The seventh generation of Apple’s tiniest iPad is finally here, three years since its last refresh. There was no fancy pretaped or live event—the company quietly announced the new tablet through its online newsroom. The headline feature encapsulating this device? Apple Intelligence. Apple’s artificial intelligence features still aren’t available for the iPhone 16, but they’re due to arrive this month via iOS 18.1.
Starting at $499 for the base model, the seventh-gen iPad Mini has the same chassis as its predecessor, but with a few upgrades including a new processor, support for Apple Intelligence, and double the storage. It also works with the latest Apple Pencil Pro. It’s available for preorder now and ships October 23.
Courtesy of Apple
It’s What’s Inside
The sixth-generation iPad Mini got a major facelift in 2021, so it’s not shocking that Apple kept the external features the same in this iteration. This tablet packs an 8.3-inch LCD screen, slim bezels, and a 12-megapixel selfie camera, along with a USB-C port (now with 10-Gbps data transfer speeds). The rear camera has a 12-megapixel sensor with support for Smart HDR 4, an updated image processing algorithm with the capability to detect and scan documents from the Camera app (a feature we saw introduced back in May with the M4-powered iPad Pro).
The more significant changes are inside. Apple upgraded the processor from the A15 (the chipset inside the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro models) to an A17 Pro, the very same that’s in the iPhone 15 Pro. With a six-core CPU, the company claims it delivers a 30 percent boost in CPU performance while the five-core GPU offers a 25 percent jump compared to the previous model. Meanwhile, the neural engine is twice as fast.
Putting this chip inside the iPad Mini means it can support Apple Intelligence—a suite of artificial intelligence tools coming in iOS 18.1. It makes the iPad Mini the cheapest tablet of the lineup to have these features. Other supported models include the fifth-gen M1 iPad Air, sixth-gen M2 iPad Air, fifth-gen M1 iPad Pro, sixth-gen M2 iPad Pro, and seventh-gen M4 iPad Pro.
With summer officially over, it’s back to business (or school) for many people, which can mean more time writing longer things, especially on the go. The smartphone has replaced the laptop for many tasks, but when it comes to text input, tapping away on tiny onscreen keys might make you wish you had hauled along the computer just for its keyboard. Thankfully, your phone includes several features to make text entry much easier. Here are a few suggestions.
Visit your settings
Thanks to predictive text prompts, automatic punctuation and other shortcuts (like pressing vowel keys to see the pop-up menu of accent marks), typing on small glass rectangles isn’t as awkward as it used to be. To find out what features are available for your phone, start with its Settings app.
On an iPhone, tap General and then Keyboard.
For many Android phones, tap System, Keyboard, On-screen Keyboard and then Gboard (often the default app). Galaxy models typically offer the Samsung Keyboard with similar options.
You should see choices for spell-check, text correction — yes, Apple’s infamous Auto-Correction has gotten better — and other aids. For example, both the Apple iOS keyboard and the Google Gboard (which has an iOS version, too) can display a compact keyboard for easier single-handed input.
On the Gboard keyboard, press and hold the comma key for a shortcut into the settings — or tap the four-squares icon on the far left and select the One-Handed button; the same menu lets you resize or “float” the keyboard around the screen if you prefer.
Password-manager tools prevent mistyped logins, and fewer taps may help to prevent errors elsewhere. With tools like Slide to Type from Apple and Glide Typing by Google, you can drag your finger around the keyboard and the software guesses the word you want; note that the results may vary.
The keyboard can move the text-insertion cursor, too. On an iPhone, press and hold the space bar until the keyboard dims, and then drag your finger to reposition the cursor on the screen. For the Google Gboard, you can move the cursor by sliding a finger along the space bar if the “gesture cursor control” is enabled in the Glide Typing settings.
Apple and Google include keyboard layouts for typing in languages other than English or inserting emojis. You can add third-party keyboard apps, but beware of software from unfamiliar companies that could pose security risks.
Add hardware
If you have a lot of text to enter, pairing your iPhone or Android phone with an external Bluetooth keyboard (including the Magic Keyboard made by Apple) lets you switch to traditional typing hardware. You can even use navigational buttons and shortcuts with an iPhone by going to Settings, Accessibility and Keyboards and enabling the Full Keyboard Access feature.
If you don’t want to haul a full keyboard around, consider a folding model, as it can fit easily in a jacket pocket but expand into something resembling a full-size set of keys.
Traveling keyboards, which typically fold up into two or three sections when not in use, range in price from about $25 to $80 depending on the size and features.
Speak your mind
Speech-to-text technology that converts the spoken word into editable type on the screen has been around for decades and has only become more accurate as the software has improved. Many apps (including virtual assistants) can take dictation. The Apple Notes app in iOS 18 can now directly record a live audio file and transcribe it.
To use the feature on an iPhone, open Settings, select General and then Keyboard, and turn on Enable Dictation. The Auto-Punctuation option automatically inserts commands, periods and question marks as you talk, but Apple’s site has a full list of dictation commands for editing text and inserting emoji characters.
On Android phones using the Gboard keyboard, open the Settings app, go to System, select Keyboard and make sure Google Voice Typing is enabled. When you tap the microphone icon, you can start speaking or select the Info icon (an encircled “i”) to see the list of voice commands that Gboard understands, including in the Google Docs word processor. As with most dictation apps, you must call out punctation by name, like “question mark” or “new paragraph,” and other formatting.
Dictation can be helpful for quickly transcribing a lot of words, but it may not be the best method for, say, a crowded coffee shop or composing a confidential memo within earshot of co-workers. Some dictation requests are uploaded to the internet for processing and require a network connection.
But no matter how you input your text, be sure to proofread it (or have artificial intelligence do it) before you send it along, as typographical errors do have a way of sneaking in no matter how you get your words on the screen.
if you’re bored with your home screen, I have good news for you. With iOS 18, you can finally personalize it however you’d like. You can now change the color of app icons and widgets (and even match them to your wallpaper), change the size to make them look larger, and place them anywhere you’d like on the screen. Below, we break down all the simple steps on how to customize your home screen.
Be sure to also check out our iOS 18 roundup for a full list of all the top features in Apple’s latest mobile operating system, as well as our guides to the Best iPhones and Best iPads.
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How to Make the Icons Bigger
Long-press on the home screen until the app icons start to wiggle.
Tap Edit in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, and then tap Customize.
Choose between Small or Large at the bottom of the screen.
Tap on the home screen again to save the changes.
How to Change the Color of App Icons
Photograph: Brenda Stolyar
Long-press on the home screen until the app icons start to wiggle.
Tap Edit in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and then tap Customize.
Choose between Light mode, Dark mode, or Automatic (which changes depending on whether it’s day or night).
There’s also a Tinted option, which allows you to use the sliders to customize the color and saturation. You can also tap the eyedropper tool to select a color from your wallpaper to apply to the icons.
You can tap the sun icon on the left to darken the background. This will make it easier to see the icons, depending on the colors you choose.
In recent years, Apple started giving the iPhone Pro models a significant chip upgrade to increase the performance gap between the phones, but this year they’re all on the same starting point: the A18 chipset. The iPhone 16 Pro devices have the A18 Pro, which features larger CPU cache sizes and an extra graphics core for slightly better overall performance. That said, in my benchmark tests, the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus are just behind the Pros and still more powerful than any other phone on the market.
I played AAA games like Resident Evil and Assassin’s Creed Mirage, though I did run into a few more stutters than on the Pro models (and just as many crashes, though this could have been because I was running a developer beta of iOS 18.1). I want to note that these games are currently the cream of the crop in graphical fidelity, so I’m purposefully stress-testing. Most of the titles you’ll play will run perfectly. The Pro models this year have improved thermal performance, but Apple made some tweaks to improve the heat dissipation on the standard iPhones too, and I have not noticed the phones getting significantly hot.
More importantly, every iPhone 16 model will be capable of running Apple Intelligence, the suite of artificial intelligence features coming in an update in October. I go over exactly what’s included in Apple Intelligence in my iOS 18 guide, and have broadly evaluated the current experience in my iPhone 16 Pro review. There are some helpful day-to-day features, like real-time transcriptions in Voice Notes or call recordings, but we’ll have to wait until Apple brings the full kit.
