, bringing even more value to customers. The A16 chip provides a jump in performance for everyday tasks and experiences in iPadOS, while still providing all-day battery life. Compared to the previous generation, the updated iPad with A16 is nearly 30 percent faster.

It’s an odd announcement. Double the storage at the same $349 price and an A16 chip is nothing to sneeze at for an entry level product, except we’re living in an age of Apple Intelligence, and this update leaves the iPad no-modifier as the only iPad (indeed, the only iOS or macOS device) in Apple’s lineup incapable of supporting what Apple touts as a crucial part of their products.

When Apple released the iPad mini with an A17 Pro last October, I wrote:

It’s $349, and it’s likely Apple’s best selling iPad by far, but it can’t handle Apple Intelligence: Its A14 Bionic chip is a generation older than the one in the outgoing 6th generation iPad mini. I can’t imagine Apple would let its most popular iPad lag behind without support for Apple Intelligence, so why not update it now, in a joint press release with the iPad mini?

I was mostly pondering timing: would it come in a press release; in a (then-anticipated) October event; or perhaps a new iPad-with-no-modifiers wouldn’t be coming at all:

The final possibility is rather intriguing: What if there’s no update to the iPad-with-no-modifiers, because that iPad is going away? That leaves us with a classic Good/Better/Best scenario: iPad Mini (A17 Pro, Good), iPad Air (M2, Better), iPad Pro (M4, Best).

But would Apple drop its likely best-selling iPad to execute this strategy? I’m having a tough time believing that.

My guess: A significantly upgraded iPad is coming. M4-based is a strong possibility, but my money (today) is on an A18 or A18 Pro (likely), the same chips in the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro.

I would have been less surprised if Apple had discontinued the iPad-with-no-modifiers than I am by a non-Apple Intelligence-capable iPad.

I would have been surprised, but not shocked, by an A17 or an A17 Pro iPad no-modifier. As an entry level device, using a generation-old chip would be a clear cost-saving move. What do you expect for $349, right?

Nope. Apple couldn’t be bothered to meet even that bare minimum. Releasing a “new” iPad in 2025 that’s not Apple Intelligence-capable conveys a distinct disinterest from Apple in the iPad “nothing”. It signals an end-of-life product that’s being kept on life support for purely emotional (that is, “monetary”) reasons.

Apple is a master of market segmentation. No doubt this “update” is all about satisfying a specific segment of buyers—students and kids; kiosks and points of sale; bulk buyers, like airlines; anyone with a pre-A-series iPad who needs it for daily productivity or TV viewing. Maybe even first-time buyers upgrading from an Android device.

Let’s not ignore the all important “starting at” price anchoring. In addition to mastering market segmentation, Apple has also mastered the price ladder. The 11” is too small, you say? How about the 13”? And what’s this about Apple Intelligence?

If I were recommending a new iPad to someone today, I could not in good conscience suggest the iPad no-modifier, except in some very limited instances. My guess is unless a buyer is extremely price sensitive, they were never making out the door with a $349 iPad.

“There’s Something in the Air”

Back to the beginning. When Tim Cook teased this release with this tagline, he wrote “This week.” Not “Tuesday.” You can be certain there was no uncertainty surrounding the release of the iPad Air; that date was locked weeks ahead of the announcement.

So why “This week”? The obvious answer is another “Air” product is still to drop. There has long been speculation about an M4 MacBook Air or (much less likely) a thin new iPhone—I think more people expected a new MacBook Air than a new iPad Air today—so it’s safe to assume Wednesday will see another press release (perhaps this time with a video?).

My one hope: that the M4 MacBook Air includes Apple’s new C1 cellular chip. If that happens, I’ll immediately be in the market to replace my perfectly fine, two-year-old M2 MacBook Air. A cellular Mac would be too compelling for me to pass up.

C’mon Apple, take my money!

The trailer for this new documentary film from Apple TV+ just dropped, and looks to be an inspirational journey:

With unprecedented access and candid interviews, “Number One on the Call Sheet” takes us on an intimate journey with some of Hollywood’s most extraordinary leading Black men and women as they shine a light on the joys and challenges of being a Black actor, share breakthrough moments, discuss blueprints for success and honor legends, while recognizing the next generation’s enormous potential.

