After a visit to Jason’s backyard, we discuss OpenAI’s response to Apple’s lawsuit, the future of Apple’s wearable line, the return of “Ted Lasso,” and some starters for Spider-Man.
We trust Apple with a lot of our data. In general, that hasn’t seemed like a bad idea; in particular, compared to its competitors, Apple seems to ensure that it can inspect or interact with very little of our data. The company has built its platform and its reputation on being an elegant, frictionless, hands-off conduit. While we can make many complaints about Liquid Glass, its increased focus on invasive (and poor) advertising, its software quality, and much else, Apple has kept its corporate nose cleaner than anybody else. Its transparency and documentation are, oddly, worse than its actions and clear intent.
I was thinking about this when I received an email from an anonymized iCloud Hide My Email account, asking for more detail about how Apple managed the transition from the old method of presenting or escrowing (in iCloud) your macOS FileVault Recovery Key to the new method, in which the key is stored in Passwords. This transition, which I’ve documented in a few places, was a step forward in privacy and security.
But not transparency! I’ll explain, but you can’t find an explanation on Apple’s site about the transition. The support documentation remains out of sync with Tahoe. That leaves it to yours truly to explicate.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently published a newsletter with a round-up of how fitness wearables, like rings, watches, and bands, preserve your privacy from government intrusion, as well as whether they protect you from unwanted security invasions by using end-to-end encryption (E2EE). (The former often requires the latter: governments typically can’t break through E2EE.)
I want to quote two full paragraphs to make this point:
In the end, we found that only four of these companies (Apple, Google, Whoop, and Oura) promise to notify users of law enforcement requests in publicly available documentation. And just two of those companies, Apple and Google (which also owns Fitbit), currently publish transparency reports on how often they hand users’ data to the government.
Support for end-to-end encryption—a method that ensures your personal data is only accessible by you, and not the company who makes the device and manages the cloud storage—is more rare than transparency reports among wearable device makers. The Apple Watch is the only popular fitness wearable that supports end-to-end encryption.1
Apple wasn’t an early player with E2EE. Really, it was seen as the kind of thing only true security geeks cared about, even while people like EFF and other digital privacy advocacy groups and individuals warned us that our data was only lightly protected. Over time, as the criminal, exploitative, and political monitoring and extraction of our secrets became clear, Apple kept stepping up.
The Secure Enclave is a keystone of those moves, as the tamper-resistant silicon subsystem allows devices to keep locally generated security keys entirely private. Most of these keys never leave the Secure Enclave! Rather, it’s the encryption hub.2
iCloud initially had a fairly cursory level of protection, with the then-Apple ID account password serving as the only real bar. Two-step verification in March 2013 provided better account protection, but didn’t cover iCloud backups, which could be retrieved without that second step. A rash of celebrity account leaks in late summer 2014 led Apple to extend two-step to iCloud data within a couple of weeks. The next year, it upgraded security to the more rigorous two-factor authentication, which later became mandatory.
As part of its response to the iCloud data hijacks, Apple began to beef up iCloud. It began rolling out E2EE for all the device-based services it could, leaving synced data still relatively lightly protected. (iCloud data is always encrypted with Apple’s at-rest keys, which only it ostensibly has access to, and in transit with HTTPS. However, a security breach at Apple or someone able to hijack one end of an in-progress HTTPS sync allows access to that unencrypted data.)
Then, suddenly, months after shipping major updates to its operating systems, Apple announced Advanced Data Protection in December 2022. Enabling this feature put the E2EE aegis over nearly all synced or stored data at iCloud; mail, contacts, and calendar entries remain an exception because of their interoperability with third-party apps and services. You can view Apple’s document that explains what level of protection applies to data, with and without ADP enabled.
With that in mind, let’s talk about the Recovery Key transition.
The particular reader question driving this was their concern about the FileVault Recovery Key that was in place when the Tahoe-driven transition occurred. Was the old key destroyed and a new one created and stashed in Passwords? Or was the old one just moved over? If the latter, isn’t that a security hole, if a tiny one?
My initial reply wasn’t entirely glib, but I said, having not documented the upgrade, I believed Apple explained the process when it occurred. But I couldn’t find any screen captures of how that occurred. Apple’s documentation remains in the past—it doesn’t mention the Passwords method at all. The Passwords User Guide perversely mentions the Recovery Key, but not how to interact with turning it off or on.
People who had FileVault disabled (whether they never turned it on, or turned it off at some point) did receive an alert during the upgrade:
Your Mac is Ready for FileVault: FileVault keeps your Mac safe by encrypting your data and protecting it with the password you use to log in. If you forget your password, you can use your Recovery Key to reset it.
Clicking Not Now bypassed the process; Turn On opted the user into the new Passwords-based storage for the Recovery Key.
I’ve explained in previous columns how FileVault provides an extra layer of protection. FileVault requires a Recovery Key, so you have recourse if your password stops working, you forget it, or corruption happens in the boot data. This shouldn’t happen, but it can. The Recovery Key and your password (transformed by a cryptographic formula—or hash—after you enter it) are both “key encryption keys,” delightfully named KEKs. Neither directly encrypts your data. Each instead unwraps the key that the Secure Enclave uses to unlock your drive for use in macOS.3 (You can find out a lot more about this topic in my Take Control of Securing Your Apple Devices, a revised version of which, including “27” betas, will be out shortly as a free update.)
Apple never knows your macOS passwords, and it shouldn’t know your Recovery Key. That was the flaw with iCloud escrow: your Recovery Key could be retrieved by someone with your Apple Account information who had access to your Mac.
With that said, how did Apple manage the transition from the old system to the new one that uses Passwords? Into this lacuna of details, jump I with inferential logic about what Apple must have done.
With a “show me once” Recovery Key: Apple would generate this key, show it to you, then destroy it. The company (and macOS) didn’t need a record of it, because its purpose was to be used to decrypt another key: don’t have the key, can’t decrypt that other key. If you opted for that method, Apple had to destroy the existing KEK to replace it with a new one derived from the newly created Recovery Key.
With an iCloud escrow key: The same scenario applies from a different angle. Apple can’t retrieve your escrowed key unless you use your Apple Account. That isn’t a per se security weakness, but Apple doesn’t need that escrowed key, and it doesn’t want to decrypt it at iCloud to send it to you. I would warrant that the company once again destroys the KEK, creates a new one, and that’s what’s stored in Passwords. Anything else leaves a potential gap in my explanation of why Apple made this change in the first place.
Now, you say, if macOS generated the key and it stored it in Passwords, doesn’t it “know” the key? Not exactly. The key is ostensibly generated in memory, added to Passwords, and destroyed. To have accessed the key, an attacker would need to be monitoring your screen or grab particular memory locations at an exact moment. If someone has undetected remote observation of your Mac display, the game is already over.
Passwords uses end-to-end encryption with device-based secrets. You can enter a device password or use biometrics to unlock Passwords (or chained biometrics with an Apple Watch linked to your Mac). That’s as secure as we can get to protect any password. If someone wanted to access your Recovery Key through Passwords, they need access to one of your devices; cracking your Apple Account and its second-factor or passkey authentication wouldn’t help—and that’s a big stretch to begin with. Nor does just having your macOS account name and password without the ability to have physical or remote screen access to your device.
I believe Apple handled this transition awkwardly. The company could have provided more clarity about the requirement to change how a FileVault Recovery Key was stored, and explain exactly what measures it took to ensure security across that transition. And it could update its support pages!
[Got a question for the column? You can email glenn@sixcolors.com or use /glenn in our subscriber-only Discord community.]
This is turning out to be the year of immersive sports.
In January, Apple worked with Spectrum and the L.A. Lakers to debut a series of immersive NBA games. And beginning August 28, it’ll be airing a live immersive Major League Baseball game every Friday night for the rest of the Friday Night Baseball season.
Unlike the NBA games, which were limited to cable subscribers, these games are part of Apple’s own Friday Night Baseball package and will be available to all Apple TV subscribers with a Vision Pro. (In Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the UK, and the U.S., anyway.)
As with the NBA games, this will be an immersive-specific telecast with its own announcers (Paul Severino, Xavier Scruggs, Michelle Margaux), replays, and graphics. Apple says that during commercial breaks, viewers will “stay immersed in the in-stadium experience from all angles.”
As always, the details will be fascinating to see. While I thought that the immersive NBA games were pretty good, some viewers complained that there were too many changes in camera angle that broke immersion. Baseball is a very different sport, in terms of pace and in the size of the field, so it’ll be interesting to see how Apple chooses to approach its coverage.
The four immersive games on the schedule are: Red Sox at Yankees (August 28), Angels at Pirates (September 4), Padres at Giants (September 11), and Giants at Dodgers (September 18).
Your voice may be your passport, as a certain Robert Redford picture once asserted, but two macOS apps in our spotlight this week view your voice as a way to get more things done on your Mac. We’re talking transcription apps with two apps that take very different approaches to what you can do with vocal recognition and AI.
But that’s not all for this week. We also look at a tool to help you better enjoy email newsletters, an iPhone app for making your photos sound as good as ever and a multiplatform game that helps you fine-tune your puzzle-solving skills.
Got an app of your own that you’d like to see highlighted? Let us know at apps@sixcolors.com with a brief description of what it does, and we’ll take it from there.
I record a lot of interviews, which means I need to transcribe a lot of interviews, and so far, I’ve found the Apple Intelligence tools built into Apple’s various software platforms to be fairly wanting in this area. So when an app like Vox Dictum promises a better transcription experience, I’m all ears.
Vox Dictum is a macOS app that makes privacy its calling card — all the transcription happens directly on your Mac, as do the AI-powered summary features that you can access with the cost of a subscription. A Pro subscription costs $7.99/month and gets you features like large AI models to download to your Mac plus AI summaries while the $12.99/month Pro+ package adds a speaker recognition feature.
