logo
Apple is about to announce updates to how we use the iPhone and its other devices

Apple is about to announce updates to how we use the iPhone and its other devices

Yahoo5 hours ago

Major Apple announcements from its annual developers conference the past two years heralded big changes — which, so far, have largely fallen flat. This year, the tech company badly needs to deliver a win.
Apple's weeklong Worldwide Developers Conference, teased with the tagline 'on the horizon,' kicks off with a keynote at 1 pm ET on Monday from its headquarters in Cupertino, California. The annual event is where the company announces updates to the software that runs on billions of Apple devices used worldwide.
The iPhone maker is expected to announce relatively modest updates to its Apple Intelligence suite of AI features, such as new translation capabilities, as well as changes that will affect iPhones, AirPods, Apple Watches and more.
The big announcements of the prior two years — the Vision Pro headset and Apple Intelligence AI tools — failed to live up to the hype. Although Apple tried to sell its headset as the future of computing, the Vision Pro remains an expensive, niche product since hitting shelves last year. Apple Intelligence features, widely seen as reactive to competitors' offerings, were slow to reach devices after the iPhone 16 launch, and the AI-enhanced Siri heralded at last year's WWDC has been delayed indefinitely.
In the meantime, rivals have surged ahead on AI. Google, for example, announced a flurry of updates last month, including more advanced AI search, shopping and productivity capabilities. And steep AI competition aside, Apple is still having a rough year, with ongoing slow iPhone sales growth and a trade war threatening to force the company to raise prices.
The iPhone maker has a large installed base — that is, people using its products, which currently totals more than 2 billion active devices. That means even if Apple isn't first to roll out a software innovation, loads of people will still use wind up using their version. But after having delayed the launch of its AI-enhanced Siri, some skeptics worry that consumers could start to look toward other companies' devices for more powerful AI features.
'Say you're an influencer and you pick up a Samsung phone or a (Google Pixel) phone and say, 'I'm done with my Apple phone. This is real AI and I love it,'' Baird Managing Director Ted Mortonson told CNN. 'That's what Apple risks, that iOS displacement and people saying it's no longer cool.'
The company will likely announce updates to its 'Apple Intelligence' system, but most industry watchers believe it remains behind rivals.
Apple's updated AI capabilities are likely to be 'at least equivalent' to earlier versions of OpenAI's ChatGPT, Forrester senior analyst Andrew Cornwall said in emailed commentary.
Here are some of the major updates Apple is rumored to be announcing at WWDC on Monday.
An AirPods update is expected to enable live translation for in-person conversations, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
If an English-speaking user were having a conversation with someone speaking a different language, the AirPods would automatically translate their partner's words into their ears, according to the report. Then, the users' iPhone would translate the user's English speech back into the other language.
The offering could make AirPods more competitive with rival products, such as Google's Pixel Buds or Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, which already enabled live translation.
Automatic translation is also coming to messages, along with support for conducting polls within the messages app, Apple blog 9to5Mac reports.
The pressure is on for Apple to prove that Apple Intelligence justifies buying a new iPhone or Mac. Based on reports, Apple will likely build on what it announced last year rather than previewing massive new AI updates.
Among the biggest updates Apple is expected to make is opening its AI models to third-party developers, so users could soon see apps built on the iPhone maker's AI technology.
For consumers, the biggest AI-related changes could be a new feature that uses AI to preserve battery life and an AI-powered health coach, Forrester vice president and principal analyst Thomas Husson wrote ahead of the event. Bloomberg has also previously reported that Apple is working on both features.
That AI-powered 'battery management' feature would reportedly adjust how much power apps can draw based on device owners' usage trends. Such a tool could be especially useful in the slimmer, iPhone 'Air' model that Apple is rumored to be releasing later this year, which would likely have a less powerful battery.
Gurman reported that the new health app and AI health coach — said to be called Project Mulberry inside Apple — would collect data from across users' iPhone, Watch and other devices and use that information to make personalized health recommendations. The company has reportedly brought in health experts to film videos about various conditions, which could be shown to users based on the recommendation of the AI health agent.
Apple typically previews software updates in June before releasing the final versions widely in the fall, usually coinciding with new hardware product launches.
Rumor has it that Apple's operating system will get a new look. The effort, reportedly dubbed Solarium internally, includes more glassy, translucent windows and notifications that let background images peek through, similar to how windows on the Vision Pro display let users' natural surroundings show through.
That could provoke mixed reactions from iPhone owners, said Carolina Milanesi, president and principal analyst at tech analysis firm Creative Strategies.
'Consumers are creatures of habit,' she said. 'And change is always resisted before it's embraced.'
And while the name of Apple's latest operating system release typically goes up by one each year (i.e. iOS 17 to iOS 18), Monday's software update is expected to jump to iOS 26 on Monday, and ditto for the Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, TV and Vision Pro operating systems, Gurman reported last month.
The change could bring the OS naming convention in line with the year in which customers will be using it. The version announced on Monday will be live on Apple devices from September 2025 through September 2026. It would also create consistency across all of Apple's devices, which currently have different operating system version numbers — for example, macOS 15 and watchOS 11 — because they were released in different years.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Still no AI-powered, 'more personalized' Siri from Apple at WWDC 25
Still no AI-powered, 'more personalized' Siri from Apple at WWDC 25