It’s a two-parter, one focusing on “Black Leading Women in Hollywood” (directed by Shola Lynch), the other on “Black Leading Men in Hollywood” (directed by Reginald Hudlin) who are, in fact, number one on the call sheet—

A Hollywood term for the lead actor or actress of a film listed first on the daily schedule.

Also, a term of status.

I had no idea status was attached to the top slot of a call sheet, though I understand how rare it is for that slot—usually the lead of the movie—to be held by a Black performer.

It’s a prodigious assembly of extraordinary artists, and the trailer tells me the stories will be funny, inspiring, and unforgettable.

Number One on the Call Sheet is the culmination of four years of work and streams on March 28 on Apple TV+.

Apple Newsroom:

Apple will spend more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years

Apple today announced its largest-ever spend commitment, with plans to spend and invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. This new pledge builds on Apple’s long history of investing in American innovation and advanced high-skilled manufacturing, and will support a wide range of initiatives that focus on artificial intelligence, silicon engineering, and skills development for students and workers across the country.

My immediate thought upon seeing Apple’s headline: How much of this is actually new, rather than a repackaging of existing plans? 

Dan Gallagher for The Wall Street Journal (News+):

Apple’s $500 Billion U.S. Investment Is Mostly Already in the Books

Unclear, though, is how much of the planned spending is actually new. Apple has spent about $1.1 trillion over the past four fiscal years on total operating expenses and capital expenditures—and Wall Street expects nearly $1.3 trillion in total spending over the next four years, according to consensus estimates by Visible Alpha. While Apple doesn’t break out its expenses per geography, about 43% of its revenue comes from the Americas region, which it defines as North and South America. Assuming the U.S. constitutes the large bulk of that number, and if spending is about in line with revenue, then a rough figure of 40% of projected global spending through the 2028 fiscal year equates to about $505 billion.

In short, Apple’s announced figure is in line with what one might expect the company to be spending anyway, given its financials. 

I don’t know that Apple announced this only for the benefit of Trump, but Trump, of course, claimed credit:

There is also domestic politics to consider—no small matter for a U.S. consumer-electronics company that still builds the bulk of its products overseas. Indeed the announcement seems to have already paid off: “Thank you Tim Cook and Apple!!!” President Trump exclaimed on his Truth Social platform Monday morning. 

The full post reads (in all caps, naturally, complete with a typo and three exclamation marks):

APPLE HAS JUST ANNOUNCED A RECORD 500 BILLION DOLLAR INVESTMENT IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THE REASON, FAITH IN WHAT WE ARE DOING, WITHOUT WHICH, THEY WOULD’NT BE INVESTING TEN CENTS. THANK YOU TIM COOK AND APPLE!!!

Also on Truth Social, Trump released a graphic touting Apple’s $500 Billion commitment as part of “Investments in the U.S. Under President Trump”.

To quote myself on Mastodon in early February: 

Everyone: We’re Doing The Thing.

Trump: I will SEEK VENGENCE upon anyone not Doing The Thing!

Everyone: After speaking with Trump, we’ve agreed to Do The Thing.

Trump: Thanks to me and me alone, everyone is now Doing The Thing. You’re welcome.

Everyone: 😶

There’s no reason to believe Apple’s announcement today had anything to do with Trump or that it would have been any different under another administration—except that this administration is deeply, corruptly transactional and rewards behavior that demonstrates fealty.

Back to Apple’s announcement:

As part of its new U.S. investments, Apple will work with manufacturing partners to begin production of servers in Houston later this year. A 250,000-square-foot server manufacturing facility, slated to open in 2026, will create thousands of jobs.

Previously manufactured outside the U.S., the servers that will soon be assembled in Houston play a key role in powering Apple Intelligence, and are the foundation of Private Cloud Compute, which combines powerful AI processing with the most advanced security architecture ever deployed at scale for AI cloud computing. The servers bring together years of R&D by Apple engineers, and deliver the industry-leading security and performance of Apple silicon to the data center.

It’s a tantalizing tidbit that the servers being built in this new facility are for Private Cloud Compute, hardware Apple doesn’t even sell. Obviously very important to Apple’s AI plans, but I’m surprised they’re important (unique?) enough to require a dedicated facility. I’m very curious to see what these servers might look like. (Honestly, a rack-mountable M4 Max relaunch of the Xserve—Apple Server?—would be dope.)