I do think it’s easier to label speakers in VoxDictum than with any of Apple’s built-in features, though transcripts — while fairly accurate — feature line breaks that aren’t necessarily suited to my purposes.
As for the summary feature, I found it to be hit-and-miss: Vox Dictum did a great job highlighting the main points of an interview I conducted for a freelance article, making the summary a good reference tool, but a recorded discussion between me and my wife produced a summary with conflicting dates on some action items. That said, I do like that Vox Dictum’s summary feature lets you designate if the recording is an interview, a meeting, a news bulletin or a podcast, which seems to help focus the summary.
Processing time can take a bit, but if you find yourself needing to transcribe a lot of interviews, Vox Dictum is definitely worth a download so you can see if its base features improve on your current approach.
Like Vox Dictum, Bonfiyah promises to turn recordings into transcripts, while also recognizing who’s saying what. But transcription is really just a sideshow in this case — the app’s real strength lies in its ability to track your conversations.
Available for the iPhone, iPad and Mac — I tried out the macOS version — Bonfiyah records conversations, meetings and brainstorming sessions. (You can also import audio files into the app.) Besides transcription and speaker identification features, the app also taps into AI to summarize action items that come up in your conversation and who’s responsible for taking care of them. A feature I particularly like is an analysis tool that analyzes how to communicate more effectively with the people you talk to on a regular basis.
Transcription does take place off-device via AssemblyAI, though Bonfiyah deletes that info from its servers after seven days. The app includes privacy features such as marking conversations as privileged.
Bonfiyah comes across as a pretty sophisticated tool that might be overkill for anyone who needs transcripts with more basic summary features. But you can try out all the features to start with for 14 days before you need to commit to either a $24.99/month Pro or $34.99/month Pro AI account for more advanced features.
Letterboxx exists under the premise that an email inbox is no place to enjoy a newsletter and a traditional mail client is not a reader app. Inboxes are places for taking action like responding to timely messages, but newsletters are something that you want to spend time diving into — hence the Letterboxx interface, which is designed to use the ample space provided on your Mac.
With Letterboxx, you can redirect newsletters sent to supported email accounts to a dedicated reading space, complete with folders for organizing incoming missives by type. You also get ad-filtering tools, ways to highlight relevant text and even shortcuts for managing your many subscriptions.
You’ll know right away if this app is just right for your newsletter-heavy reading habits or if it’s more management features than you need, but you can confirm with a two-week free trial to Letterboxx before the regular $4.99/monthly subscription rate kicks in.
I don’t really find much use for Live Photos, the built-in iPhone camera feature that adds a little bit of movement and audio to your images. But Echo Photo Album might cause me to reconsider augmenting my photos with its focus entirely on audio.
You can record up to 60 seconds of audio in Echo Photo Album, adding it to a shot you either take through the app or find in your photo library. In testing Echo Photo Album on my iPhone — it’s also compatible with iPads and Apple Watches — I found it worked best adding the sound of my cat purring to seem feline portraits or ocean waves crashing to a coastal landscape shot. I imagine it could also come in handy adding sounds to accompany road trips, baby photos and group get-togethers.
You can download Echo Photo Album for free, with a $4.99 purchases removing a 10-image limit.
All work and no play makes for a dull app profiler, so here’s a game I’ve been playing lately that runs on the Mac as well as on iPhones and iPads. (I’ve been testing the macOS version.) Chess Peace is one of those games that you play to keep your mind active. Best of all, you don’t really need to be a grand master to get something out of the game.
The only thing you need to know about chess to thrive at Chess Peace is how each of the different pieces move around the board. That knowledge lets you position each piece on the board of a Chess Peace puzzle in such a way as to prevent any other piece from capturing them — keeping your rook out of the diagonal attacks of your bishop, for example.
The game serves up a new puzzle every day, with a library of older puzzles for you to play as well. An $8.99 in-app purchases unlocks 26,500 puzzles across five game modes plus custom themes to let you change the look of Chess Peace.
Our favorite ways to share data between devices, what we’d like to see iOS on next after PontoonPlay, whether Private Relay concerns us, and any “dead” media formats we still enjoy.
A story by 404 Media’s Joseph Cox, who last month broke the news about a flaw in Apple’s Hide My Email feature, is now back to report that iCloud Private Relay, a feature that is supposed to obfuscate users’ IP addresses, may not be so private:
A series of issues in Apple’s web browser engine — the tech underlying all browsers on iOS — means that Apple’s iCloud Private Relay tool, which is supposed to hide a user’s IP address, in many cases doesn’t actually work. Instead, the issues mean a malicious attacker can set up a website to learn a Private Relay user’s real IP address, or that many websites have also already collected this information incidentally. The issues also impact OnionBrowser, an iOS app for browsing the web through the Tor anonymity network, the researchers who discovered the issues say.
Fascinatingly, this flaw seems to be due to the implementation of passkeys: the authentication happens out of band, in a separate connection, and therefore never runs through Private Relay.
The security researchers who uncovered the issue have put up a site that lets you check if you’re affected; I wasn’t able to test it this morning, as the Wi-Fi network I’m using as of this writing doesn’t support Private Relay at all. (Joke’s on me, I guess!) They’ve also reported the vulnerability to Apple, who did not provide a timeline for fixing it, but allowed them to disclose the issue nonetheless.
Cox points out that along with the Hide My Email bug, this is the second time that a vulnerability has affected Apple’s paid privacy features, since both are part of the iCloud+ subscription. Though Apple did finally patch the Hide My Email flaw late last month, a second flaw is not a great look for a company that prides itself on privacy and security.
Moltz has a can-do attitude but it’s Lex and Dan who get the questions about actually doing things.
“Ted Lasso” is back on Apple TV, which was no sure thing after the series more or less wrapped up in May of 2023. But it’s back for a fourth season, in which—after an episode-long visit to Ted’s home of Kansas City—the football-turned-soccer coach returns to Richmond, where—as teased at the end of season 3—a new women’s team is launching and just might need a coach.
I’ve seen the first half of the season, and I’m happy to report that though the teams have changed, this is still “Ted Lasso” through and through. Thematically the first three seasons were about Ted’s journey in running away from a dissolving marriage. With season four, a whole new set of themes begin to emerge.
Yes, love ’em or hate ’em Ted’s homespun aphorisms still abound. The relationship between owner Rebecca and marketing genius Keely continues to be as strong as ever. Higgins is still doing his Higgins stuff. Mae is still tending bar. Those three fans in the pub are as random as ever. But in coaching a barely-formed women’s team that is in desperate need of players and fans, “Ted Lasso” returns to its roots as an underdog story, which helps make the whole thing feel more like the show’s first season. (There’s even a press conference scene that is disastrous for entirely different reasons from the original.)
It’s great to have series co-creator Brendan Hunt back as Coach Beard, but the addition of Tanya Reynolds (“Sex Education”) as Alice Chilton introduces a new dynamic. Chilton is the only coach who can go into the locker room without permission, she thinks she deserves the managerial job, and she’s got some serious anger control problems. Reynolds adds a lot of grit to the proceedings, preventing it from becoming too much of a sickeningly sweet reunion love-fest.
The character least served from the season, at least so far as I’ve seen, is breakout character Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein). He’s there and has some moments, but since he’s the manager of the men’s team, he’s often relegated being a gruff, bearded question mark attached to questions about his relationship status with Keeley. I appreciate the ironic turnabout of the men’s manager being an afterthought who’s only relevant in terms of his romantic storylines, but I do wonder if Roy is too strong of a character to be served in such limited doses.
Anyway, the best review I can give to season four of “Ted Lasso” is that each episode made me laugh out loud, a lot. Not only was it nice to see these familiar characters again, but the show did the most important job any comedy has—it’s funny. Welcome back, coach.
The almost-natural-language notepad calculator Soulver’s latest release adds better tools for calculating durations or intervals between dates and times, planning travel itineraries, tracking inflation, finding distances, performing bandwidth math, and splitting restaurant bills or other expenses. That’s not all, but a good starting list. Should it do all these things? A point we could argue about! But many of the features it offered in the past, and several of the new ones it provides, previously required one or more web searches to find a tool or to pull together disparate information. That’s welcome.
Soulver 4’s release comes at an interesting time, when many people have turned to chatbots and Google’s search dialog—and soon will turn to Siri AI—to answer questions that are better written out or spoken than described as just numbers or operators.
This significant update succeeds in bringing a sort of authoritative basis to stuff you need to calculate or convert. Behind the scenes, there’s no inference or autocompletion—it’s numbers, baby, all the way down. However, the developers aren’t unaware of the AI glow-up. They’ve addressed it in an interesting way, making it easy for agents to ask questions of Soulver!
Soulver has filled a gap for me in my calculating needs since I dug into the subject in 2015. While I love PCalc and use it for regular and advanced calculator needs, Soulver is where I go when I need to mix things up.1
PCalc and Soulver offer overlapping Venn diagrams of what’s possible in number space, but they are distinctly different beasts at heart. Where PCalc mostly calculates within a calculator-style interface, Soulver mostly offers a way to make sense of numbers, units, percentages, time, intervals, and much more. I think of it as a “take stuff in various units or other formulations and then produce an output in a way I want” tool.
I sometimes go days without using Soulver, and then find myself typing in an array of calculations. For instance, as a tiny print book publisher (it’s just me), I am often dealing with the weight of paper, the weight of books, the cost of shipping, and other variables. The number of sheets I have in some of my Numbers documents is alarming, but I often need conversion that sounds like a story problem: “The printer in Canada is giving me paper weight in gsm (grams per square meter). I know the book’s area per page (typically in inches). I need to calculate the weight of 1,000 copies in pounds.” I can type the query faster than I describe it. For instance, I need to estimate the weight of a new book based on the weight and page count of one I am holding:
(6 inches x 9 inches) / (5.875 inches × 8.25 inches) × (352 / 204) × 302g in lbs
Version 4 continues to offer all of what I consider its basics. You type out numbers and units with operators between them. You can set variables, add comments, and drag results into subsequent lines as part of further calculations. You can force-convert units, as above, telling it to use a metric unit instead of imperial, or to use a different unit scale. Say you want inches instead of feet, or kilograms instead of pounds.