Yahoo

time34 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Still no AI-powered, 'more personalized' Siri from Apple at WWDC 25

At this year's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC 25), Apple announced a slew of updates to its operating systems, services, and software, including a new look it dubbed "Liquid Glass" and a rebranded naming convention. Apple was notably quiet on one highly anticipated product: a more personalized, AI-powered Siri, which it first introduced at last year's conference. Apple's SVP of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, only gave the Siri update a brief mention during the keynote address, saying, "As we've shared, we're continuing our work to deliver the features that make Siri even more personal. This work needed more time to reach our high-quality bar, and we look forward to sharing more about it in the coming year." The time frame of "coming year" seems to indicate that Apple won't have news before 2026. That's a significant delay in the AI era, where new models, updates, and upgrades ship at a rapid pace. First announced at WWDC 24, the more personalized Siri is expected to bring artificial intelligence updates to the beleaguered virtual assistant built into iPhone and other Apple devices. At the time, the company hyped it as the "next big step for Apple" and said Siri would be able to understand your "personal context," like your relationships, communications, routine, and more, Plus, the assistant was going to be more useful by allowing you to take action within and across your apps. While Bloomberg reported that the in-development version of the more personalized Siri was functional, it was not consistently working properly. The report said its quality issues meant Siri only performed as it should two-thirds of the time, making it not viable to ship. Apple officially announced in March it was pushing back the launch, saying the Siri update would take longer to deliver than anticipated. The company also pulled SVP of Machine Learning and AI Strategy John Giannandrea off the Siri project and put Mike Rockwell, who had worked on the Vision Pro, in charge. The shake-up indicated the company was trying to get back on track after stumbling on a major release. It also suggested Apple's AI technology was behind that of rivals, like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, worrying investors. In the meantime, Apple partnered with OpenAI to help close the gap; when users asked Siri questions the assistant couldn't answer, those could be directed to ChatGPT instead. With the upcoming release, iOS 26, Apple has updated its AI image generation app, Image Playground, to use ChatGPT as well. At this year's WWDC 2025, the company continued to make other AI promises, including developer access to the on-device foundation models, live translation, upgrades to Genmoji (in addition to aforementioned Image Playground), Visual Intelligence improvements, an AI "Workout Buddy" for Apple Watch, AI in Xcode, and the introduction of an updated, AI-powered version of its Shortcuts app for scripting and automation. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at

The Back of Your iPhone Has a Secret Button -- Here's What It Can Do
The Back of Your iPhone Has a Secret Button -- Here's What It Can Do