Battery life is a high note. I eked out better battery life on the iPhone 16 Plus than on the Pro Max, hitting more than seven hours of screen-on time with 36 percent left in the tank at 1 am. The iPhone 16 is no slouch, giving me six hours of screen-on time with around 20 percent remaining. And that’s with a mix of doomscrolling on Instagram, picture-snapping, navigation, and music streaming. These devices will get you through a full day and then some. Speaking of the battery, it’s easier to replace on the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus (not the Pro models), and iFixit gave it a 7/10 in overall repairability, which is a huge improvement over prior years.
It’s a shame Apple did not bring an updated spec for the charging port. When Apple switched to USB-C last year, it kept the same data transfer speeds for the iPhone 15—480 megabits per second. The Pro, on the other hand, has USB3 speeds of up to 20 gigabits per second. It’s a massive difference (and an unnecessary one), but this only matters if you find yourself moving files from your iPhone to another device with a cord.
Good Cameras
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus hold their own in the camera department. I found no significant differences even in low light when shooting with the main camera and the ultrawide. The Pro phones edge them out here and there, but the gap is small. Autofocus is new in the 12-MP ultrawide, so you can take macro photos. I can’t stop taking close-up shots of my pup’s nose. Boop!
This only affects new smartphones launching in the EU after June 2025, which means the iPhone 16 does not have to adhere to this law. The regulation doesn’t just touch on batteries though. Manufacturers need to sell critical spare parts for seven years and offer at least five years of software updates. These laws often influence other regions, which is why Apple is likely testing this battery replacement process in its latest phone. It’s unclear whether the new adhesive would be fully compliant with the EU’s regulations.
“The point of the legislation is that it won’t most likely require [Apple] to completely change the design of the product,” says Ugo Vallauri, codirector of the Restart Project and a founding member of the Right to Repair Europe coalition. “As long as they can supply the spare part as well as the tools needed to perform the repair, and it can be performed by a generalist—someone with some level of competence—they would not need to change much further, which can be potentially be seen as a weakness of the legislation. We will see what happens in that respect.”
Matching Game
But easier battery replacements are just one part of the story. Apple is notorious for “parts pairing,” the policy where it uses software to identify and approve parts. Apple will disable certain features if it finds the part wasn’t sourced from Apple’s official channels—even if the part comes directly from another iPhone. For example, as iFixit’s website says, if you replace your iPhone’s screen with a genuine but secondhand part, your device will lose access to Apple’s True Tone and autobrightness features, even though the screen will otherwise function normally. You may also see warning messages for replaced parts that Apple cannot identify.
New laws in Oregon and Colorado prohibit the practice of parts pairing to discriminate against otherwise compatible parts, and Apple earlier this year said it would expand repair options to support used genuine parts starting this fall. That now applies to the Face ID sensor in the TrueDepth selfie camera—you can now swap this component from one unit to another without compromising security, safety, and privacy, according to Apple.
Apple also says that now, if you use a third-party part that isn’t available in its cloud-based calibration servers, the phone will try to activate the part and make it work to its full capability. It will also show the repair history of the device within Settings and list which parts have been replaced. Any used Apple parts will now be able to be calibrated after you install them, and these will appear as “used” parts in the device’s repair history. That means features like True Tone will finally be enabled for third-party displays, and you’ll be able to see health data for third-party batteries. The front camera and lidar scanner will also stay operational if the module is replaced.
“I’ve always felt like the goal of right to repair is to create the incentive for these manufacturers, who are the ones good at making stuff, to prioritize or at least incorporate repairability into their objectives,” says Nathan Proctor, senior director of the Campaign for the Right to Repair at Public Interest Research Group. “And once they do, they are actually coming up with new ways to make things easier to fix in ways I couldn’t have predicted or thought up. It’s exciting to see Apple engineers coming up with solutions for making things more fixable.”
Lock Step
Photograph: Apple
But there’s a new concern on the horizon with iOS 18 rolling out to Apple devices: Activation Lock. You might be familiar with this if you have erased an iPhone in the past but forgot to remove your Apple account details, essentially locking a new owner out from the device unless they have your password. In iOS 18, this Activation Lock feature now extends to iPhone parts. The idea is that this will deter thieves from stealing iPhones to sell parts. If the iPhone detects that a used part has been installed, it will ask for the original part owner’s Apple account password.
Proctor says the number one complaint he’s heard from device refurbishers is around Activation Lock—these companies have devices legally acquired from donations or recycling programs, but they cannot do anything to unlock the phone. (Apple has ways to bypass Activation Lock if you have proof of purchase documentation.)
“We need a way to verifiably say this is not a stolen part,” Proctor says. “I really respect and appreciate and understand the value of the way Activation Lock thwarts theft, but there’s got to be some middle ground where a reputable recycler doesn’t have to shred working parts and working phones. It’s ridiculous. It has the potential to undermine any environmental gains from all the other stuff that they’re doing.”
Creating summaries seems to be a thing everyone wants to do with AI, and Apple Intelligence is ready to do the same. You can have your emails summarized, messages summarized, and even your notifications from third-party apps summarized. Some of this can be handy, like when the Mail app calls out an urgent-sounding email in its summary, which I would have missed had I just glanced at the giant collection of emails. But more often than not I just swipe away the summary and dive into all the notifications.
Speaking of, there’s a summarize feature built into Safari, but you have to put the web page into Reader mode. It’s these kinds of things that make it hard to find these smart features and remember that they exist. At the very least, I was able to summarize an 11,000-word story and get the gist of it when I didn’t have time to sit down and read it. (Sorry.) I’ll forgive you if you summarize this review.
Arguably the most helpful Apple Intelligence features for me as a journalist who attends multiple briefings a month are the new transcription tools in the Notes, Voice Memos app, and even in the Phone app. Hit record in Voice Memos and Notes and the apps will transcribe conversations in real time! If you’re on a phone call, tap the record button and after both parties are notified, it will start recording the call, and you’ll get a transcription saved to your Notes app.
For all of these, much depends on the microphone quality for the person on the other end. Either way, it’s certainly better than no transcription at all. It’s too bad there are no speaker labels, like on Google’s Recorder app. You also can’t search these recordings to find a specific quote. (Technically, you can if you add the transcript to your note in the Notes app, but you cannot jump to that part of the audio recording once you find it.)
The Photos app is getting an Apple Intelligence infusion too, and the highlight here is the Clean Up feature. Just like with Google’s Pixel phones that debuted Magic Eraser more than three years ago, you can now delete unwanted objects in the background of your iPhone photos. This works pretty well in my experience, though I’m a little surprised Apple gives you so much freedom to erase anything. I completely erased my eye from existence in a selfie. I erased all my fingers off my hand. (Google’s feature doesn’t let you erase parts of a person’s face.)
Next, I erased my mug, which was in front of my face as I went for a sip, and Clean Up tried to generate the rest of my face that was previously hidden to some horrifying results. (For what it’s worth, I tried this on the Pixel 9 and the results were just as bad, though Google did give me more options.) As my coworker said in Slack, “They both seem to have been trained on images of Bugs Bunny.”
Apple’s forthcoming iOS 18 is loaded with a slew of artificial-intelligence-powered capabilities. The new mobile OS can rewrite your text messages, summarize emails, and identify objects in photos. But one of the most fun features is Image Playground, which generates cartoonlike illustrations based on a text prompt.
While Apple has shown examples of its output during its keynotes, demos, and product videos, we have yet to see a real-world example of an Image Playground character until now. Apple has shared with WIRED the first-ever example created by Image Playground that it has shown outside of its prerecorded keynotes and marketing materials.
This image of an adorable small dog wearing a party hat and smiling behind a birthday cake isn’t just any random pup. Her name is Bailey, and she belongs to Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering at Apple, who created the image for his wife in honor of Bailey’s recent birthday.
Federighi referenced the illustration during his interview with WIRED’s Lily Hay Newman about Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, the secure server environment the company built to handle AI task requests that cannot be processed on a consumer’s device. Apple reps shared it later. It’s WIRED policy to clearly identify any AI-generated images we publish, so that’s why you see the watermark on the image.
Image Playground is debuting at a time when generative AI tools have been creeping into software from all the major tech companies, as Microsoft, Google, and Meta have released AI-powered software that focuses on productivity and creativity. While Apple’s approach in iOS 18 also prioritizes the practical side of AI, the company has included some purely fun apps too—Image Playground being a prime example.