Because it’s a notepad, your work is persistent. You can use Soulver to create the equivalent of tabs within sheets, collected into a “sheetbook.” This is somewhat like the Notes app, and it lets you organize calculations into projects and sub-projects. I have a monolithic sheet I use for essentially everything. Soulver can store files locally or sync via iCloud.
Where version 4 starts to diverge from previous releases is in what feels like a baroque set of options that aren’t stapled on, but most require a bit more effort to get the nuance and make them work for you.
It took me a few weeks to write this review, quite honestly, because every time I looked at the upgrade page, my eyes glazed over as I thought about how to best present this. I mean, the release notes page is broken into ten sections. The answer—which didn’t require Soulver 4—is that I need to cherry-pick more than usual for an app to give you the flavor.
Here are a few new elements that will keep me away from search engines and other resources more than any other:
Inflation calculation. As a historian, and as somebody who just wants to use his numeracy to interpret the world, I find myself jumping for an inflation calculator all the time.2 You need an online source, as it has to have a table of the historical values to provide the correct cumulative percentage between two years or dates. Because of the relatively high inflation in developed nations since the start of the pandemic, I find myself trying to understand why I’m staring at a jar of peanut butter and can’t comprehend what it costs now. (Soulver currently does annual inflation calculations, but will add monthly data in a future update.)
It’s a date: Date math is the hardest math, in my experience. Soulver previously let you perform the magic of subtracting one date from another or adding days to a date to figure out the right month, day, and year. In the update, you can do more tricks, like figuring out work hours (set by default, and you can change) in periods of time or differences, calculating relative to cultural and religious holidays, finding the number of daylight hours in a particular place, and (as should be obvious so far) much more. As a person of the Jewish faith, I honestly never know when Hanukkah starts, and Soulver doesn’t appear to know either. (Soulver says Hanukkah is coming in a future update.) However, it does include Christmas and Ramadan; there’s no list of this category, but you can look in Soulver: Settings: Dates & Times and click Public holidays to see that list, set by your region.
How far away? I don’t know about you, but I regularly want to know the distance between two places, sometimes nearby, sometimes far away. Soulver 4 lets you ask, distance between [place name] and [place name], and get the proper curvature-adjusted distance. (I have a proviso about this that you can read at the end.)
How long to upload? I’ve used Soulver for bandwidth and file-transfer time calculations since I first installed it. With the latest release, you don’t have to punch in nearly as many units or conversions to get an answer to a question like time to upload 1TB at 900Mbps. (Answer: 2.47 hours.)
Elements you’ll find added or improved that I haven’t found a particular use for yet but seem significant include:
A command-line interface: If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like a GUI, a command-line approach to Soulver might fit you, but the developers created it mostly to allow a simple way for you to have various other things, whether scripts, editor plug-ins, or coding agents, use Soulver as a kind of engine of numerical accuracy.
Soulver is a $59 one-time purchase and gives you access to Mac, iPhone, and iPad versions. (There’s a 60-day free trial to test it out.) While that might seem high, I think given inflation—wink, wink—that’s comparable to the $30–$40 we might pay for a single-platform great utility in 2010! The iPhone version can be purchased on its own for $15. Soulver 3 owners pay $29 to upgrade to version 4. You can also get Soulver 4 via the $15 a month Setapp subscription, and have full access to it and over 330 other apps.
But you might run into one not-quite-hidden subscription option if you make certain weather or stock queries. With the App Store version of Soulver, $26 a year gives you access to what the app labels Live Weather (a number of current metrics), Live & Historical Stocks (a deep trove of data and real-time), and Inline Knowledge Assistant (which lets you use Wolfram|Alpha). It’s included at no extra cost for Setapp subscribers.
I ran afoul of an aspect of this in testing, as Soulver (as of 4.0.2) included about the top 700 most populous cities and leaned on Wolfram for more, but didn’t prompt me as to why it couldn’t identify a city I mentioned. Developer Zac Cohan said the next minor update will add dynamic place-name lookups as part of the base price to reduce confusion and better fit the user base.
This subscription is not at all necessary to use Soulver 4, and Zac says the vast majority of Soulver users don’t need it. However, the cost to provide the data and services is too high to include for all users, hence the subscription to defray those costs.
From an un-bylined post on OpenAI’s site:
Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction is both based on false information and completely unnecessary because we do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets. We’re much more interested in building innovative products and technologies that push the frontier.
The post itself includes numerous transcripts of message conversations1 and emails that supposedly bolster OpenAI’s case that it studiously avoided using Apple information.
This is, as The Verge’s Jess Wetherbed notes, a pure public opinion play. Because if they have evidence, the only correct answer is “we’ll see you in court.”
What kept running through my head while reading this was the old legal chestnut: “If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table.”
Dan Moren joins the Upgrade program to discuss the new Apple Upgrade program, along with Apple’s financial results, the approach of Apple’s new home strategy, and the perfect phone for iPhone 13 mini fans.
The reckoning is coming. Apple has done it before, and it’s doing it again. After macOS 27 Golden Gate, you will no longer be able to run legacy Intel apps using Rosetta 2. After the 26.4 update in March, when running any affected app in macOS 26 Tahoe, you see a notification banner when you launch affected software or a background component launches that uses Intel code:
Support Ending for Intel-based Apps. This version of “[App Name Here]” will not open in a future release of macOS. Learn how to update to an Apple silicon version. [Learn More pop-up menu]
There is one carveout noted for “certain older, unmaintained games that rely on Intel-based frameworks,” so far unnamed.
With information in hand, you can plan how to deal with Intel-only apps that have been abandoned, or the developers have seemingly no interest in updating. Printer makers are, so far, the worst.
Apple has done this before—many times, in fact. I’ve argued in the past that one of Apple’s key strengths, and a key to the continuity of the Mac’s operating system, is how well it’s managed transitions across chip architectures, frameworks, and operating system changes.1
Look at what Apple has managed:
At each of those milestones, Apple offered either advance warnings about a future lack of compatibility, an emulator tool, or both. Does anyone have fond memories of running QuarkXPress using Classic in Mac OS X in its early days? When it crashed, which was often, it only took down the Classic “app” and didn’t require a Mac restart.
To be fair, Apple could have continued to let older software run for as long as it was willing to devote time to maintaining emulators or compatibility layers. We could be using apps written for Motorola 68030s on our M5 Macs right now! However, it makes increasingly less sense to support the past after a reasonable transition, particularly one that stretches years and sees the company discontinuing compatible hardware.
Apple released the last Intel-based model in August 2020, introduced its first M-series computer in November 2020, and halted sales of computers with Intel inside in 2023.
As part of this shift, you receive the Intel software warning, not just the first time you launch an affected app or an Intel-based component or even Terminal-accessed binary runs, but the next time you do it after a restart. Yes, it is trying to bug you to get a newer version of your software. Golden Gate also pulls an interesting trick: When you upgrade, it removes the Rosetta emulator. You’re prompted to install it the first time you need Intel code. I guess this is an extra spur to remind you.
Because Intel-only apps will continue to work under Rosetta until you install macOS 28 Dumbarton, these reminders will continue for at least another 16 months or so.2 Once you upgrade to macOS 28, those apps and components will simply stop working.
Apple includes a helpful tool in Golden Gate in System Settings: General: About. Click Details next to Intel-based Apps, and a dialog box appears that lists everything installed that requires Rosetta. As a nice touch, Apple shows you apps launched in the last year, along with when, so you know the most critical to upgrade or swap out.
You can also examine any app in the Finder, choose Get Info from the File menu, and note the warning next to Kind. Apple allows apps to be compiled as universal binaries that include both Intel and Apple silicon code, and offers an Open using Rosetta checkbox that was useful in the early days of the swapover when some M-series versions of an app were missing features or were buggy compared to the Intel version. You sometimes checked that box to use the more stable Intel variety, and then surely forgot about it. (For instance, Adobe updated its primary apps faster than third parties did their plug-ins. To use some Photoshop plug-ins, you had to force Photoshop to run in emulation.)
Hover over the item, and you can click Visit Website if Apple has a link to one, or click the More … button and choose Show App in Finder or Move to Trash. Not every app or component has a Move to Trash item, and I’m not sure why. I also suggest installing AppCleaner, a free app that will root out all files associated with an app when it’s deleted. (Turn on SmartDelete to monitor the Trash, or you can drag apps onto it.) This ensures you’re not leaving cruft behind when you get rid of the app proper.
This is all fine for rooting out installed apps, but Apple may not catch every system component, command-line utility, or other software that lives in crevices and emerges in particular conditions. For that, you should take a look at:
A few companies that have Intel-only apps or components have explained their migration path, with PaperCut being an excellent example. Others without any financial incentive—such as hardware makers, who sometimes barely care about compatibility for software required to support their products—may wait until after the 2027 transition to wake up and make changes. This has happened many times before!
[Got a question for the column? You can email glenn@sixcolors.com or use /glenn in our subscriber-only Discord community.]
I’ve been covering Apple financial results and earnings calls for a very long time, dating back to my time at Macworld when Steve Jobs would occasionally parachute into earnings calls presided over by, among other people, Tim Cook! This week’s earnings call was Cook’s 90th and final installment, and that’s probably the most notable thing about it.
Even the fact that it was a record third quarter isn’t that notable. It’s more notable when Apple doesn’t set a quarterly record, especially given economic changes and inflation.
