Apple Rumors

The “Default Apps” section that Apple added to the iOS 18.2 beta in October now lets you pick a contactless payment default besides Apple’s Wallet app.

The new option, which Apple promised in August, is there in the just-released iOS 18.2 public beta 3. But 9to5Mac notes the change was present in the second beta, as well.

In addition to iPad-like smart home displays and tabletop robots, Apple’s smart home future could include a television set, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman writes in Power On today.

The company is only “evaluating” the idea, but I’m so curious what it would call an actual TV in a world with Apple TV (the app), Apple TV (the set-top box) and Apple TV Plus (the service).

Apple’s wireless tracker’s rumored follow-up next year will have improved range, a better wireless chip, and a harder-to-remove speaker, according to Mark Gurman’s latest Power On newsletter for Bloomberg.

Would-be stalkers often remove AirTag speakers to prevent victims from finding the device by playing sound on it when they’re alerted that it’s traveling with them, Gurman writes — hence that last change.

Apple’s smallest computer is about to get way smaller, if all the rumors about an almost Apple TV-sized M4 refresh in the coming week of Mac announcements are to be believed.

It might also be a gaming powerhouse, as the diminutive machine will get ray-tracing capability, according to Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter for Bloomberg today.

That’s according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who writes today that he is “certain these machines are the real deal.” The machines from last week’s leaks seem to be base model M4 MacBook Pros with 16GB of memory and 10-core CPUs and GPUs, he adds.

Apple is expected to announce the laptops along with a smaller Mac Mini, a refreshed iPad Mini, and more soon.

Gurman said it would come in 2025 or 2026 and now 9to5Mac is citing a trusted source saying it’ll make its debut inside the iPhone SE 4 coming next year:

Codenamed “Centauri,” the modem is quite ambitious and will also handle Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS [...] The new modem will drastically reduce battery consumption, especially when users switch on Low Power Mode on the iPhone.

This one’s been rumored forever given Apple’s dislike of Qualcomm, desire to control its own destiny, and purchase of Intel’s modem business in 2019.

This time from 9to5Mac, citing unnamed sources who say that the “HomeAccessory” device referenced in code is a smart home accessory with an A18 chip, that’s capable of handling Apple Intelligence features, apps, and acting as an AirPlay receiver.

They also report a camera for gesture control and that the “current” J490 device has a square display instead of a rectangular one.

Long live the HomeScreenPod.

Mark Gurman writes in his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg that Apple is “racing” to complete the second set of Apple Intelligence features it plans to release this year, lining up Genmoji, ChatGPT, and Image Playground for a December launch with iOS 18.2.

Meanwhile, some Siri updates could launch sooner than previously rumored with 18.3, but the “biggest” update is apparently iOS 18.4, which could arrive in March.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s latest prediction follows a previous one from last year that said there’s a slim chance for a new Ultra in 2024. At Apple’s iPhone 16 event, we only got a (much desired) black model of the Ultra 2, while the SE was last refreshed in 2022.

That’s according to Macrumors, which says it confirmed that the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro phones each have “8GB of RAM for Apple Intelligence” by digging around in the latest version of Apple’s Xcode developer tools.

There won’t be any Apple Intelligence image-generating features in iOS 18.1 when it releases in October, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter.

But Apple plans to include its Image Playground and Genmoji features in iOS 18.2, he writes. Historically, those updates have come around mid-December, so perhaps we’ll be slinging holiday-themed “emoji” at each other soon enough.

Apple could release a new keyboard accessory for “an entry-level iPad or the new iPad Airs” by mid-2025, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter.

The keyboard won’t have glitzier iPad Pro Magic Keyboard features like a metal palm rest, but could come with a function row, he writes.

Apple Stores’ stock of FineWoven products — phone cases and watch bands alike — is running low, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. As he points out, that’s normal before a big Apple event and doesn’t strictly mean that the no-good, very bad case material is disappearing.

As a refresher, here’s The Verge’s Allison Johnson talking about FineWoven last year.

Apple has rolled out a new version of iOS 17.6.1 that fixes a bug that had prevented users from enabling its Advanced Data Protection feature, as spotted by MacRumors.

watchOS 10.6.1 is also out with a fix for a bug that kept users from accessing Apple Fitness Plus through the watch, the outlet separately writes.

Apple is still planning to refresh the entry-level and mid-tier AirPods models this fall, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman wrote today in the subscriber-only version of Power On, reaffirming his earlier reporting.

What he didn’t mention is a 2024 AirPods Max refresh he’d also mentioned before. It’s been nearly four years since they were released — one hopes they’re still on Apple’s roadmap.

Last we heard, Apple doesn’t plan to make a 27-inch iMac equipped with its custom silicon chips. But a larger version of its slender all-in-one is still “something Apple is exploring,” wrote Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg today.

He adds that it’s not clear whether that will happen in time for the M4 chip generation or later, though.

“The bulk of Apple’s designers” are reporting directly to Molly Anderson now, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. A quick US Patent Office search shows Anderson on Apple patents granted as far back as 2016.

Apple COO Jeff Williams has overseen the team since Jony Ive successor Evans Hankey left, close to two years ago.

Following yesterday’s more colorful iPhone 16 leak, we now have the Pro “dummies” showing up in three titanium colors. It’s also rumored to come in a “rose titanium” hue, as 9to5Mac points out.

In what’s become an annual tradition, we now have the non-working iPhone 16 “dummy units” — created for case and accessory makers — from perennial leaker Sonny Dickson. In addition to showing the new colors, we can also see the camera bump aligned vertically in what should be the final size and shape of the device Apple announces this fall.