It exists as a stand-alone app, but you can also access it through Messages. To generate an image, you can either type a description of what you want to see, choose a photo of someone from your photo library, or pick from some preloaded concepts. You can also opt between three styles: Illustration, Sketch, and Animation. The feature is not to be confused with Genmoji, which allows you to generate custom emoji directly from the keyboard using text prompts.
Since neither of these generative AI features are available in beta just yet (although a few other Apple Intelligence features are with the iOS 18.1 developer beta), the only examples we’ve seen of Image Playground’s and Gemoji’s output have been tightly controlled by Apple. Until the features are released, Federighi’s adorable dog is the closest we’ll get to seeing an example that exists beyond heavily produced and edited marketing materials. And I’d say it’s a pretty good one, and certainly not as creepy as the examples we saw during the keynote at WWDC. Good job, Craig.
Update: September 11, 2024, at 7:33 pm EDT. This story was changed to add the name of Federighi’s dog.
Apple is making every production PCC server build publicly available for inspection so people unaffiliated with Apple can verify that PCC is doing (and not doing) what the company claims, and that everything is implemented correctly. All of the PCC server images are recorded in a cryptographic attestation log, essentially an indelible record of signed claims, and each entry includes a URL for where to download that individual build. PCC is designed so Apple can’t put a server into production without logging it. And in addition to offering transparency, the system works as a crucial enforcement mechanism to prevent bad actors from setting up rogue PCC nodes and diverting traffic. If a server build hasn’t been logged, iPhones will not send Apple Intelligence queries or data to it.
PCC is part of Apple’s bug bounty program, and vulnerabilities or misconfigurations researchers find could be eligible for cash rewards. Apple says, though, that since the iOS 18.1 beta became available in late July, no on has found any flaws in PCC so far. The company recognizes that it has only made the tools to evaluate PCC available to a select group of researchers so far.
Multiple security researchers and cryptographers tell WIRED that Private Cloud Compute looks promising, but they haven’t spent significant time digging into it yet.
“Building Apple silicon servers in the data center when we didn’t have any before, building a custom OS to run in the data center was huge,” Federighi says. He adds that “creating the trust model where your device will refuse to issue a request to a server unless the signature of all the software the server is running has been published to a transparency log was certainly one of the most unique elements of the solution—and totally critical to the trust model.”
To questions about Apple’s partnership with OpenAI and integration of ChatGPT, the company emphasizes that partnerships are not covered by PCC and operate separately. ChatGPT and other integrations are turned off by default, and users must manually enable them. Then, if Apple Intelligence determines that a request would be better fulfilled by ChatGPT or another partner platform, it notifies the user each time and asks whether to proceed. Additionally, people can use these integrations while logged into their account for a partner service like ChatGPT or can use them through Apple without logging in separately. Apple said in June that another integration with Google’s Gemini is also in the works.
Apple said this week that beyond launching in United States English, Apple Intelligence is coming to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom in December. The company also said that additional language support—including for Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish—will drop next year. Whether that means that Apple Intelligence will be permitted under the European Union’s AI Act and whether Apple will be able to offer PCC in its current form in China is another question.
“Our goal is to bring ideally everything we can to provide the best capabilities to our customers everywhere we can,” Federighi says. “But we do have to comply with regulations, and there is uncertainty in certain environments we’re trying to sort out so we can bring these features to our customers as soon as possible. So, we’re trying.”
He adds that as the company expands its ability to do more Apple Intelligence computation on-device, it may be able to use this as a workaround in some markets.
Those who do get access to Apple Intelligence will have the ability to do far more than they could with past versions of iOS, from writing tools to photo analysis. Federighi says that his family celebrated their dog’s recent birthday with an Apple Intelligence–generated GenMoji (viewed and confirmed to be very cute by WIRED). But while Apple’s AI is meant to be as helpful and invisible as possible, the stakes are incredibly high for the security of the infrastructure underpinning it. So how are things going so far? Federighi sums it up without hesitation: “The rollout of Private Cloud Compute has been delightfully uneventful.”
That said, the bigger iPhones do tend to have the best battery life. Apple says the iPhone 16 Pro Max delivers the best battery life in an iPhone, though we’ll have to test that claim. If battery life is your number one priority, choose between the largest models: iPhone 16 Plus and the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
All of these iPhones have the Action button, which replaces the Mute switch and is now configurable, so you can replicate the Mute switch functionality or execute another action, like turning on a flashlight or triggering a shortcut. They all also have the new Camera Control button (yes, it’s a button). You can use it to open the camera and take a photo, but a light press shows different camera modes and you can slide your finger left or right across the button’s surface to cycle through various modes, zoom levels, and more. Eventually, you can use this button to trigger Visual Intelligence, which is like Apple’s version of Google Lens—point your iPhone at something in the real world to get more information about it.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
Every iPhone 16 model can now take advantage of a cool video feature called Audio Mix. This lets you change up the way your videos sound when you’re editing them by choosing a sound profile. These include In-Frame, which focuses the audio on whoever is in the frame; Studio, which makes it sound like you were in a studio, cutting all background noise; and Cinematic, which makes sure whoever is at the center of the frame comes in clear, with a little bit of ambient noise mixed in. This feature will perform better on the iPhone 16 Pro models since they have upgraded microphones.
The redesigned Photographic Styles are also available in the entire range. These are almost like filters but better—instead of changing the look of the whole image, these Styles can maintain skin tones so they don’t look weird, and can adjust other parts of the photo like shadows and highlights. Apple is also giving you more control over how your skin tone looks, instead of going for more of a one-size-fits-all approach like Google does with its Pixel phones.
Apple Intelligence is the headline feature, and the only way to try out the new artificial intelligence capabilities is to use a phone that supports it: the iPhone 16 range, the iPhone 15 Pro, or the iPhone 15 Pro Max. I covered these features in broader detail in our iOS 18 guide, but to summarize, it includes a revamped Siri experience, the ability to generate emoji (and Genmoji!), and writing assistance features like proofreading and changing the tone of your messages.
Tap Who can share with you, then enable Everyone and check the Only for 10 minutes box. It means Quick Share actions can be initiated with unknown contacts, but the sharing will be turned off after 10 minutes. This should be ample time for you to share a contact card.
Unlike NameDrop, there’s no magic touch-your-phones-together action. You need to head into your Contacts app: On Pixels, tap your account picture (top right), then Contacts settings, Your info, the three dots, and then Share. On Galaxy phones, just tap your contact at the top of the list, then Share. You’ll then see Quick Share appear as one of the options, and the other person’s Android device should be detected.
Cross-Platform Sharing
You can share details over email or text message too.
Photograph: David Nield
(David Nield)
If you’re trying to get an iPhone working with an Android phone, you’ll notice that AirDrop doesn’t work with Android devices, and Quick Share doesn’t work with iOS. That means you’re going to have to use one of the other sharing options available from your phone, but there are lots of them.
On an iPhone, open the Contacts app on iOS, then tap your name at the top of the contacts list. Choose Share Contact, select the fields in your contact card you want to share (including your number and address), and you’ll be given a choice of options for sharing—from email to WhatsApp message to social media.
It’s similar on Android: Get to the sharing page for your own contact card as we’ve described above for Pixel and Galaxy phones, and next to the Quick Share option you’ll find alternative methods of sharing that are compatible with iPhones. You can choose text or email, for example, or Bluetooth (which should work with an iPhone, as long as the iPhone owner has the Bluetooth page from the iPhone Settings open).
Do you have an iPhone and a desire to play retro video games? I have good news for you.
This year Apple started allowing emulators into the App Store. Emulators are software applications that simulate old game consoles like those from Nintendo and Sega. They can load game files, called ROMs, that are ripped from the original cartridge or disk.
The easy availability of emulators means you no longer need to jailbreak your iPhone to load up ROMs and play retro games. It also means you don’t have to mess with a Raspberry Pi or buy a purpose-built retro gaming console to play classic games on your phone or even TV.
I should mention that it’s not legal to download ROMs for games you don’t own, and therefore I will not be explaining where you can download ROMs. However, assuming you have access to a collection of ROMs, here’s how you can turn any iPhone or iPad—including the old one that you currently keep in a drawer—into a retro gaming console.