Still, as always, the results and the earnings call provided a few things I thought were worth pointing out. And so, powered by my second cup of tea while I’m on a summer trip to visit family (that was a late-night flight!), here are some thoughts about financial things.
Apple is having supply-constraint problems. Maybe you’ve noticed the lack of new Mac minis and Mac studios? The Mac is the hardest-hit product line when it comes to supply, but Cook said the iPhone has also been affected, and anticipates constraints on the iPad as well.
This isn’t the whole story, of course, but it is part of it—and a part that Apple wants to crow about. Apple is limited in how many Macs, iPhones, and iPads it can sell because they are all powered by systems-on-chips that are coming off of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor’s most advanced production nodes. Here’s how Cook put it:
The root cause of it is not a regular supply issue. It’s a demand forecast issue, to be candid, where the iPhone and the Mac are both doing remarkably better than we thought they would do. And we had high expectations, so it wasn’t that our expectations were low, but as you can see from iPhone’s growth being 22% and Mac’s growth at 29%… these are extraordinary numbers and the supply chain just has less flexibility in it than normal. So we’ve been pulling supply ahead, and at some point there’s a limit to that. And so we’ve got a quarter that we’re going to be scrambling on the supply side, essentially.
This isn’t a partner or supplier issue. This issue is an incredibly strong… iPhone and Mac product cycle that has really yielded a demand beyond our expectation.
You can’t argue with the strong iPhone and Mac sales figures, and Apple specifically called out the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Neo, which Cook said “has been especially popular” and suggested that the company is still struggling to make them fast enough.
It’s admirable (and sensible) that Cook isn’t pointing fingers at anyone but customers who want Apple products, but the key phrase in his statement is “the supply chain just has less flexibility in it than normal.” This is an acknowledgement that while in the past, Apple might have been able to boost chip production from its partners, today the chip industry is maxed out thanks to the wild building of chips for AI applications.
Still, I do take Cook at his word: Even in a normal world, there’s only so much TSMC could do to rapidly respond to a dramatic increase in chip orders from Apple. I’m sure Apple is kicking itself for not anticipating stronger demand, especially given how tight the whole industry has gotten. And Cook’s suggestion that Apple is going to be “scrambling on the supply side” because the impact will “increase significantly” (and Cook really emphasized that word!) suggests that this may get worse before it gets better.
Oh yeah, and this isn’t just about cutting-edge SOCs. It goes for memory too. According to Cook, the price Apple pays for memory just keeps going up, and the offsetting Apple has been able to do by using existing inventory is going to be less effective as supplies run out.
As an aside, Cook also alluded to reports that Apple has tried to get the U.S. government to authorize purchase of RAM from some forbidden Chinese chipmakers, which has aroused political ire. “Obviously if there were more suppliers, that would be good, and it would help us on the supply side and perhaps the pricing side.”
One of the analysts on the earnings call asked a question about Apple’s recent price increases, which was a great opportunity for Cook to explain Apple’s pricing philosophy.
It started out pretty normal, with Cook pointing out the price increases were done “reluctantly” and only because it’s “a hundred-year flood on the memory pricing.” But then it got more philosophical:
In terms of our philosophy on dollars or percentages, we look at units, revenue, and margin, and then come to a business judgment as to how to handle that. And so it’s not a mathematical formula that gets us to a specific result or just looking at one dimension of that. We look at all three dimensions and think about it over the long term instead of a 90-day clock. Hopefully that helps.
Yep, that helps, Tim. Three-dimensional pricing. Imagine pricing as a cube, and you’ll finally see the Matrix.
Services revenue, while up year-over-year, was (shockingly?) not up sequentially for the first time in more than three years. Apple laid most of the blame at various foreign-exchange rate “headwinds,” but CFO Kevan Parekh also tried to blame the softness on a few other factors:
It felt like a real stretch, and more of an opportunity to complain about the App Store being regulated and litigated. But I will admit that a softening in mobile gaming, which obviously drives a lot of App Store revenue, is an interesting data point. And it’s more interesting that Apple felt it was worth sharing.
But, Parekh went on to say, “Despite this, the App Store did set a June quarter revenue record.” So… maybe not the reason for the softness after all?
Did you know that Steven Spielberg just won a Grammy award, which made him an EGOT? Winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony is a pretty rare accomplishment that any individual should be proud of.
But did you know that large corporations are also keeping score? It’s true.
“It was wonderful to see Apple TV earn the industry’s top honors, adding Tony Awards this year to its Emmy, Grammy, and Oscar wins,” Cook said Thursday. “We reached that milestone faster than any streamer in history.”
I wonder which marketing person at Apple had the job of figuring out how quickly every other streamer became an EGOT. Also, thanks to cancelled series “Schmigadoon” for the Tony. Maybe do everyone a solid and bring it back?
Through the earnings call, financial analysts showed their softer side by thanking Cook for all his years of service and revenue generation. Cook made a point of thanking them all individually before answering their questions, which I thought was a nice, and human, touch. He also made a final farewell statement designed to warm Wall Street hearts:
Thank you to all of you, from our shareholders, particularly our long-term shareholders who have put their trust in us for so many years, to the analysts who have followed our company so closely. As you know, this will be my final earnings call, and John will lead these calls going forward. The transition is going seamlessly, and I am beyond excited for John to step into his new role and lead Apple into its next era. He is truly one of a kind and there is no better person to take the helm of the company.
Oh! The new guy! I didn’t even mention it, but John Ternus was on the call the entire time, and didn’t say a peep. At least, not until Wamsi Mohan of Bank of America decided to devote one of his two questions to him. He threw him a softball about how the competitive landscape is changing overall.
Ternus did not pick up the ball.
“Well, thank you for asking,” Ternus said, rousing from his call-long slumber. “I guess I would just reiterate what Tim said, there is so much opportunity for us with everything that’s happening in this space, and we’re just really focused on our plans and very excited about it.”
Deferring to the big guy and not letting Wamsi Mohan bait you into stealing Cook’s moment. That’s future CEO thinking right there, pal.
For the 90th and final time, Apple CEO Tim Cook hopped on a conference call with financial-industry analysts to detail the quarter gone by, give a peek at what’s to come, and maybe take one final victory lap. CFO Kevan Parekh and incoming CEO John Ternus were there, too.
This is Six Colors’s complete transcript of the call for July 30, 2026.
Thank you, Suhasini. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining the call. Today, Apple is pleased to report $109.4 billion in revenue, up 16% from a year ago and a June quarter record. We were able to achieve this despite supply constraints and sequential foreign exchange headwinds.
We continue to see enormous customer enthusiasm for our most popular lineup ever, with iPhone revenue growing 22% from a year ago to reach a June quarter record. We saw so much excitement around the best Mac lineup we’ve ever had, growing a strong 29% to achieve a June quarter revenue record. Services also set a June quarter record with $30.7 billion in revenue.
We achieved June quarter revenue records in every geographic segment. We were pleased to see strength across the board with June quarter records in the U.S., Latin America, Western Europe, India, China mainland, Japan, and Southeast Asia. We also achieved June quarter revenue records in both developed and emerging markets and saw double-digit growth in most emerging markets.
This year’s WWDC was a wonderful showcase of our latest innovations. We were tremendously excited to unveil the all-new Siri AI, a completely reimagined version of Siri that is profoundly capable, deeply personal, and integrated seamlessly across our platforms. And we’ve been absolutely thrilled by the response who’ve been using Siri AI in the developer and public betas. The reviews from early users have been phenomenal, and it’s been so wonderful to hear from people who are excited about the capabilities we’ve built. And it underscores our philosophy that building AI that is private and based on personal context can change how users find information and get things done with our products in a way that truly enriches their lives. We really couldn’t be more excited about it, and we are feeling incredibly enthusiastic about the impact it’s going to have.
At WWDC we also announced new tools to help parents keep kids safe online and we were pleased by the overwhelmingly positive reaction. New child safety features like Ask to Browse and Time Allowances will help parents encourage kids to develop healthy digital habits. These new tools integrate guidance from leading clinical and child development research, including the American Academy of Pediatrics. Our goal is to make it easier for parents to manage what their children see, who they interact with, and how and when they can use their devices. We’re looking forward to bringing these new capabilities to users this fall, in addition to amazing new updates across our operating systems.
Now let me turn to the results for the quarter, beginning with iPhone. iPhone revenue for the June quarter was $54.3 billion, up 22% from a year ago. We achieved June quarter records in every geographic segment, and set a June quarter record for upgraders. According to IDC, we gained share globally during the quarter. As I’ve said before, this is the most powerful and most popular iPhone lineup we’ve ever had. More people are relying on iPhone every day for AI, powered by the outstanding performance of A19 and A19 Pro. Across the lineup, iPhone continues to deliver the performance, battery life, durability, and camera capabilities that people count on every day. Whether it’s the extraordinary camera system of iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, the remarkably thin design of iPhone Air, the balanced performance and durability of iPhone 17, or the exceptional value of iPhone 17E, there’s an iPhone for every customer.
Mac delivered its best June quarter yet, with $10.4 billion in revenue, growing an impressive 29% from a year ago despite significant supply constraints. This revenue growth was driven by the incredible strength of our latest lineup, with MacBook Pro and the all-new MacBook Neo. According to IDC, we gained share globally. We also set a June quarter revenue record in developed markets and an all-time record in emerging markets with particular strength in Greater China, where we had an all-time revenue record. In addition, we achieved all-time records for upgraders and customers new to Mac.
With the power of Apple Silicon, the Mac lineup delivers outstanding power-efficient performance, massive memory bandwidth, and next-level AI capabilities. Mac continues to be the ultimate AI powerhouse, excelling at high throughput, on-device inference, and creation across a broad range of AI workloads. And we’re seeing customers increasingly put those capabilities to work, from using Mac Mini as a powerful platform for agentic AI to deploying clusters of Mac Studio systems to run frontier-class models locally.
