Today, Apple updated the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air with support for its new M5 chips. It also unveiled a pair of all-new Studio Display XDR monitors. Longtime Slashdot reader jizmonkey shares details about the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, which look to be fairly major updates from the previous generation: Apple announced its newest CPUs today, which it claims has the fastest single-threaded performance in the world. Both the M5 Pro and M5 Max have eighteen-core designs, versus twelve or fourteen in the M4 Pro and fourteen or sixteen in the M4 Max. However, the number of higher-performing cores has been reduced significantly. In the older M4 designs, the chips had eight, ten, or twelve "performance" cores and four "efficiency" cores. In the M5 design, there are now only six higher-performing cores (now called "super" cores) and twelve lower-performing cores (now called "performance" cores). [Apple positions this "reduction" as a redesigned architecture with new core types.] The maximum amount of RAM remains the same at 128GB for the M5 Max (64GB for the M5 Pro), and GPU performance has increased. [The M5 Pro features up to a 20-core GPU, while the M5 Max scales up to 40 cores, each equipped with a Neural Accelerator. Apple also says the new architecture delivers over 4x peak GPU compute for AI compared to the previous generation, along with up to 35 percent faster performance in ray-traced graphics workloads.] Laptops with the new chips are available to order starting tomorrow and will be delivered starting March 11. As for the new XDR monitors, MacRumors highlights some of the key features in its reporting: Apple today introduced an all-new Studio Display XDR monitor with a 27-inch screen, mini-LED backlighting, 5K resolution, peak brightness of 2,000 nits for HDR content, up to a 120Hz refresh rate, Thunderbolt 5, and more. The new Studio Display XDR replaces Apple's former Pro Display XDR, which has been discontinued. Going forward, there are now two Studio Display models.

Both new Studio Display models have the same overall design as the original model. Both models have a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera, but it now supports Desk View on the new models. Both models also feature an upgraded six-speaker system, with Apple advertising "30 percent deeper bass" compared to the previous model. Only the higher-end Studio Display XDR received a 120Hz refresh rate, mini-LED backlighting, increased brightness, and faster 140W pass-through charging. The regular Studio Display still has a 60Hz refresh rate and up to 600 nits of brightness. Both models have 27-inch displays with a 5K resolution.

The new Studio Displays can be pre-ordered starting Wednesday, March 4, ahead of a Wednesday, March 11 launch. In the U.S., the regular Studio Display continues to start at $1,599, while the Studio Display XDR starts at $3,299.

Apple has reportedly asked Google to look into "seting up servers" for a Gemini-powered upgrade to Siri that meets Apple's privacy standards. The Verge reports: Apple had already announced in January that Google's Gemini AI models would help power the upgraded version of Siri it delayed last year, but The Information's report indicates Apple might lean even more on Google so it can catch up in AI.

The original partnership announcement said that "the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology," and that the models would "help power future Apple Intelligence features," including "a more personalized Siri." While the announcement noted that Apple Intelligence would "continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute," it didn't specify if the new Siri would run on Google's cloud. Apple's Private Cloud Compute is not only underpowered but it's also underutilized in its current state, notes 9to5Mac, "with the company only using about 10% of its capacity on average, leading to some already-manufactured Apple servers to be sitting dormant on warehouse shelves."

Apple today announced the iPhone 17e with support for MagSafe and an upgraded A19 chip. The base model also gets a bump to 256GB of storage at $599, and Apple is equipping the device with its new scratch-resistant Ceramic Shield 2 glass that's supposedly 3x more durable than the 16e. Macworld reports: MagSafe would normally mean significantly faster wireless charging speeds too: the 16e is capped at 7.5W, whereas recent iPhones can wirelessly charge using MagSafe at up to 22W or even 25W. Unfortunately the iPhone 17e has not been given access to the full extent of MagSafe's powers in this regard, and has a limit of 15W. That's the same as MagSafe on the iPhones 12 through 15, and remains an improvement on the 16e, but is still disappointing. [...]