Set Up an Emulator
The first thing you’re going to want to do is set up an emulator, or multiple emulators. The simplest choice, and the one I’d recommend, is Delta emulator. This is an extremely polished application that supports titles from the NES, SNES, N64, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and even Sega Genesis. Even better, it’s free to download and extremely easy to use, as we wrote back in April.
If you want compatibility with way more systems, including the Playstation, Atari, and even MS DOS, you should check out RetroArch. It’s going to be more work to set up—you need to download cores for every system you want to emulate, and there’s no end of settings to tweak—but you’ll be rewarded with the ability to play more games and to make them look exactly the way you want.
Connect a Controller
You can play retro games with a touchscreen, sort of; the two emulators above will even show an onscreen controller that resembles the original hardware. The problem is that most games are borderline impossible to play without tactile buttons. This is why you’re going to want to pair a controller with your device.
There are a few options here. You can buy a purpose-built mobile game controller, if you want—some are even designed to hold your phone in place to give you a form factor similar to the Nintendo Switch. Or, if you don’t want to spend money, you can use a controller you already have. We have articles explaining how to connect a PlayStation or XBox controller to your iPhone, along with another guide for pairing Switch Joy-cons with your iPhone; Apple offers more generalized official documentation. The basics: Open the Settings app, head to Bluetooth, then press and hold the Connect button on your controller. You should see your controller as an option to connect to on your iPhone’s list of available devices. Tap it and you’re done.
I did this with my Nintendo Switch Pro Controller and it worked perfectly. Loading a few games in Delta, I found the controller worked exactly the way I expected. I was also able to configure the button mapping in the settings if something didn’t seem quite right. It’s also worth noting that you can connect multiple controllers at once, which is great if you want to play multiplayer games, and they don’t all have to be the same kind—you can mix and match controllers if you want to.
Stream to Your TV
At this point I can load retro games and play them with an actual controller, but there’s one thing missing: a nice big screen. Sure, the iPhone or iPad display works, but these older games are meant to be played on a TV.
You’ve got a couple of options here. Delta supports and works fairly nicely with Apple’s AirPlay, assuming you have an Apple TV streamer box or a TV that supports AirPlay. I tested this with a Sony television and found that the lag made things unplayable—fine for an RPG, sure, but horrible for a Mario game. The Verge tested it and didn’t notice the lag, though, but they notably were using an actual Apple TV. Your experience will vary—I recommend trying it out.
If you don’t like the results, you can look into buying an HDMI dongle for your iPhone. These allow you to connect your phone directly to the TV, meaning you’ll be able to play your game on the big screen with less lag. Apple sells an official cable, but you could also just search for a Lightning-to-HDMI dongle if you’re using an older iPhone, or a USB type-C to HDMI dongle if you’ve got a recent model. Note that the better dongles, including Apple’s official ones, offer pass-through charging; this will let you charge your phone while it stays connected to the TV, which is going to be crucial if you’re planning on some longer play sessions.
Either way, you can now play any classic game you have a ROM for right on your phone, complete with a real controller and the ability to play on your TV, just like the old days.
New data shows that Resident Evil 7, which was recently ported to iOS devices, was purchased and downloaded by less than 2,000 players, yet another example of big games failing to succeed on Apple’s powerful portable devices.
Kotaku Goes Hands-On At The Apple Developer Showcase
Capcom’s fantastic survival horror sequel Resident Evil 7—originally released in 2017—launched on iOS earlier this month for $20. It’s the latest big console game to arrive on iOS devices as part of Apple’s ongoing push to get more AAA titles running natively on iPhones and iPads. Last year, Resident Evil Village and the Resident Evil 4 remake arrived on iOS. While they were playable and impressive, they were pretty awful ways to play such great games due to poor performance and crappy touch controls. And it seems players agree that these aren’t great versions of these games, as data shows that these ports are likely flopping hard on iOS.
As reported on July 16 by MobileGamer.biz, data seems to indicate that RE7′s iOS port, which launched on July 2, has only made Capcom around $28,000 via 2,000 people paying for the full game after downloading the free demo.
Other AAA iPhone ports have also failed to find much success on the App Store. As previously reported by the outlet in June, data indicates that after a month only 3,000 people had purchased Assassin’s Creed Mirage, even though its free trial version had been downloaded over 120,000 times.
2023’s Resident Evil 4 remake did a bit better after six months on the market. It was downloaded 357,000 times with data indicating that around 7,000 people paid the $30 to unlock the full game. Resident Evil Village, on the other hand, did horribly on iOS. In about the same amount of time, only around 5,700 people paid $15 to play Village on their iPhone or iPad.
Why AAA games are flopping on iPhone
So what’s happening here? Well, I think the higher price points for these AAA ports are scaring away a lot of mobile players who are used to free games. But I think the bigger issue is that these aren’t the kind of games people want to play on their phones in 2024. I love Assassin’s Creed Mirage. It’s a wonderful return to the stealth-focused gameplay and smaller worlds of older AC games, while still feeling modern and fun to play. Good shit! But I have zero desire to play that game on a tiny iPhone with a cumbersome controller attached or via terrible touchscreen buttons.
Capcom / TapGameplay
These AAA games were designed to be played for hours and hours, often in a comfy chair or couch, with a controller or keyboard and a big screen. And that’s just not the experience you get with a phone. The best mobile games are pick-up-and-play. Things you can open up, have a bit of fun with, and then drop a few seconds later because your bus arrived or your game finished installing on Xbox.
iPhones will for sure get more powerful and be able to run even more AAA games at high framerates and resolutions in the future. That’s a fact. But I’m not sold on any of these games finding success on the App Store because they just aren’t what most people want to play on their mobile devices.
So now the question is, with Capcom and other publishers not making money on these ports, how long before Apple stops (probably, this hasn’t been confirmed) funding them and all these AAA games stop arriving on iOS? How long before Apple tosses in the towel on gaming once more? We shall see…
The idea is you’ll be able to speak more naturally with Siri. Ask and the assistant will be able to understand context better than ever before. You can say, “Play the podcast my wife sent me the other day,” and Siri will be able to pull it up. That kind of thing.
Siri can also help explain how to do certain functions on your phone if you’re not sure (maybe Samsung was onto something with Bixby). And if you make a mistake mid-sentence, there’s no need to start all over again. Siri will be able to understand your slip-up, and it also understands the context of your previous query, so you won’t need to repeat things over and over again.
Much like how Google’s Gemini is drawing on context based on what’s happening on the screen, Siri can now understand what is on the screen when you activate it, so if someone texts you an address, you can activate Siri and ask it to add the address to the person’s contact card. All of this is expected to work in first- and third-party apps.
ChatGPT Integration
Photograph: Apple
Apple Intelligence apparently still needs a boost for some occasions, and so Apple has tapped OpenAI’s ChatGPT to power them. The company says it’s using the GPT-4o model, and you are in control of when Siri uses ChatGPT. This powers features such as when you ask about the subject of a photo or a document (like scanning a hundred-page PDF), and Compose, which lets you generate original images and text from a query.
All of these GPT features are free with no account required, though if you already are a subscriber, you can link your account and access paid features.
New Features in iOS 18
OK, onto the more traditional software features. I’ve collected the top features in iOS 18 below, but there are tons of smaller changes. You can view the full list directly from Apple.
Get Rid of the App Grid
Customize the app icons’ style, color, and arrangement.
Photograph: Apple
For the first time, you can arrange your apps and widgets however you’d like (just like on Android). Say goodbye to the fixed list of grids Apple has forced on us for nearly two decades. You can make further personalization to the app icons as well, tuning them to a specific color to match or complement your wallpaper, and even convert them to dark mode. You can make these apps and widgets look larger too.
More Control in the Control Center
Control Center.
Photograph: Apple
New styles.
Photograph: Apple
Control Center, the hub that appears when you swipe down on the right edge of the iPhone, is now more customizable. There are now tabs within the Control Center, and you can scroll through them with one continuous swipe on the home screen. These include your favorites—the most important things you want accessible in the Control Center—media playback, and even smart home controls.
You can customize the size and layout of everything in Control Center, and this extends to the Lock Screen controls—you can switch out the two icons at the bottom of your iPhone’s lock screen to something more helpful. Expect new controls from third-party apps.
Lock and Hide Apps
Shhh! Hide apps you don’t want others to see that you have installed.
