Benjamin Mayo

The iPhone home screen gets a brand new look with iOS 26, thanks to a visual overhaul featuring a brand new set of icons for all of Apple’s apps, as well as glass and reflection effects throughout.

There are also more ways than ever for you to customize your icons, with new tinting options and styles. Here’s everything new.

As part of visionOS 26, Apple is overhauling the Personas feature for Apple Vision Pro users. Personas are the 3D avatars the system uses during FaceTime calls when the user is wearing the headset.

When Vision Pro launched last year, Personas were widely criticized due to their uncanny valley appearance — and the whole feature was labelled as a ‘beta’ in the OS. Apple has been gradually improving the fidelity of the avatars with every release, and visionOS 26 takes the most dramatic step forward yet.

All of Apple’s operating systems got a major overhaul today, heralded by a new system theme featuring Liquid Glass elements. Apple also updated its naming scheme to a unified numbering system based on the calendar year, so rather than iOS 19, it’s now iOS 26. And macOS 26. And watchOS 26. And tvOS 26. And iPadOS 26. And visionOS 26.

If you aren’t developer, you’ll be able to try out all these new software updates for free by installing the public beta in July. The OS’s will be released for all users in the fall, probably in September.

Apple today announced a new version of the software that powers Apple TV, tvOS 26. The headline feature of the new update is an updated visual design. Apple calls this new design “Liquid Glass”.

In terms of new features, tvOS 26 includes updates to Apple Music Sing and enhancements to profile switching.

Apple today announced a new Apple Games app, a new destination for all the games on your iPhone and iPad.

Games incorporates games from the App Store, a dedicated section for Apple Arcade, and Game Center social features like leaderboards and challenges.

Apple today announced a new framework, called Foundation Models, that will allow developers to access the same models that power on-device Apple Intelligence. This will let third-party apps easily offer AI features.

Because these models run locally using the Apple Silicon chips on your iPhone or iPad, they can be made available wholly offline, and with no associated cloud API costs.

Apple today announced macOS Tahoe 26, featuring a redesigned UI, as well as a bevy of new features like an overhauled Spotlight search, new Phone app and Live Activities, and updates to Apple Intelligence.

The new visual design features Liquid Glass UI elements, updated app icons in the Dock, redesigned Control Center and more.

One of the new features expected for iOS 19 (which we expect now to be named iOS 26) is a new Apple Games app. The Games app will curate games from the App Store and Apple Arcade, as well as blend in some social features like achievements and friends leaderboards from Game Center.

Ahead of its official unveiling at WWDC, Apple is seemingly preparing the way. A new games.apple.com domain has just gone live … although right now it just resolves to a blank page.

Tomorrow, at 10 AM Pacific Time, Apple will unveil the next-generation versions of its operating systems, including iOS 19 (now expected to be named iOS 26) for iPhone. The flagship change for the new iPhone software will be a dramatic visual redesign, which the company will also roll out across all of its other operating systems for a consistent new look on every Apple device.

In the latest edition of Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter, he specifically references that Apple will show off new “Liquid Glass” UI elements. This means users can expect the OS to make ample use of translucent-glass like materials, and visual flair like specular highlights.

Apple TV+ offers exclusive Apple original TV shows and movies in 4K HDR quality. You can watch across all of your screens and pick up where you left off on any device. Apple TV+ costs $9.99 per month. Here’s every Apple original television show and movie available now on Apple TV+, as well as the latest trailers …

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Apple is said to be in talks with Major League Baseball to pick up streaming broadcast rights, especially focused on the Sunday Night Baseball games. The negotiations ensued after ESPN declined to renew its deal beyond the 2025 season.

The package of games that make up the former ESPN deal has drawn interest from Apple, NBC and others. It is likely the league will try to carve up the package into different buckets, to attract both a modern streaming audience and the eyeballs of traditional broadcast TV viewers.

While Apple regularly gets lambasted for lack of promotion for its streaming service, Apple TV+, the company seems to be trying harder in recent weeks. It just dropped a ‘New for June’ sizzle reel, hyping what users can expect to stream on the service this month.

The new premieres include comedy series Stick, movie Echo Valley, season two of The Buccaneers, and Taron Egerton drama Smoke. Here’s everything new on Apple TV+ in June …

Apple has appealed parts of the Digital Markets Act law citing user privacy concerns. Specifically, Apple is contesting the interoperability requirements that say data like notification content and WiFi networks should be made available to third-parties.

Apple says the DMA as written allows others to “access personal information that even Apple doesn’t see”. This is because features like notification rendering and WiFi network data are currently handled on-device and stored in an encrypted fashion, so Apple cannot see that stuff. However, the DMA does not necessarily require third-party agents who would be able to access this same data to commit to the same standards of privacy and security.

Apple is gearing up for a sweeping set announcements at WWDC, kicking off on June 9, as reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

We’ve been hearing about a significant redesign coming as part of iOS 19 for iPhone and iPad, as well as design updates for macOS 16 too. However, it turns out Apple’s ambitions are even greater. In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Gurman says that both watchOS and tvOS will also see significant redesigns, and visionOS will get some touch-ups as well.

President Trump has just blasted Apple in a post on his account on TruthSocial. The president said that he has “long ago informed” Apple CEO Tim Cook that iPhones sold in the United States should be manufactured and built in the United States, “not India, or anyplace else”.

He continues by threatening that if this does not happen, “a tariff of least 25% must be paid by Apple”. The details of the ‘tariff’ are unclear, but the outburst has nonetheless shook investors and Apple company stock has already dropped 3% in response to the announcement.

After my last WiFi-enabled smart scale broke and refused to connect to the Internet anymore, I sought something simpler and cheaper to replace it. The old scale had all sorts of fancy service integrations that I never used. I just wanted something that would track my weight and report the measurements to the Health app on my iPhone.

The Eufy C20 smart scale is what I landed on and I’m very happy with it — and it’s pretty cheap too. Here’s how it works …

Apple just announced the first new musical Peanuts special in more than three decades. The new instalment entitled ‘Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical’ will stream on Apple TV+ on July 18.

The special hails from Apple’s deal with WildBrain, where TV+ is the streaming home of all classic Peanuts specials as well as new originals. A feature-length animated Snoopy movie is also currently in development.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman continues his iOS 19 tidbits streak by revealing two upcoming new features in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, which was published today.

Gurman says that iOS 19 will include a major localization focus on supporting customers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and India. Specifically, that entails a new Arabic-English software keyboard for iPhone and a new calligraphy pen for Apple Pencil users.

OWC has just announced their new OWC Thunderbolt 5 Dock, adding up to 11 ports of I/O expansion for your M4 MacBook Pro with M4 Pro or M4 Max, which was the first Apple laptop to feature the latest generation of Thunderbolt port. It joins the likes of the Anker Prime Docking Station and the CalDigit E5 in the market. The OWC dock is set to start shipping in July.

Thunderbolt 5 enables higher bandwidth, which allows the OWC dock to sport three daisy-chained Thunderbolt 5 ports, as well as power things like 2.5Gb/s Ethernet, and feed multiple high-res external displays.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today tweeted that he does not forecast major updates to the AirPods lineup coming this year. Instead, he reiterates that new AirPods Pro with Infrared cameras are set to arrive in 2026.

This contradicts reporting from other publications that have suggested AirPods Pro 3 will launch in 2025, including new features such as improved active noise cancellation.