One final thought, on Apple’s hiring plans:

In the next four years, Apple plans to hire around 20,000 people, of which the vast majority will be focused on R&D, silicon engineering, software development, and AI and machine learning. The expanded commitment includes significant investment in Apple’s R&D hubs across the country. This includes growing teams across the U.S. focused on areas including custom silicon, hardware engineering, software development, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

This is deftly worded. It specifies how many people it plans to hire, but doesn’t state if it’s additional or replacement headcount. If 20,000 people leave, and 20,000 people are hired to replace them, will Apple claim success on its hiring plan? It does meet the letter, if not the spirit, of the statement. Likewise, it plans on “growing” specific teams, but says nothing about “shrinking” others to balance things out.

Quite the facility with language, Apple has.

Yours truly, with some context-free snarking on Mastodon three weeks ago:

“The following app has been approved for distribution.”

changing to

“The following app has completed Notarization.”

in 3… 2…

The language was indeed changed, per Riley Testut, who sparked the controversy in the first place:

The following app is ready for distribution.

From “has been approved” to “is ready.” Damn, I should have thought of that one—Apple doesn’t waste words.

(For context, as I neglected to link to it here at the time, see TechCrunch’s story about the (EU-only) release of the first native iOS porn app, Hot Tub. The short-short version: Apple was not happy with the app being marketed as “The First Apple-Approved Porn App” because, in their mind, they had merely “approved” it in the this-has-passed-our-minimal-review-process sense, not in the we-think-this-is-acceptable sense.)

I’m sure Phil sleeps better now.

Xcode 16.2 Release Notes:

Starting with Xcode 16.2, Xcode can add support for new hardware without needing to update the entire Xcode app. Xcode will check when launching the app if a hardware support update is available and will install it. For the equivalent from the command-line, run xcodebuild -runFirstLaunch -checkForNewerComponents.

When there is hardware support available, the installer package will be stored in ~/Library/Developer/Packages, and can be copied for installation and setup purposes for other machines. (138789379)

I vaguely recall seeing mention of this somewhere, but I wasn’t sure it was new, or something I missed from the iPad mini introduction (or earlier). A little birdie tells me it was quietly snuck into Xcode 16.2 in anticipation of the iPhone 16e release.

This will be a massive saving of bandwidth, time, and money. Prior to this feature, every new device Apple released (three to five release cycles a year) required a full Xcode download to support it—a weighty proposition.

Like many of us, as Xcode matured it gained a bit of extra weight each year. An extra SDK or two here, a large serving of simulators there, and before you know it, you’re the heaviest you’ve ever been—10.98GB in Xcode 12.5.1! What happened to the svelte 915MB Xcode 2.3?

In recent years, that initial download was often well over 7GB, even though the actual differences between versions was relatively tiny. It was a real impediment for developers.

Fortunately the Xcode team recognized this and put Xcode on a restrictive diet. They pruned the default install of SDKs and simulators, moving them into optional downloads. That shrank Xcode’s initial install down to a robust-but-healthy 3.01GB today.

This alone is a fantastic improvement worthy of praise, but it still meant downloading 3+GB every time Apple released a new iPhone or iPad or Mac.

This new feature reduces that download to 46.8MB.

Astounding.

I have several friends who work (or worked) on Xcode and related tools, and I’m very proud of them for shrinking it back down to a manageable size over the last few years.

I’m especially in awe of what was surely an extensive cross-functional effort that went into building, testing, and quietly releasing this new feature in a public release of Xcode (all the while crossing their fingers that folks like Steve Troughton-Smith didn’t notice it ahead of time, I presume!).

My heartfelt congrats to the teams!

Allow me to claim a tiny sliver of credit here. In 2020, Xcode 12 weighed in between 9GB and 11GB. It was the height of the pandemic—and also in the midst of worldwide protests over the murder of George Floyd . I was talking with a lot of developers who suddenly found themselves working from home on slow, bandwidth-constrained connections, often with overage charges—assuming they even had home internet. It was in that environment that I wrote a bug entitled “Xcode and OS downloads are extraordinarily large, impacting less privileged developers.”