Across the lineup, customers continue to embrace the Mac family. MacBook Neo has been especially popular, with its distinct design and excellent value resonating with customers around the world, and we’re continuing to work hard to meet demand. MacBook Air, the world’s most popular laptop, continues to deliver the portability and performance customers love with M5. And MacBook Pro, powered by M5 Pro and M5 Max, remains a go-to choice for professionals tackling the most demanding AI, development, and creative workflows.
In iPad, revenue was $6.2 billion for the June quarter. iPad continues to be the ultimate go-anywhere, do-anything device for students, entrepreneurs, and creators of all kinds, thanks to its incredible power, portability, and versatility. The addition of M4 to iPad Air has made it even more capable, delivering a significant performance boost for everything from personal productivity and immersive learning to advanced creative workflows. Together with a remarkable performance of iPad Pro, the amazing value and versatility of iPad, and the ultra-portable iPad Mini, we’re offering customers our strongest iPad lineup ever.
Revenue for Wearables, Home, and Accessories was $7.9 billion, up 6% from a year ago. We grew in every geographic segment and achieved a June quarter record for upgraders for Apple Watch. Our Apple Watch lineup brings together the most comprehensive set of health and fitness features we’ve ever had. We’re delivering useful features backed by research to enable users to better understand their health and wellbeing. It’s gratifying to receive almost daily reminders of the meaningful impact Apple’s health innovations are having for users all over the world—changing, even saving lives.
Meanwhile, we continue raising the bar across our AirPods lineup, whether it’s the immersive listening experience of AirPods Pro 3, or the premium listening experience and exceptional active noise cancellation of AirPods Max 2. And with live translation powered by Apple Intelligence, people are crossing language barriers and connecting like never before.
As I mentioned earlier, we’re excited about the work we’re doing on the next generation of Apple Intelligence, including Siri AI and the AI features we’re developing across our platforms. These experiences are intuitive and useful, while also deeply integrated in a way that’s personal and private, with the latest models running on device and on servers using Private Cloud Compute. We began laying the groundwork for users to have the best possible experience with AI when we introduced the Neural Engine in 2017. Ever since then, we’ve innovated and invested deliberately in silicon, systems, and scalable unified memory architecture designed with AI at their core.
What sets Apple apart is the unique combination of massive unified memory bandwidth, industry-leading power-efficient performance, and deep on-device intelligence, all built around the customer experience from the ground up. The result is that Apple has created the world’s best hardware to experience AI, whether using Apple Intelligence, including Siri AI, or third-party offerings. That’s why developers and researchers are increasingly using Apple devices to build ever-more advanced tools and models.
Turning to services, revenue was $30.7 billion, a June quarter revenue record and up 12% from a year ago, despite significant sequential foreign exchange headwinds. We also set an all-time revenue record in developed markets and a June quarter record in emerging markets. Apple TV continues to leave audiences spellbound with new releases like Widow’s Bay and Cape Fear alongside returning favorites like Silo and Sugar. And next week, we’re excited that Ted Lasso is back for its fourth season.
It was wonderful to see Apple TV earn the industry’s top honors, adding Tony Awards this year to its Emmy, Grammy, and Oscar wins. We reached that milestone faster than any streamer in history. We’re also looking forward to this year’s Emmy Awards, where Apple has landed a record 89 nominations, leading all networks in both the major drama and comedy series categories with three outstanding drama series nominations and three outstanding comedy series nominations. Widows Bay also stands out as the year’s most nominated new program, earning 19 Emmy nominations. In the six and a half years since launch, Apple TV has earned more than 850 wins and nearly 3,800 nominations.
In time for the World Cup, we expanded Apple Sports to include more than 170 countries and regions worldwide and made it easier than ever for fans to follow every moment of the tournament from the opening game to the final whistle. At the same time, we’re halfway through an unforgettable year of F1, and Apple TV subscribers have been tuning in all season to follow their favorite drivers and teams.
In retail, we were pleased to announce Apple Upgrade this week for customers in the U.S. Apple Upgrade is a new hardware leasing program launched in partnership with Klarna and makes it even easier for customers to get their hands on Apple’s latest products with a plan that’s right for them.
In all of our work, we’re thoughtful and intentional in how we show up for our users and across our communities. That means innovating to protect user privacy with the next of Apple Intelligence or helping parents keep kids safe, as I mentioned earlier. In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we unveiled new features to help users get more out of the products they use every day. New intelligent capabilities are coming to VoiceOver, Magnifier, Voice Control, and Accessibility Reader to make them more useful and intuitive. We’re also using on-device speech recognition to generate subtitles for video content without captions. And Apple Vision Pro is adding a feature for power wheelchair users to control drive systems using just their eyes. All of these features were born out of Apple’s longstanding commitment to ensuring that the benefits of technology are shared with everyone.
As we continue to develop new capabilities for users around the world, we’re also doing our part to invest in innovation close to home. Last year, we made a $600 billion commitment to the U.S. over four years, and now, as we said before, we plan to reinvest the tariff refunds we’ve received into the U.S.
We’re pleased with the progress we’ve already made advancing the American supply chain. Earlier this month, Apple announced a new agreement with Broadcom to design and produce custom silicon components and cutting-edge wireless connectivity technologies. The new, multi-year agreement with Broadcom, which is part of Apple’s American Manufacturing Program, is expected to exceed $30 billion. This marks our largest-ever American Manufacturing Program commitment. It’s also an important step forward in our work to build an end-to-end silicon supply chain here in the U.S.
We’re excited for the upcoming opening of the Apple Advanced Manufacturing Center in Houston. The center is located in a facility where we currently assemble advanced AI servers. Later this year, we’ll make Mac mini there, too. The center will teach students, supplier employees, and business of all sizes, the same innovative processes we use to make our products. The goal is to empower American manufacturers to take their work to the next level and strengthen the entire advanced manufacturing ecosystem.
We have an exciting fall ahead and an incredible future beyond. Our road map is phenomenal, and we are so excited about the way Siri AI will enrich our users lives. Throughout all of it, we will remain guided by our North Star: building the best products and services to enable people to do magical things. It’s a special privilege to be part of people’s lives in lasting and meaningful ways, helping them to create, connect, and experience the world around them. I couldn’t be more excited to watch our phenomenal story of innovation continue to unfold, and I’ve never been more confident that the best is yet to come. With that, I’ll turn it over to Kevan.
Thanks, Tim, and good afternoon, everyone. Here’s a quick rundown of our key financial metrics. Our revenue of $109.4 billion was up 16% year over year, a June quarter revenue record. We saw strong performance around the world with double-digit growth in every geographic segment despite supply constraints. Products revenue was $78.7 billion, up 18% year over year, driven by double-digit growth on iPhone and Mac, both of which set new June quarter records.
Our installed base of over two and a half billion active devices has reached another all-time high across all major product categories and geographic segments. Services revenue was $30.7 billion, up 12% year-over-year. We set revenue records in every Services category, including all-time records in cloud services and payment services. Company gross margin was 50.1%, up 80 basis points sequentially. This included a benefit from tariff refunds, which had a favorable impact of approximately two percentage points. When you remove this favorable impact, we would have been at the midpoint of the guidance provided last quarter.
Products gross margin was 40.1%, up 140 basis points sequentially. This also included a benefit from the tariff refunds I just mentioned, which had a favorable impact of over 2.5 percentage points. Services gross margin was 75.6%, down 110 basis points sequentially, driven by a different mix. Operating expenses came in at $19.1 billion, up 23% year-over-year, driven by investments in R&D. Net income was $29.8 billion. Diluted earnings per share was $2.02, up 29% year-over-year, and included 11 cents of favorable impact from tariff refunds. Operating cash flow was very strong at $34.4 billion. All three of these metrics set June quarter records, even when excluding the tariff refund benefit.
Now I’m going to provide some more details for each of our revenue categories.
iPhone revenue was $54.3 billion, up 22% year-over-year, driven by the iPhone 17 family. We grew double digits in the vast majority of markets we track and reached June quarter revenue records across both developed and emerging markets. The iPhone active installed base grew to an all-time high and set a June quarter record for upgraders. According to a recent survey from Worldpanel, iPhone was a top-selling model in the U.S., urban China, the U.K., France, Australia, and Japan. We were thrilled with the response to the iPhone 17 family. Customer satisfaction in the U.S. was recently measured at 99% by 451 Research.
Mac revenue was $10.4 billion, up 29% year-over-year, a new June quarter record, driven by the strength of MacBook Neo and MacBook Pro. We grew in both developed and emerging markets, with strong double-digit growth in markets like Latin America, India, and Southeast Asia. The customer reception to MacBook Neo has been incredible. We continue to attract new customers to the product around the world. As Tim mentioned, Mac had its best quarter ever for customers new to the Mac and for upgraders worldwide, including in the U.S., China mainland, and India. And in the U.S., customer satisfaction for Mac was recently measured at 95%.
iPad revenue was $6.2 billion, down 6% year-over-year, driven by the continued difficult compare against the launch of the A16 powered iPad in the prior year. At the same time, the iPad installed base reached a new all-time high, and over half of the customers who purchased an iPad were new to the product. And 451 Research recently measured customer satisfaction at 98% in the U.S.
Wearables, Home and Accessories revenue was $7.9 billion, up 6% year-over-year, driven by strength in wearables and accessories, and we saw growth in both developed and emerging markets. The wearables installed base reached a new all-time high. We set a June quarter record for upgraders on Apple Watch, and over half the customers purchasing an Apple Watch during the quarter were new to the product. And in the U.S., customer satisfaction on Apple Watch was reported at 95%.
