Follow Benjamin on Threads to keep up with his latest projects. Benjamin blogs about Apple news and rumors and posts insightful product and app reviews. Read his work on 9to5Mac and his personal blog.
Benjamin Mayo also creates apps for iOS as a professional indie developer and contractor; more details here. Email to discuss making your iOS project.
Follow @bzamayo on Twitter and follow @bzamayo on Threads.
The base Apple TV service will be getting more live sports as standard from year. MLS Season Pass, currently a $79 per year additional charge for Apple TV members, will cease to exist as a separate service. Instead, all the content will be rolled into the base Apple TV subscription, starting next season.
That increases value for the Apple TV subscription (currently $12.99 per month in the US, or part of Apple One) and should help boost viewership for Major League Soccer.
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Last night, The Information reported that Apple had delayed the iPhone Air 2 launch, from its original schedule of fall 2026. In a follow-up post, The Information reports the second-generation model is now aiming for a spring 2027 release, which would be alongside updates to the base model iPhone 18 (as Apple is shifting the release of that model to the spring going forward).
The reason for the delay is apparently Apple is redesigning the product to address customer complaints, most notably by adding a second camera lens to the back. However, it’s currently unclear if spring 2027 is an achievable deadline.
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Apple has launched a limited edition accessory for the iPhone, called the iPhone Pocket. It evokes a modern day iPod sock, using a single 3D-knitted cloth to create a wearable pocket. The accessory was designed in collaboration with renowned designer Issey Miyake. The Pocket is kind of like a high-end version of the iPhone Crossbody Strap.
Unlike the 2004-era iPod Socks, the iPhone Pocket is not cheap. Available this Friday, the short strap Pocket will cost $149.95, and the long strap design will cost $229.95.
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Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad, returns to television with a highly-anticipated new series premiering on Apple TV today.
Pluribus is a new sci-fi drama starring Rhea Seehorn as the most miserable person in the world who must save the world from happiness. The first two episodes of season one are available to watch now.
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The new sci-fi drama Pluribus lands on Apple TV this Friday. The highly anticipated series from Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad, stars Rhea Seehorn as Carol, a woman in a world that needs saving from a contagion of happiness. Apple has been ramping up the marketing for this show significantly, clearly expecting it to be a big hit. And part of that is the announcement of a new official Apple TV companion podcast …
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After being delayed due to the regulatory uncertainty of rules surrounding the Digital Market Act, Apple has now confirmed that the flashy Live Translation feature for AirPods Pro and AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation will be available in the European Union from next month.
The feature requires compatible AirPods paired to an iPhone capable of running Apple Intelligence, that is iPhone 15 Pro or newer. It will presumably debut in the EU as part of the iOS 26.2 update, which hit the developer beta channels today.
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The iPhone lock screen flashlight is incredibly handy. But have you ever noticed it turn off randomly while you are holding the phone, seemingly inexplicably?
What is actually happening is the slightest touch on the screen can be interpreted as a swipe to the right to open the camera, which immediately turns off the flashlight feature. An annoying conflict of functionality, if you even realized what was happening. But with iOS 26.1, now you can actually do something to fix it.
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Via Mark Gurman, Apple has landed on its strategy for the new Siri update coming as soon as iOS 26.4 in the spring of next year. Behind the scenes, much of the new Siri experience will use Google Gemini models.
The custom Gemini model will run on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers, to help fulfil user requests. Apple has promised that the new Siri will be able to answer personal questions like ‘find the book recommendation from Mom’ by hunting through data on your device and generating the appropriate response on-the-fly.
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iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air feature a USB-C port at the bottom of the phone. If you are upgrading from an older phone, this means your old Lightning accessories won’t work anymore. But the USB-C port is much more capable overall.
With a USB-C cable and new charger, you can charge your iPhone from zero to 100% faster than ever before. You can also connect external displays, external storage, camera peripherals and more. Here’s what you can do with your new iPhone and its shiny new port …
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If you have an iPhone running iOS 26, you may have noticed that it now reports the estimated time to finish charging to 80% on the lock screen. If you are not using a fast charger, though, it will not do that and say ‘Slow Charger’ instead.
This probably means you are using an underpowered power brick or older cable. To fast charge with a wire, get a new charging brick that is rated for 30 watts or more, and a USB-C cable …
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With Slow Horses season five coming to an end today, Apple TV is keen to keep the British crime drama series based off Mick Herron novels rolling. Based off the book of the same name, new TV show Down Cemetery Road debuts with a two episode premiere on Apple TV today.
The series stars Ruth Wilson and Emma Thompson, who are investigating the disappearance of a girl following an unexplained explosion inside a house. Ruth Wilson plays Sarah, a neighbor who enlists private investigator Zoe Boehm (played by Thompson) to help crack the case.
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After my last WiFi-enabled smart scale broke and refused to connect to the Internet anymore, I sought something simpler and cheaper to replace it. The old scale had all sorts of fancy service integrations that I never used. I just wanted something that would track my weight and report the measurements to the Health app on my iPhone.
The Eufy C20 smart scale is what I landed on and I’m very happy with it — and it’s pretty cheap too. Here’s how it works …
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Warner Bros. Discovery is formally up for sale, with the company inviting bids on the company as a whole or various slices of its assets. Paramount Skydance has already offered $24 per share for the whole company, but has so far had its proposals rebuffed by the media giant.
