Zac Hall

The Ai Pin is officially dead. Parts of Humane have been sold to HP, and the Ai Pin will cease to function in a week. Cause of death? An outdated and undercooked bet against the iPhone made by former Apple engineers that Humane tried to disguise as artificial intelligence hardware.

iPhone 17 season is heating up with two especially interesting design variants: iPhone 17 Air and iPhone 17 Pro. Yes, there will be a plain iPhone 17, but it doesn’t sound like Apple will be very bold with its design this year.

So what about the iPhone 17 Air and iPhone 17 Pro designs that some are calling radical? There seems to be two camps: those who believe the designs are real, and those who think Apple will never release something like what we’re seeing in leaks and rumors.

At a glance, the most notable change to Siri in iOS 18 is its new design. The floating orb has been replaced with a rainbow glow around the edge of the device. This signals that Siri is now powered by Apple Intelligence, but the biggest AI features for Siri haven’t rolled out yet. That’s about to change in the next few iOS 18 updates.

Welcome to Neural. AI moves fast. We help you keep up. OpenAI says GPT-4.5 is coming to ChatGPT in a matter of weeks. But first, xAI will unveil Grok 3 tonight. Now the countdown is on for OpenAI to do the funniest thing ever…

Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw reports that Spotify is still working on a pricier version of its streaming music subscription, and Apple may not be too far behind it.

Apple Vision Pro only just turned a year old, and it may be about to get its biggest update yet — no new hardware required.

In the category of disappointing but not surprising, Mark Gurman reports for Bloomberg that the upgraded version of Siri may not be fully ready for iOS 18.4 when it arrives soon.

Sophia Tung and Zac Hall discuss the evolution of tech news sources, the challenges of launching new tech verticals, and the need for an AI news platform. They explore the impact of professional audio equipment on podcasting, audience engagement, and diverse tech interests. The conversation touches on podcasting’s future, T-Mobile and Starlink’s collaboration, and innovative changes in connectivity. They discuss satellite internet, van life, Elon Musk’s bid for OpenAI, upcoming OpenAI models, AI user experience, personal stories, cultural reflections, self-driving cars, and pop culture predictions.

Netflix has taken a break from raising prices to confirm that it didn’t mean to support that Apple TV feature everyone has wanted for years.

Apple is expected to replace the iPhone SE 3 next week with a new affordably-priced model that has several upgrades. Those upgrades, including Apple Intelligence support, are expected to make the next iPhone much more popular than previous entry-level iPhones.

Earlier this week, Apple made a lot of longtime App Store customers happy. After years of asking for a way to merge Apple accounts, Apple released a tool enabling the ability to move purchases from one Apple account to another Apple account. The only catch? There are a lot of requirements that each account must meet.

Update: TikTok is back on the App Store.

Breaking news from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg: Trump’s attorney general Pam Bondi has reportedly penned a letter to Apple that grants the company permission to restore TikTok in the App Store.

Apple left the Mac in a bad place when it came to external displays between 2016 and 2022. After discontinuing the Thunderbolt Display, Apple relied on LG to sell a plasticky monitor with PC-maker build quality if you wanted a standalone 27-inch monitor with 5K Retina resolution. Apple eventually started selling an ultra premium (in Mac display terms) monitor with the 32-inch 6K Pro Display XDR, but it has always been priced the same as a small truck of Mac mini computers.

However, just three years after releasing the Apple Studio Display, it sounds like Apple may be planning a decent revision in the near future.

Apple has been the target of an antitrust complaint in Germany for three years over its App Tracking Transparency feature. ATT allows iPhone users to request that apps not track their activity between other apps.

Now the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office) in Germany has issued its “preliminary legal assessment” which alleges that ATT only applies to third-party apps and not Apple, violating antitrust policy. In turn, Apple has responded.

Apple has officially partnered with Alibaba to bring Apple Intelligence AI features to the iPhone in China. Alibaba Group chairman Joe Tsai confirmed the deal on Thursday, sending the Chinese firm’s stock price to a three-year high.

Welcome to Neural. AI moves fast. We help you keep up. Earlier this week, Elon Musk started a bid to buy OpenAI, prompting Sam Altman to informally decline, but poking back about buying Twitter. Entertaining as that was, the world of AI has started to calm down — WAIT, WHAT?! OpenAI just announced ChatGPT-5, and it will arrive this year?

Apple is expected to brief the press on some sort of an Apple Vision Pro announcement on Friday. The most likely outcome now seems to be selling Apple Vision Pro through third-party retailers.

Apple is launching a holistic health study that aims to determine how Apple products “play a role in advancing and improving physical health, mental health, and overall wellbeing.” Enrollment for the brand new Apple Health Study opens today in Apple’s Research app — version 6.0 is out today — for participants in the United States. Here’s more about Apple’s most ambitious health study to date.

On the eve of potential Apple product announcements, an interesting possibility has crossed my mind—especially regarding Friday’s news.

It sounds like a variety of new Apple products are preparing to launch. That’s according to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, who has shared more details tonight about what to expect and when.