Our Services revenue reached a June quarter record of $30.7 billion, up 12% year-over-year, despite significant sequential FX headwinds. For the total services business, we saw a double-digit growth in the vast majority of markets we track. We set records in every category, with June quarter records in advertising, App Store, AppleCare, music, and video, as well as all-time records in cloud services and payment services. We are optimistic about the long-term future of our services business. With our large installed base of over two and a half billion active devices, we have an incredibly strong foundation for growth opportunities. Our services continue to attract more customers, and we have now surpassed $1.5 billion in paid subscriptions. Both transacting and paid accounts reached new all-time highs in the quarter, with double-digit growth for both in emerging markets. And we continue to improve and expand our services offerings, from powerful updates to Creator Studio to exciting new features we’re bringing to services later this year, like splitting bills with Apple Cash using Visual Intelligence.
Turning now to enterprise and education, organizations are using the Apple platform to drive AI innovation and empower the next generation of students. Starting with Enterprise, Morgan Stanley has deployed over 20,000 iPhone 17 devices globally as part of a shift from employee-owned to corporate-owned devices for liability and security. More companies are choosing Mac for on-device AI advantages, including lower costs, better performance, and enhanced privacy and security. At Disney, creative teams are increasingly turning to Mac for on-device AI workflows that reduce overall cloud token costs and keep their IP secure. And Credit Agricole, France’s leading retail bank, is using on-device AI and MacBook Pro to streamline regulatory workflows, reducing manual processing time by over 80%. Our newest addition to the Mac lineup, MacBook Neo, is reaching new enterprise users in many environments, from bank branches to retail storefronts.
In education, MacBook Neo continued to accelerate adoption of Apple products, with many districts leveraging Apple financial services to deploy at scale. Pinellas County Schools, one of the largest districts in Florida, is transitioning 25,000 students from Windows devices to MacBook Neo across its 18 high schools. In Washington, Peninsula School District 401 moved over 8,000 students from Chromebooks to MacBook Neo. And in Oklahoma, Midwest City-Dell City School District purchased over 6,000 MacBook Neos to become an all-Apple district for students. In fact, in the last quarter, about half of the MacBook Neo large purchases by U.S. education institutions displaced Windows and Chromebook devices.
Let’s turn to our cash position and capital return program. We ended the quarter with $147 billion in cash and marketable securities and $84 billion in total debt. During the quarter, we returned $33 billion to shareholders. This included $4 billion in dividends and equivalents and $25.8 billion in share repurchases.
As we move ahead into the September quarter, I’d like to review our outlook, which includes the types of forward-looking information that Suhasini referred to. Importantly, the color we’re providing assumes that global tariff rates, policies, and their application remain in effect as of this call, and the global macroeconomic outlook does not worsen from today.
We also expect our September quarter total company revenue to be impacted by two main factors. First, we expect foreign exchange to be a sequential headwind of about 2.5 percentage points to the year-over-year total company growth rate from the June quarter to the September quarter. Second, we expect the impact from supply constraints to increase significantly sequentially. The projected supply constraints in the September quarter affect iPhone, Mac, and iPad. As a result, we expect our September quarter total company revenue to grow between 9% and 11% year-over-year.
On iPhone, we expect to continue to see high levels of demand; however, we do expect iPhone revenue to be impacted by these foreign exchange headwinds and supply constraints. Therefore, we expect the September quarter reported growth rate for iPhone to be mid-teens year-over-year. For Services, we expect September quarter year-over-year reported growth rate to be largely similar to what we reported in the June quarter after removing the negative sequential impact of about two and a half percentage points from foreign exchange that we just described.
We expect gross margin to be between 47 percent and 48 percent. This includes an expected benefit of approximately one percentage point related to tariff refunds. We expect operating expenses to be between $19.1 billion and $19.4 billion. We expect OI&E to be around $350 million, excluding any potential impact from the mark-to-market of minority investments, and our tax rate to be around 16.5 percent.
Finally, today our Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.27 per share of common stock payable on August 13, 2026, to shareholders of record as of August 10, 2026.
Before we take questions, let me turn it back over to Tim.
Thanks Kevan. Before we get into questions, I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you. Thank you to all of you, from our shareholders, particularly our long-term shareholders who have put their trust in us for so many years, to the analysts who have followed our company so closely. As you know, this will be my final earnings call, and John will lead these calls going forward. The transition is going seamlessly, and I am beyond excited for John to step into his new role and lead Apple into its next era. He is truly one of a kind and there is no better person to take the helm of the company.
As I’ve said, I couldn’t be more confident in his leadership, in our executive team, and in the extraordinary people at Apple who are determined to enrich the lives of our users all over the world. We have a bright future ahead, and I truly have never been more optimistic. So thank you all, and now Kevan and I will be happy to take your questions.
Amit Daryanani, Evercore: Tim, best of luck. It’s been a pleasure working with you over the years. Maybe to start with, if I think about the 9 to 11% sort of growth that’s guided for September, it’s about a 500 basis points or so deceleration versus what we’re seeing really in June quarter, even through this year, I would say. Can you just talk about how much of this decel is really supply constraint versus other factors like FX? And if you could just flesh out what these supply constraints are, broadening beyond these advanced SOCs you talked about last quarter as well.
Kevan Parekh: Amit, this is Kevan. How are you doing? Why don’t I start with just kind of describing the sequential change, and then I’ll let Tim jump in for kind of a bit more color around the supply constraints. So I think as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we expect the September quarter total revenue to grow by 9% to 11% year-over-year, and then we expect that to be impacted by two main factors. So first, when we look at going from the June quarter to September quarter, we expect foreign exchange to be a sequential headwind of around 2.5 percentage points to the year-over-year company growth rate. And then the second impact is that the impact from supply constraints, we expect that to increase significantly when we go sequentially from June to September, and that projected supply constraint in the September quarter will affect the iPhone, Mac, and the iPad. And really, when you combine those two factors, we get pretty close to the June overall total company growth rate.
Tim Cook: Yeah, Amit, it’s Tim. First of all, thank you for your comments. During the June quarter, we did experience supply constraints primarily on the Mac and to a lesser extent on iPhone and iPad. These were driven by very high levels of demand, and as we’ve said before, we are seeing less flexibility in the supply chain than normal, and were primarily driven by the availability of the advanced nodes that our SOCs are produced on. If you look forward then into the current quarter, the September quarter, we continue to expect high levels of demand. However, with less flexibility in supply chain, we expect the impact from the supply constraints to increase significantly sequentially. The projected supply constraints in the September quarter, as Kevan said, affect iPhone, Mac, and iPad. And so, we’re seeing some very significant constraints currently, with limited flexibility in the supply chain to remedy it.
Amit Daryanani, Evercore: Got it. That’s really helpful. Thanks a lot for that. And then, Tim, I just have a memory question for you. Apple has historically, I think, done a really excellent job about delivering capability and utility to customers without really making them pay disproportionately more. The stagnant memory inflation seems to challenge that equation for you folks right now and there are reports that suggest that you’re seeking greater sourcing flexibility for memory. Can you just talk about, is this sourcing options really about ensuring that you have supply and it’s a way to mitigate memory inflation, or is more to preserve the value proposition for your customers. Just any light you could shed on this would be helpful. Thank you.
Tim Cook: Yeah, let me back up and talk about memory in general, ’cause I know this is a subject on many of your minds. As I’d said on the last call, we paid more for memory in the March quarter than the December quarter. And then, as I alluded to last quarter, we expected to pay significantly more in the June quarter than the March quarter, and that is what happened. It was partially offset by the benefit of carry-in inventory. For September, we expect to pay even higher memory costs. And we’re able to offset partly by a few factors, and let me walk through kind of what they are.
The first is, as you would expect, we have a benefit from some carry-in inventory in the September quarter. However, we believe this will see decreasing benefit from this over time, beyond the September quarter. The second is, we’re expecting lower costs on certain non-memory components that are in our BOM, and then if you look beyond September, we see the market pricing for memory continuing to increase, which could drive an increasing impact on our business, and we’re continuing to evaluate this.
In terms of the sources of supply, you know, primarily the DRAM market has three suppliers, and obviously if there were more suppliers, that would be good, and it would help us on the supply side and perhaps the pricing side. It’s unclear on the pricing side, but it could help on the supply side, and so, we’re evaluating all options.
Michael Ng, Goldman Sachs: Good afternoon. First, Tim, congratulations on the extraordinary run and [inaudible] on these earnings calls. In terms of my questions, I have two as well. First, on the Apple Upgrade program, could you talk a little bit about the expected adoption rates across your 2.5 billion device installed base in success? Do you see it shortening the replacement cycle for iPhone, or also having an equal impact to Mac and iPad, which may have not have benefited from device subsidies in the U.S. like iPhone has historically.
Tim Cook: Michael, first of all, thank you for your comments. I really appreciate that. If you look at the upgrade program, what it’s all about is making it easier for for customers to get their hands on our latest products with a leasing plan that’s right for them. And of course, as you know, the residual values on Apple products are generally much higher than the residual value on several of our competition, and so it’s a way to get into a product on a fairly affordable basis, particularly for those customers who want to upgrade on some kind of schedule, and so we’re very excited about it. It is offered in our retail stores, and so it’s not widely offered in all channels, and so we’ll see what the customer uptake is, but the early feedback on it is quite positive.
Kevan Parekh: Yeah, Michael, I just mentioned that it’s only available in the U.S. right now as well.
Michael Ng, Goldman Sachs: Great. Thank you. That’s very helpful, and then my second question, just on iOS 27 and Apple Intelligence. Went into public beta earlier this month. Could you talk about learnings from the public beta? Will the new Siri AI be a demand driver for iPhones this holiday? How does the Apple Intelligence usage to date in the open beta inform how you’re thinking about compute costs and the ability to recover some of those costs through iCloud Plus.