I don’t recall exactly what I wrote. I was probably quite overwrought. I may have suggested alternative distribution methods (like Apple Stores). My bug (rdar://66608319 for those still on the inside!) wasn’t the only—or even the first—bug to raise the issue, but it resonated with a few well-placed folks, acting as a small extra bit of motivation over the years for some of the people focused on making Xcode installs smaller. I’m gratified that it was part of a larger push to eliminate barriers to developing on Apple platforms. Small acts can have big impacts.

Apple Newsroom (release video):

Apple today announced iPhone 16e, a new addition to the iPhone 16 lineup that offers powerful capabilities at a more affordable price.

“More affordable” compared to the existing iPhone 16 lineup, but more expensive than the iPhone SE it replaces.

$599 (128 GB) starting price. Pre-orders start Friday, February 21; available in stores Friday, February 28.

I’m an iPhone Pro guy—mainly for the cameras—so this isn’t for me. But if you need a new phone (say, for Apple Intelligence), this is the least expensive option.

iPhone 16e delivers fast, smooth performance and breakthrough battery life, thanks to the industry-leading efficiency of the A18 chip and the new Apple C1, the first cellular modem designed by Apple. iPhone 16e is also built for Apple Intelligence, the intuitive personal intelligence system that delivers helpful and relevant intelligence while taking an extraordinary step forward for privacy in AI.

A few observations:

• The “iPhone SE” brand is dead (although the conceit remains: an older case design with updated innards). The “SE” name always seemed problematic: Where did it sit in the progression of iPhone numbering? Apple now effectively has one iPhone brand—iPhone 16—with different sizes, features, and price points: iPhone 16e, iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max. This no doubt makes things easier from a marketing perspective. I am curious though: When the presumptive “iPhone 17” comes out this fall, will there be an “iPhone 17e” next year? (My guess: yes, in an attempt to push yet more people into an annual upgrade cycle.)

• The iPhone SE (3rd generation) was the smallest available iPhone, at 4.7”. iPhone 16e is 6.1”. I predict much wailing over the loss of a more compact phone option.

• Speaking of loss, for the first time since its introduction, no current iPhone has a Home button. The iPhone SE (3rd generation) was the final one to sport the iconic circle. It defined a generation. Pour one out.

• The Lightning port has also been ditched from all iPhones. It’s been a good run. (But, what the hell, Apple?).

• Using the A18 leaves just the 10th generation, no-modifiers iPad as the only device not capable of Apple Intelligence. I expect we’ll see an 11th gen iPad with an A18 soon enough—though I’ve already guessed wrong on the timing once. (Curiously, the A18 chip in the iPhone 16e is a 4-core GPU; the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus have a 5-core GPU; the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max have a 6-core GPU. Which would they use for an 11th gen iPad? Also, I wonder—are the missing cores disabled or binned?)

• It makes sense to roll out the Apple C1 cellular modem in a low-volume, mid-cycle refresh. It may also show up in that just-mentioned iPad update later this year, and then perhaps in this Fall’s iPhones (but production volume could make that a 2026 thing).

MacRumors:

Apple this month started advertising on X for the first time in more than a year. The company had stopped advertising on the social media platform in November 2023 following controversial remarks made by its owner Elon Musk.

Tim Cook “personally” donated $1,000,000 to, and attended, Donald Trump’s inauguration. Then Apple complied with the Gulf of Mexico name-change nonsense, despite no legal requirement to do so. Now, they’ve restarted advertising on Elon Musk’s toxic social media service, just weeks after Musk gave a Nazi salute.

My only conclusion is that Tim Cook and Apple support this autocratic regime and its brazen, systematic destruction of American democracy.

This latest act of acquiescence is clearly meant to curry favor with Trump and co-President Musk^[1] out of fear of retaliation—especially from Musk, who’s actively suing companies who stopped advertising on X/Twitter^[2]. No doubt Cook and Co. are hoping to avoid that, making the resumption of ads a bribe to Musk—or, if you’d like to be more generous to Apple, a payoff coerced through blackmail and extortion.

At this point, if Trump demanded that Apple create a backdoor allowing access to every customer’s device, I have very little reason to believe they’ll refuse the request.

I’ve been following Apple for over four decades, first as a customer, then as an employee for twenty-two years. While I won’t claim any unique insight from this tenure, it forged in me a belief that Apple always tries to do the right thing, even when it doesn’t appear that way from the outside. Or, in human terms, their heart was always in the right place.