CEO David Zaslav has financial bonuses attached to executing a sale, so he’s very much motivated in getting a deal done. Bluster or otherwise, Bloomberg reports he told senior executives that Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Comcast had shown interest in acquiring Warner Bros. expansive library of TV shows and films.
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As announced last week, there is a new bundle offer which combines Apple TV (formerly Apple TV+) and Peacock streaming services, offering substantial savings to US customers. You can get Apple TV with Peacock Premium for $14.99, or upgrade to the ad-free Peacock Premium Plus tier for $19.99 per month. This represents savings of about 35% compared to buying each service separately.
You can sign up straight from the Apple TV app, or through Peacock’s app or website. If you are an existing Apple One bundle subscriber, there’s also a special discount offer on Peacock Premium Plus available …
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Update: The Apple system status now says Apple TV, Apple Music and App Store issues are now resolved.
Apple online services are currently experience a big outage that has lasted a couple hours already. Some customers are noticing they are unable to stream on Apple TV, listen to their library on Apple Music, or download new apps from the App Store.
Apple’s official system status page says these services have been experiencing issues since around midnight Eastern Time. We currently don’t know when the problem will be fixed.
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As first reported by Sports Business Journal, all of the Major League Soccer playoff matches will be watchable with an Apple TV subscription (formerly Apple TV+), meaning fans don’t need the add-on MLS Season Pass subscription to tune in.
The playoff schedule begins on Wednesday. In light of the news that F1 will stream on Apple TV in the United States as part of the base subscription, there has been some speculation that the separate MLS Season Pass product could be going away …
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Apple TV and NBCUniversal today announced a new partnership, where customers in the US will be able to subscribe to a combined Apple TV and Peacock bundle at a discounted price. The $14.99/mo bundle includes Apple TV and Peacock Premium, or you can get Apple TV and Peacock Premium Plus (their ad-free tier) for $19.99/mo.
This represents a roughly 30% saving compared to subscribing to the services individually. For the first time, Apple has also arranged a special deal for Apple One subscribers …
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Amid the new M5 chip goodness, Apple quietly refreshed its Magic Keyboard accessory for iPad Air with a new look.
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Apple today refreshed the iPad Pro with an M5 chip, offering the next generation of Apple Silicon performance in its thinnest tablet form factor. The cellular models are also now powered by the Apple C1X modem.
Apple says the new iPad Pro with M5 delivers up to 3.5x the AI performance than is predecessor, thanks to the new Neural Accelerators in each GPU core. The new iPad Pro lineup is available to order starting today, with first deliveries shipping on October 22.
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Following the announcement of the rebrand of the Apple TV+ service to just ‘Apple TV’, Apple’s Services SVP Eddy Cue will make a rare podcast appearance, as the next guest on Matt Beloni’s Hollywood industry podcast The Town.
In the interview, Cue is asked about Apple TV’s popularity as a streaming service. Belloni cites the rumored ~45 million subscriber number that some prominent analysts have bandied about. Cue declines to share specifics, but confirms it is “significantly more than that”.
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In 2017, Apple launched a brand new app called Clips, a creative video app that originally could only make square aspect ratio movies. It had fun effects, automatic subtitle captions, and more. However, in a world of social video apps like TikTok, Clips never really gained traction.
After being dormant in the App Store for a while now, the company is finally pulling the plug. As confirmed by a new support document, Clips is no longer getting any app updates and has been pulled from the App Store.
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Eve Outdoor Cam is a sleek outdoor video camera for HomeKit, with integrated LED floodlight ideally designed to light up your driveway at night. I’ve been a fan of the Eve Indoor camera for a while, and my experience with the Outdoor Cam is similarly positive. HomeKit cameras are better than ever, thanks to significant user interface upgrades to the Apple Home app in iOS 16.
And HomeKit Secure Video support means clips are saved to your iCloud account in an end-to-end encrypted manner. To make things even more compelling, this set up requires no additional monthly subscription to use, assuming you pay for some iCloud storage. So how does Eve Outdoor Cam and the state of HomeKit Secure Video fare? Very well, for the most part …
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In the aftermath of the iPhone 17 launch, there was a bit of a ‘scratchgate’ controversy as customers noticed iPhone 17 and iPhone Air demo units in stores were already showing noticeable signs of wear on their backs. Apple investigated and commented that these marks were caused by material transfer from older MagSafe chargers being used to display the phones on the Apple Store tables.
At the time, the company said it was working to address the issue in stores. We may now be seeing the solution; Consomac spotted new MagSafe chargers in use at the Apple Store that include an outer silicone ring.
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The long-gestating streaming rights deal between Apple and Formula 1 is apparently reaching the finish line. In his newsletter, Puck’s John Ourand reports that the two sides have nearly finalized negotiations, with an eye to announce the partnership at the upcoming U.S. Grand Prix on 17-19 October, held in Austin.
Apparently, the protracted discussions relate to a dispute over the existence of the independent F1.TV streaming service in the United States. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Apple — who would be paying upwards of $150 million a year for the rights — wants streaming exclusivity and therefore F1.TV to be shuttered in the region.
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