Tim Cook: Yeah, thank you for that. First of all, we are off the charts excited about Siri AI. We had a great reception from WWDC. We released the developer beta immediately after the keynote. The developer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The feedback from reviewers and so forth have been overwhelmingly positive. We released it to the public for a public beta a few weeks ago and the continued feedback is really, really great. I think it’s a very big idea have AI that’s private, that’s based on your personal context, and that’s integrated across the operating system, and so we couldn’t be happier with how things are going. In terms of what it means for compute cost, it’s obviously early going for us, and so I don’t want to say that we have a complete plan for that. We do believe there will be people that want to use it a lot, and so we will have some kind of upgrade possibilities on iCloud Plus where people can buy up the stack on iCloud Plus, and we’ll see how the pickup for that is. But we could not be more excited about where the product is.
Ben Reitzes, Melius Research: Hey, guys. Thanks a lot for the question, and obviously, Tim, known you a long time, I’ll really miss you. I wanted to ask about the supply constraints again, and I think people are just trying to make sense of it a little bit this way, is that the Street had you at 12% growth for the quarter of September, and so you could argue that to get to the 10% you guided, that’s just the FX, and then in the first quarter, which is December, the Street has been decelerating quite a bit, to like 8% to 9%. So I think what we’re struggling with after hours here is how much these supply constraints really hit you in December and impact that because, you know, the Street did a pretty good job of taking that number into the higher single digits. You know, is there any guidance you can give us there as you see it, Tim? And we’d really appreciate it. Thanks.
Tim Cook: Let me talk about the constraints a little more and then Kevan can weigh in on the guidance for revenue. As I had mentioned before, the primary issue is advanced nodes that we run our SOCs on. That’s the primary supply constraint now, and the root cause of it is not a regular supply issue. It’s a demand forecast issue, to be candid, where the iPhone and the Mac are both doing remarkably better than we thought they would do. And we had high expectations, so it wasn’t that our expectations were low, but as you can see from iPhone’s growth being 22% and Mac’s growth at 29%, and the iPhone is 22% year to date as well, that these are extraordinary numbers and the supply chain just has less flexibility in it than normal. So we’ve been pulling supply ahead, and at some point there’s a limit to that. And so we’ve got a quarter that we’re going to be scrambling on the supply side, essentially. And Kevan, you want to add on the revenue guidance?
Kevan Parekh: Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Tim. Ben, let me jump in here. The dynamics Tim mentioned combined with the foreign exchange impact I mentioned earlier sequentially is really what’s built into the 9 to 11 percent guidance we’re giving for the September total company revenue year on year growth rate. Beyond September, we’re not providing any color. At this point I think you mentioned December, so we’re not providing any kind of color or guidance beyond the September quarter.
Ben Reitzes, Melius Research: Ok. And then, if I could just ask, and you guys know what’s in the press all the time. But there’s this little company that is also building a fab in Arizona that you guys have been speculated you guys could work with that could potentially alleviate some, at least your silicon constraints. Is there any possibility that you guys broaden out your silicon providers in a reasonable time frame to alleviate these so we feel better about supply?
Tim Cook: Yeah, let me stress again, this isn’t a partner or supplier issue. This issue is an incredibly strong… it’s a great issue in some ways. It’s an incredibly strong iPhone and Mac product cycle that has really yielded a demand beyond our expectation. In Arizona, we do source over 100 million components this year out of Arizona. And so, it is part of our $600 billion commitment to the U.S., and we could not be more pleased with how that fab has ramped and is producing for us.
Eric Woodring, Morgan Stanley: Thanks so much for taking my questions, guys, and Tim, just echo what everyone is saying, it’s been a pleasure working with you. Hope to still talk to you in the future. I want to maybe focus on pricing here, Tim, and kind of unprecedented for you to take pricing in the ways that you have. I guess two related questions… Is it your intention to pursue some of these multi-year LTAs with your suppliers just to ensure access to supply at pre-agreed prices? And when you approach product pricing in this environment, is it your intention to protect product gross profit dollars? Is it your intention to protect product gross margins? We’d just love the kind of thought process behind the pricing.
Tim Cook: Yeah, on the pricing front, we reluctantly raised prices, I would say. And we did it because we’re in, what I would characterize as a hundred-year flood on the memory pricing with exponential increases in memory prices, and so that was the rationale for it. In terms of our philosophy on dollars or percentages, we look at units, revenue, and margin, and then come to a business judgment as to how to handle that. And so it’s not a mathematical formula that gets us to a specific result or just looking at one dimension of that. We look at all three dimensions and think about it over the long term instead of a 90-day clock. Hopefully that helps.
Eric Woodring, Morgan Stanley: Yeah, yeah, no, that does help. Thank you, Tim. And then just maybe a quick follow-up. I guess, Tim or Kevan. 12% services growth was just a bit below your guidance. I imagine FX maybe played a role there. I think the fiscal 4Q guidance assumes another deceleration. I think the math would imply below 10% year-over-year as reported. So can you maybe just help us understand the kind of function factors underlying that deceleration? And if that’s App Store, which I think some third-party data sources would suggest, is that a function of AI maybe reprioritizing time away from parts of the App Store? I just want to make sure we understand the moving pieces on services, please. Thank you so much.
Kevan Parekh: Hey, Eric. This is Kevan. I’ll take that one. So, let’s walk from kind of the 16 percent in our fiscal second quarter to kind of the 12% that we just talked about in the June quarter that you referenced, and we look at that, relative to the March quarter, foreign exchange was the main driver for the change in the year-on-year growth rate sequentially, and also a couple other factors to keep in mind. One is we had the theatrical release of F1, which is one of the highest grossing sports films in history, and this year we didn’t have a theatrical release. So that had a favorable impact on both the June quarter and also the September quarter in the year ago. We also had some factors that impacted the performance of the App Store. We did see some headwinds in mobile gaming, and then keep in mind, we also made some changes to the App Store business model in certain countries, and in the U.S., we do continue to operate under a court ruling impacting the link-out transactions. But we’re pleased the Supreme Court will hear our appeal. Despite this, the App Store did set a June quarter revenue record. So if we take a step back, there are several positive trends in the services business, and during the June quarter, we saw strong double-digit growth in categories like cloud services, video, payment services, and advertising, and we set revenue records in every category, with June quarter records in advertising, the App Store, AppleCare, Music, and Video, where Apple TV viewership reached an all-time high in the quarter. And then we also set all-time records in cloud services and payment services, where Apple Pay saw a record level of users in both developed and emerging markets. And services also had a June quarter record in emerging markets. And as we outlined in the prepared remarks, you know, our services continue to attract more customers, and we now have surpassed one and a half billion in paid subscriptions, and our transacting and paid accounts hit an all-time high, with double-digit growth in both those two and emerging markets.
So I think when I step back, if I look at, you know, kind of how we landed versus our expectations that we had outlined in the March quarter, for the June quarter, I would say that we roughly met our expectations, but we did see a bit more softness on mobile gaming in the App Store. As we go into the September quarter, what I would say is we expect foreign exchange will continue to be a headwind, and in fact this is a theme that’s impacting the services business moreso than the total company. We expect foreign exchange to drive about a 5 percentage point headwind to the year-on-year growth rate from the March to September quarter. So if we look at the sequential change from the June quarter, the 12% services we reported, to what we’re guiding for the September quarter, we are going to see another 2.5 point sequential headwind.
Aaron Rakers, Wells Fargo: Thanks for taking the questions and also best wishes, Tim. I guess I want to… maybe it tethers with the memory pricing dynamic, but as you look at the demand that you’re seeing right now, I’m curious of how you assess whether or not you’ve seen any pull forward of demand either from the consumer or even the enterprise and education markets, and whether or not you’re factoring that into your views as we look forward at all.
Tim Cook: You’re talking about on iPhone, I assume, in general. We’ve been running at this 22% growth rate for the last while, for this cycle has been a 22% increase year to date, and so it’s not obvious in the data that what you’re asking is true. Obviously, we’ve now had to increase prices on iPad and Mac, and the price elasticity there, it’s just too early to come to a definitive conclusion of what happens there. Because it takes a little while for the channels to adjust since there’s channel inventory and it takes a while for the consumer to respond, and so we’ll understand that more in the weeks ahead.
Aaron Rakers, Wells Fargo: Very helpful, and then as a quick follow-up, maybe more longer-term thematically, as AI proliferates towards the edge and more consumers utilize AI, I’m curious, Tim, if you see AI opening up additional opportunities. I can appreciate that you’re not going to give us specifics, but do you see other kind of addressable markets evolving from AI over time?
Tim Cook: Yes. I think there are enormous opportunities for Apple moving forward in AI. And I’m so excited about Siri AI and kind of where it is and where it’s going, and I’m excited about the feedback that we’re getting there, and of course, the ability to run some percentage of requests on device is also very strategic and sort of a competitive weapon, if you will. So I could not be more excited about the opportunities there.
Wamsi Mohan, Bank of America: Yes, thank you. Tim, first, congrats on your tenure as CEO. You joined back in 2011 when Apple reported $108 billion in revenue and you just delivered a quarter of $109 billion. So just an amazing journey.
Tim Cook: Thank you for that, I really appreciate it.
Wamsi Mohan, Bank of America: Yeah, sure, Tim, it’s been a pleasure. For my question, first on Siri AI, Do you expect that Siri AI would change the capital intensity of Apple, despite the fact that you have the ability to do so much differentiated workloads on device and you have this distributed compute? You do have some requests that go into the backend, both in your own first party cloud as well as third party. So is it right to think that the capital intensity of Apple will change in the future because of Siri AI?
Tim Cook: We use a hybrid model, as I know Kevan has reviewed with you earlier, and so we use some third-party cloud and we do our own data centers, and so there will be a mix. But generally speaking, as you know, we have been growing our OPEX and spending more in AI in general. Quite a bit more. And there are other locations on the P&L other than OPEX, like OCOGS, et cetera, that also have AI expenditures, and so we’ll see what Siri AI does from the cost side of it. But there’s also the ability when people use it a lot for them to move up on an iCloud plan as well, and so what the balance of that is, is a bit uncertain at the moment.