It was also expected that the 17e would get a new processor, as this is a standard upgrade for almost every refresh of almost every Apple product. The iPhone 16e came with an A18 chip; the 17 has an A19, which, according to Apple, "delivers exceptional performance for everything users do." Of course that depends on the user and their needs, and it's important to point out that, just like last year, Apple has chosen to use "binned" units of the chip in order to save money. Binned chips have failed manufacturing tests in some minor way and don't have the full complement of cores. [...]

And although the cameras are still disappointingly few in number -- one on the front and one on the back -- the wording for the portrait mode has been updated from "Portrait mode with Depth Control" (the same as on the iPhone 12) to "Next-generation portraits with Focus and Depth Control" (same as on the iPhone 17). This appears to highlight the fact that you can change the focus point. The 17e is available in white, black, and soft pink starting at $599.

Apple's iPhone and iPad running iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 have become the first consumer mobile devices cleared for NATO-restricted classified data. No special software or settings are required. MacRumors reports: Apple's devices are the first and only consumer mobile products that have reached this government certification level after security testing and evaluation by the German government. iPhones and iPads running iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 are now certified for use with classified data in all NATO nations.

In an announcement of the security clearance, Apple touted its security features: "Apple designs security into all of its products from the start, ensuring the most sophisticated protections are built in across hardware, software, and Apple silicon. This unique approach allows Apple users to benefit from industry-leading security protections such as best-in-class encryption, biometric authentication with Face ID, and groundbreaking features like Memory Integrity Enforcement. These same protections are now recognized as meeting stringent government and international security requirements, even for restricted data."

Apple's forthcoming touch-screen MacBook Pro models -- the company's first-ever laptops to support touch input -- will feature the iPhone's Dynamic Island at the center top of their OLED displays and a new interface that dynamically adjusts between touch and point-and-click controls, according to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the plans.

The 14-inch and 16-inch models, code-named K114 and K116, are slated for release toward the end of 2026 and won't be part of Apple's product announcements in the first week of March. The redesigned interface brings up a contextual menu surrounding a user's finger when they touch a button or control, and enlarges menu bar items when tapped, adapting the available controls based on whether the input is touch or click.

Apple does not plan to position the machines as iPad replacements or describe them as touch-first; the physical design retains the full keyboard and large trackpad of the current MacBook Pro. Last year's Liquid Glass redesign in macOS Tahoe, which added more padding around icons and touch-optimized sliders in the control center, was partly groundwork for this shift.

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman (paywalled), Apple is reportedly developing AI-powered smart glasses, a wearable pendant, and camera-equipped AirPods that connect to the iPhone and use "visual context" to let Siri perform real-world actions. The Verge reports: Apple is reportedly aiming to start production of its smart glasses in December, ahead of a 2027 launch. The new device will compete directly with Meta's lineup of smart glasses and is rumored to feature speakers, microphones, and a high-resolution camera for taking photos and videos, in addition to another lens designed to enable AI-powered features.

The glasses won't have a built-in display, but they will allow users to make phone calls, interact with Siri, play music, and "take actions based on surroundings," such as asking about the ingredients in a meal, according to Bloomberg. Apple's smart glasses could also help users identify what they're seeing, reference landmarks when offering directions, and remind wearers to complete a task in specific situations, Bloomberg reports.

The company is reportedly planning to develop the frames for the smart glasses in-house, instead of partnering with a third-party company like Meta does with Ray-Ban and Oakley. Prototypes of the glasses use a cable to connect to a battery pack and an iPhone, but Bloomberg reports that "newer versions have the components embedded in the frame." Apple reportedly wants to make its smart glasses stand out by offering a high-quality build and advanced camera technology. The company is still working on AI-powered smart glasses with a display, though their launch "remains many years away," Bloomberg says.

