9to5Mac

At the end of last year, Apple announced that it was expanding App Store search ads beyond the single promoted placement at the top of the results. Instead, developer paying for promotion in App Store search can now have their apps appear further down the search results list, mixed in with the usual stream of organic results.

Apple has now confirmed that this will go into effect beginning March 3, starting the UK and Japan, with a rollout across all Apple Ads markets by the end of the month.

Late last year, Satechi released a new 7-in-1 USB-C hub for iPhone. It takes advantage of MagSafe and feels right at home on Apple devices. I’ve had the joy of testing it out for the past few days, and I have to say, it’s certainly a cool option if you think it suits you.

The latest update to OpenAI’s agentic browser improves memory usage and introduces support for tab groups. See what else is new.

Microsoft is investigating a widespread outage affecting several Business and Enterprise Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook. Here are the details.

Apple’s federal lobbying spending surged in 2025, reaching a record $10 million after a nearly 30% year-over-year increase. Here are the details.

New peer-reviewed research suggests Apple Watch could play a much bigger role in spotting atrial fibrillation. In a real-world study, researchers found that smartwatch-based monitoring caught far more cases than traditional approaches, including in people who had no idea anything was wrong.

Following Apple’s recommendation that shareholders vote against a proposed “China Entanglement Audit,” the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) has submitted a new filing with the SEC, urging investors to back the measure. Here are the details.

A new Bloomberg report says that Tim Cook has tapped John Ternus to manage Apple’s design teams. Here are the details.

A new report from The Information today dives into the current structure of Apple’s AI organization, now overseen by Craig Federighi. According to the story, Federighi is responsible for Apple’s decision to start using models from outside companies like Google.

The report also corroborates previous reporting in saying that Federighi was an “AI skeptic” until trying OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022.

Benjamin and Chance get excited for the upcoming Siri roadmap, with Bloomberg reporting that the delayed features will arrive with 26.4 and a full chatbot experience is due before the end of the year. The Information says Apple is developing an AI pin, the iPhone 18 Pro cutout positioning situation is seemingly clarified, and Apple makes App Store ads even less noticeable. 

And in Happy Hour Plus, Chance talks about the best parts of his new Oura Ring, and how Apple can learn from its software experience. Join now and save 26% on annual plans with code HAPPY26.

• Sponsored by Shopify: In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial at shopify.com/happyhour.
• Sponsored by Gusto: The online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. Get three months free when you run your first payroll at gusto.com/happyhour.
• Sponsored by Framer: The only free design tool that brings your ideas to the web. Visit framer.com/design and use code HAPPYHOUR for a free month.

Apple this week shared a trailer for a new Immersive Video release coming to Apple Vision Pro later this month: Top Dogs. The company describes it as a behind-the-scenes look at the “biggest dog show on Earth.”

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

Sponsored by Stuff: Stuff helps you get everything out of your head and into a simple, elegant system—closing open loops and reducing mental stress. Use code 9TO5 at checkout for 50% off your first year.

A report yesterday said that we will see a Siri chatbot as part of iOS 27, despite the company previously dismissing this idea.

If accurate, this will see the company adopt a two-stage strategy to finally giving the new Siri the smarts it has long lacked …

The feature combines the user’s listening history with real-time world data to create smart playlists based on natural-language prompts. Here are the details.

Apple TV is back in the above-the-line Oscars awards conversation with an unexpected Best Picture nomination for F1: The Movie, the Academy announced this morning.

The blockbuster F1 also got nominated for Best Sound, Film Editing, and Visual Effects. Documentary Come See Me in the Good Light was nominated for best feature length documentary, and The Lost Bus also got recognized for Visual Effects.

Yesterday brought a surprising report about the development of an Apple pin, which The Information likened to the mysterious and as-yet-unreleased AI hardware device designed by Jony Ive.

I have a pretty strong suspicion about what the Apple pin is, and I’m very confident indeed that I know what it isn’t …

If you are having your iPhone alarms go off without making a noise, you may want to check the settings have not been reset for them.

We’re not sure how many users this affects, but we’ve heard from a small number of people who have noticed that their iPhone alarm sound has been recently changed to ‘None’, which means they go off silently …

Apple is looking to continue its sales momentum in China with a limited-time discount campaign celebrating the Lunar New Year. Here are the details.

Two big Apple AI stories today, and they couldn’t feel further apart. First is Apple reportedly embracing chat as an interface for using Siri and AI throughout iOS and macOS later this year. That sounds like an amazing change of tune for the company. Apple would argue it isn’t a pivot away from avoiding chat, they just think chat is only useful if it’s deeply integrated with the system. Second is Apple developing an AI wearable pin. What strikes me about this one is how much it feels like a bad idea while the possibility of Jony Ive doing the same thing for OpenAI actually works.

Nestled in Bloomberg’s reporting earlier on Apple’s plans to revamp Siri as a chatbot with iOS 27, was an interesting tidbit on a possible change in the company’s cloud strategy. Specifically, Mark Gurman says Apple and Google are discussing running the next-generation Siri models directly on Google’s servers, not Apple’s.

With iOS 26.4, Apple is set to launch the first new LLM Siri features, using models running in Private Cloud Compute based on an older generation of Gemini. But the Siri chatbot coming in the iOS 27 cycle will apparently be based off the newer, smarter, Gemini 3 models. Running these latest-gen models seemingly requires higher performance servers than what Apple can deliver right now through its own Private Compute cloud infrastructure …

As spotted by TechCrunch, Danish users are turning to iOS apps to help them boycott American products. Here are the details.

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

Sponsored by Stuff: Stuff helps you get everything out of your head and into a simple, elegant system—closing open loops and reducing mental stress. Use code 9TO5 at checkout for 50% off your first year.

Sensor Tower has published its annual report, offering insights, trends, and data on the global mobile app market. Here are the main takeaways.