Wamsi Mohan, Bank of America: And John, since you’re on the call, congrats on the new role. I’d love to get maybe just a high-level take from you if you think that the competitive landscape here is changing, especially as you hear about, potentially, companies like OpenAI building an AI-enabled competitive device or SpaceX AI potentially having a phone that could bypass some of the typical carrier tax. Just would love your high-level thoughts on how you see the competitive landscape evolving and Apple’s position there.
John Ternus: Well, thank you for asking. I guess I would just reiterate what Tim said, there is so much opportunity for us with everything that’s happening in this space, and we’re just really focused on our plans and very excited about it.
Samik Chatterjee, J.P. Morgan: Hi, thanks for squeezing me in here and Tim, best wishes from my side as well. Maybe just for my first one, if I go back to WWDC when you announced Siri AI, you also did mention along with the rollout that probably we won’t have the initial rollout in China and Europe, so just wanted to get your thoughts on that front and any more color in terms of what hurdles you need to cross to be able to launch it in those regions.
Tim Cook: Thank you. Yeah, thanks for the question. Let me take them individually. If you look at the EU, we’re working closely with the Commission. Obviously, our complete desire is to launch everything everywhere at the same time. That’s always the philosophy that we have. We have not been able to do that in the European Union, but we’re working closely with them to try to get to something that would allow us to offer Siri AI there. It is offered, or will be offered for the Mac there, because the Mac is not covered by the same regulations as the iPhone and the iPad. So, net-net, we’re working with them, and hope to reach some sort of solution. If you then look at China, last week we received approval to ship sort of the original features of Apple Intelligence. Things like Clean Up and so forth, and so we’re working now through the rollout of those, and there will be more work required down the road for Siri AI, but we’re at the front end of that.
Samik Chatterjee, J.P. Morgan: Follow-up, Kevan, just not to beat sort of this FX thing to death here, but if I look at the gross margin, you delivered 48% in the quarter without the tariff refund benefit. You’re guiding to like 46 and a half. Any way to walk us through the sequential driver there and how much of that is FX impacting it versus maybe like increased commodity costs that’s driving that sequential moderation because it does seem a bit more atypical than your normal sort of years.
Kevan Parekh: Yes, that’s a good question. So let me walk through kind of what’s impacting our gross margins. We look at our gross margin change from the 49.3% we had a total company level for the March quarter, and as you mentioned, the 48.1% adjusted for the tariff refund in the June quarter, that hundred and twenty basis point change, if you look at the drivers of that, more than 100% of that can be explained by the memory cost change that Tim outlined. While FX was a factor, really the main driver was really the memory cost impact, and as Tim outlined earlier when we talked a bit about the dynamics around the memory cost, is we did see some partial offsets from things like the benefit of carry-in inventory, reduction in non-memory component costs, and some favorable mix. We are seeing the same dynamics when you go from the 48.1 that we printed in the June quarter to the 46.5 midpoint you referenced of our range without the tariff refund impact. That 160 basis point change is also… more than that is explained by the change in memory costs, and we had partial offsets, again, from things like the benefit of carrying inventory, lower cost and non-memory components, and as well favorable mix. I think that FX was a pretty minimal impact when you look at that versus the memory, and so generally, the sequential change from the March quarter to the 46.5 you referenced is really driven by memory.
Samik Chatterjee, J.P. Morgan: Great. Thank you both for taking my questions. And congrats again, Tim.
Tim Cook: Thank you so much for saying that, I appreciate it.
On Thursday, Apple announced record third-quarter earnings, with total revenue of $109.4B, up 16 percent from the year-ago quarter. iPhone revenue was up 22%, Mac revenue was up 10.4%, Services revenue was up 12%, and Wearables revenue was up 6%. iPad revenue was down 6%.
Shortly thereafter, Apple execs spent an hour on the phone with financial industry analysts, and we’ve got our usual complete transcript, including many farewells to Tim Cook.
And now, to help you visualize what Apple just announced, here is our traditional barrage of charts and graphs:
On Thursday afternoon, Apple will announce the results of its third fiscal quarter for 2026. It will presumably be the last appearance of Tim Cook on the post-release earnings calls, which he’s been doing for ages. In fact, today’s call will be his 90th. That’s more than two decades of talking on the phone once a quarter to financial analysts. He’s probably earned a break.
As usual, Six Colors will be here to report on the whole thing. Around 1:30 pm PDT, the company will release its financial reports and we’ll be on the scene with our usual load of colorful charts and some analysis. At 2pm PDT, it’s that hour-long phone call with analysts that I’ll also transcribe. Due to summer travel, we’ll be foregoing our usual post-results live stream (and there’s no Six Colors podcast this week, either), but you can tune in to the Upgrade podcast on Monday, where Dan will join me to break down all the results.
Back in April of this year, I suggested that the MailMaven email app for macOS might become my new best friend. Months later, with continuous minor and major improvements, the friendship has only grown richer. MailMaven 1.1 in April added POP support for those people who rely on the ancient email mailbox protocol. But MailMaven 1.2, out last week, packed more punch: fully realized AppleScript support coupled with the open standard Model Context Protocol (MCP) to allow large language model AIs to engage with MailMaven. Michael Tsai evaluated the AppleScript support and wrote that it is “really impressive.”
Support for MCP via AppleScript means that you can have AI agents communicate directly with MailMaven to improve spam detection, recognize important messages, collect order or financial information, or perform an infinite number of other tasks in which your incoming or outgoing email acts as the hub of knowledge. SmallCubed, the app’s developer, has created a basic MCP server for Claude as a working example. You can write AppleScript from scratch using its terse, thorough guide, or point a code chatbot at the page to write AppleScript for you. I currently have a few nightly scripts that collate book sales and archive the day’s email by digging into MailMaven’s database; I need to rewrite those to use AppleScript instead!
Ted Lasso’s return and Apple TV recommendations, a year of Apple Journal on Mac, our tech cleaning and maintenance habits, and old technologies we’ve fired up just to learn or relive.
For the most part, I’m going to focus on Mac apps with these columns, because that’s where the action seems to be these days. But iOS remains a vibrant platform, too, and every now and again, we’ll look at some of the interesting apps being created for iPhones and iPads. This is one of those now and agains.
Want to see your app included in a future round-up? Get in touch at apps@sixcolors.com with a brief description of your app, and you just might make the cut.
The World Cup is just a memory now, but if you’re missing the daily infusion of soccer (or football, depending on what part of the globe you’re reading this from), Kickabout brings the action back to your iOS device in a very condensed form.
Kickabout will be immediately familiar to anyone who’s ever gathered around a foosball table in a rec room, with a look that will bring a smile to the face of Subbuteo tabletop football aficionados. You take charge of an 8-player team, with players only free to move about certain areas of the pitch. (No length-of-the-field Maradona-esque wonder golazos for your squad.) You use your finger to drag your players around, swiping any which way to boot the ball toward the goal as you look to rack up the most goals in each 2-minute match.
Goals and shots off the post earn you points, which translates to tickets that you cash in to collect various national teams, from the U.S. all the way to newly minted world champion Spain. You can also buy gear, including stands for your virtual stadium. It’s a fun element that adds to Kickabout’s replayability as you try to assemble your own World Cup field.
Kickabout has both single-player and dual-player modes, though I found the latter to be a little cramped for my iPhone 17 screen. I imagine head-to-head matches are much more enjoyable on the iPad. Still, Kickabout offers plenty of fun even for single players, as you try to master the game’s different difficulty levels.
Kickabout is free to download, and a $3 in-app purchase gets rid of any ads.
The Photos app has a built-in tool to weed out duplicate images, but if you find yourself taking a lot of photos, Undolly brings a whole suite of tools that promise to bring order to your iOS device’s photo library. Besides getting rid of duplicates, the mobile app also lists large videos taking up space in your library, rounds up any screenshots you may have stashed somewhere and keeps tabs on other potential space-takers like RAW, timelapse and animated images.
The value of Undolly will depend heavily on how you use your photo library. For instance, I take a lot of screenshots for articles that I don’t always remember to delete, and the app helped me track down some that were three to five years old. I also appreciate Undolly’s swipable comparisons of similar shots, so you can see for yourself whether the images differ enough to keep. Undolly’s algorithm also rates images by their framing, quality and expressiveness of subject to better help you determine the shots that deserve a place in your library.
While it’s free to download initially, you will have to subscribe to Undolly to use its features, with a free three-day trial letting you get the lay of the land. After that, a monthly subscription costs $4, while annual and lifetime payments go for $15 and $40, respectively.
Nearly five years after Wordle first appeared, we’re still living in a golden age for daily word puzzles. Add VWLSS and its daily serving of mobile word play to the pile, though there are some unique iPhone elements that could help this free offering earn a place in your regular rotation of gameplay.
You have eight words to guess, each tied to a specific category and with all the vowels stripped out. It’s up to you to figure out the actual word, which you can do either by typing in the answer or using a handy speech feature. I prefer talking to typing, though I’m still sore that my guess of “Bob Barker” in the game show hosts category was misheard as “Bob Parker.” Revenge will be mine tomorrow, I guess.
Between Notes and the still-new-to-iOS Preview app, you’ve got more than a few built-in tools for marking up documents and images on your iPhone or iPad. The Annotate app looks to expand on that with 17 tools that allow you to crop, blur and add notes to your heart’s content. If you find yourself making a lot of the same annotations, the app lets you create and save templates and there are shortcuts for watermarking and auto-redacting faces and phone numbers.
You can download Annotate for free and export up to five annotated photos and documents. After that, you’ll need to make a one-time $10 payment to use the app. Annotate works well enough on my iPhone, though I suspect iPad users will get more out of using this app’s many features on their larger-screen devices.
Moltz is tired of renting and Lex must be tired of walking.
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