Apple's plans for AI hardware don't end there, as the company is expected to build upon its Google Gemini-powered Siri upgrade with an AirTag-sized AI pendant that people can either wear as a necklace or a pin. This device would "essentially serve as an always-on camera" for the iPhone and has a microphone for prompting Siri, Bloomberg reports. The pendant, which The Information first reported on last month, is rumored to come with a built-in chip, but will mainly rely on the iPhone's processing power. The device could arrive as early as next year, according to Bloomberg.

Installing Linux on a MacBook Air "turned out to be a very underwhelming experience," according to the tech news site MakeUseOf: The thing about Apple silicon Macs is that it's not as simple as downloading an AArch64 ISO of your favorite distro and installing it. Yes, the M-series chips are ARM-based, but that doesn't automatically make the whole system compatible in the same way most traditional x86 PCs are. Pretty much everything in modern MacBooks is custom. The boot process isn't standard UEFI like on most PCs. Apple has its own boot chain called iBoot. The same goes for other things, like the GPU, power management, USB controllers, and pretty much every other hardware component. It is as proprietary as it gets.

This is exactly what the team behind Asahi Linux has been working toward. Their entire goal has been to make Linux properly usable on M-series Macs by building the missing pieces from the ground up. I first tried it back in 2023, when the project was still tied to Arch Linux and decided to give it a try again in 2026. These days, though, the main release is called Fedora Asahi Remix, which, as the name suggests, is built on Fedora rather than Arch...
For Linux on Apple Silicon, the article lists three major disappointments:

• "External monitors don't work unless your MacBook has a built-in HDMI port."

• "Linux just doesn't feel fully ready for ARM yet. A lot of applications still aren't compiled for ARM, so software support ends up being very hit or miss." (And even most of the apps tested with FEX "either didn't run properly or weren't stable enough to rely on.")

• Asahi "refused to connect to my phone's hotspot," they write (adding "No, it wasn't an iPhone").

This week Apple patched iOS and macOS against what it called "an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals."

Security Week reports that the bugs "could be exploited for information exposure, denial-of-service (DoS), arbitrary file write, privilege escalation, network traffic interception, sandbox escape, and code execution." Tracked as CVE-2026-20700, the zero-day flaw is described as a memory corruption issue that could be exploited for arbitrary code execution... The tech giant also noted that the flaw's exploitation is linked to attacks involving CVE-2025-14174 and CVE-2025-43529, two zero-days patched in WebKit in December 2025...

The three zero-day bugs were identified by Apple's security team and Google's Threat Analysis Group and their descriptions suggest that they might have been exploited by commercial spyware vendors... Additional information is available on Apple's security updates page.
Brian Milbier, deputy CISO at Huntress, tells the Register that the dyld/WebKit patch "closes a door that has been unlocked for over a decade."

Thanks to Slashdot reader wiredmikey for sharing the article.

Apple's long-promised overhaul of Siri has hit fresh problems during internal testing, forcing the company to push several key features out of the iOS 26.4 update that was slated for March and spread them across later releases, Bloomberg is reporting.

The new Siri -- first announced at WWDC in June 2024 and originally due by early 2025 -- struggles to reliably process queries, takes too long to respond and sometimes falls back on OpenAI's ChatGPT instead of Apple's own technology, the report said. Apple has instructed engineers to begin testing new Siri capabilities on iOS 26.5 instead, due in May, and internal builds of that update include a settings toggle labeled "preview" for the personal data features. A more ambitious chatbot-style Siri code-named Campo, powered by Google servers and a custom Gemini model, is in development for iOS 27 in September.

Apple and Google have agreed to a set of commitments to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority that will prevent them from giving preferential treatment to their own apps and require greater transparency around how third-party apps are approved for sale.