I can no longer confidently say I believe that.

Joseph Menn, writing at The Washington Post:

Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

The British government’s undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies. Its application would mark a significant defeat for tech companies in their decades-long battle to avoid being wielded as government tools against their users, the people said, speaking under the condition of anonymity to discuss legally and politically sensitive issues.

It’s extraordinary for the U.K. to demand this disastrous, privacy-wrecking access for its own citizens. It’s beyond audacious to do so for the 2.35 billion Apple devices in use in the world.

At issue is Apple’s Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, which, per Apple’s support document:

is an optional setting that offers Apple’s highest level of cloud data security. If you choose to enable Advanced Data Protection, the majority of your iCloud data — including iCloud Backup, Photos, Notes, and more — is protected using end-to-end encryption. No one else can access your end-to-end encrypted data, not even Apple, and this data remains secure even in the case of a data breach in the cloud.

To simplify greatly, without Advanced Data Protection, your data is stored in an impenetrable safe with a ridiculously strong lock, and you and Apple each hold a key. If the government wants access, they approach Apple and ask them to unlock the safe with their key.

After enabling Advanced Data Protection, you are the only one who has a key. If you lose the key, you lose your data, but! no one else—Apple, governments, jilted exes—can get to your data either, even if they abscond with the safe itself.

What the U.K. is proposing is adding a tiny pinhole to every single safe, into which they can stick a paperclip and pop them open, anytime they want—no requests, no approvals, no notifications.

And Apple would be prevented from telling anyone that they’ve added the pinhole.

I would think every government official in every country in the world would raise hell over this: why would you subject your subjects to possible surveillance from a foreign power?

From The Verge’s story:

If Apple grants the UK government access to encrypted data, it’s likely that other countries, including the US and China, will see the opportunity to demand the same right. Apple will have to decide whether to comply, or remove its encryption service entirely. Other tech companies would almost certainly face similar requests next.

Indeed they would, and it’s possible—dare I suggest likely?—this is part of a coordinated effort by members of the Five Eyes to gain access to our devices.

In the past, I would have strenuously argued that Apple would defend our right to privacy. Privacy. That’s Apple.

Today, I’m less confident. Not because I believe Apple’s commitment to privacy has waned. On the contrary, I think it’s as strong as ever. Rather, it’s because governments are recognizing they can coerce Apple via threats of sales bans, catastrophic fines, or tariffs.

Apple is much more likely to comply when their bottom line is at stake.

I love the expressiveness of the lamp in the video accompanying this research paper from the Apple Machine Learning Research team. It will seem immediately familiar to anyone who’s watched a Pixar movie.

The paper explores the benefits of expressive and human-relatable movement in non-anthropomorphic robots:

Nonverbal behaviors such as posture, gestures, and gaze are essential for conveying internal states, both consciously and unconsciously, in human interaction. For robots to interact more naturally with humans, robot movement design should likewise integrate expressive qualities—such as intention, attention, and emotions—alongside traditional functional considerations like task fulfillment, spatial constraints, and time efficiency. In this paper, we present the design and prototyping of a lamp-like robot that explores the interplay between functional and expressive objectives in movement design.

The robot lamp—I’m going to name it Elle, after its project name, ELEGNT—Elle reacts to the researcher’s voice and hand gestures, and responds with movement, sound, video, and voice. When the researcher asks Elle about the weather, Elle gazes out the window, then turns back and answers. After the researcher suggests it’s a nice day for a walk, Elle asks if it can go too, and hangs its lamp-head dejectedly when told no.

(I actually went awww!)

One of the (many) things that makes robotic characters like R2D2, Wall•E, or C1-10P so endearing is their obvious personality. They couldn’t speak words, yet we understood them, as we do Elle. (I’m hoping the name sticks!)

In the video, Elle has a less expressive, more functional counterpart—I’ll just call it Al—which performs the same tasks, but without the playfulness. Al got the job done, but was more direct and, well, robotic. The video shows them in split-screen, and I found Elle to be infinitely more delightful.

(The research suggests appreciation for the playful Elle drops with age. I may be an outlier here, though I could see myself getting frustrated if I continuously have to wait for answers while it emotes.)