CNET

time41 minutes ago

  • CNET

The Back of Your iPhone Has a Secret Button -- Here's What It Can Do

We're a few months out from the release of iOS 26, which will introduce a whole new look to the iPhone. But what if you're still holding on to an older iPhone that won't get the Liquid Glass redesign or Apple Intelligence for screenshots? What if you're itching to try out something new like the Camera Control button on the latest models? Good news: There's a hidden feature that lets you quickly activate your iPhone camera without unlocking your device or touching the screen, and it works on some fairly old devices. All you need to do is set up the secret "button" on the back of your iPhone. WWDC 2025: Everything Revealed in 10 Minutes WWDC 2025: Everything Revealed in 10 Minutes Click to unmute Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Skip Backward Skip Forward Next playlist item Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 9:37 Loaded : 6.19% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 9:37 Share Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Close Modal Dialog This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Close Modal Dialog This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. WWDC 2025: Everything Revealed in 10 Minutes You can use this feature to not only launch your camera app, but also turn on your flashlight or activate Shazam to identify a song before it ends. You can summon your iPhone's Control Center or Notification Center without having to swipe down from the top of your screen. In fact, with a little bit of imagination, you can use this feature to perform almost any of your phone's functions. The feature is called Back Tap, and like the Action Button on newer iPhones, it gives you one more way to interact with your device without touching the screen. You can activate it by tapping anywhere on the back of your phone, including on the camera module. And the best part is that it works even if you have a fairly thick case on your iPhone. Back Tap is available on iPhones as old as iPhone 8, as long as they're running iOS 14 or later. We'll show you how to enable it and how to use it with your Shortcuts app for nearly endless possibilities. Read more: All the Ways the iPhone 16's Camera Control Button Will Change Your iPhone Photography What is the iPhone Back Tap feature? Back Tap is an iPhone feature introduced in iOS 14. It lets you perform shortcuts on your iPhone by double or triple tapping on the back of the device. You can customize Back Tap on your iPhone to easily perform common actions like pulling up the Control Center or Notification Center, especially useful if you have a larger phone and can't swipe down from the top of the screen without some complex finger gymnastics. You can even have two separate functions enabled at the same time: Back Tap can distinguish between a Double Tap and a Triple Tap. Depending on the number of times you touch the back of your iPhone, you can set Double Tap to open your Notification Center and Triple Tap to take a screenshot. Or, you can make Double Tap open the Control Center and Triple Tap launch the Magnifier app. Experiment with Back Tap to find the right combinations of taps and functions that best fit your needs. And you aren't just limited to the Back Tap options that are available by default. Thanks to the Shortcuts app, you can set up Back Tap to perform specific functions or launch any app. For example, you can create a simple shortcut that opens Shazam or starts a voice recording, then activate it with a quick Double Tap or Triple Tap. You can also use Back Tap to trigger a more elaborate shortcut, such as automatically sending photos and videos to specific photo albums. How do I set up Back Tap on my iPhone? To enable Back Tap, go to your Settings app. Then go to Accessibility → Touch → Back Tap. There, you'll find a list of options for configuring Double Tap and Triple Tap. Here is the full list of functions that you can map to a Double Tap or Triple Tap: None Accessibility Shortcut System App Switcher Camera Control Center Flashlight Home Lock Rotation Lock Screen Mute Notification Center Reachability Screenshot Shake Spotlight Volume Down Volume Up Accessibility AssistiveTouch Background Sounds Classic Invert Color Filters Control Nearby Devices Dim Flashing Lights Live Captions Live Speech Magnifier Smart Invert Speak Screen VoiceOver Zoom Zoom Controller Scroll Gestures Scroll Down Scroll Up At the bottom of the menu, you'll also see a list of Shortcuts. These options will vary depending on what's available in your Shortcuts app. The one potential downside to Back Tap is that you don't get any tactile feedback when you use it, so you might accidentally trigger it at the wrong time and not realize it until later. For instance, you might double tap without meaning to and set off your flashlight by accident. In that case, you might want to remap your Double Tap to a less conspicuous function. Or, you can leave Double Tap off and only use Triple Tap, which you probably won't trigger as often. How do I use Back Tap to take a quick photo? One way to set up Back Tap is to map Double Tap to the Camera and Triple Tap to Volume Up or Volume Down. Because you can press either of the volume buttons to instantly take a picture, you can get the same effect if your volume buttons are mapped to Back Tap. With this combination, you can capture a photo with five quick taps on the back of your iPhone (though you'll have to pause briefly between performing the Double Tap and Triple Tap, so that your phone can distinguish between the two actions). This Back Tap combination even works if your phone is locked. Again, spend some time trying out different combinations of taps and features to find which ones are most useful for you.