Photograph: Apple
You can finally hide apps to prevent anyone from snooping, or you can lock the app so that it asks for a passcode or biometric authentication every time it’s launched. The information from this app will be hidden throughout the system, even in notifications and searches. Google debuted a similar new feature called Private Space, which is coming to Android later this year.
Redesigned Photos App
Photos gets an organizational overhaul.
Photograph: Apple
Apple’s Photos app got a huge app redesign in iOS 18. Now, you have a photo grid at the top, and below, you can swipe through different collections, such as Recent Days, Trips, and People & Pets. This upgrade is tied with several other improvements powered by Apple Intelligence, like Clean Up, which can erase unwanted objects in the background of your photos, and the ability to find any image easily via search.
RCS and Satellite Messaging
Arguably one of the most anticipated announcements from Apple ended up as a tiny footnote amid the company’s announcements. RCS is Rich Communication Services, the texting standard that followed SMS/MMS. Android phones have supported RCS for several years, allowing for an upgraded texting experience that pulls features from instant messaging apps, like typing indicators, read receipts, and improved photo and video quality. However, none of this works when an Android user texts an iPhone (or vice versa) because Apple didn’t support RCS and used the older SMS standard.
That’s changing now, “RCS messages bring richer media and deliver and read receipts for those who don’t use iMessage,” according to Apple’s marketing materials. These texts will still appear green (instead of blue when you text fellow iPhone owners via iMessage), but it might finally spell the end of the broken texting experience that has caused so many people strife.
Yet Google and its hardware partners argue privacy and security are a major focus of the Android AI approach. VP Justin Choi, head of the security team, mobile eXperience business at Samsung Electronics, says its hybrid AI offers users “control over their data and uncompromising privacy.”
Choi describes how features processed in the cloud are protected by servers governed by strict policies. “Our on-device AI features provide another element of security by performing tasks locally on the device with no reliance on cloud servers, neither storing data on the device nor uploading it to the cloud,” Choi says.
Google says its data centers are designed with robust security measures, including physical security, access controls, and data encryption. When processing AI requests in the cloud, the company says, data stays within secure Google data center architecture and the firm is not sending your information to third parties.
Meanwhile, Galaxy’s AI engines are not trained with user data from on-device features, says Choi. Samsung “clearly indicates” which AI functions run on the device with its Galaxy AI symbol, and the smartphone maker adds a watermark to show when content has used generative AI.
The firm has also introduced a new security and privacy option called Advanced Intelligence settings to give users the choice to disable cloud-based AI capabilities.
Google says it “has a long history of protecting user data privacy,” adding that this applies to its AI features powered on-device and in the cloud. “We utilize on-device models, where data never leaves the phone, for sensitive cases such as screening phone calls,” Suzanne Frey, vice president of product trust at Google, tells WIRED.
Frey describes how Google products rely on its cloud-based models, which she says ensures “consumer’s information, like sensitive information that you want to summarize, is never sent to a third party for processing.”
“We’ve remained committed to building AI-powered features that people can trust because they are secure by default and private by design, and most importantly, follow Google’s responsible AI principles that were first to be championed in the industry,” Frey says.
Apple Changes the Conversation
Rather than simply matching the “hybrid” approach to data processing, experts say Apple’s AI strategy has changed the nature of the conversation. “Everyone expected this on-device, privacy-first push, but what Apple actually did was say, it doesn’t matter what you do in AI—or where—it’s how you do it,” Doffman says. He thinks this “will likely define best practice across the smartphone AI space.”
Even so, Apple hasn’t won the AI privacy battle just yet: The deal with OpenAI—which sees Apple uncharacteristically opening up its iOS ecosystem to an outside vendor—could put a dent in its privacy claims.
Apple refutes Musk’s claims that the OpenAI partnership compromises iPhone security, with “privacy protections built in for users who access ChatGPT.” The company says you will be asked permission before your query is shared with ChatGPT, while IP addresses are obscured and OpenAI will not store requests—but ChatGPT’s data use policies still apply.
Partnering with another company is a “strange move” for Apple, but the decision “would not have been taken lightly,” says Jake Moore, global cybersecurity adviser at security firm ESET. While the exact privacy implications are not yet clear, he concedes that “some personal data may be collected on both sides and potentially analyzed by OpenAI.”
As Apple eulogized its commitment to purportedly non-invasive AI during its annual developer conference, the iPhone maker neglected to disclose a critical update that’s coming to the next evolution of its Mac operating system — macOS Sequoia.
The New M3-Powered iMacs Are Triggering Serious Deja Vu
As 9to5Mac first reported, Apple last updated the Chess app a dozen years ago, back when it still named its Mac operating system releases after big cats. With OS X Mountain Lion, Apple added Game Center support to Chess, along with a glossy background and some other small additions laid out in an ancient AppleInsider post. The app’s 2012 upgrade looked like this, per AppleInsider.
Screenshot: AppleInsider
The following year, Apple said it ran out of big cats and started naming Mac updates after “inspiring” places in California. In the years since, Apple kept its built-in Chess app around but neglected to update it until now.
Screenshot: 9to5Mac
The latest version of Chess for Mac features shinier and more realistic-looking pieces as well as a textured, gradient background. However, 9to5Mac reports that the revamped game includes fewer themes. The update specifically punts a rather gritty-looking grass theme option, though it’s technically possible that Apple has other changes coming to the app before macOS Sequoia exits beta and sees a wider release.
MFi hearing devices usually have additional settings (it depends on the manufacturer) and can be configured from Control Center (with Hearing added) or through the Accessibility shortcut, which you can turn on and configure in Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut.
To use hearing aids with Android phones, pair them like any other Bluetooth device by going to Settings > Connected Devices and Pair New Device. You may also have the option to pair through Settings > Accessibility > Hearing Devices and Pair New Device.
Additional features vary by phone manufacturer. Look for hearing aid compatibility (HAC) to see what your phone supports. For example, here is the Google Pixel hearing aid compatibility page. Some hearing aids can now stream music and podcasts directly to hearing aids from Android phones, but it’s wise to check compatibility before you buy.
When using hearing aids with Pixel phones you should also open the Phone app, tap the three vertical dots for Menu at the top right, and tap Settings > Accessibility to toggle Hearing Aids on.
Some folks may prefer to type responses on a call, and you can do this with the real-time text (RTT) feature. Sadly, availability depends on your region and carrier. If there’s no RTT option, you will likely have Teletype (TTY) support instead. (RTT is more advanced and can transmit audio as you type.)
On Android phones, open the Phone app, tap the three vertical dots for Menu at the top right, and tap Settings > Accessibility to turn on RTT or TTY. If you choose Always Visible, you can tap the RTT icon (a capital T) after dialing someone to start an RTT call, and you can tap to launch it during a call.
To review transcripts of calls on Android, open your Phone app and tap Recents, choose the call you want, and then Call Details > See Transcript.
For iPhone, you can turn on RTT or TTY in Settings > Accessibility and you can select Answer All Calls as RTT/TTY. You can also choose RTT/TTY Call when calling someone and tap the RTT/TTY icon (looks like a landline phone) to answer a call or switch to text during a call.
To review transcripts of calls on iPhone, open your Phone app and tap Recents, then the i next to the call. You will see the RTT/TTY icon next to calls with transcripts in your call history.
Why Some Android Accessibility Features Are Baked Into Pixels
You may be wondering why some hearing accessibility features are baked into Google’s Pixel phones but offered as separate apps for other Android devices. Angana Ghosh, director of product management for input and accessibility at Google, says this allows the accessibility team to try new things on Pixel, where Google designs the hardware, especially since some phones may not be capable of the same level of on-device processing.
Keeping certain features as stand-alone apps also allows for regular updates so other Android phones can benefit from the latest developments without requiring firmware updates, which are often less frequent on non-Pixel phones.
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At WWDC 2024, Apple unleashed a blitzkrieg of software updates to put AI, or “Apple Intelligence,” front and center in your iPhones, iPads, and Macs. After Samsung and Google pushed AI on phones, it’s now Apple’s turn to try and flip the script to make smartphones, tablets, and laptops “smarter” by introducing an AI of its own.
Apple Unveils Its iPhone 15 and Apple Watch Series 9
If you woke up this morning hoping for some big hardware announcement, or hell, even a hint or teaser for a new phone or Mac design, it’s best you return to your comfortable cave and hibernate until the next big Apple showcase. Regarding software, Apple Intelligence will be available in most user-end apps with automatic summarizations and AI-enhanced photo editing. ChatGPT is coming to the latest iPhones as the Cupertino, California tech giant is set to make the chatbot accessible anywhere on the phone without needing the app.
