Benjamin Mayo

In his Bloomberg Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman reported today on Apple’s upcoming product roadmap. Alongside the iPhone 15 lineup this fall, customers can expect the launch of Apple Watch Series 9 and a second-generation Apple Watch Ultra.

More updates to the Mac lineup, like M3 MacBook and MacBook Pro devices, are not expected until later this year or early 2024. Notably, Gurman reports new iMacs with 24-inch screens are in the works, after skipping the M2 generation entirely, as well as a brand new iMac model with a screen larger than 30 inches (this may be the long-awaited Apple Silicon successor the iMac Pro.)

In today’s Power On newsletter by Mark Gurman, he reports that Apple has opened up the Apple Vision Pro headset testing to more employees inside the company following the WWDC unveiling. One issue that has come up in expanded testing is the weight.

The Vision Pro headset is not light, partly because it is made of aluminum and glass rather than plastic materials. To combat this, Apple has developed a top strap that helps mitigate the pressure of the weight on the user’s face. But Gurman says Apple is not currently considering that to be so essential it will be included in the box.

Here’s a small iOS 17 change that had gone unnoticed until now. Via @AppleIntro on Twitter, iOS 17 includes a new speed option for the Haptic Touch setting. This setting controls how long the user has to long-press on the iPhone screen in order for the system gesture action to be committed.

This setting affects things like how fast context menus appear. You can customize it by opening the Settings app and navigating to Accessibility -> Touch -> Haptic Touch.

Apple today announced it is officially rolling out a new ad format for the App Store. The new Today tab format is more compact than the previous full-height card design but is viewable immediately upon opening the tab on the iPhone. The previous design required the user to scroll down the page to see it.

A nonsponsored slot continues to take the first position, but the ad placement is now always above the fold. The new format also allows Apple to make it easier for advertisers to submit campaigns and get approved more quickly.

Apple Music launched high-quality lossless audio streaming all the way back in May 2021, available to Apple Music subscribers at no extra charge.

Bloomberg today reports that Spotify is finally almost ready to compete. The company is readying a new higher-end subscription tier that will include “HiFi” lossless audio streaming. Unlike Apple Music, though, you’ll have to upgrade your plan to a higher tier and pay extra to get it.

Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger today published an interesting and expansive interview with Apple VPs Kevin Lynch and Deidre Caldbeck, discussing all the changes in the upcoming watchOS 10 update.

Asked about the possibility of third-party watch faces on Apple Watch, Lynch says that the watch face is the home screen of the watch and they want everything to work reliably and consistently.

As Apple controls all the faces the user can choose, Caldbeck adds that users “don’t have to worry about the watch face still working when there’s a major watchOS update. We’ll take care of that.”

A common complaint of late is that it’s hard to hear people in TV shows and movies these days, with character voices buried behind the cacophony of sound effects and background music found in modern productions.

One of the smaller changes coming in tvOS 17 is an audio enhancement option to help mitigate these cases, available for users of Apple TV 4K with paired HomePod speaker setups.

Tom Holland stars in a new thriller series The Crowded Room on Apple TV+, with the first three episodes streaming today. The show is based on the book The Minds of Billy Milligan.

iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma include even more privacy-preserving features while browsing the web.

Link Tracking Protection is a new feature automatically activated in Mail, Messages, and Safari in Private Browsing mode. It detects user-identifiable tracking parameters in link URLs, and automatically removes them.

The Apple Vision Pro announcement on Monday was impressive, but somewhat light on tech specs, partly because the device isn’t finalized yet and still at least six months out from going on sale.

In the marketing materials, Apple said each of the micro-OLED eye displays exceed 4K resolution, with a total of 23 million pixels. But it does not mention “ProMotion” or make any reference to the refresh rate of these panels, other than saying the latency of the overall system is about 12 milliseconds. But a WWDC developer session has the details here …

Apple Maps has improved leaps and bounds over the last decade, but one area it has always been lacking is offline use. Google Maps and others have let you download maps to be available offline for a long time.

That feature gap is now closed with iOS 17. Apple Maps now lets you download a maps region to store on your device, and use entirely offline for navigation and routing without an internet connection. Here’s how.

Apple unveiled the Apple Vision Pro headset today at WWDC in part to reinforce the developer story behind it; the company wants a vibrant app ecosystem to emerge for this new spatial computing platform, even if the first iteration of the headset will not be a mass consumer hit.

To help developers build and test their apps for visionOS, Apple has announced several initiatives. This includes hands-on labs and availability of Apple Vision Pro dev kits.

Apple Music has finally added a feature that has existed on the Android version of Apple Music for a while, has been a staple of iTunes on desktop, and in fact used to exist in the iOS Music app many moons ago.

That’s right — iOS 17 finally adds the option to cross-fade songs. That means when one track ends, rather than abruptly stopping and starting the next song in your playlist, there is a gradual fade transition instead, with the current track getting quieter as the next track gets louder.

Apple just announced the brand new 15-inch MacBook Air, a larger sibling to the 13-inch model. The 15-inch Air is priced at $1299 and up, and is available to order today from the Apple Store.

We went hands-on with the 15-inch MacBook Air at the demo area at Steve Jobs Theater in Apple Park. You can see the laptop in all its glory below with our photo gallery …

One of the biggest complaints we hear from iPhone users is that autocorrect never quite corrects their typing how they want. Well, Apple is promising big improvements to the keyboard autocorrect system with iOS 17 on iPhone.

The new autocorrect system is based on on-device machine learning models that are personalized to each user.

Apple announced a new biometrics system called Optic ID for Apple Vision Pro. It analyzes your iris to identify you, akin to how Face ID works for your whole face on iPhone.

This means the device can automatically unlock when you place the headset on your face.

The Apple Vision Pro headset runs on visionOS, built on the foundation of iOS. The UI is brand new, with a spatial 3D interface and a floating app grid home screen.

It also includes several brand new subsystems for real-time rendering of immersive 3D worlds.

tvOS 17 includes a redesigned Control Center interface, a way to find your Apple TV remote using your iPhone, as well some new photo screensaver options.

They are also bringing the FaceTime app to Apple TV, using Continuity Camera to take advantage of the cameras available on your iPhone or iPad.

Apple is increasing the utility of the always-on display on iPhone with a new feature called ‘StandBy’ that appears automatically when the iPhone is docked in landscape mode.

It recreates a smart display interface with a large time display, calendar and other alerts. It also intelligently integrates Siri suggestions and Live Activities. It’s like an Amazon Echo Show built in to your iPhone.

Apple announced a bunch of new features for iMessage in iOS 17. This includes emoji tapbacks and a new emoji stickers interface. The little-used iMessage apps have also been hidden away behind a sub-menu, for a cleaner and simpler overall design.

Other new features include automatic transcriptions for voice messages. You can also Check In for end-to-end encrypted location sharing notifications with friends.