Excited for iOS 26? What You Should Know Before Installing the Developer Version
Excited for iOS 26? What You Should Know Before Installing the Developer Version

CNET

time42 minutes ago

  • CNET

Excited for iOS 26? What You Should Know Before Installing the Developer Version

iOS 26 is official and there's a lot to get excited for. With its unveiling today at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, a new developer beta will soon be available to install for, well, developers, but also anyone else willing to take the plunge into potential unstable territory. iOS 26 brings a brand new Liquid Glass design language to your iPhone, offering up a slick user interface that will be consistent with the rest of Apple's software and that was inspired by the VisionOS software for the Vision Pro headset. And that's on top of all of the visual enhancements that we got in iOS 18, last year's release. (Apple is bypassing 19, jumping directly from 18 to 26 in its numbering system.) While some enthusiasts will be unfazed by the warnings, we'll go over what you can expect if you opt to install the new iOS 26 developer beta on your iPhone. For more, catch up on all of the new announcements at WWDC 2025. There's nothing stable about the 'Developer beta' builds The polished iOS that Apple showed off on stage at its WWDC keynote today was not the same as what's now available in the developer build being released today. The developer build will, undoubtedly, ship with bugs. That's both expected and fine, for one reason. Developer betas are just that -- builds for developers to test their apps for compatibility -- and far from something an end user would be able to live with on a day-to-day basis. That's also why Apple breaks its betas into developer builds and public beta builds -- the latter of which will be more usable for everyday folk. Exactly what could be broken in the beta build is anyone's guess. Last year, the iOS 18 Developer Preview had several issues, including certain apps refusing to open or force-closing, notifications not showing up, and other general issues that can significantly put a damper on the entire phone experience. Once we get our hands on the latest build, we'll do the dirty work for you, so you don't have you plan on installing the developer beta anyway, you can check out our guide when the update drops. If you're going to install the developer beta, make a backup first If you decide to install the developer beta, there's a chance that a bug or performance issue will significantly impair your ability to use your phone, and you might have to wait until the next beta release for fixes. If you run into a situation like this, you'll probably just want to go back to iOS 18 until the public beta arrives -- and if you don't want to make that walk back an arduous mission, you should just do yourself a favor and make a backup of your iPhone before installing the developer beta. Be warned that the best route to back up your iPhone might be iCloud and not your computer. While it should technically work, some bugs in the iOS 18 beta prevented their iPhones from being recognized on their computers, so some who made a backup via this method were unable to go back to a more stable version. That's what can happen with the developer betas: significant issues might have you starting from scratch. With that out of the way, here's how to make a backup on your iPhone via iCloud: Settings Tap your name Find and select your device from the list Select iCloud Backup Tap Back Up Now When to expect the iOS 26 public beta Now that you've been warned about what could happen with installing the developer beta, you might want to save yourself some stress by holding off for the public beta -- if you can weather the FOMO. You can expect the iOS 26 public bBeta to go live sometime in July. For more, check out what's new in iPadOS 26.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store