WWDC 2024 — June 10 | Apple
If you have no interest in AI, there are a few new updates to get excited about. iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 are incoming, promising some long-awaited features. One is the iPhone lock screen update, which allows users to place their widgets and icons where they want. Another is the update to Messenger that will finally enable it to use the RCS protocol. Say goodbye to those green bubbles forever.
Meanwhile, iPads and Macs are getting a few new, unexpected features, like a full-on Calculator app that supports scribbling and iPhone mirroring on macOS Sequoia. Many of these updates are slated for fall of this year, though the betas should start rolling out in the next few months.
What’s Up With ‘Apple Intelligence’
Apple Intelligence is Apple’s Big AI Product for All of its Ecosystem
Screenshot: Apple
First on the list is “Apple Intelligence.” The Cupertino company’s AI is just what it says on the tin: an entire ecosystem for navigating users’ lives. There’s a lot going into it, but—eventually—the software should be able to include multimodal AI vision capabilities and work within all the apps on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The only problem is that we still don’t know exactly when any or parts of these features should be available.
Apple Intelligence can Rewrite or Proofread Text
Apple promises the new AI writing tools can summarize your text and add an easy “TLDR” to the top of emails. Like Google’s Gemini, the rewriting feature could include different text styles to make it sound more “Friendly” or “Concise.” You also have the option to add tables, lists, or summaries to the text. This should work in pretty much all Apple apps and some third-party apps.
Apple’s Emails Will Summarize Important Points Before You Open them
The Priority feature in the Mail app will show you your most important emails or messages for when you have a lot of them coming in at once. These condensed notifications will show this right on the lock screen of your iPhone. This works with a new Focus that cuts down on the number of notifications and only shows the most important ones.
Apple Will Let You Create AI Images, Including ‘Genmojis’
Screenshot: Apple
Of course, Apple wouldn’t stay its hand from the AI image generation game. The new Image Playground is built into Pages, Messages, Freeform, and several other apps.
You have three styles on offer: animation, illustration, or sketch, but you have the regular prompt bar to make it create whatever (somewhat disturbing) images you desire. There are also new AI-generated emojis called ‘Genmoji,’ which will come out as a sticker or Tapback. You can also create one of your friends if you trust it enough. Apple promises all its images are generated on-device.
There’s also a new Magic Eraser-like tool in Photos to remove unwanted elements from an image before filling in those missing pixels.
The Apple Intelligence Can Pull Up Your Files and Photos
There’s a lot of big promises coming about thanks to AI. Apple claims their new AI system will eventually let the AI perform rather complex actions, like pulling up photos and files from any of your apps. It should be able to work between apps so that it will know when your meetings are and what your plans are for that day when you ask it to send a text that helps you work around your schedule.
Apple Promises Its AI Won’t Save Your Data
Some of the AI running on Apple’s devices are on-device, but those are supposed to run through Private Cloud Compute. Apple promises to maintain your privacy by determining if a request needs any off-device AI. Then, it will only send parts of the request to the cloud. Apple promises outside agencies will be able to look at Apple’s servers to verify the big privacy claims.
Siri Has a New Look and a Whole Lot More Capabilities
Screenshot: Apple
Poor, beleaguered Siri is finally receiving those long-rumored AI upgrades, but we may need to wait a long time to see them in action. The Siri updates will allow the assistant to interact with iPhone and iPad apps far more than it currently can.
For one, Siri now has a new logo and look, making the borders of the screen wavy whenever the assistant gets called up. Siri will maintain conversational context and will be able to work off your previous requests. Now you can type to chat to Siri as well. Double tapping on the bottom of the screen allows you to communicate with Siri directly.
Siri can also take actions happening on-screen. It can also take actions across apps, like adding a photo from the Photos app to the Notes app. Eventually, the idea is that Siri can take specific actions in more apps over time.
The digital assistant should also become more engrained with users’ “Personal Context.” Siri should know your emails, plans, calendar events, and texts to find all the necessary information.
Siri Will Be Your Best How-To Machine for Apple Products
Siri should be able to send you a how-to guide for anything related to your Apple products. This comes baked into Siri and will work with all the most commonly asked questions about Apple products.
Siri Can Use ChatGPT ‘Seamlessly’
Screenshot: Apple
While we don’t have a good idea when Siri will receive its most important updates, we know that the current stopgap will be ChatGPT integration directly on users’ devices. The app will be accessible straight from Siri and the new compose feature. You can use the chatbot to generate DALL-E images as well. Apple promises this integration will be powered by GPT-4o for free without paying for an account.
Apple promises your activities won’t be logged, and you can access the ChatGPT paid features if you link your account. ChatGPT integration will be coming to all the Apple ecosystem’s new updates later this year.
iOS 18 is Promising some Long-Awaited Customization Features
iOS Now Supports RCS
Screenshot: Apple
As a last-minute note to end its talk about iOS 18, Apple confirmed that the next version of iOS will support RCS protocol. There’s no word yet exactly what form this will take, though Android Authority first recognized that it could be RCS Universal Profile 2.4. This could be the true end to green bubble tyranny, but we’ll learn more as we get close to release.
iOS 18 Lets You Finally Rearrange Your Home Screen Apps
Screenshot: Apple
iOS 18 will be a big one for folks who have long demanded Android-like customizability on the iPhone. Now, you can rearrange all your apps and widgets on the home screen however you like, so you can finally frame your background wallpaper without having an app covering up your kids’ faces. Apple goes further by allowing users to set the tint and tone of the app’s icons themselves.
You Can Soon “Lock” Any App in iOS 18
The next iPhone update will allow users to lock and hide apps so anyone using your phone won’t have immediate access without biometric scanning or a PIN. Similarly, you can now hide away apps into a select hidden folder if you don’t want visitors to your iPhone to get into some of your more sensitive apps without a passcode.
Messenger Includes Full Emoji Tapbacks
Screenshot: Apple
Are you annoyed you can’t do full emoji reactions to texts like you can on Android? The iOS Talkback feature is receiving full emoji support, so you can respond to your friend’s queries with as many poop emojis as their messages require.
Messenger Text Effects Will Let You Emphasize Certain Words
The Messenger app in iOS 18 is expanding the ability to emphasize words. Now, instead of just emphasizing the names of people or other words, users can use Text Effects to make certain words blow up or jiggle. The app will automatically suggest specific effects for certain words. There are new effects, and you can add them to any text you want.
Messages are also gaining the ability to use text formatting, allowing you to underline, bold, or italicize words or phrases.
Game Mode on iPhone
Mac’s Game Mode is getting a version on iPhone. The mode should automatically kick in while in a game. This minimizes background tasks to put as much processing power into the game. It should improve latency with controllers or AirPods.
Messages Via Satellite
If you find yourself without cellphone service, Apple will let you use your iPhone to text friends and family when off the grid on Messages. You can still send emojis and Tapbacks, and Apple claims its E2E encrypted. This will only be available with the iPhone 14 or later, which comes with satellite support.
Apple Maps Now Allows You to Get Hiking Trail Info
Screenshot: Apple
Apple Maps now has access to topographic trail maps, allowing hiking loops on your phone. This will show the overall length and elevation gain of the trail or loop and the various entry points on the app.
Tap to Cash Allows You to Pay Your Friends With Your Phone
Those iPhone users keen on Apple Cash will soon be able to send money to each other using the same action you can use to send folks your contact information. Hovering both phones with the active cash app will send and receive money from your wallet. Additionally, event tickets are being redesigned to show you details about the venue and other essential information.
Photos App is Gonna Look a Hell of a Lot Different
The Photos app now has a new design that shows all your photos in a single grid. You can find different photos based on months or years and filter your photos to eschew screenshots.
The new Collections will let you section different photos into topics like People & Pets or Recent Days. This will let you see your photos in a collage. In selections like Trips, you can find your vacations or travels by date. You can also pin different collections.