The CMA announced the measures on Tuesday, seven months after it declared that the two companies held an "effective duopoly" over the UK's mobile app ecosystem. Both companies also committed to not using data gathered from third-party developers in ways the regulator deems unfair. The CMA granted both app stores "strategic market status" in October 2025, a designation that gave it the authority to demand changes.

CMA head Sarah Cardell called the commitments "important first steps" and said the regulator would "closely monitor" implementation. Technology analyst Paolo Pescatore described the announcement as a "pragmatic first step" but noted some may see it as "addressing the low-hanging fruit." The UK's app economy is the largest in Europe by revenue and number of developers, generating an estimated 1.5% of the country's GDP.

Apple "is preparing to allow voice-controlled AI apps from other companies in CarPlay," reports Bloomberg, citing "people familiar with the matter."

Bloomberg calls it "a move that will let users query AI chatbots through its vehicle interface for the first time." The company is working to support the apps in CarPlay within the coming months, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plan hasn't been announced. The change marks a strategic shift for Apple, which until now has only allowed its own Siri assistant as a voice-control option within its popular vehicle infotainment software. With the move, AI providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic PBC and Alphabet Inc.'s Google will be able to release CarPlay versions of their apps that include a voice-control mode...

The company also has launched a higher-end version of the platform, CarPlay Ultra, that lets drivers control functions like seat adjustments and climate settings directly through Apple's software. But that system is rolling out slowly and must be customized for each automaker. That means it's likely to be a niche offering.
The article notes that Tesla is now working to support Apple's CarPlay.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has announced that astronauts on the upcoming Crew-12 and Artemis II missions will be allowed to carry iPhones and other modern smartphones into orbit and to the Moon -- a reversal of long-standing agency rules that had left crews relying on a 2016 Nikon DSLR and decade-old GoPros for the historic lunar flyby.

Isaacman framed the move as part of a broader push to challenge what he called bloated qualification requirements, where hardware approvals get mired in radiation characterization, battery thermal tests, outgassing reviews and vibration testing. "That operational urgency will serve NASA well as we pursue the highest-value science and research in orbit and on the lunar surface," he wrote.

The FBI has been unable to access a Washington Post reporter's seized iPhone because it was in Lockdown Mode, a sometimes overlooked feature that makes iPhones broadly more secure, according to recently filed court records. 404Media: The court record shows what devices and data the FBI was able to ultimately access, and which devices it could not, after raiding the home of the reporter, Hannah Natanson, in January as part of an investigation into leaks of classified information. It also provides rare insight into the apparent effectiveness of Lockdown Mode, or at least how effective it might be before the FBI may try other techniques to access the device.

"Because the iPhone was in Lockdown mode, CART could not extract that device," the court record reads, referring to the FBI's Computer Analysis Response Team, a unit focused on performing forensic analyses of seized devices. The document is written by the government, and is opposing the return of Natanson's devices.

The FBI raided Natanson's home as part of its investigation into government contractor Aurelio Perez-Lugones, who is charged with, among other things, retention of national defense information. The government believes Perez-Lugones was a source of Natanson's, and provided her with various pieces of classified information. While executing a search warrant for his mobile phone, investigators reviewed Signal messages between Pere-Lugones and the reporter, the Department of Justice previously said.

Apple's long-standing dominance over its electronics supply chain is eroding as AI companies outbid the iPhone maker for critical components like chips, memory and specialized glass fiber, giving suppliers the leverage to demand that Apple pay more. CEO Tim Cook acknowledged the pressure during a Thursday earnings call, noting constraints in chip supplies and significant increases in memory prices.

Nvidia has overtaken Apple as TSMC's largest customer, CEO Jensen Huang said on a podcast; Apple had held that position by a wide margin for years. DRAM prices are set to quadruple from 2023 levels by year-end and NAND prices will more than triple, according to TechInsights.

The firm estimates Apple could pay $57 more for memory in the base iPhone 18 due this fall compared to the base iPhone 17 currently on sale -- a significant hit on a device that retails for $799.

