Benjamin Mayo

This morning, Apple announced that Tap to Pay on iPhone is rolling out to more markets, with five new countries across Europe.

Tap to Pay on the iPhone is the feature where businesses can use an iPhone as a contactless terminal to accept payments. The customer simply holds their contactless card, or iPhone or Watch, near the merchant’s iPhone to complete the payment using NFC chip inside the iPhone.

Apple today launched the new M4 iMac in a press release, while simultaneously posting an announcement video to YouTube that looks like it could have been cut straight out of a streamed event video.

John Ternus introduces the new iMac as the first of “three exciting new product announcements” coming this week, all but confirming the imminent unveiling of the new Mac mini and MacBook Pro with M4 lineup coming Tuesday and Wednesday. Watch the video after the break …

After a lot of marketing hype and developer testing, Apple Intelligence is finally here, with the public release of iOS 18.1 rolling out now. Apple Intelligence is available on all iPhone 16 models and iPhone 15 Pro, the new iPad mini, or older Macs and iPads powered by the M1 chip or newer.

iOS 18.1 includes the first wave of Apple Intelligence functionality. More features are coming in iOS 18.2, and later in 2025. The headline features available now include Writing Tools, notification summaries, a new visual update for Siri, Photos enhancements, and more. Here’s everything new …

The first developer beta of iOS 18.2 has been released today, including a bevy of new Apple Intelligence features, like image generation with Genmoji and Image Playground.

But most interestingly for users outside of the United States, iOS 18.2 also officially expands Apple Intelligence support the United States for the first time.

The first developer beta of iOS 18.2 is out now. The update brings the second wave of Apple Intelligence features for developers to try.

iOS 18.2 includes Apple’s image generation features like Genmoji and Image Playground, ChatGPT integration in Siri and Writing Tools, and more powerful Writing Tools with the addition of the ‘Describe your change’ text field. iPhone 16 owners can access Visual Intelligence via the Camera Control. The update also expands Apple Intelligence availability to more English-speaking locales, beyond just US English …

Apple today announced an extension of the Apple Business Connect program, which allows companies to submit information about their businesses to Apple to be surfaced in Apple Maps, Siri and increasingly more places across the operating system.

In iOS 18.2, the Mail app will be able to show brand logos next to emails from participating businesses. Next year, the Phone app will be able to identify the incoming call from a business with a logo badge and descriptive name. The enhanced caller ID and branding will help users distinguish legitimate communications from spam and phishing attempts.

Apple today unveiled a new generation of iPad mini, upgraded to be powered by the A17 Pro chip. That’s the same chip as the iPhone 15 Pro. This means the new iPad mini can support the full suite of Apple Intelligence features. It also features support for the Apple Pencil Pro.

The new iPad mini is priced at $499, with 128 GB storage — that’s double the storage of the previous generation for the same price. Customers can order iPad mini right now, with deliveries from next week, starting October 23.

As previously announced, Amazon Prime Video is now offering Apple TV+ content directly inside its app. Prime Video users can subscribe to Apple TV+ at the regular price of $9.99 per month, with a seven-day free trial for new subscriptions.

The experience is still rolling out, but it seems that the entire catalog of Apple original TV shows and movies are available, including latest releases like the new limited series Disclaimer.

Apple today released the season two trailer for Silo, the hit sci-fi series on Apple TV+. Based on the book series by Hugh Howey, the show sees Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) in a world where everyone is living underground, in a silo that is shrouded in mystery.

Silo became Apple’s most viewed drama when the first season debuted last year, in May 2023. And season two picks up right where the season one finale lefts off, with Juliette exploring the world outside …

The iPhone 16 Pro Max continues to make headlines, with Apple firmly having the best performance and longest battery life smartphone this year.

In PhoneBuff’s test, the 16 Pro Max went head-to-head with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in a test involving a variety of app functions, all controlled by a robotic arm. The iPhone ultimately lasted a total of 28 hours and 14 minutes; with more than 12 hours of active screen-on time and 16 hours of standby. That battery life performance set a new record, beating out any other smartphone PhoneBuff has tested.

Apple Search Ads is continuing its expansion into new geographic segments, following a successful rollout to Brazil earlier this year.

Apple announced today that developers will soon be able to start buying Apple Search Ads for placement in Turkey and 20 additional countries.

Via Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is set to update its entry-level iPhone SE early next year, alongside updates to the iPad Air and accessories.

The new iPhone SE will be a significant release, featuring a shift away from the dated forehead and chin bezels, replaced with an all-screen design with Face ID unlock. The new iPad Air will keep the same chassis design, with the update predominantly focused on ‘internal improvements’.

AirPods (3rd-generation) were released in October 2021. Three years on, AirPods 4 are here.

If you are a current AirPods 3 owner, should you upgrade to Apple’s latest on-ear wireless earbuds? There’s one specific new feature that might encourage a sale, but here’s all the differences to consider …

Featuring two Hollywood big stars in Brad Pitt and George Clooney, Wolfs was originally anticipated to be Apple’s biggest box office film to date, until it was unceremoniously pulled from wide theatrical release last month.

Following a limited theatrical run last week, the action comedy movie is now premiering today exclusively on the Apple TV+ streaming service.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo this morning reported that Apple is readying a new generation of Apple Vision Pro headset, set to go into production in the second of half of 2025.

The new Vision Pro would apparently not change much in terms of general specs and design, but would be upgraded to be powered by the M5 chip, a significant jump from the M2 that shipped in the first-gen model.

Apple appears to be working on a significant change on how users can organize their watch queue in the Apple TV app. In iOS 18.1 the long-standing Up Next queue has been renamed to ‘Continue Watching’, and a new separate Watchlist section can be found on the Home tab.

The Watchlist only includes TV shows and movies that the user has explicitly added to watch later. This responsibility was previously handled by Up Next, which also mixed in items that the user was currently in the midst of watching.

An increasing number of iPhone 16 Pro owners are reporting intermittent issues with their phone’s touchscreen responsiveness. Users experience taps and swipes seemingly being ignored, which affects various interactions like scrolling, pressing buttons, and missed presses on keys on the virtual keyboard.

Based on our testing, reader reports, and a growing number of online complaints, the issue appears to stem from a software bug, rather than a hardware fault. Specifically, iOS’s accidental touch rejection algorithm seems to be overly sensitive, causing intended touches to be ignored.