The Favorites carousel now shows you a slideshow of photos from various favorite collections.
iPadOS 18 Promises Some New and Unique Features for Apple’s Tablets
Floating Tab Bar on iPad Might Make it Far Easier to Use
Screenshot: Apple
Apple is introducing a new floating tab bar for iPadOS 18. It essentially works as an easy-to-access menu that can morph into a sidebar for even more fine-tuned controls. It should work with most Apple apps on the iPad. There are also new animations to accompany this update. Apple added it’s working to make browsing through documents easier on Apple’s tablets.
SharePlay Tap and Draw Will Let You Remote Control Another iPad
The new SharePlay update will let you make annotations on a foreign device and act as a remote control for another person’s iPad. So, if you’re trying to describe to your mom how to access her iPad photos, you can use SharePlay and draw an arrow straight to them. Once you get frustrated enough, you can take control.
Calculator on iPad (‘Yay’)
Screenshot: Apple
Finally, the iPad is getting a calculator app, but it’s far more interesting than that. It may look like It also works with Apple Pencil. Math Notes comes up from the calculator button, and if you write out an equal sign, it solves it for you, updating it live depending on your different functions. It also works with lists that let you tabulate numbers rather quickly. Notes also have the same math capabilities as Calculator.
Notes’ Smart Script Will Fix Your Chicken Scratch as You Write
The AI will make your writing more legible as you go. The on-board AI should be able to take your loose handwriting and make it a bit more legible while keeping your writing “style.” You can paste it directly into the Notes app, which should mimic your handwriting style.
So, What’s New in macOS Sequoia?
macOS Sequoia Will Allow You to Mirror Your iPhone on Your MacBook
Screenshot: Apple
macOS Sequoia is getting a lot of the features you can find on Apple’s other products. Continuity will let you access universal apps on the rest of the Apple ecosystem. More importantly, it will let you mirror your iPhone on a Mac. Users can then select and work on any of the iPhone’s apps. The audio also comes through Mac.
The iPhone stays locked while you mirror it and works with Standby mode. When your phone is connected to the laptop, iPhone notifications will also appear on Mac, and when you click on them, your iPhone mirror will open up.
You Can Place Your Mac Windows into Tiles, Like Windows 11
Screenshot: Apple
macOS Sequoia is adding a few new tiling features to make organizing your desktop more seamless. Bringing a window to a corner of the screen should automatically reorient and morph to fit a clean style.
You Can Preview Your Camera When Doing a Facetime
Before hopping into a video meeting, Macs will let you preview what you look like on camera. It is better to help you fix your makeup or remember to put on a shirt. There’s also a built-in background replacer if you can’t access one in whatever app you use.
Passwords App Will Show All Your Stuff
There’s now an all-new Passwords app to act as your one-stop shop for your keychains and important, sensitive information. It should be present across the entire Apple ecosystem. This should contain everything from WiFi passwords to verification codes to Passkeys.
Safari Reader Function Summarizes Text
Screenshot: Apple
The new updates to Safari introduce several new AI functions. At the top of the list are AI-generated summaries for the content on web pages. The Reader mode changes the website’s look and brings up a table of contents. There’s no look whether it also removes ads while it’s at it.
Game Porting Toolkit 2 Adds Better Windows Compatibility
Apple first announced its Game Porting Toolkit last WWDC, and now there’s a sequel that promises to make porting more hardcore titles easier to Apple’s framework. The company detailed several new games coming to Mac, including Frostpunk 2 and Control. Assassins Creed: Shadows is also coming to iPad, and Prince of Persia: Shattered Crown is coming to Mac.
How About watchOS 11 and AirPods?
AirPods Can Sense Your Head Nods For Saying Yes to Siri
Screenshot: Apple
If you’d rather not be that asshole in the elevator talking on your Bluetooth headset, AirPods will soon get a feature that should track your head movements. If there’s an incoming call, you can nod or shake your head to respond yes or no to taking it. After it rolls out to AirPods, we’ll have to see what other uses this gesture has.
Apple Watch’s watchOS 11 Gets Training Mode
There are a few new features on the Apple Watch for those fitness fans. With Training Mode, an AI algorithm tells you what kind of effort you made during your recent exercise. This might tell you if you were going too soft or too hard on your recent workout. Plus, you can customize your Fitness app to see what kind of data you want to see at a glance.
The Next watchOS Update Includes a Vitals App
Screenshot: Apple
The Vitals app will look at your entire health data to check all your health metrics and even tell you whether your drinking has impacted your health. This might show your heart rate and tell you whether that’s in your typical range. If it’s not within normal levels, the app should give you a rundown of what’s happening and what could be causing the issue.
Apple Watch Will Open Up Different Widgets Depending on Context
Apple’s smart stacks will automatically add weather or translation widgets to your main screen if it thinks you need them. This might come up when it looks like it’s about to rain or if you’re traveling around a foreign country.
The Apple Watch Will Determine Which Photos Work Best for Your Home Screen
Screenshot: Apple
Like its new TV update, Apple Watches will look through your photos and select those with enough blank space to fit the time. It should also be able to stick the time in front or behind certain photo elements, making it look far more like the photo belongs on the home screen.
If you’d rather not be that asshole in the elevator talking on your Bluetooth headset, AirPods will soon get a feature that should track your head movements. If there’s an incoming call, you can nod or shake your head to respond yes or no to taking it. After it rolls out to AirPods, we’ll have to see what other uses this gesture has.
AirPods Pro Now Have Voice Isolation and Spatial Audio in Gaming
AirPods Pro is getting an update that will add voice isolation to remove background noise for the sake of whoever’s on the other end. Additionally, developers can access an API to add spatial audio for games. This will add a surround-sound type experience to the game, first coming to Need for Speed Mobile.
Is There Anything New Coming to Apple TV+ and Vision Pro?
AppleVision OS 2, the Squeekquel, Will Let You Project Your Mac Screen Into nearly 180 Degrees
Screenshot: Apple
Apple released Vision Pro in February, and its first major update of the year is a sequel to the first visionOS coming down the pike just a few months later.
The big new update includes several new spatial photo updates. The Vision Pro can turn 2D images into 3D-ish Spatial photos. You can share those spatial photos with SharePlay. Apple is adding a few new gestures to tap to open the home view or open the control center by turning your wrist. Later this year, Apple plans to update the OS to add better Mac screen integration. This will expand the total view of your projected Mac screen, and with dynamic foveation, it can create a wraparound screen that travels nearly 180 degrees.
InSight on Apple tvOS Will Offer a Few Details on What You’re Watching
Apple’s new InSight feature on Apple TV+ is essentially Amazon’s X-Ray. It lets you get a quick summary of the content you’re watching, plus information about the actors on screen and perhaps a little trivia about the scene as it plays. Plus, there are a few new screensaver animations, like one from Peanuts’ Snoopy, but your photos will now reframed to fit with a timestamp and look like they belong on-screen.
Joel Lewenstein, a head of product design at Anthropic, was recently crawling beneath his new house to adjust the irrigation system when he ran into a conundrum: The device’s knobs made no sense. Instead of scouring the internet for a product manual, he opened up the app for Anthropic’s Claude chatbot on his phone and snapped a photo. Its algorithms analyzed the image and provided more context for what each knob might do.
When I tested OpenAI’s image features for ChatGPT last year, I found it similarly useful—at least for low-stakes tasks. I’d recommend you turn to AI image analysis for identifying those random cords around your house, but not to guess the identity of a loose prescription pill.
Anthropic released the iOS app that helped out Lewenstein for all to download earlier this month. I decided to try out the Claude app, in line with a goal I’d set to experiment with a wider variety of chatbots this year. And I chatted over video with Lewenstein to see what advice he had for getting started with Claude and how to ask questions in a way that elicit the most useful answers.
Get Chatty
Decades of Google Search dominating the web has trained us to type blunt and concise queries when we want something. To get the most out of chatbots like Claude, you need to break free from that approach. “It’s not Google Search,” Lewenstein says. “So you’re not putting in three keywords—you’re really having a conversation with it.” He encourages users to avoid an overly utilitarian communication style and to get a little more verbose with their prompts. Instead of a short phrase, try writing prompts that are a few sentences long or even a couple of paragraphs.
Share Photos
AI image analysis is still fairly new for Anthropic’s chatbot—it was released in March—but it can provide a powerful way to quickly pose questions to the chatbot. Lewenstein recommends using images as a launching point for conversations with Claude, like he did under his house. Although the feature may not always be accurate, it’s useful—and fun—if you keep the limitations in mind and look for opportunities where an image can address your query.