One of Apple’s best designs (and one of my favorites) was the iMac G4—an all-in-one with an LCD screen atop an articulating arm that’s attached to a snow cone white dome. The ad for that iMac shows it mimicking—some might say mocking—a man on the street with very expressive movements, even sticking out its “tongue” in the form of an ejectable CD holder.

There’s been a long-standing rumor that Apple is working on robots for the home. When I saw the research video, I immediately hoped Apple would revive that iMac G4 design for Elle—I would buy one in a heartbeat.

The research highlights one of Apple’s best traits: a desire to go beyond the mere functional, and to imbue objects with personality. Whether it’s the original Macintosh (“It sure is nice to get out of that bag!”), the sad low-battery tones of AirPods, or the kinetic bounciness of the iPhone Dynamic Island, Apple’s magic is in building expressive, not just functional, products.

As my friend @Denisvengeance@sfba.social astutely noted, “this is what makes Apple Apple.”

Apple Newsroom:

Apple today introduced Apple Invites, a new app for iPhone that helps users create custom invitations to gather friends and family for any occasion. With Apple Invites, users can create and easily share invitations, RSVP, contribute to Shared Albums, and engage with Apple Music playlists.

An app to manage invitations was not on my 2025 Apple bingo card. My only question is which Apple executive did Evite piss off to get themselves Sherlocked?

Surprisingly (or not), it requires an iCloud+ subscription to create invitations.

This feature is cool:

Additionally, participants can easily contribute photos and videos to a dedicated Shared Album within each invite to help preserve memories and relive the event.

It looks like an extension of Apple’s current Sharing Suggestions, plus uploading from the web for non-iPhone users.

And of course, it comes with the inescapable and obligatory Apple Intelligence features, including Image Playground and Writing Tools.

I’m looking forward to playing with this.

Paul Kafasis engages in some excellent, self-inflicted nerd-snipping on One Foot Tsunami:

I asked my iPhone who won Super Bowls 1 through 60 (that’s “I” through “LX” in Super Bowl styling) and captured a screenshot of each result.

The results are utterly appalling:

So, how did Siri do? With the absolute most charitable interpretation, Siri correctly provided the winner of just 20 of the 58 Super Bowls that have been played. That’s an absolutely abysmal 34% completion percentage. If Siri were a quarterback, it would be drummed out of the NFL.

Some of the results are especially awful. For example, to the question “Who won Super Bowl XXIII?”, Siri responds with the number of times Bill Belichick has won or appeared in the Super Bowl—completely irrelevant.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball wrote a brutally (but fairly) titled follow-up, Siri Is Super Dumb and Getting Dumber, sharing the appalling results to his own query, “Who won the 2004 North Dakota high school boys’ state basketball championship?”

New Siri — powered by Apple Intelligence™ with ChatGPT integration enabled — gets the answer completely but plausibly wrong, which is the worst way to get it wrong. It’s also inconsistently wrong — I tried the same question four times, and got a different answer, all of them wrong, each time. It’s a complete failure.

We’ve all had the Siri experience of getting a clearly wrong or patently useless answer to our query. It’s gotten to the point where I merely roll my eyes and move on—I rarely even screenshot mistakes anymore.

But I do feel sorry for the Siri team. I have some good friends who work there, and I had occasion to work with the team on Siri responses a few years back. I know they cringe every time these failures hit the blogs. They know more than anyone just how much Siri needs to improve.

The latest scuttlebutt (from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg) is that longtime Apple exec Kim Vorrath is moving to Apple Intelligence in an effort to whip it into shape. I’ve watched Vorrath and her Program Office teams operate from the inside for many years. The biggest impact she and her team had across engineering was instilling discipline: every feature or bug fix had to be approved; tied to a specific release; and built, tested, and submitted on time. It was (is!) a time-intensive process—and engineering often complained about it, sometimes vocally—but the end result was a more defined, less kitchen-sink release each year. To a significant extent, her team is the reason why a feature may get announced at WWDC but not get released until the following spring. She provided engineering risk management.

I hope the Vorrath and the Siri team can make this work. I need them to make this work. The future promised by Apple Intelligence is too compelling for it to fail.