"Apple has gone for a choose-your-own-adventure when shopping for a new Mac," writes long-time Slashdot reader esarjeant.

Macworld explains: Apple has shifted from selling pre-configured Mac models to a fully customizable build-to-order system on its website, allowing customers to select display size, chip, memory, and storage options... This change emphasizes building a machine within budget rather than choosing from set configurations, potentially preparing for future CPU/GPU core selection with M5 chips. Third-party retailers like Amazon and Best Buy are expected to continue offering standard configurations for customers preferring traditional purchasing methods...

Apple is rumored to offer the ability to customize CPU and GPU cores with the upcoming launch of the M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models, so this new system could pave the way for more build-to-order options. It could also be a way to âoehideâ smaller price increases as memory and other component costs rise throughout 2026.

Apple posted its biggest quarter ever, with iPhone revenue hitting a record ~$85.3 billion and Services climbing 14% to ~$30 billion. Total revenue reached nearly $143.76 billion.

"The demand for iPhone was simply staggering," CEO Tim Cook said on a conference call discussing the results. "This is the strongest iPhone lineup we've ever had and by far the most popular."

Apple "runs on Anthropic at this point" and that the AI company is powering much of what Apple does internally for product development and internal tools, according to Mark Gurman, the most influential reporter on the Apple beat.

Apple had initially pursued an AI deal with Anthropic before the Google partnership came together, but negotiations fell apart over pricing -- Anthropic reportedly wanted several billion dollars per year and a doubling of fees over time. Apple's deal with Google is costing roughly one billion dollars annually.

Apple has acquired Q.AI, a secretive Israeli startup whose technology can analyze facial skin micro-movements to interpret "silent speech," in a deal valued at close to $2 billion that marks the iPhone maker's second-largest acquisition ever, according to backer GV (formerly Google Ventures).

The four-year-old company was founded in Tel Aviv in 2022 by Aviad Maizels, Yonatan Wexler and Avi Barliya. Patents filed by Q.AI show its technology being deployed in headphones or smart glasses to enable non-verbal communication with an AI assistant. The acquisition comes as Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses already let wearers talk to its AI, and Google and Snap are preparing to launch competing devices later this year.

Apple sold seven of the ten best-selling smartphones globally in 2025, a lopsided dominance that underscores how thoroughly the company controls the premium end of the mobile market.

The iPhone 16 was the single best-selling phone worldwide, and Apple's presence extended all the way down to the tenth spot where the iPhone 16e -- its newest budget-friendly option -- found consistent demand in Japan and the U.S., according to Counterpoint.

Samsung accounted for the remaining three positions, led by the Galaxy A16 5G as the best-selling Android device of the year. The Galaxy S25 Ultra also made the cut, marking the second straight year a Samsung flagship cracked the top ten. Together these ten phones from just two companies represented 19% of all smartphones sold during the year, continuing a four-year streak of Apple-Samsung exclusivity at the top.

Apple TV+ has landed the screen rights to Cosmere, the sprawling literary universe created by Brandon Sanderson. "The first titles being eyed for adaptation are the Mistborn series, for features, and The Stormlight Archive series, for television," reports the Hollywood Reporter. From the report: The deal is rare one, coming after a competitive situation which saw Sanderson meet with most of the studio heads in town. It gives the author rarefied control over the screen translations, according to sources. Sanderson will be the architect of the universe; will write, produce and consult; and will have approvals. That's a level of involvement that not even J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin enjoys.

Sanderson's literary success and fan following helped pave the way for such a deal. One of the most prolific and beloved fantasy authors working today, he has sold over 50 million copies of his books worldwide, collectively across his series. [...] While the Cosmere books are set in various worlds and eras, the underlying premise concerns a being named Adolnasium who is killed by a group of conspirators. The being's power is broken into 16 shards, which are then spread out throughout many worlds by the conspirators, spreading many kinds of magic across the universe.