Be Direct
Still not getting the outputs you’d like? A solid troubleshooting technique is to be overly prescriptive in your prompts. “Just talking to Claude like a person actually leads you a little bit astray,” Lewenstein says. Instead, try giving Claude an almost awkward amount of context about how you’d like the answer formatted—for example, by saying they should be in bullet points or short paragraphs, and give it clear direction on the tone it should use. Do you want lyrical answers or something that sounds more technical? Also, consider telling Claude who the intended audience is and what their level of knowledge about the topic may be.
Try, Try Again
If your initial query to Claude doesn’t produce a good result, keep in mind that your first ask is just the starting point. Follow-up prompts and clarifying questions are critical to steering a chatbot in the right direction.
When interacting with any chatbot, I’m quick to start a new conversation thread if the output goes awry, so I can try a different opening prompt. This isn’t the best approach, Lewenstein says.
He suggests staying in that same chat window and providing direct feedback to the bot about what you’d like done differently, from tone to structure. “I literally just type, ‘No, too complicated. I don’t understand what these words mean. Can you try again, but simplify it one level more,” say Lewenstein, referencing a time when Claude’s summary of a document was confusing.
Upload Big Docs
Speaking of documents, Claude’s ability to analyze uploaded data is one of its strengths. The applications for this are more apparent for workplace use cases, where the chatbot can help with Excel spreadsheets and overflowing email inboxes, but it can be a useful feature outside the office too. If you upload batches of text, Claude can spot trends you might not have otherwise noticed. Ask the chatbot to look for patterns in language use or the topics covered. Got a PDF that you need to read but is so long that your eyes glaze over? Claude can help focus your attention on the most important aspect of the document first.
I uploaded the text transcript of my conversation with Lewenstein to Claude and asked what quotes it would highlight as important. The chatbot did an impeccable job of capturing the conversation’s key themes, and it flagged many of the quotes that I ultimately decided to pull for this newsletter. (Anthropic’s policies mean that, unless you opt in, your input data is unlikely to be used to train its AI models.)
Text Like You’re Friends
Yes, you should play around with writing longer and more specific prompts to Claude, but it’s also smart to approach conversations with chatbots as a back-and-forth volley of messages. “I actually find the mobile app to be a really natural form factor for it, because you chat with people all the time on your phone,” says Lewenstein.
When I uploaded a photo of a robot mural I saw in a cool San Francisco bar to the Claude app, the chatbot provided a poetic description of the art. It wasn’t able to guess which city the bar was located in, an almost impossible task, but the conversation’s cadence did feel like messaging an eager friend. Claude thanked me when I finally revealed the bar’s location: “My assumptions were delightfully upended.”
I need to use it more to really get the hang of Claude, but I already feel like the chatbot’s outputs have a friendly flair. Although ChatGPT is still my go-to chatbot, I could see myself adding Claude to the mix when I’m wanting to message with an AI tool that prioritizes engaging, human-sounding outputs over a more dry, efficient style of communication. It’s important to remain open to using AI tools that you haven’t tried before. Chatbots continue to improve and change rapidly, so it’s far too early to get locked into a single tool.
Apple can generally be relied on for clever, well-produced ads, but it missed the mark with its latest, which depicts a tower of creative tools and analog items literally crushed into the form of the iPad. Many, including myself, had a negative and visceral reaction to this, and we should talk about why.
It’s not just because we are watching stuff get crushed. There are countless video channels dedicated to crushing, burning, exploding, and generally destroying everyday objects. Plus, of course, we all know that this kind of thing happens daily at transfer stations and recycling centers. So it isn’t that.
And it isn’t that the stuff is itself so valuable. Sure, a piano is worth something. But we see them blown up in action movies all the time and don’t feel bad. I like pianos, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do without a few disused baby grands. Same for the rest: It’s mostly junk you could buy off Craigslist for a few bucks, or at a dump for free. (Maybe not the editing station.)
The problem isn’t with the video itself, which in fairness to the people who staged and shot it, is actually very well done. The problem is not the media, but the message.
We all get the ad’s ostensible point: You can do all this stuff in an iPad. Great. We could also do it on the last iPad, of course, but this one is thinner (no one asked for that, by the way; now cases won’t fit) and some made-up percentage better.
What we all understand, though, because, unlike Apple ad executives we live in the world, is that the things being crushed here represent the material, the tangible, the real. And the real has value. Value that Apple clearly believes it can crush into yet another black mirror.
This belief is disgusting to me. And apparently to many others, as well.
Destroying a piano in a music video or Mythbusters episode is actually an act of creation. Even destroying a piano (or monitor, or paint can, or drum kit) for no reason at all is, at worst, wasteful!
But what Apple is doing is destroying these things to convince you that you don’t need them — all you need is the company’s little device, which can do all that and more, and no need for annoying stuff like strings, keys, buttons, brushes or mixing stations.
We’re all dealing with the repercussions of media moving wholesale toward the digital and always-online. In many ways, it’s genuinely good! I think technology has been hugely empowering.
But in other, equally real ways, the digital transformation feels harmful and forced, a technotopian billionaire-approved vision of the future where every child has an AI best friend and can learn to play the virtual guitar on a cold glass screen.
Does your child like music? They don’t need a harp; throw it in the dump. An iPad is good enough. Do they like to paint? Here, Apple Pencil, just as good as pens, watercolors, oils! Books? Don’t make us laugh! Destroy them. Paper is worthless. Use another screen. In fact, why not read in Apple Vision Pro, with even faker paper?
What Apple seems to have forgotten is that it is the things in the real world — the very things Apple destroyed — that give the fake versions of those things value in the first place.
A virtual guitar can’t replace a real guitar; that’s like thinking a book can replace its author.
That doesn’t mean we can’t value both for different reasons. But the Apple ad sends the message that the future it wants doesn’t have bottles of paint, dials to turn, sculpture, physical instruments, paper books. Of course, that’s the future it’s been working on selling us for years now, it just hadn’t put it quite so bluntly before.
When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Apple is telling you what it is, and what it wants the future to be, very clearly. If that future doesn’t disgust you, you’re welcome to it.
A few representatives from smaller browser companies also expressed that they wanted more information included with Apple’s choice process, like definitions of what a browser is for less tech-savvy users and descriptions of the different browsers’ specialties. “Giving people information about the choice, and also information about what they’re choosing is really, really important,” says Kush Amlani, a global competition and regulatory counsel at Mozilla, which makes the Firefox browser.
Sophie Dembinski, a head of public policy and climate action at Ecosia, mentioned how Apple’s pop-up appears for all iPhone users even if they’ve already gone into their phone’s settings and set an alternative browser as their default. In comparison, Google’s browser choice screen for Android users won’t show up if you’ve already gone through the steps of setting a preference for a third-party option.
While many developers are unhappy with Apple’s implementation, not every company with a browser on the choice screen expressed frustration. “We believe that Apple’s approach to presenting the browser choice screen is fair and acceptable,” says Andrew Moroz Frost, the Aloha Browser founder. He pointed out the randomized order of the browsers shown on the pop-up as one example of Apple designing it in a fair manner.
Richard Socher, the founder and CEO of You.com, seemed more encouraged by there being a browser choice screen that includes the search-focused startup rather than frustrated by Apple’s implementation. “I think it’s great that there’s not the default already preselected,” he says. Socher highlighted the randomized order as a positive sign as well.
Is this choice screen a true turning point for alternative browsers to grow their user base? “We’re expecting to have a clear picture on user uplift within months, not weeks,” says Dembinski. While some browsers reported initial upticks in downloads, it still seems too soon to make sweeping generalizations about the long-term efficacy of Apple’s choice screen.
“We would like to encourage platform providers to also level out the playing field for app developers around the world, not just in the EU,” says Jan Standal, a vice president of product marketing at Opera. Some of the companies WIRED spoke with remain hopeful that the precedent of browser choice screens set by the DMA will inspire international software changes.
Shortly after Apple’s choice screen launched, the European Commision announced that the screen would be part of its wider investigation into how Apple, Google, and Meta might be breaking these updated regulations: “The Commission is concerned that Apple’s measures, including the design of the web browser choice screen, may be preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services within the Apple ecosystem, in contravention of Article 6(3) of the DMA.” In keeping with its slow-moving tradition, this investigation may take up to a year to complete.
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