MacRumors:

Directed by Ridley Scott, the advertisement was designed to highlight the Macintosh as a groundbreaking computer that offers freedom and individuality in a market dominated by corporate conformity. It drew inspiration from George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, with Apple positioning itself as a liberator from the homogenized control represented by the fictional “Big Brother,” a veiled allegory for IBM.

A lot has changed since this ad first aired. Foremost is that IBM is no longer the tech behemoth to be feared; Apple has indisputable taken on that role, and is now seen by many as the company we need to be “liberated from.” Meanwhile, in the politics sphere, every day feels more and more like Nineteen Eighty-Four.

And of course, the Super Bowl, which used to air in mid-to-late January, has crept later and later, with this year’s game being held on February 9.

George Orwell would be dismayed.

Apple dedicates its homepage to Dr. King—as is their tradition on this day—with a selection of his quotes (video for posterity):

• “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.”
• “You must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you.”
• “We cannot preserve self without being concerned about preserving other selves.”

It’s worth understanding the quotes in context.

The education quote comes from an article in the Morehouse campus newspaper:

Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one’s self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.

Preserving other selves is from Where Do We Go From Here Chaos or Community? (Archive.org):

From time immemorial men have lived by the principle that “self-preservation is the first law of life.” But this is a false assumption. I would say that other-preservation is the first law of life. It is the first law of life precisely because we cannot preserve self without being concerned about preserving other selves. The universe is so structured that things go awry if men are not diligent in their cultivation of the other-regarding dimension. “I” cannot reach fulfillment without “thou.” The self cannot be self without other selves. Self-concern without other-concern is like a tributary that has no outward flow to the ocean. Stagnant, still and stale, it lacks both life and freshness. Nothing would be more disastrous and out of harmony with our self-interest than for the developed nations to travel a dead-end road of inordinate selfishness. We are in the fortunate position of having our deepest sense of morality coalesce with our self-interest.

The speak for yourself quote is from The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., but I’m unable to find the full context online. The relevant sentence reads:

I came to the conclusion that there is an existential moment in your life when you must decide to speak for yourself; nobody else can speak for you.

Education against propaganda, the importance of thinking critically, concern for others, the dangers of selfishness, and using your voice… I can’t definitively say Apple intended these quotes to speak to the challenges this country faces at this moment, but I’m confident they were chosen deliberately.

Fun promotion for Severance season 2, which debuted yesterday.

(Warning! The theme music is an insidious earworm. I had it running for ten minutes and when I stopped it I felt like a bit of my soul went away too.)

Apple’s home page is swarming with balloons too.

As part of the promotion, on Wednesday, Grand Central Terminal was transformed into the Lumon Industries office, with the main cast (in character) and director/producer Ben Stiller on hand.

Graham Fraser, writing about the BBC, on BBC:

The BBC has complained to Apple after the tech giant's new iPhone feature generated a false headline about a high-profile murder in the United States.

Apple Intelligence, launched in the UK earlier this week, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to summarize and group together notifications.

Apple Intelligence is new to the U.K, but those of us in the U.S. have been ridiculing it for a month now. As John McClane said, “Welcome to the party, pal!”

This week, the AI-powered summary falsely made it appear BBC News had published an article claiming Luigi Mangione, the man arrested following the murder of healthcare insurance CEO Brian Thompson in New York, had shot himself. He has not.

Headlines are an editorial decision, and represent the voice of the publication. A poor summary can be embarrassing. A misleading one—as this was—can sully the publication.

"BBC News is the most trusted news media in the world," the BBC spokesperson added.

"It is essential to us that our audiences can trust any information or journalism published in our name and that includes notifications."

Apple can’t afford this bad press if Apple Intelligence is going to be taken seriously and drive hardware sales.

If Apple can’t address this quickly, they may have another egg freckles situation on their hands.^[1]

Clever, unexpected, and immediately understandable: The M4 is powerful enough to make seemingly impossible tasks easy, even elegant.

Simply perfect.

Apple, via Newsroom:

Apple today introduced the new iPad mini, supercharged by the A17 Pro chip and Apple Intelligence, the easy-to-use personal intelligence system that understands personal context to deliver intelligence that is helpful and relevant while protecting user privacy. With a beloved ultraportable design, the new iPad mini is available in four gorgeous finishes, including a new blue and purple, and features the brilliant 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display. A17 Pro delivers a huge performance boost for even the most demanding tasks, with a faster CPU and GPU, a 2x faster Neural Engine than the previous-generation iPad mini, and support for Apple Intelligence.

The new iPad mini features all-day battery life and brand-new experiences with iPadOS 18. Starting at just $499 with 128GB — double the storage of the previous generation — the new iPad mini delivers incredible value and the full iPad experience in an ultraportable design. Customers can pre-order the new iPad mini today, with availability beginning Wednesday, October 23.

From the iPad mini comparison chart, the two significant upgrades are the A17 Pro (vs. an A15 Bionic) and 128GB storage minimum. The A17 Pro is the same chip used in last year’s iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max; technically a generation old, but enough for Apple Intelligence.

(I can’t help but wonder whether the storage bump will increase useable space, or if the OS and Apple Intelligence will take up most of it.)

There’s also improved WiFi (6E vs. 6, though I’m unclear of the real world difference in WiFi speeds), and new colors: blue (replacing pink) and a different (seemingly lighter) shade of purple.

It also adds support for Apple Pencil Pro. If you aren’t aware of the differences between this, the Apple Pencil (2nd generation), and the Apple Pencil (USB‑C), don’t worry, you’re not alone. In brief, Pencil Pro adds barrel roll, haptic feedback, Find My support, and hover.

This otherwise minor (but absolutely necessary) speed bump may explain why it garnered nothing more than a press release.

What strikes me as odd is that it was announced ahead of an expected end-of-October Apple event, and without a corresponding iPad-no-modifiers.

The obvious reason is that Apple wants to focus on new Mac hardware and not confuse things by having iPads thrown into the mix.

But does this then suggest there might not be any iPad announcements in that event? Or, as some are theorizing, no event at all? Both would surprise me.

The iPad Air (11” and 13”) sports an M2, making it Apple Intelligence-ready while positioning it below the M4 iPad Pro. Plus the Air was just updated in May of this year; no reason to update it again so soon.

That’s not true of the current (10th-generation) no-modifiers-iPad. It’s $349, and it’s likely Apple’s best selling iPad by far, but it can’t handle Apple Intelligence: Its A14 Bionic chip is a generation older than the one in the outgoing 6th generation iPad mini. I can’t imagine Apple would let its most popular iPad lag behind without support for Apple Intelligence, so why not update it now, in a joint press release with the iPad mini?

Three possibilities:

1. It’s coming in a separate press release after all.
2. It’s coming in an October event after all.
3. It’s not coming at all.

A second press release a day or a week later for the same product line seems odd, and perhaps without precedent. Announcing both iPad and iPad mini together would make sense: they don’t really cannibalize each other, and can be messaged as “Our New iPad Lineup Is Ready for Apple Intelligence,” a statement that is glaringly untrue today.

Would Apple announce an 11th generation iPad-with-no-modifiers at an otherwise-Mac-focused event? Sure, as the appetizer to the main course, but then, why not include the iPad mini?

The final possibility is rather intriguing: What if there’s no update to the iPad-with-no-modifiers, because that iPad is going away? That leaves us with a classic Good/Better/Best scenario: iPad Mini (A17 Pro, Good), iPad Air (M2, Better), iPad Pro (M4, Best).

But would Apple drop its likely best-selling iPad to execute this strategy? I’m having a tough time believing that.

My guess: A significantly upgraded iPad is coming. M4-based is a strong possibility, but my money (today) is on an A18 or A18 Pro (likely)^[1], the same chips in the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro. The performance delta between it and the iPad mini would explain the latter’s press release treatment: No need call attention to the new iPad mini using last year’s chip.

I’ll also guess it kicks off a late-October event, before Tim and team focus on M4 Macs.

Apple PR:

Today, Apple introduced HomePod mini in midnight….

Why, though?

The best explanation I've heard so far is from the fellas over at ATP: Color matching. The old ‘space gray’ and the new ‘midnight’ may be superficially similar, but they're not the same. If you buy a second one to form a stereo pair, the old and the new won't match.

That would be a very Apple-y thing to consider, of course, but I wonder if it’s also Apple’s way of saying “no new HomePod minis on the horizon,” which is a bummer for those of us with a HomePod (or mini) in literally every room of our home, and who were hoping for new hardware that supports Apple Intelligence.